100 101 Leonardo Merlini Land of Enough: soil and intergenerational justice. In conversation with Alberto Pirni The taxi glides across the Lagoon, en route to Marco Polo Airport. It's a balmy spring day, devoid of any cloud cover. Venice is now behind us, while the scattered islands surround us, seemingly inhaling the briny essence of the water. The setting is perfect, with only the hum of the boat's passage and the sporadic cries of seagulls breaking the silence. Yet, every so often, like unexpected atolls, strips of land emerge. The taxi driver speaks to me of the canals, dug to facilitate navigation and deepen the water. I thus realize that the Lagoon is made more by the soil, both submerged and emerged, than by its waters. I am acutely reminded, in an almost physical way, that this ecosystem – which, when traversed through the opulent lens of capitalist tourism, appears mystical and unparalleled – is inherently fragile, susceptible to both droughts and tidal forces. The climate crisis, the encroaching rise of sea levels, or the parched desolation in certain regions weigh on my mind. Seated comfortably in a Riva motorboat, I find myself right in the middle of one of the numerous environmental crises that imperil our existence on this earth, and it is as if nothing happens. There was a time when the fortunate ones proudly bequeathed to their children: «One day all of this will be yours». Today, such an assurance seems increasingly implausible, as last generations have wrought havoc upon the planet, leaving a dire legacy for those who follow. «Alberto Pirni is an associate professor of Moral Philosophy at the Sant’Anna School for Advanced Studies in Pisa. His academic portfolio includes courses in Public Ethics, Ethics of Care Relations, Ethics and Economics, Ethics of Security and Intergenerational Justice. He assumes the role of coordinator within the Research Area in Public Ethics at the Institute of Law, Politics, and Development of the Sant’Anna School for Advanced Studies». This concise biography, extracted from the University's website, paints the portrait of Alberto Pirni, an expert whose areas of competence encompass intergenerational justice, «an issue that has recently gained prominence within the broader debate on distributive and social justice» as he himself wrote, together with Fausto Corvino, in an essay that sought to define the theoretical underpinnings of this discipline. It was in pursuit of his insights that I embarked on this conversation, hoping to unearth answers to both personal and global dilemmas, to see if there still can be room for rules to change things (to change the future, I kept on telling in my sci-fi reader’s head). For this very soil on which we presently dwell, this thin canvas of human potential, still holds the promise of a brighter future, one that can extend its radiance to our children and their tomorrows, and so on. Pirni proves himself available and remarkably precise, even amidst the challenges posed by the wobbly Zoom connection. And when I ask him for a definition of intergenerational justice he starts from afar, on a journey beginning from the Western concept of justice, harkening back to Plato's Republic, Book I. «We should remember that justice for the ancients, for the moderns, for the contemporaries has always been conceived as a device of reciprocity, something in the making and active to return something to an individual who has suffered a loss, or from whom something has been taken, to rectify a wrong, or to engage in the equitable distribution of goods – or, in the modern context, even of services. What characterized all these theories was their inclination towards a horizontal model of restitution and distribution. It was a system where something was allocated or returned to individuals who were already there. Justice is here conceived with a logic of horizontal restoration and distribution. What is new about intergenerational justice? It is its shift towards a vertical and diachronic form of distribution and reciprocity. Justice in the West, the justice of the ancients, of the moderns, of the contemporaries up until the American philosopher John Rawls (who died in 2002, to give an idea of the time span, Ed.’s Note) – whom moreover we owe the start of the debate on intergenerational justice to – adhered to a horizontal framework of justice, a coming to an agreement: just think of the traditions of contractualism and agreements between rational actors, or even between those who aspired to break free from the “homo homini lupus” paradigm. It is the logic of contractualism, a pact struck between those who are present here and now. Intergenerational justice opens a new chapter: let’s stipulate a contract not only among those who are here and now, but also among those who are not yet here and not yet now, that is, between those who are not yet a functioning subject among us. How can we think that future generations, future subjects, future stakeholders shall be legal actors? The very idea of intergenerational justice starts right from this general, but terribly demanding and challenging, outline». Crafting a code for someone who is not here. Not even Kafka, who penned definitive pages exploring the concept of Justice with an ominous capital J, ventured into this terrain. «This is the game in progress. And it is being played – or rather, it must be played – on multiple fronts. First of all, we are entering a terrain in which little is written and much is to be written, the best cultural terrain for philosophical reflection, theoretical exploration, and speculative inquiry». Land of Enough: soil and intergenerational justice. In conversation with Alberto Pirni
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