Deconstructing Presentism: Natal-Mortal Being and the Problem of Intergenerational Justice in Matthias Fritsch’s Taking Turns with the Earth

Abstract

Mattias Fritsch’s Taking Turns with the Earth draws on phenomenology and deconstruction to develop two models of intergenerational justice. In this review paper, I consider the way in which, in making the argument for these models, Fritsch moves from ontological claims about the necessarily temporal and relational character of identities to normative claims about the way in which we find ourselves situated in webs of intergenerational obligations. The book thus shifts the starting point for theorizing intergenerational justice by rejecting the assumption that moral relations normally arise between contemporaries. It is, on the contrary, insofar as we are natal-mortal beings, vulnerable and dependent in virtue of our embodiment, that we are moral agents. This is a powerful framework for thinking of intergenerational ethics. I consider a skeptical challenge to Fritsch’s interpretation of the ethical implications of deconstruction in order to highlight what is original and compelling in his position.