The mother of all conservation moves

This past week, the Science Times ran this article, "Unnatural Preservation", on how climate change changes the rules of conservation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/science/earth/29habi.html?ref=science&pagewanted=all

The article portrays the hand-wringing of conservation biologists faced with the confounding factor of a changing climate. Is it, for example, worth trying to save some plant or animal in a preserve where its vulnerability to rising temperatures and its limited ability to find more suitable living conditions will likely make it succumb anyway? Should we, perhaps, sign up United Van Lines to help stage the mother of all moves, to a more hospitable clime, that climate-distressed organisms cannot manage on their own – often because of man-made barriers?

The article's presentation glides silently by two remarkable aspects of this topic. One has to do with accepting the science that motivates the portrayed agonizing over alternative approaches to conservation in the face of a warming climate. The other has to do with the peculiar nature of that agonizing.

First, some brief remarks about the recent history of the scientific premise behind the discussion: Most biologists would expect that many organisms would respond to changes in the temperature (among other factors) with adaptive changes of their own. They see this clearly in the evolution of species throughout geological history. In particular, in times of warming, species have tended to migrate to higher latitudes and to higher elevations. These changes in distribution and relative abundance at a given latitude and elevation are, in turn, bases for finding or confirming the climatic changes that cause them.

Additionally, biologists would expect what they call "phenological shifts". Organisms remaining in increasingly warm conditions would tend to shift their seasonal behavior – doing their "spring thing" (migrating, breeding, nesting, egg laying, flowering, budding) sooner rather than later.

Both the presence of these biological responses and the causal inference from the recent rapid changes in climate have stubbornly resisted universal acceptance – even after the reality of modern climate change became incontrovertible well over a decade ago. The element of controversy is evident in the defensive tone of these Nature papers from 2003, which lay out the case. You may assess it for yourself:

Permesan, C., and Yohe, G., "A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems", Nature, 421 (2 January 2003), pp. 37-42 (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v421/n6918/full/nature01286.html)

Root, T.L., et. al., "Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants", Nature, 421 (2 January 2003), pp. 57-60 (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v421/n6918/full/nature01333.html or
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/TLRetal-NaturePublished.pdf)

Second, we turn to what may be the even more interesting "adaptive response" of the scientists themselves. The prevailing sentiment expressed by the scientists cited in the article is that a changing climate is a dramatically complicating variable in understanding how we should do conservation. But in the end, it is "just" one more variable. We "just" need to take the effects of climate change into account in managing the world's biogeosphere – moving plants and animals hither and yon, "triaging" the doomed, deciding whether or not to build barrier islands to thwart the terrestrial intrusions of rising seas.

The scientists acknowledge the uncertainty of the effects of climate change (as contrasted with the certainty of its happening), but they seem to regard that uncertainly as yet another biosphere engineering variable, albeit a difficult one. For them, radical uncertainly doesn't change the nature of the problem. The problem remains fundamentally the same, just a bit more difficult, with a few more variables, including some representing uncertainty.

Apparently, for these scientists, the project is to engineer ever more precise and intricate manipulations of ecosystems. No matter that radical uncertainty gives them essentially no hope of knowing what the outcomes will be. No matter that "assisted migration" is essentially the systematic introduction of exotic species, which is known to be a major contributor to the great Pleistocene-Holocene extinction, currently underway and accelerating. Not one cited scientist seems to acknowledge the possibility – or, given the radical uncertainty of outcomes – the likelihood that their manipulations will increase devastation of biota rather than decrease it.

Why do scientists just "stick to the program", despite the apparent madness of it? The reason is easy to grasp. No matter how hard the engineering puzzle, playing engineer is the easy thing to do. It lets us fool ourselves into thinking that we're doing something. And surely, we have to do something.

Yes, something is required of us. But just as surely, to act out of desperation just for the sake of acting – without any legitimate basis for knowing whether we will increase or decrease harm – is tragic foolishness.

It's more than foolish. In a less obvious way, but with high likelihood, an insistent focus on engineering tricks will inevitably increase the harm – by giving us license to avoid considering changes that we really need. Those are changes in the attitudes and behaviors responsible for the harm in the first place. Left unquestioned, the same attitudes and behaviors will ultimately guarantee a situation so irretrievably dire that not even the cleverest or (more apropos) luckiest of interventions could possibly succeed.

The project of critically examining our values contrasts in two ways with the project of ever more arcane feats of engineering. On the one hand, it is a far more difficult thing to get ourselves to do. But on the other hand, the values involved and the attitudes and behaviors they entail are far easier to surmise than the tortured manipulations of conservation biologists.

In fact, at least some values seem to be quite obvious, as do some of the actions that flow from them. Roads are barriers to adaptation. Yet we continue to build (or try to build) them. Shoreline development is a barrier to wetland migration. Yet we continue to do it. Just this past week, the California Coastal Commission considered a proposal to build a road through (not to) a coastal California state park (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/06/us/06beach.html). The proposed road would have been a barrier in both above-mentioned ways. Fortunately, the Commission saw fit to deny the developers a critical permit. But why would we even seriously consider such a thing? In this case, the goal was simple – to provide more pavement so that more cars can be crammed between San Diego and Los Angeles.

What, we should ask, are the values that lead us to view this kind of road (and many others) as preeminently valuable? In light of what different values would this attitude be viewed as unacceptable and not even worthy of serious consideration?

In all the uncertainty of how biota will react to changes in climate, we may be able to glean one certainty. It is that, so long as we continue to behave as we currently do – aided and abetted by the attitudes and values that now predominate – we will inexorably increase the harm to the natural world, the adaptive capacity of plants and animals will be exceeded, and no engineering trick – no matter how clever – will be able to counteract or compensate for that.

That leaves open the question of how we should behave in the presence of the adaptive plight that we have already inflicted on our fellow creatures. The first, most obvious suggestion is to understand in what ways we have inflicted the harm and to stop inflicting further harm in those ways. If building roads is screwing things up, then we should stop building them. If shoreline development is critically undermining the adaptive capacity of coastline habitats, then for goodness' sake, let's stop it!

The second suggestion seems equally obvious but far more difficult to contemplate – perhaps even unimaginable – without a serious re-evaluation of values. If we have literally built obstacles that seriously constrain and thereby compromise the natural world, then should we not consider removing or moving those obstacles? Why do we consider only moving the natural systems whose adaptive movements and processes we have impounded? Suppose that we convince ourselves of the fantasy of being able to move intact, or at least functioning natural systems hither and yon. With no change in values, shouldn't we expect that "hither and yon" to succumb to the same kind of human incursion? Shouldn't we expect that will happen until neither hither nor yon remains?

Perhaps we should employ United Van Lines for the mother of all moves. But the purpose would not be to move and thereby further decimate the paltry remains of natural systems that we have already fragmented and nearly destroyed. Rather, it would be to move us, or (at least) the fabrications that are instruments of our damaging influence, far enough away to give those systems some breathing space and a fighting chance to survive.

Of course, a full answer to the question of how to help our fellow creatures is not anywhere near that simple, because damaging human influence extends well beyond our most obvious physical artifacts. But the changed values that supports this way of thinking may have some chance of dealing with the complex realities of human alterations of, and damage to natural systems.

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Aristotle takes up environmental virtue

(The fourth in a series of interviews with the great philosopher)

[In his previous appearance, "Aristotle takes a closer look at natural capital" (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/11/aristotle-returns-to-take-closer-look.html), Aristotle promised to suggest an alternative to natural capitalism for valuing nature. He returns to begin to make good on that promise.]

H: Good day, Mr. A. We understand that you've been reflecting about environmental values for quite a few days.

A: With great intensity.

H: That's easy to believe. You've certainly shown us how vexingly difficult this subject is.

A: I don't think that I've ever given my armchair a tougher workout.

H: None of that new new experimental philosophy stuff (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/magazine/09wwln-idealab-t.html) for you, huh?

A: Indeed not. It's not until one's posterior has found its proper resting place that one's mind can, too.

H: "Posterior Analytics", so to speak?

An Old Man in an Armchair (Follower of Rembrandt van Rijn, late 17th c.)

A: Hah! One of my better efforts, wouldn't you say? But that work is all about demonstration and syllogism — the kind of thing that the chunking, counting, and computing econo-consequentialists like to do. As we've seen, "demonstrating" moral value by a theory that calculates it from first principles is not the right tool for the job of weighing the many complex and conflicting interests and demands on our moral attention. The econo-consequentialists produce moral non-sense with those tools. At least, that may give us the sense that that kind of neatly packaged theoretical guide to ethics is a chimera.

H: But surely, we can't ignore science. All the earth sciences, the biology of all of earth's creatures, and particularly ecology tell us so much about the natural world. How can our values float free from all this theoretical knowledge?

A: Hey, man, everyone focuses so much on my physics, astronomy, and cosmology that they forget how much sweat I put into my biological studies. I was pretty much the first one to do biology systematically and empirically. And I didn't just look at humans like those Hippocratic medical dudes. I looked at all kinds of creatures — animals and even plants: anatomy, physiology, reproductive behavior, embryology, systematics. Check out my piece on hectocotylization in cuttlefish in "The History of Animals" (IV.2 http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/history_anim.4.iv.html and V.6 http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/history_anim.5.v.html). That wasn't just damn good for its day. It took until 1959 for modern biology to catch up to it!

H: Yeah, you really are the guy with the theory of everything.

A: You bet. That's because science informs philosophy and vice versa. There's no separating the two. And science is particularly critical in understanding environmental values — perhaps more so than in any other realm of moral valuation. But it must be used properly.

H: How, if not by measuring value, or by calculating it — like those econo-consequentialists who sum and subtract utilities...

