Abstract
Sustainability is about the future; it is embedded in the concept itself: we want things to sustain into the future. However, it less clear why we are motivated for that future and whether we can be motivated for the future in practice. If we look around us, there seems a wide-spread short-termism and there are many structural impediments to abandon such short-termism. A logical reply would be to promote long-term thinking, for instance by long-term projects such as the 10.000 Years clock. However, it is unclear whether this affects us personally. There is no personal connection and it is vague how this relates to our motivations. Thinking about motivations for the future is often limited to a purely moral frame, for the obvious reason that purely instrumental arguments about the future are not available. Scheffler's afterlife thesis, in line with earlier work of O’Neill and de-Shalit, shows there is a future-oriented dimension in the values we currently hold, namely that if we want our values to flourish, we should also care about their future beyond own life span. This provides another way of thinking about the future, somewhat in between a moral and instrumental way, one that has been pushed aside by modernity's individualization process. I argue that, in order to waken our future-oriented motivations, the personal dimension – the values we are attached to – need to be connected more explicitly with the future, both with regard to these values themselves as with the broader future that can sustain them.
A clock for 10.000 years
Several articles in 2018 report about the construction of a 10,000-Year Clock in the mountains of Western Texas. 1 The idea of this ‘Clock of the Long Now’ is to have a functional mechanical clock for 10,000 years. Just to put this number into context: that is five times the period that separates us from Julius Caesar's empire, and twice the time since the beginning of early writing systems. The technological and engineering challenges for such a project are enormous: how to ensure the clock's mechanical reliability and durability over such an extremely long period, especially when it involves intricate mechanisms and moving parts? Most materials are not designed to withstand such lengthy periods, encompassing numerous changes in temperature, humidity, and even geological conditions. There is also the energy issue: how to keep the clock working for 10.000 years? And these are just the non-human challenges, what about future civilizations and people: perhaps they will see it as something interesting to plunder? The design team has been thinking about these challenges, including the one about plundering, as one of the designers wonders ‘Should we have a relatively easy-to-plunder valuable layer that will not harm the clock if it were to be stolen?’ 2
While these technological questions are fascinating, the fundamental question is why one should engage in such a project? The answer of the Long Now Foundation reads as follows: ‘Our work encourages imagination at the timescale of civilization–the next and last 10,000 years’. 3 The central idea is to stimulate (very) long-term thinking in order to promote a kind of long-term sustainable societies: ‘If a Clock can keep going for ten millennia, shouldn’t we make sure our civilization does as well?’ 4 The 10.000 Years Clock is not the only project with this ambition. Another example is The Future Library, started in 2014 by artist Katie Paterson. 5 Every year a popular writer–past contributors include Margaret Atwood and Karl Ove Knausgår–submits a manuscript to the library, but the manuscripts will only be accessible in 2114, 100 year after the library's inception. Simultaneously a new forest was planted near Oslo in Norway that will provide the paper for the books to be printed on over 100 years. Again, the idea is to stimulate long-term thinking: rather than making books available as soon as possible, the publication will take place after our own current lifespans and will connect it to its environmental conditions, namely the publication has to wait until the trees are fully grown. One other example along the same lines is Longplayer, a composition that will play for 1000 years. ‘It began playing at midnight on the 31st of December 1999, and will continue to play without repetition until the last moment of 2999, at which point it will complete its cycle and begin again.’ 6
All these projects aim to break open our current time frame, as being too much focused on the present and the short-term. Many people, including myself, find these projects highly fascinating. At the same time, I have doubts about whether they will actually motivate people to care about the future and act more sustainably, despite the future-awareness they evoke. There is an underlying assumption that deserves further scrutiny: does thinking about the distant future actually motivates people to act in favor of a long-term future? It is not hard to provide counterexamples. Popular culture is full of imaginations of the distant future, which we commonly call science fiction. But does an evening full of science fiction movies–such as Star Trek, Interstellar and The Martian–makes us care more about the future? Perhaps its fictional character distracts and disconnects us from the future, but this raises the question: does a real-world project such as the 10.000 Year clock motivates us to care for the future? And if not, why not? This brings forward the question this paper wants to examine: how can we be motivated to care for the future? How can we bring the future into the present?
