The first section of the book explores a reconsideration of the ethical foundations of ecological economics, beginning with a summary statement outlining what we consider to be the necessary basic elements of such foundations. It then proceeds through different articulations of the consequences of embracing these elements.
Summary Statement
We start from the belief that ecological economics has only begun to consider the radical implications of its original promise—that its journey is unfinished. Part of what is unfinished is the consideration of a new ethical foundation based on the insights of ecological economics, and this foundation cannot be laid without considering the implications of those insights. Among the reasons why the journey is unfinished are the following: (1) standard economics continues to mesmerize its possible critics; (2) there is appeal in tinkering around the edges of standard economics through various forms of what is usually referred to as “environmental economics”; and (3) it is immensely difficult to come to terms with the urgency and true dimensions of the planetary crisis—a difficulty shared with most people who have tried to face it.
The fundamental, original premise of ecological economics is to consider the human economy as embedded in and part of natural ecology—that is (among other things), the dynamics of the physical world—energy, matter, entropy, evolution, etc.—have been neglected by standard economics. Crucially, we now believe that this neglect imperils the present and future well-being of humanity and the other creatures with whom we share heritage and destiny. The extraordinary ethical shift that ecological economics needs to incorporate into its workings is that these physical demands have ethical implications; that is, ecological facts are values, and “is” has become “ought.” The German philosopher Hans Jonas made the fundamental point that there “ought” to be a continuation of “is,” otherwise there will no longer be any ethics or anything else; his “ontological imperative” therefore is that nothing should be done to threaten the continued flourishing of life on earth. These are ethical claims about the implications of certain qualities of the physical world.
Concerning the ethical foundations of ecological economics, we propose three interlocking postulates:
(1) Membership: Humans are members, not masters, of the community of life.
(2) Householding: The earth and the living systems on and in it should not be seen as merely “natural resources.” They are worthy of respect and care in their own right.
(3) Entropic Thrift: Low-entropy sources and sink capacities, the things that undergird life’s possibilities and flourishing, must be used with care and shared fairly. Ecological economics is inexorably and fundamentally about justice.
Taken together, these postulates can be understood—and should be lived—as foundational to an ethos of right relationship with life and the world. Versions of these postulates and their accompanying ethos can be found in indigenous and traditional economic systems, past and present, and we have much to learn from them.
SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS
“The Ethics of Re-Embedding Economics in the Real: Case Studies,” by Peter Timmerman
Peter Timmerman’s chapter presents a series of case studies or examples of economic systems that operate according to nonstandard economic theory as a way of illuminating economic elements, practices, and concepts that do not “fit” the theory. These case studies were also chosen for a number of other reasons, of which the most important is to highlight the fact that standard economic theory is anomalous in human history. It is based on a very specific range of assumptions drawn from a very specific period in modern history—a historical artifact of a particular period of thought and time rather than a universal truth. The alternative cases sketched out in this chapter range from hunter-gatherer economic practices (the Nayaka of India) through complex sustainable agricultural systems (Bali) to Western economic approaches that were consigned to the so-called dustbin of history (Aristotelean, medieval, etc.). They highlight social, cultural, physical, and ethical factors in actual economic practices throughout history and in contemporary life that have been eliminated, downplayed, or too narrowly construed by standard theory. These alternatives provide resources for reconsidering and recasting economics within a more “embedded” ecological and ethical world.
“Ethics for Economics in the Anthropocene,” by Peter G. Brown
Peter Brown argues that ecological economics has profound ethical implications. He points out that ethical systems typically have at least five features, although they can be weighted and may function extremely differently. These features are: a foundation or justification, postulates, structured principles or rules, virtues, and a guiding metaphor or ethos. First, to work toward an appropriate foundation, he grounds his argument in an affirmation of human life; however, he places the understanding of what life is in broader contexts (e.g., what it means to be a person). Then, as already outlined, Brown wishes us to accept the three interlocking postulates of membership, householding, and entropic thrift. Following on from these and moving forward to proposed principles or rules, Brown notes that ecological economics has an implicit structure of concern. These are matters of scale or size of the economy relative to the earth’s capacities, fair distribution of these capacities, and efficiency in allocation. Brown argues that each of these, although valid, has stronger ethical implications for the unfinished journey of ecological economics than has hitherto been explored. For example, although “efficiency” is a core concept in ecological economics, it remains constricted by the neoclassical conception. Once scale and distribution concerns have been met, a more complex and highly modified version of the neoclassical conception of efficiency comes into play. Brown further argues that in an enriched ethical perspective, notions like “virtue” become important as part of the emerging ethos of ecological economics. We require such virtues as courage, epistemological humility, and a sense of (and quest for) atonement for what has already been wrought by our carelessness and attempts at domination. Ultimately, however, we cannot take our first ethical step upon presumed ideas about what we ought to do. Rather, it must emerge from an empirical understanding of our place in a broader community of life.
“Justice Claims Underpinning Ecological Economics,” by Richard Janda and Richard Lehun
Richard Janda and Richard Lehun link the insights drawn from the previous two chapters by contrasting the constellation of justice claims recognized in the existing market economy with those that would be recognized in an ecological economy. The existing market economy has “flattened” possible conceptions of justice so as to include only the sum of individual preferences. Thus, it excludes any claims upon us from the world or from outside of ourselves, which can be called metaphysical claims. Absent an accounting for metaphysical claims, there is no exogenous principle that might serve to correct or adjust the outcomes of our preferences. Metaphysical justice claims, characteristic of premodern societies, were displaced and repressed by the Enlightenment project in the name of emancipation. Emancipation now confronts an impasse it created. Rather than the free will willing itself to be free, to use Hegel’s formula, the free will that is not other-regarding wills its own destruction in appropriating and depleting all life-support capacity. Ecological economics cannot maintain a justice conception that relies on a self-regarding calculus of utility functions. Rather, it must begin to model the interaction of self-regarding and other-regarding justice conceptions as it plots a trajectory toward fair and reproducible shares of Earth’s life-support capacity. Thus, it will expand its conception of the household and of its members and will shift attention to rendering justice with entropic thrift for present and future generations.
An ecological economy would thus not only be an economy of taking “resources” but also an economy of safeguarding the prospects of life into the future. This has practical, substantive implications. The governance of economic actors would have to be redesigned to ensure that they are accountable for producing environmental and social benefits, not only to produce return for shareholders. Economic transactions would have to be restructured so as to send both a price signal reflecting private utility and a social score reflecting the burden of the transaction on public goods. The tax regime would have to be reconceived so as to channel the resources of the gift economy into the environmental and social goods that are now depleted through collective action. Also, the basic policy framework for the deployment of economic instruments—cost-benefit analysis—would have to be replaced by a full life-cycle accounting scheme to ensure the mitigation of any effects of a project or activity that tend toward transgressing planetary boundaries. Nonetheless, any new justice model will entail new sets of unrecognized and unanticipated justice claims. Ecological economics should already begin to model the inadequacy of its emerging justice conception, particularly in its application to existing norms.