Buen Vivir: A Latin American Contribution to Intra- and Intergenerational Justice

VIDIELLA, GRACIELA; GARCÍA VALVERDE, FACUNDO

The Oxford Handbook of Intergenerational Ethics

Oxford University Pres

Lugar: 9780190881931; Año: 2021;

Since 1990, an alternative to traditional conceptions of development began to take shape as a critical model and reached its peak when it was included in the constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador on equal standing as classical liberal rights and republican rule of law. Labeled as buen vivir, it emerged from both political practices as well as theoretical reflections of the Andean region of South America; but it managed to attract thinkers from other areas of the globe. This new conception proposes the re-establishment of harmony among individuals and between those individuals and nature. In this sense, its main focus is on environmental issues like the ecological and social catastrophes caused by the expansion of extractive policies and massive deforestation for monoculture (mainly, soybeans). Based on indigenous ontology and cosmovision, it promises an alternative to mainstream development derived not from an anthropocentric conception but from a relationship of complementarity and reciprocity between humans and nonhumans (Merino, 2016).The hypothesis of this chapter is that these elements provide a creative alternative framework for developing normative solutions to problems of cooperation between different generations for the preservation of the environment or the attainment of real, sustainable development in which no future generation?s needs are jeopardized by the actions of previous generations. If nature has enforceable rights and if individuals and peoples must develop a reciprocal and integral relation with nature, then it is no longer something that surrounds humans and whose value is only instrumental. In this hypothesis, nature exists as a continuous moral subject whose normative relevance transcends finite generations and, therefore, must be protected. If this is so, both the normative priority of present generations and the conception of a linear progress toward human welfare through economic growth are seriously downplayed.The structure of this chapter is as follows. In section 2, we present the history and the core ideas of buen vivir and distinguish three different conceptions of these ideas: statist?socialist conception (2.1), radical?indigenous conception (2.2), and environmental conception (2.3). In section 3, we offer critical considerations of each of these conceptions and evaluate their potential for some traditional problems of intergenerational justice. In section 4, we show, through a hypothetical (albeit plausible) scenario, that the environmental conception of buen vivir is better suited to give precise and politically feasible solutions to the environmental challenges that intergenerational justice deals with.