In the examples above, it is assumed that long-term thinking is valuable but it is often lacking, or, in other words, there is too much short-term thinking. If we are concerned about the environment and sustainability, the value of long-term thinking seems straightforward. Many central environmental problems, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, are long-term issues, but many of our current actions do not seem to take this long-term impact sufficiently into account. According to some, such short-termism is so serious that it could be a threat to the continuation of our civilization (e.g., Fisher, 2019). Before examining whether and how long-term thinking can motivate us, it seems relevant to first explore a preceding question: why do we not embrace a long-term perspective, or why is this so difficult? The next section (§2) addresses this question. In the third section (§3), I will examine a possible way we might come to care about future generations, namely Scheffler's afterlife thesis. In my view, Scheffler's thesis offers an important but underexplored approach to thinking about the future. This thesis also raises a further question: is long-term thinking always better? To address this, the next section (§4) will discuss different forms of long-term thinking. To return to our central question, two more steps are needed: first, understanding the relationship between long-term thinking and Scheffler's thesis (§5), and second, considering whether this connection can help us link long-term thinking to sustainability concerns (§6).
The (double) impossibility of future concerns
The idea that environmental problems transcend standard boundaries of space (nation states) and time (one generation) had been around for some time in environmental philosophy and sociology–the clearest examples are probably climate change and nuclear disasters. A well-known elaboration of this idea is provided by Giddens’ concept of time-space distanciation, which refers to a process of gradually disembedding activities from their local contexts and an increasing influence of abstract systems of time and space (Giddens, 1990). However, while time and space are paired together here, there is an asymmetry between both. The spatial dimension has been the subject of extensive debate and research, expressed in elaborate debates on globalization and global justice (especially in the period 1990–2010), but there seems to have been less attention for the temporal dimension.
This asymmetry might point to the complexity of intergenerational issues. The literature on intergenerational relations offers several arguments explaining the difficulty, or even impossibility, of prioritizing intergenerational concerns. A first one is in line with the distanciation thesis. If place and time were more intricately connected in the past, intergenerational relations might have been more common (O’Neill, 1993). Consider the following examples: a father cutting an oak tree, the son watching over the careful drying process of the lumber and the grandson making a dining table of the wood; or, knowledge and craftmanship passed from generation to generation as they had the same occupation. Modernization and individualization processes have put pressure on these intergenerational connections. In that sense it can be misleading to talk of ‘distanciating’, what is crucial is a gradual disembedding of local, traditional and particular relations.
One standard analysis of environmental problems is that they are collective action problems, meaning there is a conflict between individual and collective reasons for action. Stephen Gardiner (2001) argues that such collective action problems do not only apply to interactions between individuals, groups, regions and states, but also to generations. Moreover, he argues that intergenerational relations present the real tragedy of the commons. There are different ways out of the tragedy of the commons but in an intergenerational situation, all options that create possibilities for cooperation are absent: there is no repeated interaction, no possibility for communication and no mutual benefit. Moreover, there cannot be an actor that can ensure compliance. With regard to the global commons, ensuring compliance is difficult in practice since there is a lack of global institutions, but with regard to the intergenerational problem, ensuring compliance is impossible in principle because we cannot make binding agreements between actors that do not coexist. The central problem is the lack of possible reciprocity. We can help future generations and past generations can help us, but the reversal is impossible and the same applies for negative actions such as causing damage and punishing (Gardiner, 2001: 402–06).
One way out of collective action problems is not to refer to reciprocity but rather to morality. Perhaps our relation and motivation towards the future is primarily a moral one, namely that we have a moral duty or responsibility towards future generations. In my view, this is the position taken by most philosophers working on intergenerational topics. The main debate on intergenerational issues is, in my view, that on environmental justice (Meyer, 2012; Gosseries, 2023).
A recent, outspoken version of such a moral account focused on obligations is presented by William MacAskill in his book What We Owe to the Future (2022). He defines longtermism as ‘the idea that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time’ (2023: 4). Central in his argument is the enormous size of the future, namely how many people will live after us, and we can potentially impact all these people, thereby creating an enormous responsibility. If global population stabilizes at 11 billion people (cf. UN projections), there will be 100 trillion people alive over the next 800,000 years. This enormous size puts a huge moral weight on the shoulders of the current generation, perhaps requiring substantial sacrifices (e.g., sacrificing current poor for a larger group of future people). This is just one form of – moral – longtermism, namely an intertemporal variant of the idea of effective altruism and prioritarianism (priority given to future generations). Even more than other accounts, MacAskill adopts a very rational approach. It is a beneficence-based theory, namely we have responsibilities with regard to the benefits and harms we can do to other people.
