Ethics of Posterity and its Implication for Sustainable Industrial Development

Dr. Otto Dennis is a Nigerian, of Ibibio origin, who currently lectures Philosophy and Logic at University of Lagos Distant Learning Institute, Lagos, Nigeria. He specialises in philosophical subjects-areas such as Ethics, Metaphysics (Ontology), Phenomenology, Existentialism and Post-Modernism. His Ph.D. research was speciﬁcally on Ethics of Intergenerational Justice (otherwise known as Ethics of Posterity), which discusses and emphasises sustainability of the world through constructive moral conducts. Abstract In contemporary philosophy, concern for sustainability of the world, especially in industry, has attracted engaging ethical debate. This owes to the conventional perception of the consciousness as a universal, objective or absolute requirement of justice, where living people are to preserve life’s vital resources for posterity on the basis of moral deontology or consequentialism. Because the posterity concerned consists more of remote future people and their world than immediate descendants, their present physical non-existence often constitutes a fundamental problem in rendering the argument and obligation plausible. There is a factual non-connection of posterity and their present obligers due to time-gap. Hence, treating the responsibility as an objective norm stands to be insu ﬃ cient in motivating the conduct. This is because individuals are not accorded su ﬃ cient personal or subjective inspiration to urge the responsibility. This is what causes various forms of practices that cannot sustain industrial survival, for instance, to inundate contemporary world. The situation worsens where industries are eventually led to liquidate by personally uncommitted management. This essay is stimulated by a concern for this problem. It aims at adapting some aspects of Martin Heidegger’s theory of Being to articulate a more elemental and subjective theory of moral motivation for industrial sustainable development.


Introduction
One of life's most fundamental necessities is its preservation. Without life, nothing is achievable and nothing makes meaning. All human aspirations are, in their final analyses, efforts directed at safeguarding life from peril and extinction.
Due to the imperativeness of preserving life, human responsiveness to it has not only been practical everyday activities but also a subject of earnest intellectual considerations. Accordingly, right from ancient times of scholarship until today the subject has attracted a wide range of scholarly deliberations. In Western medieval and modern eras of philosophy, for instance, St. Thomas Aquinas (1917) and John Locke (1690) were known to have posited unequivocally that preservation of life from all forms of threat is the first law of nature. On this view, human beings, like other creatures in the world, participate in the consciousness of protecting their lives against all harm, especially those that can completely annihilate their existence.
In contemporary scholarship, concern for preservation of life has assumed a new intellectual dimension known as sustainability or, more popularly, "sustainable development". Accordingly, studies are preoccupied with examining the possibilities of creating and maintaining general superior quality of living that span generations. In other words, current researches on preservation of life are concerned not just with how present lives are generally organised and advanced but how its superior quality form can be generally perpetuated across generations. In line with this, human and non-human factors that affect continuity of life are assessed for their modes of effect on life -positive or negative -so as to regulate their operations with the aim of achieving sustainable development. The regulation entails manipulating or completely eliminating the negative conditions -i.e. those conditions that hamper continuity of quality life -and promoting the positive ones -i.e. the conditions that support the continuity.
Based on sustainable developmental studies, it is common to find that socio-economic and environmental conditions life such as liquidation of industry, ecological degradation, population explosion, conjugal disruptions, national and global terrorism, to mention a few, are identified as factors inimical to perpetuation of good quality of life and are, therefore, urged to be eschewed (Unah, 2002b). This is because the conditions put both immediate and especially remote future generations of people and their world at grave risks of harm (Partridge, 1998). If unchecked, they reserve the tendency to completely annihilate life or populate future world with physical and moral misfits. Individuals, businesses and governments are, therefore, urged to refrain from all surplus exercises of rights and consumerism that can initiate and perpetrate such conditions (Callahan, 1971). People are entreated to deliberately mind the wellbeing of posterity and their world in all their decisions, actions and policies. They are expected to live in such a way that they do not leave the world in any worse form than they met it. They are to create opportunities that would normally aid the development and sustenance of life than retard or destroy it (CUN, 2010).