A: ... or the ones who find marginal utility at the intersection of cost and benefit curves? No, not that way. To understand the proper role of science in informing our understanding of environmental values, one must understand two dimensions of ethical evaluation.

H: Which are?

A: As I've written,

the work of man is achieved only in accordance with practical wisdom as well as with moral virtue; for virtue makes us aim at the right mark, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means.

Aristotle, "Nichomachean Ethics", Bk. VI.12, tr. W.D. Ross
(http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.6.vi.html)

H: Virtue and practical reasoning?

A: Exactly. In practice, neither is prior to the other, though our explanation must consider them in sequence. Let's do that for environmental values.

H: Ok, shoot.

A: First we determine what kinds of environmental virtues or excellences are essential for, indeed constitute human well-being. We ask ourselves, "What kind of person do I want to be — should I be — insofar as I am that kind of animal that I am, a human animal with a rational soul, operating in a natural world? What kinds of attitudes and habitual ways of acting should I develop — to the point that I adopt and practice them with an ease devoid of any felt resistance, reluctance, or burden — that conduce to my flourishing in the environments in which I find myself?"

H: And the other, "practical reasoning" part?

A: That's what I call "phronesis".

H: Phronesis?

A: Yes. The wisdom that guides us in finding the specific actions for our specific circumstances in a way that improves our well being. As a result of this kind of practical deliberation, we develop attitudes and habits that are a starting point for further deliberative action. But attitudes and habitual behavior alone never suffice or ensure continued well being. We are never anointed "excellent" in this way or that, whereupon we flourish forever after.

H: I suppose you might say that such a person would have succumbed to the vice of sloth, or at least, laziness. I guess that it's no different for environmental virtues.

A: Not different at all. In matters environmental, we never stop needing phronesis to find how best to continue to develop and express our various environmental excellences in balance with themselves, as well as in balance with other excellences that are characteristic of those who live well. Don't forget friendship, for example (remember what we said in our first session (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/08/interview-with-aristotle.html)?; and there are many other virtues, as I discuss in my "Nichomachean Ethics".

H: But you make it sound as though phronesis is just another virtue.

A: A virtue is precisely what it is! But not "just another" one. Phronesis is, in fact, the intellectual virtue that enables us to deliberate and find those acts that express, in a balanced way, the many excellences or virtues that are part of living well.

H: So let's get back to the role of science in this.

A: Well, if there are two dimensions to moral evaluation, then one might think that there are two possible ways to apply scientific or theoretical knowledge to it.

H: Are there?

A: Perhaps there is some role for science in phronesis. But I believe that the overwhelmingly dominant role of science in environmental morals is to help us understand various kinds of environmental virtue and their characteristics — not in precisely defining an algorithm for the deliberative processes that we use to arrive at decisions about how best to act in a particular case.

H: Don't the econo-consequentialists have it backwards?

A: I think so. They maintain that we have a phronetic algorithm. We arrive at the right act by deducing it from first principles of economic science — perhaps the principle of maximizing welfare, or perhaps the principle of efficiency, or perhaps some other, similar principle. For them, that is the sum total of deliberation— a stick figure version of phronesis, at best. One can view the econo-consequentialist's mistaken supposition about how science informs moral values to be the root cause of their distorted and contorted results.

H: That's a really helpful insight. But then, how does science help us define environmental virtues?

A: That, my friend, is an ideal place from which to launch a general enquiry into the nature of environmental virtues.

H: Why is that, Mr. A?

A: We don't really need science to understand how our flourishing is interlocked with the flourishing of our friendships and the people that we befriend.

H: I suppose not.

A: And so it is with the other virtues that I discuss in my "Nichomachean Ethics". It's even true that many environmental virtues are variations on virtue themes that I explored in my "Nichomachean Ethics".

H: I guess that shouldn't be surprising.

A: Still, some of the most important environmental virtues and their salient characteristics cannot be well understood — their huge moral significance cannot be appreciated — without the help of the sciences that show how our flourishing is interlocked with the flourishing of the natural world. The twin sciences of ecology and evolution are particularly important. In fact, for some environmental virtues, the tie to ecology is so strong that we might call these "ecological virtues" — with the caveat that we understand this as a reference to how we come to realize the nature of this category of environmental virtues, not a reference to how one should be an excellent ecologist.

H: Ok, so let's start with some of those ecological virtues.

A: Consider first our place in the history of the planet earth, only home we have — our connection as a species to the past extending back before H. sapiens existed, and extending out to the future beyond the time when H. sapiens goes extinct.

H: Science certainly shows us that no species is a permanent fixture on our planet.

A: I have it from good sources (Dirzo, R., Raven, P., "Global state of biodiversity and loss", Annual Review of Environment and Natural Resources, 28 (2003), pp. 137-167) that the average lifetime of a species is between 5 - 10 million years. Mammals stick around for up to 13 million years. So let's be outlandishly generous to ourselves and give H. sapiens an unprecedented 20 million years. Even if we acknowledge archaic varieties of H. sapiens that might have emerged 300,000 or more years ago, or take the starting point to be that of the genus Homo (of which we are are the sole surviving species) as much as 2.4 million years ago, let's suppose that we have a good long run ahead.

H: But not forever.

A: Not forever. Our species came upon the scene sometime in the very recent geological past. There is no scientific reason not to expect that it will exit the scene sometime later, if not sooner, in the very near geological future. We are extraordinarily adaptable, but not infinitely so.

H: I suppose that we would have had a tough time dealing with the methane-rich atmosphere of geological times past...

A: ... as one example.

H: So what does that mean for environmental value?

A: With this relatively new knowledge of our species' place in earth history comes our understanding of our connection to our ancestors — the creatures from which we evolved and from whom we inherited the kind of place, or really, places (for it changes constantly), that the earth was for them at various times through prehistory. It gives us a sense that we, too, may be ancestor for some one or more species that descend from us. And, even if we are to be the last species of the genus Homo, then it still gives us a sense of ourselves as ancestral keeper of the the place that will be home for whatever species survive our departure.

H: So, if I may paraphrase: Science teaches us that we have a biological and geophysical heritage; and that we shall leave a similar legacy — even if there is eventually no species to propagate the human genome or whatever genome that evolution transforms it into.

A: A quick study you are. And this understanding of geological and species history suggests our first environmental virtue — a certain, scientifically informed sense of honor — for the creatures and places that engendered us, for our human ancestors who, whether consciously or unwittingly, left enough intact for us moderns to connect to more ancient times, for the fellow creatures that made it with us to this point of geological time, for human descendants who deserve to make the same connections and whose ability to do so depends on our behavior, and finally, to our descendants and the kind of place they will inherit and inhabit.

H: What kinds of places do you have in mind?

A: Think of places like the canyonlands of the Colorado Plateau. They are a storehouse of the history of creative forces pre-dating the Cambrian explosion of fauna around 530 million years ago, at the very start of the Proterozoic Eon. A place like that connects us to the forces that resulted in who we are, where we are.

H: I didn't know that you've had a chance to make it out there.

A: There's only so much wear and tear that my armchair can take over 2300 years, you know.

H: You sure don't hear economists talk about anything like that.

A: The value of our natural heritage is horribly distorted when viewed as a neatly chunked and counted stockpile of goods in a warehouse right now. Rather, it is, in part, the value of something — a planet and the creatures that inhabit it — with a history that is responsible for our genesis, and with a history that, if we demonstrate this kind of environmental excellence, will engender creatures beyond the end of human history.

H: You said something about our fellow creatures. Would you say something more about them?

A: Yes. In fact, I would propose a second environmental virtue that focuses on them.

H: What would that be?

A: A sense of honor, but also sympathy for fellow organisms that coevolved with us and that now share our home. Once again, our science is indispensable in understanding the degree to which they share with us a common genetic heritage, and with that, similar needs, drives, desires, and limitations. The conservation of genes among creatures that appear wildly different to human sensibility makes this impossible to ignore. Perhaps it's not too surprising that only 1.6% of human and chimp genes differ, though almost all genes in each species has a counterpart in the other. It may be more surprising that, despite 75 million years of separate evolution, only about 300 genes — less than 1% of the 30,000 possessed by mouse — have no obvious counterpart in the human genome (The Mouse Genome Sequencing Consortium, "Initial sequencing and comparative analysis of the mouse genome", Nature, 420 (5 December 2002), p. 521, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v420/n6915/full/nature01262.html).

H: Holy mole.

A: No, mouse. But it's probably not much different for moles. And that shouldn't surprise. Mouse and human both must have what it takes to be a terrestrial mammalian vertebrate on this particular planet. Or, as a computational biologist would put it, the conservation of genes reflects functional constraints on the existence of a terrestrial mammal (Thomas, J.W., et. al., "Comparative analyses of multi-species sequences from targeted genomic regions", Nature, 424 (14 August 2003), pp. 788-793, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v424/n6950/full/nature01858.html) If we go to D. malanogaster, the common fruit fly, we still find only 40% of its genes differ from human's. But that much similarity is part of what it is to be a terrestrial animal of any kind on this planet. To focus on the differences in our fellow creatures and to view as limitations differences from humans, is to ignorantly overlook our own.

H: Wow, Mr. A. You've really must have been boning up on science in the last 2.3 millennia.

A: Remember, I was already doing some damn good work in my day.

H: Yeah, I remember that cuttlefish work. it's a shame you couldn't have gotten that published in "Nature".

A: Now that would be something — seeing my work right alongside the stuff by Constanza, Pimm, and those natural capitalists. Hey, speaking of the devil, did you hear Constanza honking his natural capital panpipes on NPR's "Marketplace" last Wednesday (http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/01/02/natural_resources_value/)? Why don't those NPR troglodytes put me on with him?

H: Maybe they don't find many people in their target audience who speak ancient Greek. But we'd be happy to lend them our babelfish translator.