While duties clearly can provide reasons for action, focusing exclusively on such morality is not without problems. First, there is a set of theoretical challenges. The idea of obligations to future generations is not new and was already discussed in the (early) 1970s (e.g., Delattre, 1972; Golding, 1972; Hubin, 1976; Sikora & Barry, 1978). Since then, different theories of intergenerational justice have been explored, such as utilitarianism, different variants of egalitarianism (including Rawlsian) and sufficientarianism (e.g., Brundtland definition). Many of these theories starts from a twofold neutrality. First, they are largely about beneficence, namely a moral obligation to act for the benefit or well-being of others, possibly by preventing harms, and everyone's benefit or well-being is considered equally. Second, there is also a neutral position in time: all generations should be treated with equal consideration. Such ideas fit best with utilitarian and liberal approaches, but this universal-rational take has led to all kinds of puzzles in this debate, such as: the non-identity problem 7 (Parfit, 1984), the repugnant conclusion 8 (Parfit, 1984); distributions across indefinite generations; huge numbers of future people compared to current people; etc. So far, these debates have not resulted in a consensus about intergenerational obligations or a universal theory about intergenerational justice. Moreover, the series of rather technical puzzles suggests a rather abstract and rational approach; many people might find it hard to connect with such approaches.
As such, one does not need a very complex moral theory for intergenerational obligations. If one accepts something like a harm principle, it is not difficult to extend such a principle to future people. However, accepting this principle is not the same as acting in accordance with it. This brings us to the problem of moral motivation, namely the gap between accepting a moral rule and acting in accordance with it. This problem of moral motivation seems worse when it concerns our relation with future generations. If people live far away from us, the media can still present us a picture of them, thereby we could identify with them, possibly stimulating our willingness to help, for instance by donating money to aid organisations. Such identification through realistic representation is however not at hand for future people, thereby complicating possible empathy for future people–Birnbacher (2009: 282) calls this the ‘special motivation problem’ of future ethics. Some people and especially environmentalists might be strongly motivated by moral duties, but this is not necessarily so for everyone. The question thus becomes whether there are any additional motivational sources for caring for the future.
Scheffler's afterlife thesis
The previous section examined reasons for the perceived shortage of long-term thinking. Two possible explanations were suggested: modernization processes such as individualization, and a wicked intergenerational collective action problem, where options for reciprocity are absent. If there are few or no intergenerational relationships or opportunities for reciprocity, we can still turn to moral duties to give a place to the wellbeing of future generations. However, as we saw, this is not without problems. Much of the debate seems abstract and rational, thereby possibly risking that it does not engage and commit people. Moreover, moral motivation based on empathy also seems unavailable, since it is difficult to feel empathy for people who do not yet exist.
Presented this way, we have reached an impasse. To begin with, it is hard to transcend short-term thinking. By now, we have looked at two suggestions for ways out. On the one hand, we can argue that we have moral duties towards future people, but, as we saw, this way out is fraught with difficulties. On the other hand, we could try to stimulate long-term thinking, for instance by projects such as the 10.000-Year clock, but, as stated in the introduction, it is also unclear whether such increased awareness of the future will actually motivate us to take future concerns into account.
This all brings us back to our initial question of ‘how can we be motivated to care for the future?’ Here, I want to explore another road in the debate on intergenerational relations that starts from the question: why is the future important for us? There is a line of thought that I believe is underexplored with regard to intergenerational issues, discussed by authors such as John O’Neill (1993) and Samuel Scheffler (2013, 2018), and focuses on how values are related to the future. I my view, Scheffler's elaboration of this topic is very helpful for this our question and therefore I will dig more deeply in his position.
Before examining the relationship between our values and the future, a brief note on the concept of valuing is in order. Scheffler understands valuing as a complex ‘attitudinal phenomenon that has doxastic, deliberative, motivational and emotional dimensions’ (2013: 17). So, it includes a belief that something is valuable (cf. doxastic), but it goes beyond a mere belief and also beyond a mere feeling or desire. Valuing something is not just a particular feeling, but it is rather that valuing something makes us emotional vulnerable to that thing. For instance, if I value a forest, I am emotionally vulnerable to what happens to that forest. It also has a motivational aspect: valuing gives me reasons for action and these reasons are open for deliberation, such as considering whether a particular situation requires me to act upon the thing I value (2010: 15–40). Such an attitudinal and multi-level account of valuing lies in line with work of other authors, such as Elizabeth Anderson's (1993).