Against the backdrop of these latter behavioural insights and prescriptions an academic discipline known as ethics of posterity (hereafter referred to as EP) emerged, to specifically treat sustainable-developmental or life-preservative concerns along moral lines. In the context of this essay, ethics means the Greek ethos or ethikos, which translates to Latin moralis (as first used by the popular Roman: Cicero) and English moral, meaning "habit" "manners", "ways of acting", "laws", or "customs" (Mautner, 2000). Accordingly, it is the systematic study of habitual or customary manner of acting; or the investigation of "...the goodness and evil of human actions, and human institutions insofar as it can be ascertained by reason" (Garret, 1968). Put simply, ethics is the study of human fundamental principles of good and bad conducts (Omoregbe, 1993;Ekwealo, 2012). Posterity, on the other hand, although is traditionally considered in EP studies, according to M. Golding (1972), as abstract, imprecise yet-to-be-born future people that are literally not expected to share common life with present world, is denoted by us as all human descendants and their world, especially from fifth generation until the last survivor on earth. This is because the traditional definition is too vague to accord the subject the creative specificity that ours holds. Posterity, to us, is the future qua future. And we use both terms interchangeably in this essay.
EP is traditionally articulated as ethics of intergenerational justice (hereafter referred to as EIJ). Accordingly, it holds that "all members of each generation of human beings, as a species, inherit a natural and cultural patrimony from past generations, both as beneficiaries and as custodians under the duty to pass on this heritage to future generations ... in no worse condition than it was received from past generations" (CUN, 2010). This establishes "obligation to future people" (hereafter referred to as the obligation) as a standard of morality. It prescribes acting for future generations and their world as a superior way of living and condemns the opposite mode of living, where the well-being of posterity is neglected, as an inferior way of living. With EP, people are educated and entreated to consider the effect of all their decisions, actions and 22 Ethics of Posterity and its Implication for Sustainable Industrial Development policies on the well-being of future world. This is because the well-being of posterity ought to be one of the fundamental goals of human life, as achieving it awards fulfillment, happiness and peace. The achievement also aids organisation and reorganisation of the world, making it a much more conducive place for people to live in.
But, what does this portend for industry specifically? Although it is apparent from the above list of unsavory conditions of life opposed by EP that liquidation of industry forms a major concern for the morality, it is curious to wonder in what way it (i.e. the ethics) controls or guides against the occurrence.
How does it facilitate the continuous survival of industry?
This essay aims at responding to these questions. It discusses sustainable industrial development as a function of management's sustained subjective moral interest in the continuous survival of their organisations.
To achieve the aim more effectively, we explore the meaning of sustainable development (hereafter referred to as SD) first. This is because the concept (SD) is an illuminating and powerful starting point for considering dispositions toward the future, especially in relation to the present (Sen, 2002).

Sustainable Development: The Vital Modality for Rationalising Ethics of Posterity
Because EIJ is conventionally concerned with moral justice or equity (interpreted in distributive sense) with respect to obligating to the future, SD becomes the vital tool for rationalising it (the justice). This is so because, in agreement with A. Sen's observation above, SD is the modality with which the relationship between the conduct and its character of justice are made sensible. Accordingly, SD "allows many different interpretations notably concerning its precise requirements in terms of equity and how the likely trade-offs between the demands of its intragenerational and intergenerational conceptions of justice are to be dealt with" (Boulanger, 2013: 1). Conventionally, SD is considered to rationalise equity as fairness. Accordingly, its intragenerational moral function is principally to assess whether all living people in a village, community, city, state, country or the entire world have similar rights and opportunities or basic needs to maintain an acceptable quality of life. On the other hand, its intergenerational moral function entails striking a reasonable balance between satisfying present needs and setting aside enough resources to provide for the needs of future descendants.
Since M. Jacobs (1999), however, the foregoing view has been and is still being contested (cf. Boulanger, Op. Cit. 1). The contest is mainly over SD not being rendered in such a way that it satisfactorily portrays justice (which it discusses) as a theoretical or purely philosophical (i.e. ethical) subject (Ibid, 1). What holds, against the ethical element, is rather presenting justice as a global political objective based on some informal intuitions regarding intra-and intergenerational equity and the strong feeling that owing to the limits of nature and the environment we can bear in mind only moderate ambitions in both respect (Ibid, 1).
