What’s Your Moral Obligation to Future Generations?

When people reflect on how their actions shape the distant future, they are more likely to support solutions to present-day issues like poverty and inequality

The Conversation U.S.

4 min read

·

Jun 20, 2025

Press enter or click to view image in full sizeShifting the public’s perspective toward greater concern for future generations could result in more support for climate change policies, among others. Artur Debat/Moment via Getty Images

By Stylianos Syropoulos and Kyle Fiore Law, Arizona State University/The Conversation

People often prioritize the well-being of family, friends and neighbors, as they feel a closeness emotionally and share the same temporal context. But they overlook how people born decades or centuries from now may suffer as a result of today’s failures to address major global risks such as climate change, future pandemics and unregulated artificial intelligence.

Our new research, published in the British Journal of Social Psychology, shows that brief, low-cost psychological interventions can help individuals adopt a more expansive moral perspective to include future generations.

We conducted three online studies with over 8,700 participants to examine whether prompting people to consider the long-term consequences of their actions could shift moral priorities beyond the present.

In one of two interventions, participants imagined themselves serving on a government committee responsible for protecting future…