Shefller's central idea can be labelled as his afterlife thesis (2013, 2018). The afterlife is not the religious Afterlife–a continuation of our earthly life after our own death–but that ‘other human beings will continue to live on after my own death’ (2013: 15). 9 Most of us take this for granted and Scheffler wants to examine the role this assumption plays in our lives. To examine our intuitions concerning the afterlife, Scheffler formulates a thought experiment: ‘Suppose you knew that, although yourself would live a normal life span, the earth would be completely destroyed thirty days after your death in a collision with a giant asteroid. How would this knowledge affect your attitudes during the reminder of your life?’ (2013: 18). 10 Scheffler argues that our intuitions point to a nonexperientialist and nonconsequentialist interpretation of values. Although we are already dead when doomsday takes place, most of us would not be indifferent to this scenario, thus what happens after our death seems to matter to us–so, not only experiences seem to matter. Additionally, most of us would not start to balance the good (e.g., end of all human suffering) and bad consequences of such a doomsday scenario, so what matters is not just whether it has good consequences or not. Most of us would feel a profound dismay with this doomsday scenario, because ‘we want the people and things we care about to flourish’ (22).
The disappearance of people and human projects in the future, even after we are dead, troubles us. There appears to be a conceptual connection between valuing something and wanting it to be sustained over time, also beyond our lifespan. This is Scheffler's central argument: there appears to be a ‘conservative’ dimension in our valuing attitudes. It seems straightforward that such a doomsday scenario would induce feelings of grief and sadness about the future, but interestingly it might also affect our current lives. Some of our current projects and plans might lose importance to us. This is most clear for activities that have their realization in the future, such as engaging in scientific research to find a cure for cancer in a possibly distant future. Something similar applies to a broader range of activities whose main benefits are to be expected in the future, such as political activism, education, procreative activity and perhaps some creative projects as well. Activities undertaken for pleasure and comfort are probably not affected. While our interest in some activities is affected by a doomsday scenario, the same does not apply to the prospect of our own death. The fact that we will die in the future does not undermine our current engagement with projects such as cancer research, thus ‘in some significant respects, the existence of the afterlife matters more to us than our own continued existence’ (2013: 26). The existence of an afterlife appears to be a precondition to things mattering to us.
There is another way in which the afterlife is important to is: not only is it a precondition for our current projects of value, we also want to have a ‘personalized relation’ with the future. Scheffler considers an alternative scenario: suppose we would know that everyone who we love or care for will die thirty days after our own passing. We find this troubling because we do not want people to die prematurely; we want them to have full and flourishing lives. For related reasons most of us do not want to outlive all our friends and loved ones. However, there is something else as well, something more relational to the future: the fact that our friends and loved ones continue to live makes the future a somewhat familiar place. Although I am gone, there will be a world where there are people I am related to and where people might still think about me. I still have some kind of place in this future world. The future is in a sense visible through one's (current) social world, in which one retains a social identity. ‘The world of the future becomes as it were, more like a party one had to leave early and less like a gathering of strangers’ (2013: 30). By contrast, in a doomsday scenario, there is no place for us in the future; it becomes an alien and empty place.
Perhaps all the dismay about a doomsday scenario is just based on our worry that particular people and groups die prematurely? We can image a scenario in which nobody dies prematurely. For instance, suppose that all human beings become infertile (after our own death) and subsequently no future people will be born after (2013: 38) – this is also the scenario of P.D. James’ book (1992) and Alfonso Cuarón's movie (2006) The Children of Men. Humanity would die out one generation after our death, but no one dies prematurely; everyone would still have a normal life span. While this takes away our anxieties about loved ones, the main problem remains the same, most of us find this scenario still very unsettling, even if they are dead and no loved ones die prematurely.
The book and movie The Children of Men could evoke an even more profound effect on our current lives and activities, namely an overall depressive effect of this end-of-humanity awareness, affecting also non-future related, joyful activities, such as sex, reading, and enjoying nature. If so, a condition of the good life seems to be that we understand it as part of an ongoing human history. Whether a Children of Men scenario would actually lead to a society-wide depressive mood is an open question. For instance, Susan Wolf (2013) raises this question. Many activities are obviously oriented on the current generation and it is thus unclear whether we would lose interest in dancing, playing piano, or doing philosophy. Moreover, it could also enhance positive attitudes, namely taking care of what is really valuable–something one also perceives if people are radically confronted with the finiteness of their life, for instance through a cancer diagnosis. There can even be some force in foreseeing a dramatic scenario (“we’re all in this together”). While Wolf might be right, there is no conflict with Scheffler's central argument: the afterlife is relevant to us here and now.