Due to the debates and owing to SD's broad capacity for economico-political moral persuasiveness, the United Nations (UN) (which considers it -SD -as a tool for effectively negotiating and actualising its objectives) got interested in the politics of defining the concept too. It, subsequently, emerged with the oft-cited definition of SD as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs" (Brundtland/WCED, 1987: 43). And this has since been generally found to be more comprehensive and, therefore, acceptable than previous definitions.
But, the UN definition still reserves some problems. Its major difficulty still lies in the insufficiency of representing SD philosophically. A more critical scrutiny of the definition still reveals it as being more political, economic, and environmental than ethical (Boulanger,Op. Cit. 1). Or, put differently, it is still too scientific and more materialistic than moral (which it ought to be). P. M. Boulanger (2013, 1) buttresses this observation by stating that "what is specific to SD, and which probably explains its astonishing success is that it focuses on the relationships between economic growth and the environment at the global level as a concern both of inter-and intergenerational equity." It is concerned with "production and consumption patterns whose ecological efficiency and social equity it attempts to improve" (Ibid, 1).
In further identifying reasons for its moral deficit, Boulanger considers (and rightly so) that standard definition of SD is (1) not a full-fledged philosophical theory of justice but only a political agenda to which existing governments could commit themselves and, (2) aims at forcefully gluing together concerns for the future and with the present (Ibid, 2). Citing T. Benton (1999: 202), Boulanger explains that the concept lacks the elegance and consistency of a well-formed ethical theory because both intragenerational and intergenerational justice (which it tries to rivet together), when taken separately, pose some hard philosophical and even political problems.
One major philosophical problem is bridging the temporal gap between living people and future world, as a basis for the obligation. In fact, given the moral prescriptions of EIJ above, a no-obligationist temper (i.e. anti-obligation movement) had to emerge to challenge and reject all obligationist arguments (i.e. proobligation views) for the obligation on the basis of the problem. The no-obligationists, which includes scholars like Daniel Callahan (1971), R. L. Heilbroner (1981), T. H. Thompson (1981), Garret Hardin (1981), Norman Care (1982), Jan Narveson (2011) argue that posterity's existential status (going by the definition of posterity above) does not permit a thorough-going relation between them and living people (as is necessary for actualising the obligation). This is because the posterity concerned comprises those that are presently nonexistent (see Care, 1982;Narveson, 2011). They belong to atemporal or supratemporal realm of existence.
And such condition of existence makes them (i.e. posterity) too empirically and temporally distant, socially unconnected and, thus, physically inaccessible to living persons (who ought to be their benefactors) to carry out their obligations of benefaction (as obtained in relationships among contemporaries) (Meyer, 2010).
Human beings, as the position considers, are incapable of bridging such temporal distances or penetrating such supratemporal realms of existence (that posterity dwells) to relate with entities inhabiting such realm (as posterity).
Further into the problem, conventional obligationist theories of EIJ present the obligation as though it is an unequivocal universal norm (Weiss, 1984). By this, the morality is generally portrayed as a responsibility emanating from universal, objective or absolute principles of social, religious and institutional characterisa-Ethics of Posterity and its Implication for Sustainable Industrial Development tions of human life. People are expected and urged to live posterity-friendly lives because the conduct is socially, religiously or institutionally considered to be good, right, just, and thus, generally stipulated as an acceptable way of living by the characterisations. In other words, the moral rationalisation of the "rightness" or "justice" of the conduct is shown to reside, on one hand, in ethical principles stipulated by institutions of social control such as customs and traditions, law and conventions, religion (as in Aquinas' universal essence of truth and Ndubuisi's instruments of social control) or internal moral soundness of norms (where it is considered that there is something intrinsically valuable in a conduct itself, which makes it imperative to be undertaken -as in Kant) (Aquinas, 1995;Ndubuisi, 2010;Kant, 1785). On the second hand, it lies in the prospect for moral consequences of the intrinsically valuable. Accordingly, since actions produce outcomes which can be morally evaluated, the obligation is considered to be justified by the prospects of better future that it holds. At this instance, it is said to be morally right, good or just, for example, to act for posterity because doing so would leave the world a more conducive place to advance life.
