Hi everyone,

About a week or so ago Steve Bissell asked for some references to critiques
of utilitarian ethics as a basis for ethics and related literature
pertaining to cost benefit analysis.  I ran across the following book
review of John Foster's (no, not THAT John Foster) edited collection,
*Valuing Nature: Ethics, Economics, and the Environment* (London and NY:
Routledge, 1997).

For SB and others interested in environmental valuation, here is the overview:

"This is easily the best collection of articles on the subject of
environmental valuation that I have read.  The general level of the
exposition and scholarship of the fourteen chapters is very high and
skilful editing has ensured that, with minimal duplication, they all
address, from different angles, the central problem of how democratic
societies should reach the best decisions on matters that affect the
environment when one cannot rely on the algorithm of cost-benefit analysis
(CBA).  These include the usual topics of the commensurability of
environmental values with monetary values, moral commitment, the concepts
of 'existence values', the role of 'sustainability', the treatment of risk,
the role of 'deliberative democracy', and so on."

Obviously this is a pretty positive review, so perhaps Foster's book may be
of some use to Steve B.  The reviewer is Wilfred Beckerman, professor
emeritus in economics (I believe) at Oxford.  The remainder of the book
review quoted below should be of interest to those of you who are following
the environmental hate literature discussion.  :-)

(As an aside, please note also that Beckerman's review occurs in that
*notorious* UK wise-use quarterly rag, ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES.  <s>  So for
those list members who have been closely following the "guilt by
association" thread, it now might just be possible also to extend the
"anti-environmental hate propaganda" tag to anyone who has either published
in, and/or otherwise has been associated with the journal, ENVIRONMENTAL
VALUES. . . . )

Beckerman writes:

	"The fact is that, in the real world, one often has to choose
between devoting resources to some particular marginal environmental option
or to some other unspecified purpose that may be an improvement in health,
education, housing, or general consumption.  Cost-benefit analysis tries to
organise this particular input into the decision-making process.  If
environmentalism merely means that this is only a part of the input, and
not the whole of it, no educated economist would disagree.  Does it mean
more?

	"Judging by some of the contributions it does mean more.  For
example, after an excellent discussion of the 'public good' aspect of the
environment Michael Jacobs reflects the sentiments of many of the other
contributors when he says that '. . . many environmentalists have very
strong end-values.  They believe that the environment, broadly speaking,
should be protected: whether on grounds of intergenerational justice, the
rights of living things, the intrinsic value of nature, to preserve
cultural integrity or some combination of these' (p. 227).  Well, if that
is what they believe, it is not surprising that much of their advocacy does
not enjoy greater respect outside the charmed circle, for, apart from the
'cultural integrity point', which is too vague to be dealt with in a
summary manner, the other 'grounds' are surely all indefensible.

	"First, intergenerational justice must be a non-starter seeing that
future generations (of unborn people) cannot have any 'rights'.  Second, at
the price of finding myself in the same camp as Baird Callicott, I do not
believe that animals have 'rights' on any conventional meaning of the term,
although I believe that they, like future generations, do have 'ethical
standing' which obliges us to take account of the effect of our interests
on them.  Third, nature does not have 'intrinsic value' in the sense that
it has an objective value independent of the valuation that human beings
put on it.  Paradoxically, [John] O'Neill's fascinating exposition of the
conflict between what he calls the conflicting 'values' of the botanist and
the ornithologist (and that I would call their different marginal rates of
substitution at some particular point on their--probably
different--preference functions) flatly contradicts the objectivist view,
which O'Neill (1993) has effectively criticised elsewhere and that is
either explicit or implicit in many of the contributions, to the effect
that nature can have an intrinsic value independently of human valuers.
For suppose that, one day, after the human race has destroyed itself, the
planet is occupied by some aliens from outer space who dislike all our
mountains and trees since they prefer flat landscapes, or that the Earth is
taken over by camels who like deserts, or by alligators who prefer swamps.
What is left of the objective value of nature?

	"However admirable the contributions to this book may be and
however many valid points they may contain, they still serve to nourish
some of the confusions and exaggerations that are meat and drink to
environmental extremists."

Beckerman, Wilfred.  "Review of *Valuing Nature? Ethics, Economics and the
Environment*, John Foster (editor)."  ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES 9 (2000):
122-124.


jt
;-)


>Chris Perley wrote:
>
>> Dear Ted - your definition of "preservation" seems essentially to be
>> "protection" of nature.  I am all for that.
>
>    Well, of course, but why attack Nature preservationists, rather than the
>ones who are actually destroying Nature and the environment?  Why not label
>those that work to destroy Nature as unethical, rather than the
>preservationists?  This is similar to attacking the weak and defending the
>strong.  This one-sided attack presents a credibility problem.
>
>    I was a bit puzzled at why Steve Bissell asked me to describe what I meant
>by preservation (so I did it), and as I noted, the definition is pretty
>obvious,
>and  you seem to agree. But really, neither I nor you should need to re-define
>preservation or preservationism. We have all those Webster and Oxford
>dictionaries to go on.
>
>My response to several emails on this topic was not about the meaning of the
>preservation of Nature as such but about the use of anti-environmental
>propaganda terms such as "unethical preservationism."  So far, you have
>not made
>a convincing case that there is even such a thing as "unethical"
>preservationism. But I have to accept the fact that this contradictory notion
>does exist in your mind at least.

[snip]

>> The argument is more sophisticated than that - and in order to have a
>> sophisticated
>> argument, I am afraid (not really) that some distinction needs to be made to
>> the variant views WITHIN environmentalism.
>
>Sophisticated? Well, there is a huge diversity of views among
>environmentalists,
>as is well reflected by just going over some Directories to Environmental
>Organizations and reading up on the rapidly expanding literature on
>environmental ethics, where one can find many, highly sophisticated analyses,
>views and positions.  In Canada, there are over 2000 environmental
>groups/agencies so you are not inventing any new wheel with your
>insistence that
>some "sophisticated?" distinction be made between variant good and bad within
>environmentalism. We are trying to advance the highest ethical cause -- saving
>the living Earth and its evolved Gaian systems.
>Ted
>--
>Ted & Linda Mosquin,  Lanark, Ontario K0G 1K0, Canada
>http://www.ecospherics.net (literature on ecocentric/ecospheric ethics)



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