In sum, the discussion about the afterlife thesis reveals a double linkage between our values and the future. First, if we value things, we also see reasons to preserve these over time, also beyond our death. Valuing means that we project and invest us in the future (Scheffler, 2013: 61). Thus, valuing partly depends on our confidence that there is an afterlife (60). Second, we also want to see the future as a place that feels somewhat familiar and where we still have a place—through remembrance, our values, and the particular projects to which we were committed. This is what Scheffler calls a personalized relation with the future.
Within the broader debates of intergenerational justice, Scheffler aligns with communitarian approaches. Rather than focusing on what a just distribution of goods across generations would look like, he suggests that the intergenerational debate should centre on preserving values and what is considered worth preserving. A similar position is defended by some other authors in environmental philosophy and green political theory, most notably by Avner de-Shalit (2005), but also by Mark Sagoff (2007) and John O’Neill (1993). Perhaps Scheffler's position is not as novel as he and his commentators suggest, but his elaboration of the afterlife thesis allows for a more detailed exploration of the idea.
In order to avoid misunderstandings, we also need to address two straightforward criticisms of Scheffler's approach, namely an inherent conservatism and a self-centeredness. First, the approach states there is the conservative aspect in valuing, namely valuing something implies that we also want to preserve it over time, even beyond our own death. Does this not imply a static notion of value, requiring everything remains the same? Scheffler's own reply is that the conservative dimension is only one reason among many. If there is a value conflict, we cannot do justice to all values to an equal extent. Avner de-Shalit (2005) provides a more macro-level response to the worry of conservatism. Rather than focusing on particular values, he focuses on the idea of an intergenerational community, in which certain values can be passed through over time and thus can flourish. Ideally, this is also a reflexive community where reflexivity is central, which creates a buffer against being too static or conservative.
Second, authors focused on moral duties could criticize Scheffler's position for being self-interested, namely it is focused on the preservation of our own values and is not primarily about the fate of future generations. However, rather than speaking about self-interest, it is probably better to speak of reasons of care (Frankfurt, 1982), reasons of love (Frankfurt, 2006; Wolf 2014) or reasons related to meaningfulness (Wolf, 2014). A crucial difference between self-interest and reasons of care is that for the latter the object of care is outside oneself. I care about nature, my children and writing philosophy, and these things can have positive effects on me (e.g., warm feelings), but these are side-effects of taking care of something outside myself. The fact that we can sacrifice ourselves for the things we care about (e.g., nature, children, philosophy), reveals an important difference with self-interest. The underlying idea here–an important difference from accounts such as MacAskill's–is that projects of care and meaningfulness may relate to other normative sources that could be more strongly motivating.
Countering assumptions: Varieties of long-term thinking
Before moving more explicitly to our question of future motivations, I want to return once again to the beginning and the assumptions made in projects such as the 10.000-Year clock, namely that long-term thinking is valuable but it is often lacking. Both elements of this assumption may be controversial. Perhaps there is quite some long-term thinking and it is not that difficult to see that some long-term thinking may have a dark side. Let us briefly discuss some variants of long-term thinking: political ideologies, technocratic futurism and dystopian thinking.
A first category of longtermisms that quickly comes to mind includes political ideologies and technocentric futurisms. Most political ideologies–for instance nationalism, socialism, communism and neoliberalism–put a lot of stress on the future by presenting a utopian image as the end goal. While ideologies are potential intergenerational value-based projects, they have a tendency to ‘close’ the future: if their project is realized, then there will be a future without conflict. Chantal Mouffe (2005) believes this can only be oppressive: every project cannot but remain imperfect and conflictual. A democracy needs by definition an open future. Something similar often applies to a set of more technocentric views on the future, such as transhuman, AI-driven, post-scarcity or cybernetic futurisms. A similar tendency for closure might be based on over-optimism about technology's problem-solving capacity and minimizing human agency. What these examples learn us, is that not all long-term thinking is by definition valuable or good. Preserving the openness towards the future seems crucial. This applies to several of the approaches we discussed: increase long-term awareness through art, promoting moral obligations towards the future and a value-based approach. The latter does not require a focus on specific values, it is applicable to a very wide range of values and thereby allowing openness, especially if cultivated in a reflective intergenerational community.