A: No matter — especially since recent science is generally changing our perspective on our place in the natural world. And the changes in perspective demand changes in how we view our moral character as actors in it.

H: So you're saying that, in a certain sense, our understanding of our moral character keeps pace with our scientific understanding?

A: Yes! For example, think of the pre-human state of New Zealand where, in the complete absence of terrestrial mammals (except for two herbivorous fruit bats), flightless, ground-nesting birds flourished. When the Maori's colonized the islands, they introduced mammalian predators, such as dogs and Polynesian rats (which are known to enjoy scrambled eggs and a hatchling or two for breakfast); they appropriated the habitats of these animals; and they themselves hunted them intensively. According to Rodolfo Dirzo and Peter Raven,

The colonization by humans of the Pacific Islands eastward and northeastward from southern Asia resulted in the elimination of some 1000 species of birds over a period of about 1000 years in this area alone—about a tenth of the world total that existed before the Polynesian colonizing voyages took place. Studies of these islands suggest that about half the species present when humans arrived have been preserved as fossils and that they and about an equal number of unknown species were lost as a result of human activities.

Dirzo, R., Raven, P., "Global state of biodiversity and loss", Annual Review of Environment and Natural Resources, 28 (2003), p. 153

H: They were incredibly destructive! What does that say about their moral character?

A: They could not have understood the moral significance of their behavior in the way that science now enables us to do. Given their innocence, we cannot assess their character in the same way that we do ours.

H: So there's a kind of co-evolution of scientific understanding with our understanding of human excellence...

A: ... and a co-evolution of how we assess a person's moral character. But I think it undeniable that science now demonstrates our close connection with other living things. And this allows us to see the lack of excellence in the character of a person who nowadays would casually and even ignorantly behave in ways that help sustain the 6th and possibly most devastating of the great mass extinctions in the 545 million years of the Phanerozoic Eon. Surely, honor and sympathy for other creatures is an environmental excellence that requires of a person that she find ways of living that avoid helping to destroy the legacy of creative forces that tie our existence to theirs.

H: What does that imply for our behavior?

A: At this point, there's are no major mysteries about how we impinge on the well being of other creatures. We appropriate all the land for our own, species-narrow purposes. We change the climate beyond the adaptive capacities of other creatures. We introduce alien animals and plants into biomes in which they did not evolve, and which are subsequently simplified and degraded. We introduce unprecedented amounts of nitrogen into habitats as airborne industrial pollutants and as agricultural runoff that change completely how many ecosystems work — to the detriment of many organisms who thrive on their efficient use of nitrogen. And we spew unprecedented amounts of CO₂ into the atmosphere. Aside from the effect on climate, this wreaks havoc in habitats in which plants use different metabolic pathways with differing efficiencies, to assimilate that gas. (Sala, O.E., et. al., "Global Biodiversity Scenarios for the Year 2100", Science, 287 (10 March 2000), pp. 1770-1774, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/287/5459/1770)

H: Ok, I get it. So there we have a second environmental virtue rooted in science.

A: Yes, "rooted" is a good way to put it. Our recognition of these kinds of environmental virtues is not dictated by, or deduced from science. Rather, the science provides a deeper, richer, more interconnected picture of the world that's tied to its past as well as to its future. How we act, on a stage so transformed, is not surprisingly transformed in moral significance. On this stage, previously hidden parts of our moral character are revealed.

H: You've identified two ecological virtues, so far, Mr. A. Are there any more environmental virtues that you'd call "ecological virtues"?

A: There are. Consider how recent science has given us a newfound appreciation of natural systems as comprising an impenetrably complex sustainer of all life, including human life. It runs according to an inextricably entangled and complexly interacting web of rules that play out over time spans that range from the near-instantaneous to geological. This is not some kind of pre-scientific obeisance, but a knowing acknowledgment. That acknowledgment helps us recognize some more environmental virtues, including perhaps some of the most critical ones.

H: What would they be?

A: I would liken the rules by which earth's natural systems operate to a kind of constitution for all that exists on earth. Like a constitution, it is a foundational framework with subtly counteracting forces. But this one is prior to all other frameworks — including political constitutions — because only it is only within it that everything constitutive of any life, let alone a flourishing human life, is possible.

H: So what should we make out of that?

A: Let's consider how we regard our political constitutions.

H: Ok.

A: Pop quiz.

H: Oh no! I thought I was doing ethics, not political science.

A: A completely arbitrary distinction, in my judgment.

H: You didn't pop quizzes on your students at the Lyceum, did you?

A: Heraclitus in Hades, yes. It's a long-standing academic tradition that I see is alive and well at Stanford. But don't worry. I'll give you a big hint for answering my question.

H: Ok, shoot.

A: In what salient respect do constitutions of state mimic some important basic properties of natural systems that we've just mentioned?

H: Hint please?

A: History! Connections! Continuity (not sameness) with the past and future! We've shown how static inventories don't properly capture environmental value. What is a preeminent historical significance of a constitution?

H: Well, at least a successful and long-lived one would embody a kind of political or cultural wisdom that binds us to persons in our society that preceded us, and to those who will come after.

A: Excellent! A constitution is the time-spanning connective tissue of a society. In part, a state's constitution defines the rules of change for a society in a way that permits it to adapt and change itself without damaging or necessarily changing the very rules that make it possible. Speaking of Heraclitus, I have my differences with that crazy dude. But he'd be pretty sympathetic with this notion of a political order. He saw human society as a cosmos like the natural cosmos, with its underlying order reflected in its laws.

H: Ok, I think that I can buy that.

A: In fact, I would say the the very identity of a state is bound up in its constitution:

since the state is a partnership, and is a partnership of citizens in a constitution, when the form of government changes, and becomes different, then it may be supposed that the state is no longer the same, just as a tragic differs from a comic chorus, although the members of both may be identical. And in this manner we speak of every union or composition of elements as different when the form of their composition alters; for example, a scale containing the same sounds is said to be different, accordingly as the Dorian or the Phrygian mode is employed. And if this is true it is evident that the sameness of the state consists chiefly in the sameness of the constitution, and it may be called or not called by the same name, whether the inhabitants are the same or entirely different. It is quite another question, whether a state ought or ought not to fulfill engagements when the form of government changes.

Aristotle, "Politics", III.3, tr. Benjamin Jowett
(http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.3.three.html)

H: So really, you can't change a state's constitution without changing, or really destroying that particular state.

A: Of course, for a state, there's the possibility of creating and adopting a new constitution after abandoning or significantly altering the current one.

H: But that sounds pretty risky, doesn't it?

A: Emphatically agreed. Suppose that a constitution promotes the flourishing of its citizens through its articles. Suppose that those articles effect a delicate balance of positive and negative feedback for its citizens that guides them to behave in ways that conduce to their individual and mutual well being. Then it would be risky, indeed, to alter that balance. It is difficult, if not impossible, to calculate how a change in one article or another will change the point of balance.

H: And a lot is at stake.

A: The entire state and all its citizens. But not just now; and not just the well being of a single citizen.

H: I suppose that's why successful constitutions contain provisions that make it very difficult to change them.

A: That is so. And much the same is true of the "constitution" of the natural world. One cannot cherry pick the "articles" that presently seem convenient to keep in place while ignoring ones that may lately appear somewhat inconvenient.

H: Aren't there differences between the constitution of a state and the "constitution" of the natural world?

A: Of course: The framework and fabric of the natural world is not a contract in the social sense, not a human construct of any kind. It is there before our very eyes, though sometimes only immediately evident to our best scientific experts — as embodied in the various creatures and their habitats, as they have come through the last 4.5 billion years. And of course, violations are subject to the rule of natural, not human law. But insofar as it is a vital framework for our well-being, insofar as it is a framework that unites us with all that came before us and all that will follow, insofar as it is a framework that has created the only kind of home that we humans have ever known, insofar as it is evidently an arrangement of delicate balance that is easily upset — we owe it the care and respect that we owe to socially constitutive frameworks. That ecological wisdom and the respect it should engender is, I would say, a third ecological virtue.

H: Boy, that's a lot different from thinking of the natural world as a resource for getting all the stuff that we want at the lowest possible cost.

A: I would say, a world apart. In fact, our third environmental virtue has several corollary virtues that may further distinguish our approach.

H: What do you have in mind?

A: I would suggest that the kind of wisdom and respect we've just discussed has also a certain elements of courage, restraint, and humility.

H: How do you mean?

A: The natural creativity that we've been discussing is something mostly outside of human control. In our environmental wisdom, we know that it is inimitable. It is far to complex and impenetrable to imitate, let alone to duplicate or to substitute for. As we have observed, while it created the human species, it almost certainly will also destroy it.

H: That's pretty scary.

A: It's extremely scary. I would say that it takes tremendous courage to understand this, and yet strive to keep these natural creative forces alive and healthy in the earth's ecosystems.

H: Even though we also know that, in fact, we flourish in this advocacy.

A: Even so. I would identify this kind of courage as a fourth environmental virtue.

H: I would have thought of that as a kind of restraint.

A: I think that's involved, too. We can intervene at will and pretend to substitute our creative abilities for those of natural systems, and we have often done so. There is perhaps a temptation to exercise our power just because we have it. But we should know that our creative abilities cannot really substitute for natural creativity which, since it does not originate with a single (human) creature, reflects far more complexity and diversity. And so a fifth virtue is that of restraint from this kind of careless exercise.

H: But I would think that understanding of our limits also implies a kind of humility.

A: Exactly where I was heading. As we've observed, our scientific understanding of natural systems has sufficient power to make us realize that some aspects of our behavior, as it affects the natural world, have moral significance. At the same time, we should have the humility to acknowledge that science does not thereby become a measure of value.

H: That's kind of similar to the mistake that the econo-consequentialists make.

