Philanthropy and Intergenerational Justice Page 1 of 22 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2017. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: Harvard University Library; date: 13 November 2017 Institutions For Future Generations Iñigo González-Ricoy and Axel Gosseries Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780198746959 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2017 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198746959.001.0001 Philanthropy and Intergenerational Justice Chiara Cordelli Rob Reich DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198746959.003.0014 Abstract and Keywords Although intergenerational family transfers of private wealth should be limited on grounds of intergenerational justice, these same grounds can provide states with reasons to support intergenerational charitable transfers of private wealth. This is because, given their distinctive governance structure and ability to exist over long time horizons, philanthropic institutions, unlike the nuclear family, can and should play three distinctive roles in helping a society fulfil its intergenerational obligations. First, they can be harnessed to counteract the short-termism and presentism of the democratic process, in a way that promotes the long-term interests of future generations. Second, they can supplement political institutions in fulfilling the ultimate purpose of the just savings principle, in circumstances where a regression from the steady-stage state to the accumulation stage is possible but highly unlikely. Third, they can complement political institutions in securing the reproduction of a particular form of capital—social capital—over time. Keywords: philanthropy, charity, intergenerational justice, justice across generations, liberalism, John Rawls, social capital, risk, democracy University Press Scholarship Online Oxford Scholarship Online