Nearly every day we make decisions about whether we can “afford” something. We make these sorts of decisions so often that the sheer regularity of this activity may conceal how this process relies upon a complex and intricately worked-out logic. Concerns range from mundane to important issues such as “can I afford blueberries in February,” “can I afford to take that holiday,” or “can I afford an eggnog latte today?” And, depending on how you think about eggnog lattes, “affordability” may not only involve money. Each of these considerations involves a balancing of “goods” against possible “bad” outcomes. I have yet to find someone who lacks conviction about what they can and cannot afford, and this is for good reason, as I think our thinking about “affordability” is one of the last outposts of political identity in our societies. We may choose to go against our regular practice, breaking a tendency to avoid expensive groceries because you will have special guests over for dinner you’d like to spoil, or spending extravagantly on travel (as our family often does!) to visit someone special you love. It is also important to acknowledge that these decisions almost always involve a mixture of good and bad outcomes – we hope that the good will outweigh the bad. Our family occasionally chooses to fly across the Atlantic, knowing full well the painful carbon footprint and fossil fuel expenditure involved in such travel, because we have deemed the good outcomes of strengthening relationships with friends and family in person to result in a net outcome which is more good than bad. In his most recent book, Oliver O’Donovan describes this process of thinking through things as practical moral reasoning. As a professional ethicist, part of my job involves working with people to slow down these processes of decision making and scrutinise them for unnoticed bad outcomes or to notice under-appreciated good outcomes.

To take my description of these decisions about affordability a bit further, there are also factors which we often don’t consider which form the backdrop for our decision making process, they constrain or frame our thinking in certain ways. One of these factors is imagination: as our conception of the horizons of what is possible or permissible may close down our process of decision making. Another, perhaps even more neglected aspect is the way we think of time.

We are so often surrounded by devices which parcel out time in mathematic intervals–clocks, smartphones, computers–that it may seem strange for me to suggest that conceptions of time are flexible. Even though seconds and minutes march on, the way we appreciate time can actually be quite changeable. Think of the last time you took a vacation – if you’re anything like me, there is a good chance you deliberately tried to avoid thinking about the clock in order to relax and detach from worrying about time in small parcels. You wanted to think about open-ended days rather than parcelled out minutes (such as watching the clock as it gets closer and closer to the end of a work day). Children can be another factor which gives us reason to change our conception of time. When we think about budgets and what we can afford, it is often possible to think on a weekly or monthly basis – judging what we can afford from one paycheck to the next, or for the more careful among us, from year to year, calculating our savings towards retirement. Yet, taking on the responsibility of a child involves a stretching out of our timeliness, as we appreciate how this small person is utterly contingent upon our provision, and that their needs may extend beyond our lifetime.

I believe we are stuck making decisions about affordability with a massively limited conception of time. When we make decisions about affordability, we have in mind the consequences of such an expenditure on our weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. Yet all three of these are still limited, as they lack an inter-generational reference. What if we were to approach every decision about affordability based on how it would affect not only our personal monthly budget (short term) or retirement savings (long term?), but the well-being of future generations? As I’ve already noted above, we often decide to circumvent our normal logic about affordability in a sacrificial way for a special circumstance, whether it be hospitality, love, or a need for some fun in the midst of a dreary time. However, our conceptions of what is an allowable sacrifice are so often based on very narrow and individualistic conceptions of timeliness. As we begin a new year and chart our personal goals and consider how we may participate in broader social and political goals, it is worth considering whether our grandchildren and great-grandchildren can afford for us to cut-corners on regulation because it will “slow” the economy (a year or decade without economic growth may be a long or short time depending on your “timing”), or whether they can afford for us to continue to deplete fossil fuel reserves, minerals, and water availability, or whether any of us can afford to build homes, drive vehicles, use devices and wear clothing which breaks quickly and sit useless in a landfill. It is not merely a matter of whether we think about what we can afford in a sacrificial way, but of who we’re willing to make a sacrifice for.