A: Very much so. But also — and this is really a separate point — we need to admit how puny — in fact, and perhaps even in principle — our scientific knowledge is when it comes understanding causes and effects in complex ecosystems in a way that permits us to reliably predict the outcomes of our intrusions. Ironically, it seems that our finest scientists are often the worst offenders in advocating interventions with a gross absence of this kind of humility.

H: I guess a lot of our blog has been devoted to pointing that out. Remember our account of introducing the cactus moth to control unwanted prickly pear cactus in the the prickly pear's native Caribbean habitats (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/10/managing-baseball-managing-nature.html)?

A: Ah yes. It seems that the Mexican poor are about to pay a heavy price for that bit of arrogance. Unfortunately, it's not an isolated case. Think of the half-century long policy to eliminate predators — "bad" animals — wolves, bears, mountain lions — that prey on "good" ones — deer, for example. (A.S. Leopold, et. al., "Wildlife Management in the National Parks", in U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Administrative Policies for Natural Areas of the National Park System (Washington, D.C., 1968); also National Parks Magazine, 37 (1963)). We now see through that analysis — even laugh at the fact that we were expressing an "arbitrary", though really, anthropocentrically self-serving preference to remove the natural predators — so that we humans, qua hunters, could replace them. But in truth, we know of few interventions that are better justified.

H: I'm afraid that there's a pretty long list.

A: Evidence the implementation of the Endangered Species Act. We selectively embrace what feels good to us. Small non-furry creatures such as frogs and spiders don't feel so good; they have little support. Big furry creatures fare better. Plants? The primary producers of our planet? If they produce pretty flowers, they might get noticed. Otherwise, they're nearly forgotten.

H: Yeah, it's pretty embarrassing. I guess that for critters, we act to keep something only if it looks good in the zoo, as a stuffed animal, or on our plates.

A: You might think that ecologists do better when they discuss this sort of thing in their scientific journals.

H: Don't they?

A: Think of the discussion of how to target our efforts to save the organisms that inhabit the earth. We read that biodiversity is the key.

H: Gee, isn't it?

A: Why should we think so? There isn't even any single definition of "biodiversity". Depending on her purpose an ecologist may have in mind any one or more of multiple characterizations — genetic, intraspecies diversity; or the diversity of species; or the diversity of functional groups; or concentrations of endemisms. (Dirzo, R., Raven, P., "Global state of biodiversity and loss", Annual Review of Environment and Natural Resources, 28 (2003), pp. 138-139)

H: I hadn't thought of that.

A: Should we save the hotspots of endemism on the grounds that those contain the most kinds of endangered species in the least amount of area — 1.4% of the earth's land surface? What about the "coldspots" in the other 98.4% of the land that may provide global and local ecosystem processes that natural capitalists would consider important; or that contain unique evolutionary lineages and rare species; or that encompass the last major wilderness landscapes; or that provide habitat for wide-ranging animal species? (Kareiva, P. and Marview, M., "Conserving Biodiversity Coldspots", American Scientist, 91 (July-August 2003), pp. 344-351, http://www.scu.edu/cas/biology/staffandfaculty/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=32625). Are some species just plain dispensable? Many conservation biologists say that. "We wouldn't even notice when this little caddisfly vanishes in Glacier Nation Park..."

H: Gee, I don't know about that.

A: Neither do I. For one thing, we may not notice the absence of an organism — at least, not right away — only because of the limitations in our science, or in the time span in which we can make observations, or in the conditions that happen to obtain in that limited time span. We may never get to observe the conditions in which a creature's now vacated role becomes obvious, even paramount. But more fundamentally, what possible justification do we have for adopting any one or more of those biodiversity criteria for intervening on behalf of some species, or for casually declaring the death sentence for others? On what grounds can we claim that our choice in any of these cases is any less arbitrary, or self-serving, or based on less narrowly construed human preferences than the now-abandoned dictum to eliminate predators?

H: But surely it would be better to choose one than none, better to save some rather than to lose all.

A: Because the species we choose to save has a "scientific" justification for its continued existence?

H: Ah, yes. That's something that The Nature Conservancy scientist, Sanjayan, would say, as helioskiagrablog discussed last month (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/12/environmental-values-science-and-nature.html).

A: As you intimated in that piece, that's surely an ethically empty criterion — no different from the one that justified the predator elimination program that we now disavow. But even more profoundly, I would also suggest that the kind of choices you feel compelled to make — grasping for this species here, that other one there — are choices of a desperate triage whose ultimate failure is almost certainly guaranteed. The conditions that make the triage compelling now will make it ever more desperate. No matter how careful our choices are, we really never completely understand their full effects. And in any event, we will at some point be reduced to choices that plainly consummate the evisceration of what little we have left of natural ecosystems. Unless we begin to question the assumptions that seem to necessitate this losing struggle. I think that worthy of its own separate discussion on another occasion.

H: We may take you up on that. But in any case, I think that you've convinced us that humility, perhaps a kind of scientific humility is an environmental virtue.

A: Well put. I would say that our sixth environmental virtue is the humility to admit first, that it is a category mistake to think that science is a measuring stick for natural value. And second, we should have the humility to acknowledge that it is, as a matter of fact, too puny for measuring the "importance" of parts even if that importance is narrowly defined in terms of what we humans desire or prefer to keep with us. Certainly, our track record in satisfying those preferences, however justified (or not), is abominable. We simply do not have any kind of reliable handle on either the resilience or vulnerabilities of the natural systems that we seem unable to resist meddling with.

H: Wow, Mr. A. We've covered a whole lot of territory today.

A: I'd say so. Six virtues in one day. That's kind of like a virtue marathon — maybe even an all-time record.

H: Could be.

A: And yet, there's much more to do.

H: I kind of thought so. More environmental virtues?

A: More of those. But also, I'd like to share some thoughts on what virtue ethics is, and what it's not; and to defend it against some common, but misguided criticisms.

H: That would certainly be helpful, Mr. A.

A: Also, I'd like to get back to why your triage conundrum is a false one.

H: Excellent. Anything else?

A: How about a look at the last man example?

H: You mean Richard Sylvan's thought experiment? And the last people example, too?

A: I think that would be illuminating.

H: Hey, Mr. A, there's no greater luminary than you to discuss stuff like this.

A: I do my best. But I think that it's time to dive back into my armchair. There's a lot to contemplate for next time.

H: Thank you, Mr. A. And we'll see what we can do about getting you a spot on NPR.

A: Hey, d'ya think you could get a theme song for me played on a barbitos? Alcaeus and Sappho had some hot tunes for that instrument, ya know. Still popular around Lesbos when I was tramping around there doing my field work with Theophrastus.

H: Your biologist buddy?

A: Yeah, I loved that guy — even though he believed that eating meat is unjust on the grounds that it robs non-human animals of life. Seemed strange at the time; but after 2.3 millennia, maybe that's worth another look. My armchair awaits...

H: Ok, helioskiagrablog readers. There you have some of Aristotle's first thoughts ever on environmental virtues. And there's more to come.

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Environmental Values, Science, and The Nature Conservancy

Peter Kareiva has no trouble understanding environmental values. This blog's readers will know Kareiva as the scientist who joined with some colleagues to declare that nature is a resource whose value is realized by "domesticating" it. New readers should refer to "'Domesticating Nature' — NYT Commentary" (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/08/domesticating-nature-nyt-commentary.html) and "'Domesticating Nature' — How vs. Why" (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/08/domesticating-nature-how-vs-why.html).

Gardening animals: Topiary (Priscilla Wilson) http://www.threadless.com/product/1159/Topiary

Humans now dominate the vast bulk of the planet. We should just get on with completing the job for the pleasure and profit of people.

The question that Kareiva is concerned to address is "How should we manage the earth domestication project?" How shall we customize the earth and all its ecosystems — in fact, all its systems — to best serve human interests? It is hard to find a more stunningly arrogant statement of nature's value. Or one more oblivious to our oft-demonstrated and probably unavoidable incompetence to realize the vision of man as "earth manager".

Kareiva is the chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy.

The Nature Conservancy avers that its mission is (http://www.nature.org/pressroom/links/art10292.html):

to preserve plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. We are dedicated to preserving biological diversity, and, as described below, our values compel us to find ways to ensure that human activities can be conducted harmoniously with the preservation of natural diversity. We aspire to the vision articulated so wisely more than 50 years ago by Aldo Leopold in his book, A Sand County Almanac: conservation is a state of harmony between man and nature.

How are we to understand this vision of harmony, solemnly offered with the imprimatur of Aldo Leopold? As read through the lens of Kareiva's sensibilities, it is the harmony that we achieve by subjecting every last bit of nature to human control for human pleasure and comfort.

This past month, we have a "Dispatch" (http://www.nature.org/tncscience/features/art22977.html) from Sanjayan — another Conservancy "lead" scientist. In it, Sanjayan describes a meeting in Missoula with Kareiva and the Conservancy program director there. There is no mention of domestication; no mention of widening our "global footprint" (as Kareiva would say) to ensure that every last corner of the planet bears it. That is refreshing, even encouraging, considering Sanjayan's company that night.

Instead, we find confusion. But that is appropriate! Understanding environmental values is an extraordinarily difficult enterprise. Sanjayan is struggling along with the rest of us.

Sanjayan asks:

When the goal is to protect a little bit of everything on the planet, can a conservation organization afford to protect places for non-scientific reasons?

Evidently, "scientific reasons" can confer indisputable value. But other ways of conferring value are suspect -- as he implies by going on to ask:

[can a conservation organization afford to protect places] Simply because of human values? Aesthetics? Emotional ties that bind people to place?

