The Moral Weight of Ecology

Public Goods, Cooperative Duties, and Environmental Politics

Edward F. Tverdek

If the natural environment is in the precarious state to which many attest, what would this demand of us? What duties are suggested by the observation that our collective behavior threatens the planet, even if no particular individual intends harm? Can we legitimately ask those who sincerely hold little or no interest in the long-term viability of the earth’s ecosphere to value it in the same way as committed environmentalists do – and to act accordingly? In The Moral Weight of Ecology: Public Goods, Cooperative Duties, and Environmental Politics, Edward Tverdek engages these questions and ultimately argues that the demands of ecology upon all of us are in fact quite substantial. The book is not, however, another study in environmental ethics, examining what it if anything we owe the natural world. Rather, The Moral Weight of Ecology addresses the matter from the perspective of political economy and social choice theory. Tverdek seeks to disarm both the intuitive libertarian notion that no one should be compelled to “value” and contribute toward something for which she has little regard as well as the romantic environmentalist assertion that one cannot assign an economic value to nature. We must in some way “price” the natural world, Tverdek argues, but how we do so necessarily depends on what we believe would be a fair way to distribute the costs and burdens of maintaining it, and these moral beliefs must be antecedent to the consumer preferences economists consider the “raw data” for determining the value of the environment.

Lexington Books

Pages: 288 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-1453-8 • Hardback • December 2015 • $133.00 • (£102.00)

978-1-4985-1454-5 • eBook • December 2015 • $126.00 • (£97.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy

The Moral Weight of Ecology

Public Goods, Cooperative Duties, and Environmental Politics

Hardback

eBook

Summary

If the natural environment is in the precarious state to which many attest, what would this demand of us? What duties are suggested by the observation that our collective behavior threatens the planet, even if no particular individual intends harm? Can we legitimately ask those who sincerely hold little or no interest in the long-term viability of the earth’s ecosphere to value it in the same way as committed environmentalists do – and to act accordingly? In The Moral Weight of Ecology: Public Goods, Cooperative Duties, and Environmental Politics, Edward Tverdek engages these questions and ultimately argues that the demands of ecology upon all of us are in fact quite substantial. The book is not, however, another study in environmental ethics, examining what it if anything we owe the natural world. Rather, The Moral Weight of Ecology addresses the matter from the perspective of political economy and social choice theory. Tverdek seeks to disarm both the intuitive libertarian notion that no one should be compelled to “value” and contribute toward something for which she has little regard as well as the romantic environmentalist assertion that one cannot assign an economic value to nature. We must in some way “price” the natural world, Tverdek argues, but how we do so necessarily depends on what we believe would be a fair way to distribute the costs and burdens of maintaining it, and these moral beliefs must be antecedent to the consumer preferences economists consider the “raw data” for determining the value of the environment.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 288 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-1453-8 • Hardback • December 2015 • $133.00 • (£102.00)

978-1-4985-1454-5 • eBook • December 2015 • $126.00 • (£97.00)

Subjects: Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Author

Edward Tverdek teaches philosophy at Quincy University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Ecology at the Margins

Part One: Who Should Bear the Costs and Burdens of Environmentalism?

Chapter 1: What is "Tragic" About the Tragedy of the Commons?
Chapter 2: Are Environmental Problems "Prisoners' Dilemmas"?
Chapter 3: The Non-Excludability Problem
Chapter 4: Fairness and Non-Excludability
Chapter 5: Non-Excludability and Non-Excusability
Chapter 6: Intentions, Free Riders, and Honest Holdouts
Concluding Remarks to Part One

Part Two: What are We Asking when We Ask "What Is the Natural Environment Worth?"

Chapter 7: Markets versus Politics – a Brief Overview
Chapter 8: How Not to Frame the Question
Chapter 9: The Embedding Effect and the Moral Content of Economic Valuation
Chapter 10: The Rationality of Environmental “Charity”
Chapter 11: Values, Preferences, and Category Mistakes
Chapter 12: Strategic Bidding and the Burdens We Wish Upon Others
Concluding Remarks to Part Two

Afterword: The Poverty of Ecology

Reviews

Libertarianism stands upon a moral foundation of individual rights that is, if not mean, lean. Saving the planet from environmental disaster faces problems of collective action that push us toward moral obligations transcending individual rights. Tverdek pursues these issues through a dense thicket of philosophy and economic theory. He concludes that libertarian attempts to evade obligations beyond rights fail. The Moral Weight of Ecology deserves close attention from anyone tempted by the austere foundations of libertarian moral theory.
— Richard Hudelson, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin Superior