The highly controversial concept of intergenerational discounting refers to the idea of valuing the welfare, utility, or resources of future generations less than the present ones. In economics, a range of tools has been developed to perform intergenerational discounting. These tools also incorporate a number of ethical judgments. In the context of climate change, intergenerational discounting thus sits rather uneasily between the concerns of climate economics and climate ethics. In this paper, I set out to untangle ethical and economic aspects in intergenerational discounting. To do so, I analyse controversies about intergenerational discounting from a measurement perspective. By measurement perspective, I mean to ask how quantities represent qualitative concepts and properties. In the context of intergenerational discounting, we can ask accordingly: What concepts and properties are represented by intergenerational discounting factors? Which ethical and conceptual assumptions are inherent in the prevalent methodologies of intergenerational discounting? Answering these questions, I present a thorough critique of the prevalent methodologies of intergenerational discounting, and sketch an alternative. This alternative makes both ethical and economical judgments more transparent, a methodological feature that is urgently needed in advancing discussions about climate ethics and climate economics.