Besides optimistic futurisms, there are of course many possible pessimistic futurisms, expressed in both distopian fiction, such as Huxley's Brave New World (1932) and Orwell's 1984 (1949), and non-fiction, such as Carsons Silent Spring (1962) and the Ehrlich's Population Bomb (1972). Rather than scientific predictions, these often have a rhetoric function: if we do no act now, this is what could follow. In that way they can be functional for future generations. Nonetheless, if we really believe these to be unavoidably true, these also close the future and might prevent us from acting. A belief in a possible and open future is both a precondition for our current values and our actions towards the future.
On could wonder whether Scheffler's doomsday scenario does not show that we need Apocalyptic or ‘end of time’ arguments, which are omnipresent in environmental activism. However, the doomsday element served primarily to sharpen our thinking; an actual doomsday is not necessary for this line of thinking. If we imagine a future with humans, but a rather miserable one, with huge inequalities, bad environmental quality, little room for art and science, where humans are just tools for productivity, then this probably evokes similar feelings and attitudes of valuation: will my current projects and commitments not lose meaning if there is no room for them in the future? Moreover, a focus on a too bleak future could have all kinds of undesirable side-effects, such as creating fear (freezing action) or despair (fleeing in hedonism). O’Neill (1993) argues that a doomsday narrative paradoxically puts too much focus on the now, since we have lost our trust in the future. To be sure, the environmentalists’ appeal to an Apocalypse is mainly a rhetoric device in order to trigger people's sense of urgency, but it might also conflict with an approach trying to connect the future with our current values.
These variants of longtermism reveal at least two things. First, there might not be a lack of long-term thinking. Perhaps it is rather common in modernity to think about the future, namely about future wealth, growth, emancipation, etc. Second, the bare fact of long-term thinking is not by definition good for future (or current) generations. If we want to look for a connection with the future, this future needs to be at least open, and thus not closed either by a particular vision or a by the disappearance of the future (Apocalypse). What long-term thinking is or should be about is imagining, reflecting and debating about future options. This is often called ‘futuring’ (Cornish, 2004).
If we return to our example of the 10.000 Years clock, we might find another interesting idea that can be found in the literature. Several authors argue that it is good to have ‘deep time thinking’, namely a long-term thinking oriented on the so-called deep time. Deep time is not defined very precisely, but in general it refers to geological time or cosmic time, thus time spans ranging between millennia and billions of years. For instance, based on a study of long-term disposal of nuclear waste, Vincent Ialenti (2020) argues that it would be beneficial to do deep time exercises, namely imagining ourselves within a much larger deep time frame, connecting with it and depart from our unstoppable concern for the now. A similar argument is made by geologist Marcia Bjornerud (2018). She pleas for timefulness, namely a ‘feeling for distances and proximities in the geography of deep time’ (2018: 17). Through the study of geology and a geological habit of the mind, we become aware of how the places we inhabit fit within much larger time scales. ‘Earth stories’ of the things around us (stones, leaves, ecosystems, etc.) might save us from environmental hubris (2018: 178). For instance, in every stone, we can find stories about deep time. This deep time thinking is an interesting take on the problem of short-termism and could provide additional motivational sources, but in essence it is another version of increasing long-term awareness.
Moreover, it is unclear whether imagining such very large time scales are helpful for dealing with for instance climate change. If we think about the preservations of our values over time, we are probably thinking about a few human generations. It is perhaps telling that some First Nations refer to a seventh generation principle (Krznaric 2020: 86–91), namely considering the impact of seven generations. This seems close to the maximum of what we can imagine–from our great-grandparents to our great-grandchildren is seven generations. It is perhaps also no coincidence that Scheffler's thought experiments talks about thirty days after our death rather than a million years after it. While inspirational, it is unclear whether deep time thinking about millenia, epochs and eons can really provide much motivational force. A value-based approach such as Scheffler's brings in the future by extending our concerns beyond our lifespan but keeps it within a human scale of a few generations.
