While acknowledging the absence of a single definition or theory of sustainability, this paper argues that a discussion of sustainability which refers only to definitions is pointless without an understanding of how the definitions are operationalised. In this context, the paper considers the operationalisation of strong sustainability. The definitions and operationalisation of strong sustainability most closely associated with (i) neoclassical environmental economics and (ii) ecological economics are discussed and compared. This analysis raises questions about the extent to which ecological economics (...) has been able to influence real-world decisions and policy. The paper ends by considering whether the economic and political power structure taken as given by ecological economics is compatible with its policy perspective. (shrink)

Cost-benefit analysis is widely acknowledged to be an appropriate tool for providing advice to policy makers on the optimal use and management of natural resources. However, a great deal of research has indicated that the assumptions made in cost-benefit analysis concerning the natural environment diverge from real world observations. In this paper I discuss these observed divergences. To do so, I introduce the concept of Natura economica. Natura economica is the environment as it is understood in economic analysis in general, (...) and cost-benefit analysis in particular, namely as a bundle of commodities with potential market value. I argue that if this understanding of nature and its value is very different from what is generally observed, it reduces the value of the resulting policy recommendations. I then suggest four questions that policy makers should ask when they evaluate their choice of appraisal methods. If the answer is 'yes' to all of them, then cost-benefit analysis can provide valid information. However, if the answer to any of these questions is 'no', other methods, such as multicriteria analysis and participatory processes, should be considered in order to arrive at better-founded policy recommendations. (shrink)

Although the ecological tradition tends to favour a substantive role for non-market institutions in securing objectives such as environmental sustainability, Green theorists have paid relatively little attention to the important challenge posed to such proposals by the pro-market arguments of Austrian economics. The methods of ecological economics, such as multiple criteria evaluation, offer important potential for responding to the Austrian thesis that democratic, non-market institutions face a coordination problem in the face of complexity. However, the development of an adequate ecological (...) response to the Austrians requires clarification of the conceptual underpinnings and potential scope of such methods. (shrink)

This essay examines the issue of false assumptions in models via a case study of a prominent economic model of sustainable development, wherein the assumption of an infinite future plays a central role. Two proposals are found to be helpful for this case, one based on the concept of derivational robustness and the other on understanding. Both suggest that the assumption of an infinite future, while arguably legitimate in some applications of the model, is problematic with respect to what I (...) call “Parfitian” welfare functions. This result is relevant to debates about discounting the future in economics and environmental ethics. (shrink)

Cost-benefit analysis is widely acknowledged to be an appropriate tool for providing advice to policy makers on the optimal use and management of natural resources. However, a great deal of research has indicated that the assumptions made in cost-benefit analysis concerning the natural environment diverge from real world observations. In this paper I discuss these observed divergences. To do so, I introduce the concept of Natura economica. Natura economica is the environment as it is understood in economic analysis in general, (...) and cost-benefit analysis in particular, namely as a bundle of commodities with potential market value. I argue that if this understanding of nature and its value is very different from what is generally observed, it reduces the value of the resulting policy recommendations. I then suggest four questions that policy makers should ask when they evaluate their choice of appraisal methods. If the answer is 'yes' to all of them, then cost-benefit analysis can provide valid information. However, if the answer to any of these questions is 'no', other methods, such as multicriteria analysis and participatory processes, should be considered in order to arrive at better-founded policy recommendations. (shrink)

The relationship between knowledge and values, experts and lay people, represents a major issue of the debate involving environment and technology. There is a growing awareness that the connection between value commitments and technical solutions, scientific expertise and lay competence, is much more entangled than once was believed. The article deals with this issue by analysing Robert Dahl's `minipopulus' and Silvio Funtowicz and Jerry Ravetz's `extended peer communities' arguments. They are subsequently inserted into the sociological debate which is, at present, (...) considerably influenced by the reflexive modernization framework. As a result, Ulrich Beck's and Anthony Giddens' theories appear as one of four ideal-typical approaches to the social construction of the issues that can be outlined, according to the priority assigned to knowledge versus power and nature versus society. The idea of an `extended peer review' of problems and solutions is remarkably close to the deliberative democracy concept. However, the high level of uncertainty characterizing major environmental and technological questions suggests that a `strong' version of deliberative democracy, such as the Discourse Ethics proposed by Habermas, is untenable in its search for a universal, rational consensus on the normative grounds of action. Thus it is necessary to develop a `weak' interpretation of the extended peer review, exploring the possibility of fair and stable agreements on bounded, practical solutions to bounded, practical problems. (shrink)

Aspirations for global justice have, in the last two decades, found their most radical expressions in the context of global environmental governance and climate change. From Rio de Janeiro through Kyoto to Copenhagen, demands for international distributional justice, and especially North–South equity, have become a prominent aspect of international environmental negotiation. However, claims for international environmental and climate justice have generally been deployed in the form of instinctive gut reaction than as a closely argued concept. In this paper, I outline (...) the ways in which issues of international justice intertwine with notions of global environmental sustainability and the basic premises on which claims for North–South equity are entrenched. (shrink)

