http://udnnews.com/SPECIAL_ISSUE/FOCUSNEWS/921-2000/index.htm

1
??????

• ??? ???
• ??????????????

2
1999?9?21???1?47?,??????????????,?????

• http//udnnews.com/SPECIAL_ISSUE/FOCUSNEWS/921-200
  0/index.htm

3
?921????????????,????????????? ????????????,??????
????????????,??????????????????????
4
??????????????,?????????????????????????????????
5
921?????????????
6
??? ??

• ????????????????????????????????????????,????????
  ???????????,? ???
• ????1/24/00
• ?????(89)?(4)??89010416?

7
???????????

• ????
• ?????????????,
• ?????????????????,
• ???????????????????
• ???????????,???????????

8

• DesJardins, JosephR., Environmental ethics an
  introduction to environmental philosophy,
  Wadsworth, 1993.

9
Outline

• Introduction
• Traditional ethical assumptions
• Environmental ethics
• The utilitarians view
• Difficulties and challenges against utilitarian
• Ethical issues in economic analysis of
  environmental problems
• Does economic analysis distort or ignore
  environmental issues?
• Some background want and preference, willingness
  to pay, allocative efficiency, belief and value.
• Sagoffs three challenges against economic
  methods

10
Introduction

• Human desires
• Trouble, environmentally It may cause species
  extinction and many other problems.
• ?? --- ????????(?????????)
• ????? (?????????) --- ???(bear
  bile)?????????????
• ???????????,??????
• ?????????
• ????

11
The hope

• Science and technology do solve many problems for
  us.
• Nuclear fusion, genetic technology, ...
• No desires ? no market demands ? no
  ecological destructions

12
Introduction --- three myths (?????) The first
myth

• The hope that science and technology solve
  everything for us.
• Science and technology, in some cases, solve
  problems locally, but cause harmful effect
  globally in the long term, e.g., green house
  effect (CO2), ozone depletion (CFC), DDT,
  detergent (ABS)....

13
Introduction --- three mythsThe second myth

• The experts opinion --- people believe the
  experts in science and technology know best and
  trust them.
• Evidence shows that expert usually has a tendency
  of overconfidence.
• Experts personal value may be narrow, improper
  or even biased.

14
Introduction --- three mythsThe third myth

• The scientific objectivity --- we should not
  do anything unless our beliefs are
  validated by science.
• Science is not the purely objective and
  value-neutral resource. Science does make
  mistakes.
• Many environmental issues are not very clear to
  scientists, but potential consequences may be
  severe and costly, e.g., ecological responses to
  human activities. In many cases, demanding
  scientific evidence is time consuming and may be
  too late.

15
Introduction

• Environmental issues raise fundamental
  questions about how we should live. Such
  questions are philosophical and ethical, not
  scientific and technological, questions.
• Environmental policy ought to be decided in the
  political arena and not in scientific
  laboratories, corporate boardrooms, or government
  bureaucracies.

16
Traditional ethical assumptions (1)

• The inert nature assumption
• Nature has no interest and that nothing counts as
  good for nature. Without interest, there is no
  role for a right.
• The anthropocentric (?????) assumption
• A bad case of speciesism (Singer, 1975).

17
Traditional ethical assumptions (2)

• The current generation assumption
• First come, first served.
• Devil takes the hindmost.
• What have future persons ever done for me.

18
Traditional ethical assumptions (3)

• Consequences
• Resources depletion, environmental pollution,
  ecological destruction, .
• Chechile, R. A., Carlisle, Susan, Environmental
  Decision Making A Multidisciplinary Perspective,
  Von Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1991.

19
Environmental Ethics (1)

• Environmental ethics presents and defends a
  systematic and comprehensive account of the moral
  relations between human beings and their natural
  environment.
• Environmental ethics assumes that human behavior
  toward the natural world can be and is governed
  by moral norms.

20
Environmental Ethics (2)

• Environmental ethics must
• explain what these norms are
• explain to whom or to what humans have
  responsibilities
• show how these responsibilities are justified

21
Environmental Ethics (3)

• Some authors speak of different levels of
  environmental consciousness which suggests that
  people will understand the world in different
  ways depending on their ethical and environmental
  sensitivity.

22
(No Transcript)
23
????