Edith Weiss (1984) presents the above obligationist position in a clearer and more concise manner, where she says that the obligation is established and supported by ethical (moral rationality) and religious moral principles as well as various international instruments of justice such as Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a host of other conventions and declarations that are concerned with dignity, worth and progress of mankind (Ibid, p.544). Weiss further asserts that, due to its universal normative status, the obligation can be seen as an emerging norm of customary international law. And this is evident in the treaty-generated custom of the "common heritage of mankind" (Ibid, p.544).
This translates to EIJ being conventionally assumed as a morality motivated by objective deontological or consequentialist moral valuation of human conduct (Bickham, 1981;Wissenburg, 2011;Beckerman, 2006). Accordingly, justice in the conduct consists in acting for posterity from either standpoints -as a moral rule or command; or rule of law (Deadlock, 2012;Ndubuisi and Nathaniel, 2002). Failure to do so constitutes negligence, injustice and defiance. Scholars who hold the deontological view include John Rawls (1971), Ernest Partridge (1976), J. P. Martino (1982), Gro Brundtland or World Commission on Environmental Development (WCED) (1987), Brian Barry (1989), and Avner De-Shalit (1995), et cetera. And those who hold the consequentialist perspective include Tim Mulgan (2006), et cetera.
To this understanding of motivation assumptions for the obligation, we observe that traditional obligationist theories contribute more to dissuading people from caring for the future than encouraging them (as originally intended). This is because, by the objectivity of the deontology and consequentialism, obligationists neglect interpreting the moral perception and responsibility as individuals' subjective tendency, desire and volition to care for or be just, good, and heroic to others (in our case, posterity). They rather superimpose it (the care) on impersonal factors that merely "command" people to undertake the obligation instead of admonishing them to do so (on the basis of inevitable personal involvement and responsibility for determining conditions of future life) (see Bickham, 1981). It is as a consequence of this problem that Norman Care (Op. Cit.,[195][196][197][198][199][200][201][202][203][204][205][206][207][208][209][210][211][212][213][214], for instance, vehemently states that posterity's interests cannot interest living people because living people have no bond with future persons. There is no "sense of belonging to some joint (reciprocal) enterprise and we feel no extended or unbounded shared-fate motivation. There is no sense of common humanity".
The point we are making here is that traditional motivation assumptions for EIJ is urged by extraneous absolute authorities which dispassionately dictate compliance rather than solicit voluntary personal responsibility for it. The condition signals repudiation of personal decision, interest in and commitment to the morality. And that discourages individuals from acting for posterity as such. It is this situation that informs the usual withdrawal and unconcern to posterity-related admonitions and projects evident among current generation. It is the reason why all forms of future-harmful practices inundating the current world are perpetrated. More importantly, it, together with the consciousness of the above problem with posterity's existential status (in relation to living people), are the reasons why prevailing definitions of SD are bereft of philosophically persuasive meaning. The questions that rear up at this juncture is: how can the problem be resolved for SD to be accorded a persuasive philosophical interpretation? In response to the question we observe that what is required by no-obligationists from any theoretical paradigm seeking to sufficiently inspire, attain and sustain individuals' commitment to the obligation is to first acknowledge the non-existence of posterity and its concomitant disconnection from living people and current world, then articulate the existence and connection and, finally, work out the responsibility as a function of the existence and connection.
