From intergenerational equity to intergenerational stewardship |
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| Authors: | David W. Hart Gary C. Cornia |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Rockefeller School of Public Affairs , State University of New York at Albany , Albany, New York;2. Marriott School of Management , Brigham Young University Provo , 84602, Utah |
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| Abstract: | This essay borrows from our civic humanist tradition to present an alternative to the more dominant neo-utilitarian approach to evaluating current decisions and their potential burden on future generations. The analysis first focuses on financial debt, and then applies the framework beyond the realm of financial policy. The framework exposes some limitations in the rational-quantitative approach to policy decision, and embraces the art of stewardship as a more encompassing and appropriate role in public life. Stewardship brings intergenerational obligations to bear on decisions that current analytic techniques fail to regard as meaningful. The ways and means of stewardship are matters more of prudent judgment and passionate commitment to ways of life than of rigorous analytic precision. [A] man owes it to his children, to his neighbors to secure their future and rescue their lives from impediments to holiness and happiness. Therefore he has no right to acquiesce in tyrannical and immoral government. Lord Acton(1) |
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