Some may wish to dismiss Sanjayan for committing a form of the "naturalistic fallacy". But that "fallacy" has little to do with either naturalists or fallacies. Instead, we should say that Sanjayan offers an enthymeme, well described by Aristotle (who else?) in his "Rhetoric" Book I.2 (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/rhetoric.1.i.html) as a syllogism with suppressed premises. Sanjayan's enthymeme is:

• Premise 1: A landscape that has not lost any species in 200 years makes it (let us say) "200-year-species-intact".
• Premise 2: 200-year-species-intact landscapes are "unique".
• Premise 3: Only science can realiably identify 200-year-species-intact landscapes.
• Conclusion: Therefore, species-intact landscapes are worthy of preservation.

Before getting to the missing premise, we should acknowledge that Sanjayan hedges his Conclusion with the comment that

The value of a totally intact landscape versus a slightly impacted landscape is hard to quantify. Some lost species will be noticed; others, frankly, will not.

So apparently, Sanjayan is willing to qualify his conclusion. But this is a quantitative qualification, not a qualitative one. His conclusion holds for a landscape that, insofar as we can notice, is "intact". If we overlook the disappearance of a species or find it hard to notice its absence — presumably using current ecological science, and within the range of conditions and time in which scientific observation has been possible — then we should not attempt to distinguish that landscape from one that is (by all measures of current ecological science) completely "intact". Perhaps the missing species is merely an arachnid whose ecosystem role cannot be identified and in any case, with which it is hard to be empathetic.

So what's the missing premise?

• Missing Premise: A landscape with a scientifically verifiable unique property is valuable.

Is this premise true? Probably not. Sanjayan certainly provides no reason for us to believe it.

Clearly, we can find properties in any landscape that are unique to it and that distinguish it from any others. The peculiarities of its peculiar biogeochemical composition would suffice for a unique thumbprint. What Sanjayan seeks are properties that confer conservation-demanding value on landscapes. Uniqueness alone doesn't do this.

Do certain unique properties such as 200-year-species-intact have a special status in the realm of environmental values? Perhaps they do. But this value does not result from the fact that the valued property is scientifically determined and understood — that it has, in Sanjayan's words, a "scientific reason". The various properties that typify or constitute a Superfund site may be scientifically determined, too. But that doesn't give such a site a value that demands its preservation. Quite the opposite.

Biodiversity, too, is scientifically characterizable — albeit in a number of different ways that give different answers to the question "how biodiverse is this landscape?". Taking one measure, we may determine that a landscape is biodiverse. So much for the science. We then have to decide whether this diversity (not the fact that it was scientifically determined) confers some kind of value on the landscape that commands our moral attention.

Sanjayan is justifiably nervous about saying that science somehow confers value. He may sense, though doesn't say, that science does, indeed must inform our best judgments of value. It helps us understand more fully the implications of our actions. To the extent that consequences count in moral evaluation and deliberation, science may help immensely. But it doesn't tell us which consequences count; or which ones merit moral consideration; or for those that do, to what degree they command our moral attentiveness.

Science, too, can help us find in landscapes properties — and potentially valuable properties — beyond those that satisfy our most near-sighted and narrowly construed interests. Science helps us see that not every plot of land has value merely as a place to build a condo, to lay down a highway, or to plant endless rows of ethanol-yielding corn. But science doesn't have the power to confer the value. Rather, it can only help us find the properties that we find valuable in our moral deliberations outside of (though informed by) scientific inquiry.

Sanjayan does hint at other ways to proceed with the project of finding environmental value. But he immediately despairs of making any headway with them:

Every place, it seems, is precious to those who live there; it’s difficult to argue that some are more precious than others.

These are, as he says, merely "emotional ties that bind people to a place". How can we possibly sort this out? But really, this is an excellent place to start! We would urge Sanjayan to start from there — the value of places to people.

Sanjayan offers other hints, by way of being dismissive, of letting "human value" or "aesthetics" enter into consideration. These may also be areas of fruitful moral, though not scientific inquiry.

We would urge Sanjayan not to expect an easy formula or "scientific reason" that will identify properties that carry environmental values, let alone create a neatly ordered hierarchy of such values. The world of values, including (or perhaps especially) those attaching to nature and the environment, arise from many, varied, and dynamically changing interests that do not admit a neat order. We are likely to find many different kinds of values and no alchemy for converting one kind to another. There may not even be a common measure — as much as we yearn for this when the values conflict and demand tradeoffs.

This blog requested that Sanjayan record his comments on these thoughts. Sanjayan did not do that. Nor did he even respond to the request.

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Aristotle breezes back to share some Socratic wisdom

H: Hey, Mr. A. We didn't expect you back so soon!

A: My mention of Meno yesterday put me in mind of an instructive exchange he had with Socrates on desires or preferences for goods, their acquisition, and the relation of these to virtue. Having absorbed our discussion of preference consequentialism from yesterday, your readers are well prepared to understand what Socrates has to say. It seems that he might have had some of the same misgivings that we've expressed about preferences as measures of value.

H: Ok, Mr. A. We're delighted to present that dialogue without further comment:

Detail of Socrates teaching, from The School of Athens (Raphael, 1509-10)

Men. Well then, Socrates, virtue, as I take it, is when he, who desires the honourable, is able to provide it for himself; so the poet says, and I say too -

Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of attaining them.

Soc. And does he who desires the honourable also desire the good?

Men. Certainly.

Soc. Then are there some who desire the evil and others who desire the good? Do not all men, my dear sir, desire good?

Men. I think not.

Soc. There are some who desire evil?

Men. Yes.

Soc. Do you mean that they think the evils which they desire, to be good; or do they know that they are evil and yet desire them?

Men. Both, I think.

Soc. And do you really imagine, Meno, that a man knows evils to be evils and desires them notwithstanding?

Men. Certainly I do.

Soc. And desire is of possession?

Men. Yes, of possession.

Soc. And does he think that the evils will do good to him who possesses them, or does he know that they will do him harm?

Men. There are some who think that the evils will do them good, and others who know that they will do them harm.

Soc. And, in your opinion, do those who think that they will do them good know that they are evils?

Men. Certainly not.

Soc. Is it not obvious that those who are ignorant of their nature do not desire them; but they desire what they suppose to be goods although they are really evils; and if they are mistaken and suppose the evils to be good they really desire goods?

Men. Yes, in that case.

Soc. Well, and do those who, as you say, desire evils, and think that evils are hurtful to the possessor of them, know that they will be hurt by them?

Men. They must know it.

Soc. And must they not suppose that those who are hurt are miserable in proportion to the hurt which is inflicted upon them?

Men. How can it be otherwise?

Soc. But are not the miserable ill-fated?

Men. Yes, indeed.

Soc. And does any one desire to be miserable and ill-fated?

Men. I should say not, Socrates.

Soc. But if there is no one who desires to be miserable, there is no one, Meno, who desires evil; for what is misery but the desire and possession of evil?

Men. That appears to be the truth, Socrates, and I admit that nobody desires evil.

Soc. And yet, were you not saying just now that virtue is the desire and power of attaining good?

Men. Yes, I did say so.

Soc. But if this be affirmed, then the desire of good is common to all, and one man is no better than another in that respect?

Men. True.

Soc. And if one man is not better than another in desiring good, he must be better in the power of attaining it?

Men. Exactly.

Soc. Then, according to your definition, virtue would appear to be the power of attaining good?

Men. I entirely approve, Socrates, of the manner in which you now view this matter.

Soc. Then let us see whether what you say is true from another point of view; for very likely you may be right:-You affirm virtue to be the power of attaining goods?

Men. Yes.

Soc. And the goods which mean are such as health and wealth and the possession of gold and silver, and having office and honour in the state-those are what you would call goods?

Men. Yes, I should include all those.

Soc. Then, according to Meno, who is the hereditary friend of the great king, virtue is the power of getting silver and gold; and would you add that they must be gained piously, justly, or do you deem this to be of no consequence? And is any mode of acquisition, even if unjust and dishonest, equally to be deemed virtue?

Men. Not virtue, Socrates, but vice.

Soc. Then justice or temperance or holiness, or some other part of virtue, as would appear, must accompany the acquisition, and without them the mere acquisition of good will not be virtue.

Men. Why, how can there be virtue without these?

Soc. And the non-acquisition of gold and silver in a dishonest manner for oneself or another, or in other words the want of them, may be equally virtue?

Men. True.

Soc. Then the acquisition of such goods is no more virtue than the non-acquisition and want of them, but whatever is accompanied by justice or honesty is virtue, and whatever is devoid of justice is vice.

Men. It cannot be otherwise, in my judgment.

Soc. And were we not saying just now that justice, temperance, and the like, were each of them a part of virtue?

Men. Yes.

Soc. And so, Meno, this is the way in which you mock me.

Men. Why do you say that, Socrates?

Soc. Why, because I asked you to deliver virtue into my hands whole and unbroken, and I gave you a pattern according to which you were to frame your answer; and you have forgotten already, and tell me that virtue is the power of attaining good justly, or with justice; and justice you acknowledge to be a part of virtue.

Men. Yes.

Soc. Then it follows from your own admissions, that virtue is doing what you do with a part of virtue; for justice and the like are said by you to be parts of virtue.

Men. What of that?

Soc. What of that! Why, did not I ask you to tell me the nature of virtue as a whole? And you are very far from telling me this; but declare every action to be virtue which is done with a part of virtue; as though you had told me and I must already know the whole of virtue, and this too when frittered away into little pieces. And, therefore, my dear I fear that I must begin again and repeat the same question: What is virtue? for otherwise, I can only say, that every action done with a part of virtue is virtue; what else is the meaning of saying that every action done with justice is virtue? Ought I not to ask the question over again; for can any one who does not know virtue know a part of virtue?