And since existing obligationist theories lack the capacity for that requirement, we offer to provide it in this essay. Accordingly, we consider that the solution lies in a sojourn into metaphysics of man (strictly called "fundamental ontology"). This is because, for us, the question of human relations with the future involves interrogation of human behavioural relations beyond immediate time. And metaphysics is the science of such beyondness. As science of beyondness, metaphysics deals with ultimate nature of things, involving relations, interconnections and interpenetrations that transcend palpable reality (Unah, 2010). As fundamental ontology, it deploys phenomenological method of inquiry to study what belongs to human nature in general or what it means to exist precisely as a human being (Unah, 2002a). An aspect of such meaning involves analysis of human being in time. Since Martin Heidegger had already articulated a fundamental ontology that plausibly discusses this sort of relations, we subsequently consider adapting some aspects of his monumental insights to achieve our objective. It is, however, necessary to note first that Heidegger did not articulate any explicit theory of moral responsibility to posterity. Accordingly, our discussion of his theory in this essay is not a ratification of such theory of his (because there is none) but an extrapolation of his popular theory of Being for the moral import. Knowing full well that there are objections against interpreting Heidegger's theory of Being ethically because it (the theory) has a pure descriptive mission and Heidegger himself is said to have denied that his philosophy had any social mission (see Copleston, 1979;Harris, 1976), we posit that no existentialist theory (like Heidegger's) functions in a purely descriptive manner. This is because "any genuine analysis of man cannot entirely be devoid of valuation and exhortation" (Unah, 1996: 175). Heidegger's analysis of human being could not have been complete without moral valuation or exhortation. For how can we make pure descriptive sense of concepts like authenticity and inauthenticity, which he postulated and which bear apparent exhortative connotations? According to Karsten Harris, (1976) even Heidegger eventually "acknowledges that finally we cannot divorce ontological inquiry from the concrete stance of the inquirer...Heidegger's ontological analysis thus shows the purity of fundamental ontology to be an illusion" Ethics of Posterity and its Implication for Sustainable Industrial Development Be that as it may, we are to discover that Heidegger's philosophy takes off by taking human consciousness as the basic constitutive element of experience (Heidegger, 1977: 193-194). Accordingly, it holds that consciousness dowers each individual with three inter-related traits that connects posterity with them, establishes their (posterity) existence, and motivates inevitable subjective obligation for them (posterity). The traits include power of finite transcendence, power of temporality, and power of care.
By finite transcendence, human beings possess the infinite ability to go beyond any given state of affairs to the reason why that state comes to be (Unah, 2002a: 83-85). This is possible in and through thought; because human beings think (Heidegger, 1977: 193-194). Indeed, human beings are the only entities in the world that think (Ibid.). Human thinking nature is the reason why individuals are the only entities that are properly arrogated the notion of existence. All other entities are just there. They do not exist; because they do not and cannot think (Heidegger, 1956: 215).
Consciousness dowers individuals with the ability to project into nothingness to establish foundations and interconnectivity of phenomena and life (Ndubuisi, 2004(Ndubuisi, /2005. It is through thought that individuals make meaning of existence. It is through transcendental thinking that they possess the ability to penetrate all realms of existence including that which may be considered as supervoid, atemporal or supratemporal (of past and future), while in their concrete presence, in order to interpret life meaningfully (Heidegger, 1977: 61-64). This is how they stay connected with posterity of any projectable time and determine their (posterity) life right in the present. Thinking, according to Heidegger, is an activity which defines and establishes being.
And, it (thinking) constantly occurs in time. Heidegger says that time is the transcendental horizon with which man tacitly understands and interprets Being (Heidegger, 1977: 61-63). And, this is possible in terms of its (man's) own temporal being. This means that individuals are temporal beings (Ibid). They temporalise existence in order to interpret the meaning of life (Heidegger, 1962: 370-488).
Human existential structure involves modes of time -past (Geworfenheit), present (Verfallen) and future (Verstehen) (Ibid, 39-41). At any point individuals seek concrete meaning of life, it is often in inevitable relation to these modes of time (i.e. their past and future, while in concrete present) (Ibid, 169-219).
Both physico-temporal existence and non-existence; presence and absence (which no-obligationists attempt to demarcate) belong together -in the structure of human existence (which thinks about them, for the purpose of meaning-making). It is because human beings are bundles of consciousness who interpret their daily lives in time that existence (which they themselves are) and non-existence (which dialectically affirms the existence that they are -in negation) become symbiotically interrelated for meaning-making. For, to understand existence, an individual (as a bundle of consciousness) only needs to contemplate non-existence and vice-versa. Existence and non-existence of human being only appeal as opposites and parallels when subjected to scientifico-logical or abstract-rational analysis. Concretely, in daily life experiences of what it means to be human species, they jointly present the conditions that make living meaningful. There is no such demarcation.