: Recently a number of influential academic environmentalists have spoken out against wilderness, most prominently William Cronon and J. Baird Callicott. This is odd, given that these writers seem to support two cornerstone positions of environmentalism as it has developed over the past twenty years: first, the view articulated within environmental ethics that wild, nonhuman nature, or at least some parts of it, has intrinsic or inherent value; second, the understanding developed within conservation biology that we have entered a period (...) of massive anthropogenic biodiversity loss and that landscape-level habitat preservation is essential for combating this. I argue here that Cronon and Callicott are wrong. In fact, an ethics of respect for nonhuman nature and an informed, scientific understanding of what is necessary to preserve it do strongly support increased wilderness preservation. (shrink)

The first part of this book - consisting of chapters 2, 3 and 4 - is a philosophical exploration of the characteristics of an economics that intends to be relevant for the problem of sustainability. In chapter 2, 1 will analyse economic and political theories as conceptual constructs referring to the economic and political sphere respectively. I will argue that such conceptual constructs inevitably are value-laden and that, hence, different conceptual constructs of the same sphere can exist. I will argue, (...) moreover, that and why it is important to distinguish between the economic and the political sphere. I will derive the latter arguments from a confrontation between Buchanan's and Arendt's political theory.In chapter 3, 1 will discuss an economy as consisting of two dimensions, a symbolic or institutional one and an ecological one. Such interpretation will allow us to understand the ecological performance of an economy as the counterpart of its institutional organisation. I will further argue that, in order to get insights into the internal relationships between an economy and its ecological performance, we need insights into the institutional whole of an economy. And I will elaborate on what I mean by "an institutional whole". I will suggest that it is a matter of conceptually analysing different types of economic institutions and different hierarchies of institutions. Chapter 3 will thus offer us some substantive norms for an economics that aims at contributing successfully to the political objective of "sustainability".In chapter 4, 1 will derive four norms for the nature, rather than the content, of a politically successful economics. I will suggest that a politically successful economics should, to start with, be objective in the sense that it should aim at intersubjective consensus among economists. Objectivity as intersubjective consensus does, however, not imply neutrality. I will suggest, further, that economics should provide economic policy with insights, rather than instruments. This means that economics should aim at description and explanation, not at prescription and prediction. I will assert, finally, that economics should be rather impartial than partial. It should explain economic sources of political inequality and contribute to political freedom. Both Arendt's interpretation of politics as a deliberative democracy and Weber's and Neurath's philosophical reflections on the nature of the social sciences will function as the breeding ground for these norms.In the second part of this book, i.e., chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8, 1 will confront the norms developed concerning both the content and the nature of an ecologically successful economics with the writings of David Pearce and Daniel Bromley. Chapters 5 and 7 are a substantive reconstruction of Pearce's and Bromley's theoretical work respectively, Chapters 6 and 8 are an analysis of the nature of their economics. Chapters 5 and 7 will make clear to what extent their writings comply with the substantive norm 1 propose in chapter 3. Chapters 6 and 8 will illuminate to what extent their writings meet the four norms suggested , in chapter 4, for the nature of an ecologically successful economics.Part 1 and 11 will be closed by chapter 9, in which 1 will give an overview of the main conclusions of this research project. (shrink)

This treatise presents a transcendental argument for corporate social responsibility. The argument is that corporate social responsibility, or CSR, is best understood as a collective moral practice that is a precondition for sustainable business. There are a number of theories and definitions of CSR in the contemporary business literature. These theories include considerations of economic, legal, social, and environmental notions of what a corporation ought to take responsibility for based on either motives or concerns of accountability for corporate acts. This (...) work focuses on economic theories. I analyze the distinction between the technical terms "responsibility" and "accountability" found in these theories. This enables me to explicate the meaning of corporate responsibility as it relates to the conditions of sustainable business activity. These conditions necessarily include moral content. In other words, this is an applied ethics project. First, I inquire into the intellectual history of the broader sense of corporate responsibility and review various contemporary notions of corporate social responsibility. My concern is whether these notions presuppose broader forms of moral responsibility to others as an obligation, moral responsibility for acts, or to be held morally responsible based on moral tendencies, particular motives, or resulting outcomes. This concern forms the basis of my consideration of the notions of individual and collective responsibility. The following work includes an analysis of the notion of human choice as a collective endeavor of institutional relationships and practice in the economic market system. I argue that corporate motives for moral interrelationships are necessarily implicit in biosocioeconomic multinational market enterprise. I conclude that an analysis of corporate community involvement may be found in a case study of Starbucks Coffee Company's efforts to practice CSR in particular coffee bean farming communities in developing countries. (shrink)