Reply to My Critics

Abstract

1. Michele Loi’s paper consists in two points focusing on generational savings during Rawls’s steady state stage. First, Loi recognizes my departure from a prohibition on generational savings in case of unanimity on such positive savings, i.e. whenever there is no veto by the least well o!. Loi argues that parties under the veil of ignorance know that they could be benevolent parents willing to sacri"ce themselves for their children, and for the children of others too. #ey should therefore reject the prohibition on savings. What probably is at stake here is what risk-averse parties should fear the most: being benevolent towards the future more than towards one’s contemporaries and ending up being prevented to act on such preferences, or being today’s least well o! and having to accept that what could make me better o! will end up in the pockets of richer future persons. It is not clear why the former should be feared more than the latter. Loi’s main argument here seems to be the following: not allowing for generational savings is illiberal and allowing for a departure from such a prohibition only in case of agreement of the least well o! will not do, because “consent in actual circumstances cannot make intergenerational saving just, unless they are permissible to begin with” (p. 7, – also p. 10). However, one could easily