Consequent upon the foregoing, the denial of posterity's existence by no-obligationists is considered to involve fundamental (self) contradiction. This is because in the same breathe of denial the no-obligationists -as conscious human individuals who could think (transcendentally imaginatively) of the physico-temporal non-presence of the entities (as a problem) -inadvertently assert posterity's existence. Similarly, the view that posterity is unconnected with living obligers is self-contradictory because the very contemplation of the non-connection connects the thinker (of the non-connection) with them (posterity). Given this backdrop, arguments against obligating to posterity due to posterity's non-existence and its concomitant non-connection are to be disregarded because posterity exists. At another level of theoretical extrapolation from Heidegger's fundamental ontology to motivate obligation to the future, it is pertinent to note that Heidegger submits that among the three modes of time existentiality is particularly characterised with projections into the future (Verstehen) (Ibid,(182)(183)(184)(185)(186)(187)(188). Individuals' basic mode of living is futural -constantly projecting toward various possibilities that lay ahead-of-themselves. Even when they contemplate the past, whatever is the subject of contemplation is rendered meaningful in the next moment i.e. in constant relation to the future or what Heidegger refers to as "anticipatory resoluteness" (Ibid,(182)(183)(184)(185)(186)(187)(188). By anticipatory resoluteness, living is a purposeful futurity. It involves constant acting ahead (always in the next moment) to fulfill one's deep-seated hunger for self actualisation before the strike of death. All decisions, actions and policies made are realisable only in the future because the present is a constant fleeting moment -always tending to the future. Ultimately, therefore, human futural mode of living occasions constant personal connection with posterity, as every action directly determines what becomes the future (posterity).
In a third stream of our justification for moral obligation to posterity from Heideggerian subjective ontology, we find that human transcendental futural being involves average everyday living in care (or sorge) (Ibid, 237). Accordingly, individuals constantly engage in the business or activity of existing. By care does not mean that individuals approach life more fondly -with sympathy, kind-heartedness, empathy, et cetera. For, the opposite of such sentiments, namely, indifference, hostility or being unsympathetic, et cetera, would invalidate the trait. By the fundamental care or activity of existing that we identify here, even such sentiments as the latter form equal ways of engaging life. Hence, whatever people do in life (in thought or action); however they approach whatever they do (whether in sympathy or hostility; deontologically or teleologically, et cetera), they engage and manifest what it means to exist as individuals.
Dealing with the world in activity of existing entails dwelling (thinking) on every idea that confronts thought and mobilising (building) the thought (transcendental imagination) for decisions, actions and policies that transform human condition (Heidegger, 1971: 141-160). The transformation often materialises in the future.
And that demonstrates that individuals' basic worried caring-being, which is transcendental in imagination and anticipatory in resoluteness, often concretises existence in the future. Consequently, individuals, by virtue of their being as humans sustain a fine connection with the future in such a way that obligating to posterity is intricate to their existence. It is a responsibility ingrained in their ontological structure and, thus, inescapable. This is because they freely determine what future becomes and free actions bear responsibility.
While individuals may not admit that they live daily in accordance with the foregoing fundamental ontological tenets of moral obligation to posterity, it does not change the fact that that is their mode of being. The non-admittance is only a function of their non-awareness. Indeed, such non-acceptance of the position is, metaphysically, an activity in the direction of acceptance. For choicelessness is, metaphysically, Ethics of Posterity and its Implication for Sustainable Industrial Development a choice in itself. What is required, at that juncture, is to enlighten people about the moral implication of their daily lives, with respect to EP. There is need for some form of moral consciousness-raising or education. When people are educated about the morality in accordance with the analysis of this essay, we (like the familiar positions of Socrates and Plato on the relationship between education and morality) believe that they will realise the stark implication of their daily living, with respect to the burden of their responsibility to the future, and, thus, willingly engage in posterity-friendly conducts. Given our approach to obligation to posterity, SD would therefore be philosophically defined as an average everyday volition to create and maintain superior quality of life by living individuals. This takes into cognisance the need to satisfy both present and future broad needs of mankind (which the UN definition tries to articulate).
