De la juste épargne à la juste éco-épargne: Repenser Rawls à l’épreuve de l’urgence écologique

Abstract

This article examines the capacity of Rawls’s principle of “just savings” to address the challenges posed by the contemporary ecological crisis, characterized by the accelerated degradation of ecosystems, climate change, and the depletion of natural resources. Although Rawls originally formulated this principle to secure socio-economic fairness between human generations, its anthropocentric framework and its lack of consideration for natural capital reveal significant limitations in the face of the far-reaching transformations of the Anthropocene. The article nonetheless argues that the intergenerational dynamic articulated by Rawls remains fruitful for thinking about responsibility toward the future. To adapt this insight to the ecological emergency, it proposes the principle of “just eco-savings.” This principle designates the moral and political obligation incumbent upon each generation to preserve, maintain, and transmit the fundamental ecological conditions required for human life and for the functioning of just institutions. By extending the notion of just savings to the environmental sphere, just eco-savings asserts that intergenerational justice requires not only the conservation of economic, social, and institutional resources, but also the safeguarding of a healthy, resilient, and sustainable environment. It rests on the recognition of essential natural capital as a non-substitutable common good, whose preservation underpins societal stability and the very possibility of fair cooperation between generations. By thus extending Rawlsian thought, the concept of just eco-savings offers a renewed normative framework for rethinking justice in an age of ecological urgency and for guiding public policy toward an expanded ecological responsibility.