Intergenerational occupational justice: Ethically reflecting on climate crisis

Abstract

The current climate crisis is linked to the negative impacts of human occupations, as enacted historically and currently, on the world’s ecosystems. Such impacts raise the questions: Are all occupational desires legitimate if their realization is incompatible with the preservation of ecosystems? How do the occupational choices we make today impact the occupational rights of future generations? Can we, and if so how do we, enable people to engage in sustainable occupations? This article seeks answers to these questions through an ethical reflection on the notion of intergenerational occupational justice and the conceptual clarification of five concepts: occupational needs, occupational desires, occupational choices, occupational rights, and occupational duties. Drawing on the thinking of Martha Nussbaum, we argue that while the basic occupational needs of human beings demand to be satisfied in order to ensure survival and fulfillment, to ensure the occupational rights of future generations of human beings, and thus meet their basic occupational needs, we have a duty to reconsider our occupational desires and choices. Thus, we propose an ecosystem approach to ensure the occupational rights and duties of all—present and future—humans.