• Relations with others are not purely external to
  the self. My commitment to my friends or my
  children, to a person whom I love or a social
  movement in which I believe, may be a part of my
  own deepest being, so that when I devote myself
  to them, my overriding experience is not of
  sacrificing myself but of fulfilling myself.
  --- The moral philosophers, Norman R.,Oxford
  Clarendon press 1983.
• ?????????,?????????????,????????,??????

fulfill 1. to develop the full potentialities
of???? 2. to meet the requirements of ??(??)??
being PERSONALITY, the quality or state of being
a person. ??
24
The earth was not given to us by our parents,it
was loaned to us by our children.

• --- Kenyan proverb

25
The utilitarian view

26

• Main Entry ethicalPronunciation
  'e-thi-klVariant(s) also ethic
  /-thik/Function adjectiveEtymology Middle
  English etik, from Latin ethicus, from Greek
  Ethikos, from Ethos character -- more at
  SIBDate 16071 of or relating to ethics2
  involving or expressing moral approval or
  disapproval3 conforming to accepted
  professional standards of conduct4 of a drug
  restricted to sale only on a doctor's
  prescriptionsynonym see MORAL- ethicality
  /"e-th-'ka-l-tE/ noun- ethically
  /'e-thi-k(-)lE/ adverb- ethicalness
  /-kl-ns/ noun

27
Two elements of utilitarian theory

• The subject good
• The rule for judging what is an ethical act (or
  alternative) the act should maximize the good
  consequences.

28

• Main Entry hedonism
• Pronunciation 'hi-dn-"i-zm
• Function noun
• Etymology Greek hEdonE pleasure akin to Greek
  hEdys sweet -- more at SWEET
• Date 1856
• 1 the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is
  the sole or chief good in life
• 2 a way of life based on or suggesting the
  principles of hedonism

29
Hedonismhttp//www.utm.edu/research/iep/h/hedonis
m.htm

• Philosophers commonly distinguish between
  psychological hedonism and ethical hedonism.
  Psychological hedonism is the view that humans
  are psychologically constructed in such a way
  that we exclusively desire pleasure. Ethical
  hedonism is the view that our fundamental moral
  obligation is to maximize pleasure or happiness.

30
What is good? --- two interpretations

• Hedonistic utilitarianism takes pleasure, or at
  least the absence of pain, to be the only good
  valued for its own sake.
• Preference utilitarianism understands the good as
  the happiness that results from the satisfaction
  of desires.

31
Two properties of the good

• Good should be objective That means good should
  be independent of specific contexts.
• Good should be universal That means good for all
  people at all times.

32
Good has value to us.

• What is value?

33

• Main Entry in?trin?sic
• Pronunciation in-'trin-zik, -'trin(t)-sik
• Function adjective
• Etymology Middle French intrinsèque internal,
  from Late Latin intrinsecus, from
• Latin, adverb, inwardly akin to Latin intra
  within -- more at INTRA-
• Date 1642
• 1 a belonging to the essential nature or
  constitution of a thing ltthe intrinsic
• worth of a gemgt ltthe intrinsic brightness of a
  stargt b being or relating to a
• semiconductor in which the concentration of
  charge carriers is characteristic of the
• material itself instead of the content of any
  impurities it contains
• 2 a originating or due to causes within a body,
  organ, or part ltan intrinsic
• metabolic diseasegt b originating and included
  wholly within an organ or part
• ltintrinsic musclesgt -- compare EXTRINSIC 1b
• - in?trin?si?cal?ly /-zi-k(-)lE, -si-/ adverb

34
(No Transcript)
35
(No Transcript)
36
There are two basic types of value

• Intrinsic value the good is the first type of
  value, e.g., pleasure or happiness
• Instrumental value all other things belong to
  the second type of value. The value (of a thing)
  is judged in terms of utility, or their
  usefulness in producing good consequences.

37
??

• ??(utility)?????????(thing)?????(instrumental
  value)??????????????????,????????,?????????(happin
  ess or pleasure),?????(good consequence)??????,???
  ???????????????????????(????????????)?

38
Difficulties and challenges against utilitarian
39
The difficulties(1)

• The good is a qualitative concept. It is useless
  in terms of decision making. The good must be
  quantitative.

40
The difficulties(2)

• Quantitative process involves measuring,
  comparing, and quantifying. Trouble begins here.
• When several, say more than five or six,
  dependent attributes are involved, the problem
  becomes very complicated.
• Decision maker usually find it hard to answer or
  even to understand the analysts hypothetical
  questions...

