The Guiding Principle of Sustainable Development and the Concept of Justice

This chapter is about cake. More precisely, it is about baking and distributing cake, ensuring that there will be cake not only today but also tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in ten and in a hundred years—for everyone. Therefore, we need to think about justice. However, there is a problem we need to take into account when baking. The supply is finite, the replenishment limited. Additionally, the remnants from baking and eating must be cleaned up, otherwise everyone will suffocate in the waste and baking will cease. This chapter explores how sustainable development shares many similarities with baking and eating cake. The question of the appropriate use of natural resources leads to the question of what is just, how justice is determined in each instance, the fulfilment of which needs is essential for a good life, and which needs are detrimental to it? We critically examine the notion that constant economic growth is sustainable. Is the idea that the cake must always grow a good one, or does it lead to the long-term result of having no cake at all?