 Another problem facing any social contract theory concerns our obligations to future people. It is hard to see how we can have any obligations to such people, as they cannot be parties to our contract. This is principally because of the absence of any possibility of mutually advantageous interaction between distant generations. The quality of life of future generations depends to a very large extent on the decisions of the present generation. By contrast, our quality of life is not affected at all by their decisions. We can do a great deal to (or for) posterity but posterity cannot do anything to (or for) us. This power imbalance is often characterised in terms of the absence of Hume’s “circumstances of justice”. (The phrase is borrowed from Rawls 1971, pp. 126–130.)