Democracy, voting & the constitution
Should Politicians Consider Future Generations in Policy?
LNAT Section B · Model essay
The essay prompt
When elected representatives make policy, should they weigh the interests of people not yet born, or answer only to the citizens who can vote today? Argue a case and reach a reasoned view.
The stance
Politicians should answer primarily to current voters; the interests of future generations are best protected indirectly, through the institutions and constitutions that today's electorate chooses, rather than by representatives claiming a direct mandate from people who do not yet exist.
The case for
Democratic authority rests on the consent of the living.
On a Lockean view, government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, and only present citizens can grant or withdraw that consent. To legislate in the name of the unborn is to invoke a constituency that can neither authorise nor sanction, which loosens the tie between power and accountability that gives democracy its legitimacy. Democracy is a contract among the living, not a seance with the unborn.
The case against
Justice does not stop at the boundary of the franchise.
We legislate for children, the severely disabled and non-citizens who cannot vote, because moral standing is not the same as electoral standing. If present decisions can devastate future lives, those lives have interests that a just politics must weigh, whether or not their holders can yet cast a ballot.
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