The purpose of this appendix is to provide brief criticisms of other arguments
concerning duties to future generations and to aid. All the arguments either imply
or rest upon correlative rights.

Gratitude. Two grounds or forms of argument other than contractarianism for a
duty to future generations explicitly or implicitly involve correlative rights. One
form of argument is based on gratitude. In one version, Daniel Callahan contends
that one's existence (assumed to be better than nonexistence) puts one in debt to
one's parents. ¹ From this debt to the past, he claims that one owes those coming
after what one was given, namely, the possibility of life and survival and even an
improvement in the quality of life. Another version of this argument, by R. M.
Hare, is based upon a modification of the Golden Rule. He adopts the principle
that "we should do to others what we are glad was done to us." ² If one is glad
one's parents brought one into existence, Hare claims, one has a duty to
procreate. Although Hare does not draw the conclusion, it also follows that one
has a duty to provide an equal quality of life for those in the future. Both Callahan
and Hare derive a duty to continue the species, implicitly extending the duty to
possible persons.

This gratitude form of argument is fundamentally flawed because a debt of
gratitude is to the benefactor. From the fact that Jack is glad Jill gave him a candy
bar, it does not follow that Jack has a duty to give Joyce or anyone other than Jill a
candy bar or anything else. Even if one does owe one's parents for the "gift of
life" and other benefits, it does not follow that one owes anything to one's
possible children or anyone else's possible children. Debts or duties to people for
past deeds are to them and do not, by themselves, establish debts or duties to
other existing people, let alone to merely possible people. The lack of reciprocity
between generations thus undermines any gratitude form of argument.

Moral Community. Martin Golding advances another form of argument that is
explicit about the duties having correlative rights and is partially based on allegedly
necessary conditions for such duties. ³ Such duties hold only between members of
a moral community, that is, those to whom a social ideal is applicable. One has a
duty to future generations as long as one's social ideal is applicable. Because one
does not know the conditions of life of very distant generations, one does not
know whether one's social ideal applies, and there is less basis for a duty to them.

Three basic problems vitiate Golding's analysis. First, it does not help specify
what quality of life is owed to future generations. Presumably, one owes them
whatever one owes presently existing members of the moral community, but the
argument provides no grounds for determining what that is. Second, duties need
not be restricted to members of one's moral community. Golding does so

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