Plato, "Meno", tr. Benjamin Jowett (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/meno.html)

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Aristotle takes a closer look at natural capital

(The third in a series of interviews with the great philosopher)

[Aristotle returns from the pub to which he retreated for a well-earned respite after discussing Robert Constanza's suggestion that we value nature as "natural capital", in "Aristotle shows up in Ecology 101" (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/09/aristotle-shows-up-in-ecology-101.html).]

The truth in natural capital

A: Well that was quite refreshing.

H: Yes indeed.

A: Three Philosophers Ale is quite a brew. Do you think that I'm one of those Three Philosophers? I mean, you could make a much better case for me than for Plato. With all due respect to my mentor, I'm skeptical that even a Philosopher King could truly enjoy the Form of Beer. Me? I'd rather just quaff some sensible suds, hang out in a cave — Philosophy Corner would do just fine — and debate the merits of valuing nature as natural capital. The Form of Beer will never tickle anyone's taste buds...

H: No doubt, a debate to have with Plato over a few more brews. But right now, we're anxious to get back to what we discussed last time — you know — Mr. Constanza's project of valuing natural places as natural capital.

A: Yes, this is one of the most important and most urgent topics of the day.

H: Mr. Constanza and his colleagues undoubtedly lack neither good intentions nor intellectual prowess. And a great many other equally well-intentioned and brilliant thinkers — some of our most eminent scientists and economists — have joined his project. It's so seductive to think of natural places as capital investments. It all seemed such a promising, even natural way to demonstrate the stupidity of reckless disregard of our natural resources — until you pointed out that it leads us to such absurd conclusions.

A: Yes indeed. I propose that we inquire into assumptions that underlie the natural capital valuation project. Perhaps we shall find that that RompInASwamp DevCo aren't the only ones building on a quagmire.

H: That's exactly what we were hoping for...

A: That will help set us up for a time when we might find a more satisfactory way of valuing nature by exploring some elements that are missing from the natural capital picture.

H: Splendid! Well, why do you think that Constanza's project is so appealing?

A: I think that there are many reasons. But the one I'd like to focus on first is that there is undoubtedly some truth in it.

H: Whoa there, Mr. A. I thought that you were going to help us see just the opposite. I mean, how else would it endorse such crazy things as casually trashing deserts or turning every swamp into a condo complex when that presents the greatest economic benefit?

A: We shall see about that. But I'd like to start by acknowledging the truth of one of Mr. Constanza's most fundamental premises — namely that nature provides a host of resources that we draw upon to satisfy a great many human needs. It provides the raw "stuff" for us to make many of the things that we desire and to satisfy our many and varied preferences.

H: That's certainly true.

A: No one can doubt that we "make a living" from nature...

H: Right.

A: ... or that nature has value to us because of that.

H: So Constanza didn't get everything wrong...

A: Not at all.

H: Then why not go with Constanza's project of setting the right price for nature and her services? Isn't it better to have some number that represents the value of a natural system than no number at all? Won't that at least give us some way to ask whether we'd be better off by going ahead with the next project that destroys part of our natural heritage?

Consequences for human welfare = the true measure of an act?

A: Excellent questions! I sense an inquiring rational soul at work.

H: Thank you, Mr. A. Coming from you, that's quite a complement.

A: Perhaps the most fundamental question we should ask is whether the consequences of an act, and particularly, the state of human welfare that derives from it, should be its true and only moral measure. Some might say that we sometimes, often, or even always should choose to act in a way that fulfills our duties and obligations to others, and that honors the just demands of others on us — even we thereby decrease overall welfare. I think that my buddy Manny might say something like that.

H: Sure, sometimes it's more important to just keep a promise to a friend — even if it might mean forgoing some significant preferences of our own and even if they likely outweigh the benefits for our friend.

A: An excellent example. And there are others who, when considering a particular act, might wish to focus on whether we would want to be the kind of person who would do it. I can't imagine who might want say that. But that doesn't sound totally crazy, does it?

H: I wouldn't have thought of that. But now that you mention it, I sometimes find myself thinking in just that way, too.

A: A man after my own rational soul. But let's begin by assuming that the outcome for human welfare is the right way to evaluate our actions.

H: Well, ok. Though you've made me pretty doubtful...

A: Does it follow that the price that such an outcome commands is the true value of the welfare that it provides?

H: Why wouldn't it be?

Price = Value?

A: An astonishing question. My first question would be, "Why in Macedonia would you think that it does?"

H: Gee, how could you not think that?

A: Let me tell you about a chat that I had with a bloke in that brew house. Called himself "Adam". Beat us Theatetus, could he belt down those Scottish ales.

H: Adam..., Adam..., common last name? Rings a bell...

A: In between pints, and before he slipped under the bar, he managed to write this down for me:

The word VALUE, it is to be observed, has two different meanings, and sometimes expresses the utility of some particular object, and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods which the possession of that object conveys. The one may be called "value in use"; the other, "value in exchange". The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; and on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarce any thing; scarce any thing can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use; but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it (Book I, Chapter IV)... The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it (Book I, Chapter V).

A. Smith, "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations", 1776 (http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Smith/smWN.html)

H: Ah, so he's saying that there's no real relationship between price and utility for people. The price reflects the amount of labor...

A: ... a "factor of production"...

H: ... not its effect on welfare. That puts a pretty big dent in the theory that the price of something is a measure of its value for human welfare.

A: Exactly so. On the one hand, there's value in use -- the true utility of something — its true significance for human welfare. On the other hand, there's its value in exchange -- in the marketplace. What Adam wrote down for me shows us why we shouldn't expect any particular relationship between the two. Of course, that's the old labor theory of value -- the classical view. Modern economists — the neoclassical dudes that I call "econo-consequentialists" — don't buy it... so to speak.

H: Damn. I thought we had that one nailed.

A: Yeah, well, when I brought up the neoclassical view, poor auld Adam slid off his stool and slipped under the bar.

H: He felt kind of marginalized?

A: Hah! Exactly! Talk to any self-respecting neoclassical economist these days, and she'll say the price of water isn't a matter of how much labor went into its production. The price isn't even a matter of the total value of all the water in the world.

H: No?

A: Not at all. What counts is the water's marginal utility. The price for a unit of water is what a person is willing to pay to satisfy her last and least important desire for it. With abundant supplies, one needn't worry about its vital role in human survival. Instead, its price comes down to what we're willing to pay to use it to wash off sidewalks. But diamonds are so scarce that those who want them are willing to pay a way higher price for one than for a glass of water. A diamond's marginal utility, hence its price dwarfs that of water.

H: Amazing.

A: What I find amazing is that, if poor auld Adam hadn't had quite so many ales, he would have realized that those neoclassical dudes just take a different route to the same conclusion. The price of a thing does not reflect its value for human well being — not even insofar as that well being is a matter of how needs and preferences are satisfied. Economic theory — either classical or neoclassical — refutes that interpretation.

H: Wow.

A: Why do you find this surprising? Consider how, according to Stuart Pimm, Constanza and friends place the astounding $17 trillion price tag on nutrient cycling by the oceans. According to Pimm,

If the oceans were not there, re-creating their nutrient cycling would require removing the nutrients from the land's runoff and returning them. The estimate of this service's $17 trillion value is arrived at by multiplying the cost of removing phosphorus and nitrogen from a litre of waste water by the 40,000 cubic kilometers of water that flow from the land each year.

S. Pimm, "The value of everthing", Nature, 387, 15 May 1997, p. 232 (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v387/n6630/abs/387231a0.html)

There's a problem, though.

H: Which is...

A: ... that, according to Pimm, at least "In the short term, many would not notice (and perhaps not care) what happens to the elements as they flow into the ocean." (p. 232) So by the principles of preference consequentialism that underlie this valuation, that price grossly overestimates its true value for welfare. But say that we devise a wondrous technology that reduces the cost of P and N removal and recycling by a factor of 1,000,000. The price would then be a mere $17 million/yr. — a veritable bargain. Are we to think that such technological innovation reduces the value of the oceans for us? That a breakthrough technology would make the oceans dispensable? Would that make it ok for us to start heaving all our waste into them? Would we be free to stop worrying about eutrophication? Would that be the signal to start building pipelines to convey all our toxic wastes to the ocean?

H: That doesn't seem right.

A: I think what you feel is that, even if part of the value of the oceans has to do with nutrient cycling, not all its value derives from that. In fact, viewing the oceans simply as a resource for our use may fail to capture the most significant values of the ocean for us.

H: But wait a minute.

A: Hey man, I don't know about you, but I've already been waiting for two and one-half millennia. I can spare a few more moments or so.

H: We really appreciate your patience, Mr. A.

A: It's rather embarrassing, but we philosophers are not known for the speed with which we solve problems.

H: Ok, you've convinced me that price is pretty shaky stand-in for welfare value. As you've pointed out, economic theory itself — both classical and neoclassical — undermines that interpretation.

A: It's rather worse than that. Not only are Constanza and Pimm in error by presenting the supposed market price of nutrient cycling as its value for human welfare, they don't even get the market price right. I confess that Environmental Economics was not in the Lyceum curriculum. But I'm pretty sure you'd flunk the Stanford course if you used Pimm's substitution logic. To determine the true market price of a thing or service, a modern economist doesn't ask "What would it cost you to do that?" That's pretty much auld Adam's cost of labor theory. Instead, the neoclassical economist figures out our willingness to pay using contingent evaluation interviews. She would ask, "If it cost you $17 million to cycle N and P, would you buy that service? Yes? Ok, how about $17 billion? Really? How about $17 trillion?" if the economist's interlocutor says, "Jeez, Socrates; I'm gonna take my $17 million and buy myself 17 million lottery tickets instead — then that's the market price. A pretty crummy dialogue by Plato's standards. But I guess that modern economists doing contingent evaluation don't have his panache.

