Session 7 Human Well-being

Premise: To the extent that Sustainability Science  aspires to bring about paradigmatic shifts, away from contemporary fragmented thinking and towards a more systemic thinking, the use inspired research may need to depart away from some of the axioms of the various of the disciplines that are called to  contribute to Sustainability Science. Probably this is especially true for  the social sciences: while in natural science we cannot contest  thermodynamics laws, in social science we have plenty of interpretations of reality.

Q: In this context,  what seems necessary is to ask, is the current definition of well-being adopted by neoclassical economics theory appropriate and sufficient for the normative SS core questions ?  

The draft Chapter of session 7 seems to rely on the definition of wellbeing coming out of the field of environmental economics, which is permeated primarily by the orthodox neoclassical economics paradigm, largely focused on the optimal allocation of resources. Is this an adeguate theoretical framework ?  While neoclassical economics theory can certainly contribute to advancing the SS understanding of micro-economics and  market sub-systems, it would be good to integrate it with the knowledge from other strands of economics theory, for instance, the neo-marxist and neo-keynesian strands focusing on distributional issues, and the neo-malthusian strand focusing on issues of scale. Such pluralistic clustering of knowledge systems and efforts  is actually converging in the new ecological economics sub-field. In parallel, the field of Environmental Ethics has also been emerging and may contribute to Sustainability Science. Both ecological economics and environmental ethics seem to call for more explicit  distinction between  human preferences and values, especially when in valuation and decision-making uncertainty is at play and potential irreversibible oucomes are probable. They seem to call for a human wellbeing definition that is more inclusive and multi-dimensional, and conscious that human beings can value needs and wants on markets, environmental neoclassical economists can attempt to monetize several externalities, but also that some other sustainability values and issues need to be dealt with through the institutions devoted to the realms of political deliberation and ethical debate. 

Some references: 

Sagoff Mark (2008), The Economy of the Earth, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Costanza R. (ed.) 1991, Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability Columbia University Press, New York.

Colby M.E. (1991), Environmental Management in Development: the Evolution of Paradigms, in J. of Ecological Economics, Vol 3, nr3, 1991, pp.193-213