 While the circumstances of justice clearly hold among contemporaries, the contractors cannot know whether previous generations have saved for them. Why then should they agree to save for future generations? In A Theory of Justice (1971: 284–293), Rawls stipulates “a motivational assumption” according to which the contractors care for their descendants so that they will want to agree to save for their successors—irrespective of whether previous generations saved for them (for criticism see, e.g., Hubin 1976/77: 70–83; English 1977: 91–104; Heyd 1992: 41–51). In Political Liberalism, Rawls withdraws this motivational assumption. He now understands previous generations’ non-compliance with a just savings principle as a problem of non-ideal theory (Rawls 1993: 274, fn. 12; for criticism see, e.g., Dasgupta 1994: 107–108).The original position, however, belongs to ideal theory: strict compliance with whatever principles are agreed on is assumed (Rawls 1971: 144–145). Rawls introduces problems of partial and non-compliance only at the level of non-ideal theory (Rawls 1971: ch. iv). In accordance with this understanding of ideal theory, Rawls assumes that the generations are mutually disinterested. He takes the contractors to agree to a savings principle 