H: Ok, so let's make those ecologists take Environmental Economics before we let them publish again in "Nature". In the meantime, let's look at the bigger picture. Water and diamonds and nutrient cycling are only a tiny part of all the myriad things that we need and want. Aren't welfare economists just finding a way to express our preferences — and with a very satisfying mathematical precision, at that? Doesn't our welfare increase to the extent our preferences are satisfied? Can't we quantify our preferences for things or states of affairs by how much we're willing to pay for them — at the margins, as you say — by determining or estimating their price?

A: There are a raft of further assumptions behind those questions and we should look into them. As we've already seen, the market price of a thing has no necessary or even empirically observable connection with its value — considered as the importance of that thing for human well-being or flourishing.

H: But I can't help thinking that we could find a way to reconnect them.

A: Let's look at some other assumptions first — to see if that's the only problem.

Needs = preferences?

H: Ok, Mr. A, what's the next assumption?

A: That preferences and needs can be considered as one. Economists lump them into the basket of market "goods" that we might be willing to pay for.

H: How do you mean?

A: We all have a need for water and food. The nutritive part of our soul, which we share with all other organisms — plants and animals alike — and which is the source of our natural capacity to grow and reproduce, cannot flourish without food:

The nutritive soul then must be possessed by everything that is alive, and every such thing is endowed with soul from its birth to its death. For what has been born must grow, reach maturity, and decay-all of which are impossible without nutrition. Therefore the nutritive faculty must be found in everything that grows and decays.

Aristotle, "De Anima", Book III.12, tr. J.A. Smith (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/soul.3.iii.html)

H: Can't get any more basic than that!

A: Right! And because we humans are social animals, certain kinds of relationships with other persons are also necessary to us. For example, we cannot flourish without friendships — for we need friends to develop and exercise our natural capacities as the kind of social animal that can take another's interests as one's own:

[Friendship] is a virtue or implies virtue, and is besides most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods; even rich men and those in possession of office and of dominating power are thought to need friends most of all.

Aristotle, "Nichomachean Ethics", Book VIII.1, tr. W.D. Ross (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.8.viii.html)

H: That's a pretty strong claim. But I'd be hard pressed to contest it.

A: There's no possibility of a person flourishing in the absence of these sorts of things. In fact, we would suffer serious harm without them. They are independent of beliefs and position in life and even our ongoing projects in life because they arise directly from the very kind of living being, the kind of animal that we are.

H: But preferences...

A: ... are unlike needs in key respects. They depend on beliefs and on one's position in life. We can be mistaken about our preferences and prefer things that are not at all good for our well-being. We may mistakenly think that drinking six pints of ale every night with two scotch chasers bolsters our spirits and is good for us.

H: Like poor auld Adam, it seems.

A: Ah, he barely got to his third. But there's a related distinction that may be even more important.

H: And that is...

A: ... that our preferences, in contrast to our needs, can develop and change -- sometimes in profound ways -- as we develop our natural human sensibilities and become aware of relationships or new dimensions in relationships that we have to other things, other organisms and creatures, and to other persons in our world. Where the real estate guys at RompInASwamp DevCo see only a mosquito-infested and inconveniently water-saturated tract of land on which to build lucrative condos, the trained ecologist sees a vibrant community of plants and animals interacting with the "stuff" of an increasingly rare kind of place that presents conditions in which that kind of community can flourish. The developer sees a resource, a means for satisfying her preference to enrich herself. The home-buyers see a prestigious home site that satisfies their preference for the offered amenities. But the ecologist sees a place with a special kind of bio-geological history that gives it a correspondingly special place alongside and in relation to human beings.

H: In other words, ecology scientists such as Constanza and Pimm should see some kinds of value in swamps that have nothing to do with the services that they perform for us?

A: Yes, and it's a pity that they, of all people, don't insist on including such non-market values in their discussion of the value of places.

H: So we need to take care that we don't lump preferences together with needs. What else do we need to be wary of?

Willingness to pay = justice?

A: Remember that notion of "willingness to pay" that we mentioned?

H: Sure. That's how neoclassical economists measure the strength of our preferences.

A: Right. So we need to ask what "willingness to pay" really measures. Consider this. Economists ask themselves whether or not it's ok for people to die as the result of proposed policy — say to allow an industry to dump toxins into a river at a certain level.

H: Gee, doesn't that already violate the distinction between needs and preferences that you already discussed?

A: It does, indeed. But there's another point to be made. As Stanford economist Lawrence Goulder explains ("Benefit-Cost Analysis, Individual Differences, and Third Parties", Februay 2007, paper prepared for the conference, “What We Can Do To Improve The Use Of Benefit-Cost Analysis?” University of Washington, May 18-19, 2006), "The key statistic in this context is the value of a statistical life (VSL), which is calculated based on each affected individual’s willingness to pay for the change in the statistical probability of death that applies to him or her." And guess what? Rich people are far more willing to pay to increase their survival chances than poor people.

H: Well Plato's tomatoes, they've got the money to do that, and the power to make it happen.

A: Of course. So on the watch of the neoclassical economists, the life of a poor person is worth less — often considerably less — than the life of a rich person. Of course, when we say that, we mean the "the value of a statistical life". But actuarial tables play out in the real world with real human lives. By economists' evaluative rules, it's better to pay for toxic pollution by cutting short the life of a poor person than of a rich one.

H: I can see why you're not too keen on econo-consequentialism. Doesn't it have some sense of justice?

A: Perhaps, as an afterthought. Goulder, for example, claims that rich people have a preference for the poor not to suffer unduly. Taking that preference into account would even things up a bit.

H: So we are to find the value of poor people in rich persons' sympathy for their suffering? There's something even more appalling in that response than the obvious injustice of discounting poor lives in the first place.

A: What we are observing is the retreat by neoclassical economists from the principle of equal consideration. That principle was maintained by their classical utilitarian forerunners such as good old Jeremy Bentham. On his account, the pain of every person — perhaps even every sentient creature — counts equally.

H: Now that sounds fair.

Maximizing welfare = justice?

A: Fair in the respect that all are considered equally, but still not fair in how goods and harms may be distributed.

H: How so?

A: In the bad old days of classical utilitarianism, consequentialists took themselves to be simple-minded utility accountants. For the consequences of some act, add in Meno's increase in utility. Subtract the decrease for Zeno. Do that for all positively affected Meno's and all negatively affected Zeno's

The naked Archimedes (c 287-212 BC) running through the streets of Syracuse shouting 'Eureka!' From the title page of: 'Notizie istoriche e critiche intorno alla vita, alle invenzioni,ed agli scritti di Archimede siracusano' (Historical and critical information about the life, inventions and writings of Archimedes of Syracuse) by Count Giammaria Mazzuchelli (1707-1765), published 1737, Brescia, Italy.

and ηὕρηκα, um, voilà (that babelfish is quite something) you have a rating for that act and possibly one very excited economist running around naked holding up a sign with that number. Another economist takes another possible act, does the Meno's/Zeno's calculation for that alternative, and there, you've got two naked economists running around, each with their own number. Pretty soon, you have a mighty ugly sight. But barring the unlikely outcome of a tie, only one of those economists will be running around with the highest number and the others will have to get dressed and go home.

H: Whew. I was worried that things might be getting out of hand.

A: There may be disagreement about the ingredients for utilities in these calculations. My buddy Jeremy Bentham would keep it simple, restricting the calculus to pleasures and pains. John Mill would muddy the waters by throwing in most preferences (including the preference to experience pleasure and that to avoid pain), with some kind of, if you'll pardon the expression, preferential preference ranking. But in the end, it's basically a matter of addition and subtraction — modified only by weighting a pleasure or pain by its strength, or by weighting a preference by strength and type. The total welfare that is results from a choice — the summation of its consequences, both positive and negative — is what counts in comparing that choice to others.

H: Without using willingness to pay to measure preferences?

A: Right. The pleasures and pains of all count equally; or if you prefer, the preferences of all count equally.

H: How could that be unjust?

A: Injustices may result when some persons derive more utility from a choice than others. If the choice that maximizes the utility does so by providing enormous benefits to some, and the sum of those enormous benefits far outweighs (in the calculus) an enormous suffering that it inflicted on many, but fewer others, then classical utilitarianism would endorse it.

H: Even if the sufferers were in the minority, that would not be very just, would it?

A: Especially not in that case. That is what some would call the tyranny of the majority.

H: Yes, I can see that. Where do you think the calculation goes awry? It seemed such an unassailably good idea to choose those acts and policies that maximize welfare.

A: Ah, the question of justice brings us to yet another major question.

H: Which is...

Additivity of utilities?

A: Why, in the first place, should we think that we can we can meaningfully add and subtract the pleasures and pains of different people, or their preferences for different goods that they suppose are constitutive of their well-being?

H: Well, if Bentham is right, and our welfare is just a matter of pleasures and pains, it doesn't seem too hard to think of adding and subtracting them.

A: Even restricting our attention to pleasures, aren't there a plethora of different kinds? Do you really suppose that you can compare the pleasure of one person in being awarded a degree in philosophy with another person's pain in knowing that a departing friend will never again be seen?

H: I see what you mean.

A: Going beyond Bentham's simple world of pleasures and pains, consider the infinitely more diverse set of goods that might be the subjects of our preferences. Consider, for example, a preference to have good and fast friends. Can that be added to or subtracted from a preference to lead an autonomous life, free from the shackles of slavery? Can we say that a slave living in the most ignominious conditions is compensated by the fast friendships that, in her position, she can and does develop with her fellow slaves?

H: That would seem to be a tough proposition to endorse. But couldn't there be a way to compare two preferences without having to have some absolute rating of each?

