Decidir(emos) por la muerte: interpretar el presente conforme al paradigma de las relaciones intergeneracionales nutridas por la solidaridad

Modernity’s major problems embrace not only environmental crises, but also economic crises, health crises, immigration, public debts, corruption, food crises, population growth, “digital” crises, energy crises. Beyond the apparent difference, these problems have common features related to intergenerational issues: globality, diffuse character of damage, uncertainty of science, plurality of attackers and victims, variety of contributing factors, spatial and temporal disconnection between cause and effect, information asymmetries, difficulty in quantifying biases, interference with ethics, relevance of technological innovation, difficulty in identifying the most appropriate decision-making centers, need to prepare multiscalar and differentiated responses and to devise complex strategies with non-immediate time horizons, significant impact on public accounts. The proposed paradigm of intergenerational responsibilities, based on Article 9 of the Italian Constitution and driven by the urgency to act that comes from environmental problems (“deciding for death”) might be a useful legal paradigm for framing and providing an appropriate response to the modernity’s major problems.