Ethics and environmental attitudes with implications for economic valuation

This paper tests the hypothesis that different ethical belief systems are unrelated to the attitude an individual takes towards the environment. More specifically, the neoclassical economic approach is seen to require a belief in utilitarianism while many individuals may operate on the basis of a deontological or rights-based approach to decision-making. The concern with this relationship arises from the use of the cost–benefit analysis approach to environmental policy and the specific application of the contingent valuation method. Evidence is found to support the view that environmentalists choose to operate on a rights-based approach which rejects the relative welfare arguments of economics and positively attributes compensation to future generations for environmental damages. This implies that the contingent valuation of environmental attributes will lead to values which are biased towards technocentric optimists and against the environmental movement. In terms of policy, environmental management on the basis of totalling economic values is liable to be undemocratic because of the systematic exclusion of a section of the general public.

[1]  N. Hanley,et al.  Preferences, information and biodiversity preservation , 1995 .

[2]  R. Nash.  The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics , 1990 .

[3]  Robert Cameron Mitchell,et al.  Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method , 1989 .

[4]  Dodo J. Thampapillai,et al.  Environmental Economics , 2019 .

[5]  Willett Kempton,et al.  Ethics and Values in Environmental Policy: The Said and the UNCED , 1993 .

[6]  JohnO.S. Kennedy,et al.  Conservation and economic efficiency , 1978 .

[7]  J. B. Callicott,et al.  The Case for Animal Rights , 1985 .

[8]  T. Stevens,et al.  MEASURING THE EXISTENCE VALUE OF WILDLIFE - REPLY , 1993 .

[9]  Ronald J. Glass,et al.  MEASURING THE EXISTENCE VALUE OF WILDLIFE - WHAT DO CVM ESTIMATES REALLY SHOW , 1991 .

[10]  Talbot Page,et al.  Conservation and Economic Efficiency , 1977 .

[11]  M. Sagoff.  The Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law, and the Environment , 1988 .

[12]  D. Pearce,et al.  The Ethical Foundations of Sustainable Economic Development , 1992 .

[13]  N. Hanley,et al.  Cost–Benefit Analysis and the Environment , 1994 .

[14]  L. Milbrath,et al.  Environmentalists: Vanguard for a New Society , 1985 .

[15]  N. Hanley,et al.  Wilderness development decisions and the Krutilla-Fisher model: The case of Scotland's ‘flow country’ , 1991 .

[16]  E. Malinvaud.  Lectures on Microeconomic Theory , 1972 .

[17]  Tapan Mitra,et al.  Intergenerational Equity and Efficient Allocation of Exhaustible Resources , 1983 .

[18]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under uncertainty: Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases , 1982 .

[19]  C. Spash.  Economics, Ethics, and Long-Term Environmental Damages , 1993 .

[20]  Richard B. Norgaard,et al.  Sustainability and discounting the future , 1991 .

[21]  William R. Cline.  Global Warming: The Economic Stakes , 1992 .

[22]  W. Nordhaus.  To Slow or Not to Slow: The Economics of the Greenhouse Effect , 1991 .

[23]  W. Cline.  Economics of Global Warming, The , 1992 .

[24]  C. Spash.  Double CO2 and beyond: benefits, costs and compensation , 1994 .

[25]  Reuben G. Gustavson,et al.  Resources for the Future, Annual Report , 1959 .

[26]  Louis P. Pojman,et al.  Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings , 1988 .

[27]  A. Tversky,et al.  Prospect Theory : An Analysis of Decision under Risk Author ( s ) : , 2007 .

[28]  Robert U. Ayres,et al.  The greenhouse effect: Damages, costs and abatement , 1991 .

[29]  W. Nordhaus.  A Sketch of the Economics of the Greenhouse Effect , 1991 .