Existential Public Value

The most existential public value is the maintenance of an environment in which mankind can at least survive. Climate change is an emergent existential threat. This article draws on the author’s contribution to a workshop that examined the understanding of public value and its relevance to theory and practice of public policy. Its methodology links thinking, jurisprudence, and practice in the responsibilities of public officers with the public administration concept of public value. Accordingly, public administration is executed by public officers who have fiduciary duties to act in the best interests of the people represented, and responsibilities under the public trust principle which entrust them with responsibility for the polity’s common good. Selected recent instances demonstrate increasing recognition by superior courts that public administrators have responsibilities to foster the creation of existential public value. Public administration scholars have opportunity and responsibility to promote these responsibilities.