Although blame can enter the picture when forward-looking responsibilities are neglected, this is not the primary source of forward-looking responsibility's moral salience.

What is morally salient about forward looking collective responsibility? Backward looking collective responsibility, as we have seen, is morally salient because of its association with blameworthiness. Forward looking responsibility is not completely removed from considerations of blame—we sometimes blame those who fail to take their responsibilities seriously—but it is not morally salient because blame sometimes enters the picture. Instead, it is morally salient because we think that such respo