Does the present generation have a moral obligation to conserve resources for future generations? Must we accept drastic reductions in our standard of living, and give up the ideals of individual liberty and technological progress in order to preserve the environment?

PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE offers an unfashionably optimistic answer to these questions: that future generations cannot have a right to a share of existing resources, because only living persons can have rights. Rejecting the sacrifices that most traditional ethical principles would require of us, it advocates,...