Critical Review of Liberal Theories of Intergenerational Justice

Intergenerational justice is a concept born in the modern world. It is a theoretical reaction to the problem of environmental degradation, depletion of natural resources and life threatening of future generations. Therefore, to achieve the Islamic theory of intergenerational equity we should identify the Issues and Foundations of these theories. After this we could find its components in Islamic literature and present an Islamic intergenerational theory. In this article the first step in this process is covered and we have discussed to evaluate, sort, and critique the liberal tradition, to show how schools and ideological currents have different effects on the policies of intergenerational justice.
This research by means of a comparative analysis shows that to fully assess the views of liberals in addition to well-known division of Egalitarian- libertarian we should study views of the believers in unity of freedom and equality. We conclude that the difference in the policies of the currents caused by differences in their intellectual and philosophical foundations. Therefore, by changing the philosophical assumptions of these theories, we can respond differently to the main issues of intergenerational justice (scope, pattern and unit of measure) which could prove the possibility of providing the intergenerational theory in Islam.