The missing step: Bringing objective and subjective together
This all makes it (again) clear that it is not just long-term thinking as such that we need. So, now we can return to our central question: how can we make the step towards motivations for the future? A project such as the 10.000 Years Clock project creates awareness of a future and this seems a precondition of being oriented towards it. At the same time, we are all aware there is a future beyond our lives. As we saw, there are countless representations of possible futures through culture (e.g., novels, movies, arts) or science (e.g., models, scenarios). They all make the future more manifest and visible, but it is often not so clear what this implies for us. Take again the initial example of the 10.000 Years clock: being aware there is a functioning clock over 10.000 years might impress me with regard to craftsmanship and technology, but it is less clear what this implies for me. So, what we might need is a personal connection. In line of Scheffler's story, this can be sought in the values and activities we see as highly valuable and want to continue beyond our own death. Consider one's care for science or playing the piano: we can be personally motivated to contribute to science and music and we want these to be part of something that transcends our current time. Moreover, the fact that these activities could be relevant for the (distant) future also makes them meaningful for us.
However, while such activities and values can be future-oriented (cf. Scheffler's argument), we do not necessarily experience them that way. The risk here is the opposite of the previous one: while I might be personally motivated and connected, the importance of the future might disappear from sight. Our lives are in practice oriented on the short term: picking up the children on time, the broken dishwater, going to the movies tomorrow, etc. This also applies to our high-value projects, such as engagement in science: the next meeting to prepare for, the paper deadline that is closing, reporting about student evaluations, etc. Even when we focus on what we truly care about–producing excellent research or education–we still tend to think primarily about the present.
So, what seems missing is actively connecting both elements, namely between a more objective future-awareness and a subjective connection to particular values. There is an interesting parallel here with Susan Wolf's argument about meaningfulness in life. According to Wolf (2014), meaningfulness in life arises where the objective–connecting to something ‘bigger than yourself’–and the subjective dimension of meaningfulness–‘follow your passion’–connect to each other, namely projects in which we are passionately connected to something that transcends our individual lives.
Something similar might apply to our orientation to the future. Connecting both subjective and objective means increasing awareness of how our own projects and values link to the broader future. This is partly an awareness issue, namely the need for narratives that connect our lives and activities with the future of these activities. For example, working on a cure for cancer and connecting it to the idea that an actual cure will help many people after 2050. Or, having children and imagining how their children will look back on our values and activities. Or, someone building a wooden nightstand might become excited about the idea that this piece of furniture might still be around 30 years after she died. Or, someone leading a choir might find it stimulating that some choir members play a future role in keeping choir music alive. Or, someone engaging in a particular nature conservation project can imagine how a particular site would look like in 25–50–100 years. Contrary to the 10.000 Years Clock, such personal visioning connects us personally to the future.
The last step: Back to sustainability
One more step needs to be taken. The underlying assumption is that the more intensely we connect to the future, through narratives about the future of our current values and activities, the more we will care about the future and thus probably about sustainability, since a sustainable and qualitative future is a precondition for our values to flourish in the future. Grim future scenarios, such as a collapse of social-democratic institutions leading to a struggle for survival, could leave little room for valued projects like the arts, science, craftsmanship, or nature conservation. Our values and projects can only thrive beyond our lifetime, if there are well-functioning social-ecological systems in place.
This link may seem obvious but is not self-evident. Not all values and valued projects do require a fair and sustainable future to flourish – perhaps classical music could flourish in an inegalitarian and highly polluted future. Within some futurisms, such as ecomodernism, transhumanism or posthumanism, societies might be seen as partly independent of ecosystems; according to some views, we should not worry too much about the ecological state of affairs. This reveals that our beliefs about the future play a crucial role. Just wanting the continuation of our values in the future beyond our own death does not suffice for motivations for sustainability. We also need to believe that social-ecological transitions are both possible and necessary. If we do not believe that a sustainable future is possible, why still care for the future and sustainable behavior? If we do not believe that a sustainable future is a necessary precondition for the continued flourishing of our values, then why should we care about motivations for sustainability? With regard to these beliefs, environmental science and environmentalism have a major role to play.
This does not take away the argument we have been exploring: if care for a sustainable future is indeed what is needed, we still need a motivation to connect to it. This connection between values and sustainable futures also brings a second limitation to the fore: how are specific values related to sustainability? Sometimes there is a direct positive relationship – when our personal values are specifically about realizing a sustainable future, such as engaging in transition projects or preserving local nature. Of course, in these cases, motivations toward the future are not lacking but are already present. The typical intellectual time-transcending values philosophers often discuss–equality, humanities, art, etc.–probably fit well with a sustainable future. Such values probably require futures not fully absorbed by scarcity and conflict, allowing time and space for value-based projects. Here the central argument seems to work: caring about these values, can bring in a concern for the future.
