The Economy of the Earth
The Economy of the Earth
Mark Sagoff draws on the last twenty years of debate over the foundations of environmentalism in this comprehensive revision of The Economy of the Earth. Posing questions pertinent to consumption, cost-benefit analysis, the normative implications of neo-Darwinism, the role of the natural in national history, and the centrality of the concept of place in environmental ethics, he analyzes social policy in relation to the environment, pollution, the workplace, and public safely and health. Sagoff distinguishes ethical from economic questions and explains which kinds of concepts, arguments, and processes are appropriate to each.
- A complete, thorough, and comprehensive revision of the 1st Edition
- The best critique available of 'preference' and 'willingness to pay' as norms or criteria for environmental valuation
- Provocative, constructive, and original analysis of debates over consumption, the role of science, and the concept of place in environmental ethics and policy
Reviews & endorsements
"The second edition incorporates the increasing engagement of mainstream and evangelical religious communities with environmental protection into his argument for a democratic environmentalism not constrained by either economics or science. Sagoff's carefully reasoned and wide ranging arguments will infuriate economists, ecologists and elite environmentalists equally, but the book is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of environmentalism."
-Dan Tarlock, Chicago-Kent College of Law
"The Economy of the Earth presents a masterful synthesis of Mark Sagoff's seminal contributions to the theory of environmental policy analysis. Sagoff argues that good policy design requires accommodation between strongly held, incommensurable moral values. Yet the techniques of policy analysis rest on strong and sometimes naïve ethical assumptions. Sagoff shows how careful philosophical reasoning can reform the practice of policy analysis to better serve the democratic process. This provocative book deserves a central place in the environmental studies literature."
-Richard B. Howarth, Dartmouth College
"The first edition of The Economy of the Earth staked out a position that many felt but few had said: the most important reasons for protecting nature are moral and aesthetic, not economic and instrumental. In the second edition, massively revised and updated, Sagoff preaches the same sermon but even more clearly and eloquently. The second edition of The Economy of the Earth is as vital to debates about environmental policy as the first edition was in its time."
-Dale Jamieson, Director of Environmental Studies, New York University
"The new editions of The Economy of the Earth does go much farther than anything else Sagoff has given us in the way of a positive statement of his environmental philosophy and of its links to other sources in the philosophical canon. It merits a careful reading by environmental philosophers..."
Environmental Ethics, Paul B. Thompson, Michigan State University
Product details
December 2007Hardback
9780521867559
280 pages
233 × 157 × 22 mm
0.58kg
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. At the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima
- or, why political questions are not all economic
- 3. The allocation and distribution of resources
- 4. Values and preferences
- 5. Can we put a price on nature's services?
- 6. Do we consume too much?
- 7. Is an environmental ethic compatible with biological science?
- 8. Settling America or the concept of place in environmental ethics
- 9. Natural and national history
- 10. Environmentalism: death and resurrection.