However, rather than characterise it by such economico-political elements as the UN definition, ours does so by fundamental ontologico-moral elements. First, by daily concern for creation of quality life, present needs of living individuals are satisfied. Second, by maintenance of the quality life, future needs are projected to be satisfied. Third (and this is the moral aspect), the creation and maintenance (as activities of daily existence) are carried out voluntarily by individuals. The volition is characterised by responsibility since responsibility follows freedom. Every action freely engaged to satisfy needs has responsibility attached to it. And the realisation of that responsibility is necessarily always futural (Birnbacher, 2006). In D. Birnbacher's words, responsibility is a moral condition, which if ...understood in an ex-ante or prospective way and referring to possibilities of conduct not yet realized, (it) is necessarily future-oriented. Therefore, we are always responsible -in terms of an obligation to concern -for actions or events which, from the subject of responsibility's point of view, take place in the future or at least reach into the future. Thus, responsibility as such means always and necessarily responsibility for the future (2006,39).
With this view of SD (and, by extension, EP), we move next to examine its implication to industrial sustainability.

Implications of Ethics of Posterity to Industrial Sustainability
Industries are not established to collapse or liquidate. To set up an industry so that it will collapse is, to say the least, a counter-intuitive, wasteful and inauthentic way of being. No normal individual or group of individuals engages in living in that way. Hence, when industries are set up, they are basically with the view to making them realise their primary objective(s) of being set up for a very long time to come. In this respect, calculated efforts are often deployed to acquire necessary materials, infrastructures, machines and personnel that would sustain the realisation of the organisational objective. Work etiquettes, laws and values (i.e. terms and conditions of employment and use of the facility) are also designed and given to employees to keep them working in a way that suits the organisation, especially in line with the realisation and sustenance of realisation of objectives. But industries still fold-up, liquidate or go-under -all over the world.
In Nigeria, for instance, there are the familiar cases of failed banks, among others. We once had prominent banks such as Oceanic, Societe Generale, Allied, Afri, Guaranty Trust, and so on. But they are all liquidated.
As a form of rescue, some of them had to merge with other banks that have better and more sustainable asset bases and managerial structures. The question that rears up here is: why do industries liquidate?
Liquidation of industry is often attributable to a number of factors, a lot of which are highly mechanical and technical. There are claims of electrical power insufficiency, obsoleteness of machines, insufficient financial or capital base, bad debts, and so on. Even though some of such claims may be true and have the tendency and potency to affect the smooth operation of industry -leading up to liquidation, our position is that the problems would not extend that far without a concomitant failure of the manager or captain of industry in his prerogative. In other words, in our view, every organisational or industrial fold-up is caused by the manager or captain.
No machine, for instance, can deteriorate up to a point where its inoperability leads to the liquidation of an organisation without the knowledge of the manager. No employee can be so deft in running down an organisation without the knowledge and approval of the chief executive officer (CEO). Organisations deteriorate up to a point of liquidation as managers intend it. Hence, in line with our moral view of both SD and EP in this essay, the responsibility of organisational fold-up or sustainability must be traced to the manager. It is non-transferable.
Looking at it more critically, industries cannot create and operate themselves without human beings.
Apart from the professional trainings which captains of industry have (which got them employed in their capacity in the first place), they also sustain personal moral outlook about the operation and sustainability of their organisations. Even though organisations often have their own core values that ought to drive the operations and sustainability, there is still a personal dimension to the values which the captains of management reserve. Where such personal moral reservations do not acquiesce with the organisational (or objective) values, there is always a clash of interests that eventually de-motivates the manager from actualising the organisational mandate. Hence, where a moral motivation prescribes adherence to organisational values and mandate by managers as a sense of duty that would guarantee sustainable operation of the industry without recourse to the personal moral variation in managerial dispositions, an organisation is bound to liquidate eventually. Or put differently, if a certified manager (say, a hard no-obligationist), who is not personally interested in the sustainable development of an organisation (for the benefit of posterity), is hired to manage its affairs (which ought to include sustenance of the organisation in perpetuity), the organisation will be led to fold up someday. This owes to the fact that the manager is unable to locate his personal interests, inspiration and responsibility as such in the organisational concerns for sustainable survival. It is this sort of situation that conventional deontological EP places individuals (i.e. the managers) and expects to achieve sustainability. But it fail eventually, because the assumption does not motivate the managers adequately.