41
The challenges (1)

• The ethical status, i.e. right or wrong, of any
  act always depends on the consequences, according
  to the utilitarian. Let us think two examples,
• Betray your friend and have a million dollars
  reward.
• An act will result in beneficial social
  consequences, but will cause the extinction of a
  species.
• Is it ethically better if we act on principle?
  Say, the principle of Do not betray your
  friend.

42
The challenges (2)

• If we can generate a good-principle-and-ethical
  act and, at the same time, it achieves the best
  consequences among all (less ethical) acts. Then
  this is what I called an act under control.
  That means a good principle implies an act, and
  that act implies the best consequences among all
  acts. QUESTION Is this possible?
• The conclusion is that we have NO control over
  the Utilitarians act under the good principle
  guidance.
• This means we might select a less ethical act
  under the good principle guidance.

43
The challenges (3)

• Utilitarian tend to restrict the range of
  relevant subjects, usually current generations.
  Other values, such as trees, animals, people in
  other countries, and future generations are
  excluded in their quantifying analyses due to the
  measurement problems.

44
Ethical issues in economic analysis of
environmental problems

45
Ethical framework of classical economic analysis
--- ends and means

• The end of economic policy is the maximum
  satisfaction of individual desires, or maximum
  happiness, of current generations.
• The functioning of a free and competitive market
  is believed to be the ethically best means for
  attaining that end.

46
Does economic analysis distort or ignore
environmental issues?

• Some background

47
Willingness to pay and want, or preference

• Each consumer expresses his want, or preference,
  for a product in terms of willingness to pay
  (WTP) based on the benefits each (person) expects
  to derive from consumption.
• WTP is a measure of the marginal benefit.
• Preferences are wants that the individual has
  rank-ordered.

48
Allocative efficiency

• The economic criterion that the value society
  places on an additional unit of the good be
  equivalent to the value of the resources given up
  to produce it. Or, a competitive market reaches a
  state where marginal benefit marginal cost.

49
(No Transcript)
50
Sagoffs three challenges against economic methods

51
First, want ? belief (1)

• Want is neither true nor false, e.g., I want
  chocolate ice cream.
• WTP is a good measure of the intensity of a
  persons want. Hence cost-benefit analysis is
  valid. Efficient resources allocation can be
  discovered.
• Belief can be true or false and is subject to
  rational evaluation, e.g., I believe killing
  tiger is wrong.
• WTP is a bad measure when immoral want is
  expressed in terms of WTP.

52
First, want ? belief (2)

• When economic methods, e.g., cost-benefit
  analysis, are involved in environmental policy,
  it treats beliefs as if they were mere wants and
  seriously distorts the issue.
• Example Timber industrys WTP for trees is
  higher than the recreational users. Does this
  mean the rational decision is to cut the tree
  down?

53
Second, allocative efficiency criterion might not
be ethical (1)

• Utilitarions logic maximizes good
• Economist identifies that peoples wants must be
  good. So we should maximize consumers wants or
  their preferences, according to utilitarions
  logic, based on the allocative efficiency
  criterion. And this is ethical.

54
Second, allocative efficiency criterion might not
be ethical (2)

• Fact personal preferences may be foolish,
  dangerous, or immoral due to lack of rational
  evaluations that can be defended by reasons(??).
• Example Excessive resources consumption of our
  society, a good want that needs to be satisfied
  according to economic theory, will definitely
  endanger the welfare of future generations.

55
Second, allocative efficiency criterion might not
be ethical (3)

• The challenge Economic methodology
  indiscriminately take preference as good and
  maximizes this good according to allocative
  efficiency criterion will probably result in an
  unethical act.

56
Third, market analysis threatens our democratic
process (1)

• A healthy liberal-democratic political process
  should be,
• liberal in the sense that we value personal
  liberty to pursue our individual goals
• democratic in the sense that collectively we seek
  agreement about public goods and shared goals
• treating people as both consumer and citizen
• citizens exchange views, debate their merits,
  learn from each other, and reach agreement

57
Third, market analysis threatens our democratic
process (2)

• An unhealthy liberal-democratic political process
  begins when,
• politicians may follow the results of economic
  analysis and satisfy the demands of the majority
  without citizens exchange of views . They
  usually read the public opinion polls and act
  accordingly. Politician should act as an active
  leader rather than passive follower.