It becomes more complex if the relation between values and sustainability is ambiguous or even conflicting. Consider the later: if I am part of an association for SUV rally racing or cruise traveling, there might not be a place for these in a sustainable future. In their current forms, these activities cannot continue without contributing significantly to an unsustainable future. Nonetheless, many values are probably in the middle: not by definition conflicting or aligning with sustainability, for instance engaging with music, sport, local communities or hobbies. How could the argument work for such value projects?
Imagine a community center filled with activities that bring neighbors together. What if the people involved started thinking about the future of their organization and community, perhaps from 2050 to 2100? They could use their collective imagination to picture what their community and center might look like after 2050 and how to ensure their current values continue. This would start a conversation about what they hope to achieve and how to get there. Much of the discussion will likely focus on practical goals, like making sure the center is financially stable and well-organized for the long term. However, the discussion could also broaden to include preparing the community for future changes, especially climate risks like heat waves, long droughts, and sudden floods. If they truly care about the community center, they would want something similar to exist in the future. In this case, abstract moral concerns for future generations become tangible, connecting to specific projects and places, and linking these to the values people already hold.
Consider another example, a farmer who values her way of life—being outdoors, working with animals, producing food. This value can inspire care for the future: maintaining soil fertility, ensuring water availability, diversifying income, and so on. While this does not automatically lead to sustainable practices, it can foster future-oriented thinking. Such awareness might prompt reflection on current values, either by making them more future-proof (e.g., adapting to urban heat) or by shifting toward values that are more sustainable (e.g., reducing consumerism). This dialogue between current values and the future holds transformative potential, making long-term reflection on our values both meaningful and necessary. In theory, it could even influence those involved in unsustainable practices to reconsider their actions.
Conclusion: Motivating us for motivations for the future
Sustainability is about the future; it is embedded in the concept itself: we want things to sustain into the future. However, it is less clear why we are motivated for that future. If we look around us, there seems to be widespread short-termism, and many structural impediments prevent us from abandoning it. A logical reply would be to promote long-term thinking, for instance by long-term projects such as the 10.000 Years clock. As we saw, however, it is unclear whether this will affect us personally. There is no personal connection and it is vague how this relates to our motivations. Thinking about acting for the future is often seen as a matter of moral duties, for the obvious reason that purely instrumental arguments about the future are not available. Scheffler's afterlife thesis shows that there is already a future-oriented dimension in the values we currently hold: if we want our values to flourish, we should also care about their future beyond own life span. This provides another way of thinking about the future, somewhat in between a moral and instrumental way, one that has been pushed aside somewhat by modernity's individualization process. I argued that, in order to waken our future-oriented motivations, the personal dimension–the values we are attached to–needs to be connected more explicitly with the future, both with regard to these values themselves as with the broader future that can sustain them.
How to put this in practice, through narratives and projects, is a next step for research. Examining whether some of the underlying optimism will hold when applied to real-world cases will be an important question within that research. Nonetheless, there are substantial potential benefits to argue for such examination. To begin with, there is the initial concern behind this paper, namely a potential win for future sustainability through making a connection between future-orientation and our own personal values. This benefit should not be overstated; this will not be the silver bullet for sustainability motivations. However, I believe its benefit lies in the potential to appeal to groups that are often not (yet) convinced by sustainability issues, possibly because typical universal, abstract and moral arguments might be less decisive for them. It is not accidental that we mentioned examples like music, sport and science. These are not directly connected to sustainability, but the argument is that they nonetheless could function as a bridge to sustainability.
There are also potentially important indirect benefits. By connecting our personal project and values to a larger time frame, such projects might become more relevant and meaningful to us. We become aware of the bigger frame these are part of. Moreover, it could reveal the connection our projects have with other people and thereby strengthen group identity. For instance, if someone becomes aware that her own time investments in art projects may have an impact after her own death, these projects gain in meaningfulness because they connect to something larger. This could be the missing link in the cycle: one could still wonder why people need to link their values and projects to the future (even if one accepts there is a future-oriented dimension in it). One reply is that it could be beneficial for our own experience of meaningfulness: exactly by placing us in this larger frame, it might strengthen these values and enhance our sense of meaningfulness in life. Of course, again, this might all be an overly optimistic reading of future-oriented motivations, but it seems a promising path to examine further.
Footnotes
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/ or publication of this article.