Another dimension to failure in orthodox motivation for industrial sustainability is emphasis on managers to realise the objectives for which industries are set up, especially profit. This follows a consequentialist sense of moral valuation which emphasises prospects for outcome of an action as justification for an action.
What happens in this instance is that the manager is led to constantly consider his personal worth to the organisation as a profit-manufacturing too, and nothing more. More so, the profit constitutes the outcome which his performance is appraised. Consequent upon this, the manager eventually feels personally alienated Ethics of Posterity and its Implication for Sustainable Industrial Development from the job as the value that drives him is too impersonal to continually commit him to the job. Even if he partakes in sharing the profit, he eventually becomes fatigued of the exercise and gains. Individuals suffer from diminishing marginal utility in economic gains such as money and other tangible incentives. Hence, because the job which ought to give him some creative sense of personal responsibility and fulfilment as such ceases to do so, he disconnects morally from it. His managerial efficiency dwindles. And that leads the organisation to an eventual halt.
With orthodox moral motivation for industrial sustainability it is very apparent that (some) mangers are bound to be too myopic in assessing, understanding and sharing essences of long-term organisational survival. This is because they only see themselves as agents that are merely required to adhere to organisational moral rules to achieve targets. They are oblivious of their personally moral connection with and responsibility to "the future" of the organisation. Hence, such short-sightedness becomes the leading factor for eventual industrial liquidations. But, we have a dimension to the motivation, which if successfully explored and applied, can save the situation and boost managers drive for organisational sustainability. Given our view of EP and SD above, we hold that while managers struggle to achieve organisational objectives, they are not to do so merely as agents of industrial rules of operation. They are see themselves (and be seen by their employers) as responsible individuals who are to make decisions and policies or act in their free personal capacities to benefit the world at large for a very long time to come (say, beyond their lifetimes). They are to be led by the consideration that all their decisions, actions and policies determine what becomes of and what will be bequeathed to posterity, with respect to survival of the industry. In other words, someday, depending on the survival status of the industry (either liquidated or flourishing), they (captains of industry) would have to be held accountable. At such time, it is their personal creativity (i.e. ability to think committedly outside the box of rules and regulations) in steering the industrial wheel of their organisational gallant-survival that would be considered and emphasised in the stewardship, and not potency or their faithfulness in the following of organisational rules. Condemnation or commendation of their character and achievement would be based on such personal sense of responsibility to the organisation and the world. With commendation (which is the expected result of this theory), it means that the life of the organisation or industry and its business would have been sustained.

Conclusion
This essay discussed implications of EP to sustainable industrial development. In making its point, it reflected on conventional ways in which industrial sustainability used to be rendered, identified its weaknesses, and offered corrections. Against the impersonal orthodox ways of conceiving moral motivation to both EP and SD, especially in relation to industry, it specifically introduced a personal dimension. It posited that the new dimension would inspire more commitment to industrial sustainability among captains of industry. While the essay might not have applied familiar commercial and economic terms associated with industrial discourses in its discussion, we admit the strategy is both deliberate and technical. It is deliberate because this is a philosophical discourse. As such, we are not only interested in scoring a point in our argument but also exposing our readership in industrial research, management and training to the possibility of ratiocinating their specialised problems and prospects philosophically. It is technical because as a philosophical discourse we cannot help but render it intelligible philosophically. We implore our readers, consequently, to read it with philosophic insight, identify our strong points and apply them rationally -with wider commercial and economic interpretations at their disposal -to the ultimate benefit of sustainable industrial development.