Maximization and rights

A: Willingness to pay is one way to do that. That concept is, among other things, a tool that may appear to make possible a comparative measure, a ranking of all preferences. But we saw how quickly it leads us to an unjust distribution of the satisfaction of those preferences. There is yet another problem with "willingness to pay" that perhaps I shall leave for the end of today's interview.

H: Gee, Mr. A. It doesn't take too hard a glance at utility maximization to make it crumble before your eyes.

A: Yeah, it's kind of the reverse Gorgon effect. We philosophers are pretty good at it.

H: Are there any more questions on your list?

A: Well, our discussion of the utility arithmetic used in utility maximization serves well to introduce what may be our final question for today — which is, in fact, the first question we asked. Even if it makes sense to add some persons' preferences according to its strength and type, and to similarly subtract the preferences denied others, why should we think that maximizing preference values is the only thing that we should value in our moral considerations?

H: Well, I guess we've already shown that the distribution of goods counts. And man, maximization can really screw that up.

A: Yes, and the injustice of maximization doesn't end with the inequitable distribution of utilities. What about respect for basic rights — such as the right to autonomous existence, free of physical and intellectual enslavement? What if a system of enslavement maximized total human welfare? And what about the right to satisfaction of basic needs? Remember how we distinguished them from mere preferences? In considering one person's need for water directly against another person's preference for a 5-bath, 6-bedroom house instead of much more modest but perfectly adequate shelter launches us into morally troubled waters. Placing both on an equal footing inside the same calculus makes it possible to violate the basic right to satisfy such a basic need in the interest of maximizing preferences (broadly construed to include needs).

H: Well that seems to be all the more reason to get away from this maximization thing — this business of adding your utility and subtracting mine.

A: Spoken like a true neoclassical economist. Such an economist would say that you are onto something.

H: Really?

Justice of efficiency?

A: Indeed. Efficiency and Kaldor-Hicks compensation.

H: Huh?

A: The method of choice — the test of so-called "efficiency" — that neoclassical economists propose in place of maximization of welfare.

H: How does it work?

A: Maximization calculations are made on the problematic assumption that the preferences of Menos and Zenos can be assigned numeric values that can be added and subtracted in the preference calculus. Latter-day economists have invented the notion of economic efficiency precisely to avoid that — and thereby avoid the concomitant problems that we've unearthed.

H: That may not be a bad thing.

A: Not at all. So let's see how it works. This notion of efficiency builds on the notion of Pareto improvement. That's a change resulting from some act or policy which at least one person prefers but to which no one objects. One reaches Pareto optimality when no further Pareto improvements are possible.

H: Right. No adding or subtracting in that.

A: Exactly. But the Kaldor-Hicks criterion of efficiency sneaks interpersonal comparisons back in.

H: Then why would it be better than the maximizing calculus?

A: Well, the comparisons are less direct. The Kaldor-Hicks criterion broadens the simple notion of a Pareto improvement to allow, not just improvements to which no one objects, but ones that are so great to the beneficiaries that they can pay off the losers and still come out ahead.

H: It sounds as though we're also sneaking back to measuring preferences in terms of willingness to pay; or, in the case of the losers, willingness to accept compensation for their loss.

A: I'm afraid so. Interpersonal comparisons are back, though perhaps in a more limited way. Equal consideration is back out the door, because poor losers will tend to accept a pittance for their misery. And that's not even the worst of it.

H: It already looks like a pretty bad idea. It's hard to see how it could get worse.

A: Notice I said that the winners could pay off the losers.

H: Right?

A: Kaldor-Hicks does not say that they actually do that!

H: I'm stunned.

A: It's stunning, indeed. Kaldor-Hicks requires us to believe that justice is served when winners merely contemplate compensating the losers.

H: It's hard to believe that would sit well with the losers.

A: Or anyone with even a modest sense of justice.

H: Well, Mr. A, where does that leave us?

A brief synopsis

A: Not with much — at least, insofar as consequentialism and its incarnation as "natural capital" in valuing nature is concerned. Consequentialism in its various forms starts with one worthy insight — that the consequences of our actions and policies count in our moral assessment of them. Unfortunately, that insight is betrayed by the raft of assumptions that follow. There's the assumption that only consequences count. Close behind it is the assumption that the moral meaning of an act is entirely captured by how it affects human welfare. There's the flawed theory about how needs and preferences enter into human welfare. We have seen that it seems unlikely that we could make sense of comparing and adding interpersonal preferences. And it seems equally unlikely that we could find a just way to evaluate the aggregative consequences for welfare — whether we maximize utilities or apply an efficiency criterion. But even if we could do those things, questions about those first two basic assumptions would remain.

The grip of econo-consequentialist thinking

H: So how did such a problematic theory of moral value get such a grip on us?

A: I'm a philosopher, not a sociologist. But I'm willing to speculate...

H: that...?

A: ... there's a lure to the apparent mathematical precision of economics — so great a lure that we find it hard to overlook the possibility that the numbers may be meaningless. Economists aid and abet our urge to have a satisfyingly complete ordering on our choices. Of course we need the additional fiction of complete predictive ability and complete knowledge of human preferences for that. But nonetheless, the total ordering is hard to resist. All conflict dissolves away In a world in which all goods are completely ordered and comparable. There are no tradeoffs, really — just the choice that maximizes welfare for a maximizing consequential; or the most efficient choice for the modern economist. There's no tradeoff in choosing more welfare over less or more efficiency over less.

H: That would be too good to be true.

A: And I'm afraid it is. The unfortunate but real truth is that weighing the moral implications of an act is an extraordinarily imprecise and difficult practical art — not something that admits precise calculation. In the realm of natural value, part of the illusion of econo-consequentialist precision comes from its truncated account of that value as a set of resources and services from which we live. As we have already suggested, there's certainly more to natural value than that. Ethical considerations must embrace a wide variety of irreducible goods — not just how preferences are satisfied. Those goods tend to intertwine and conflict in agonizingly complex and difficult ways.

H: Yeah. I guess it's a mistake to try to make a simple thing out of something so complex.

A: Well said.

H: Do you think that there's anything else that makes econo-consequentialism seem so attractive?

A: Perhaps there's another attraction in how that view falls comfortably into the tradition of democratic liberalism. That tradition demands neutrality on the question of what we "should" prefer. We don't have to question one person's preference for a gigantic house over basic but entirely adequate shelter any more than another person's "preference" (or really need) for adequate drinking water. We take each preference at the same face value, as each person reports it to us. Even though we have seen that preferences are sometimes ill-conceived, to challenge such claims as less legitimate or illegitimate is vexingly difficult. Econo-consequentialism let's us avoid confronting this problem.

H: This has been an illuminating and most interesting discussion, Mr. A., but I don't think that I can cram more than one more thought into my head right now. Is there one final thought that you'd like to leave with us?

A: I've suggested that modern economic thinking has gone fairly far astray by failing to find and question some of its basic assumptions. That's not at all uncommon in ways of thinking that are institutionally ingrained. Nor is it uncommon for such ways of thinking to ignore obviously conflicting evidence. I'd like to bring one such case to your reader's attention — the problem with willingness to pay that I deferred 'til this point.

A final thought: Ignoring the evidence

H: Sure, shoot, Mr. A.

A: I have in mind the phenomenon of "protest zeros" in the contingent evaluation studies that economists use to find preference strengths for goods that are not traded in a market. These are answers that interviewees give as a way of refusing to assign any value to, say, preserving an area as wilderness. Economists quickly dismiss and throw out these "votes" on the grounds that they cannot be a true reflection of preferences: As they would say, "Nothing has either zero or infinite value." The evidence is discarded simply because it doesn't fit the theory. That, I would suggest, is as irrational as insisting that the premises "result of necessity" from the conclusion of a syllogism.

H: Pretty bad, I admit.

A: You should look at my discussion of bees. I honestly admitted that I didn't yet grasp all the facts and that

... if ever they are [sufficiently grasped], then credit must be given rather to observation than to theories, and to theories only if what they affirm agrees with the observed facts.

Aristotle, "On the Generation of Animals", Book III.10, tr. Arthur Platt (http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/generation/complete.html)

Doesn't anyone read what I have to say about the proper role of evidence in theory?

H: I guess not nearly enough.

A: Unfortunately, in discarding these "protest" data, economists discard an invaluable clue about the nature of value.

H: What is that?

A: That some goods are such that no price is acceptable. Not that such goods are worth zero dollars. Or an infinite number of dollars. Rather, as we philosophers like to say, there is a category mistake. Stipulating a price is a social act, entirely appropriate as part of the social interaction for exchanging certain kinds of goods in a market, but entirely inappropriate as a way of conveying the true worth of others. To say that one is willing to pay for certain kinds of goods, or to say that one is willing to accept payment for certain kinds of harms is to fundamentally mischaracterize, and mis-categorize those goods and harms. Consider interhuman relationships. How much would you be willing to accept to sell your child into slavery?

H: Good grief, Mr. A! How could I even consider that?

A: Or how much to betray your best friend? We also think of certain environmental goods in this way, places and non-human beings with which we also have relationships. So you might not be willing to say how much you're willing to accept for...

H: ... paving over the rim of the Grand Canyon for a Walmart parking lot?

A: Aha; you catch on quickly.

H: And how about such things as the constitution that sustains the social organization of a polity; or the biophysical underpinnings of life on the planet? We looked at those in "A Benefit-Cost Analysis of the Bill of Rights... and beyond" (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/08/benefit-cost-analysis-of-bill-of-rights.html).

A: Yes, that was a wonderful piece of rhetoric.

H: It certainly felt like a category mistake to apply BCA to the fabric of society and then to life itself. But I think that you may have put your finger on the root cause of that category mistake. Categories such as costs and willingness to pay are not the ones that we use, or that even make sense to use in evaluating the sustaining and organizing principles of life and society.

A: You know, we have openings at the Lyceum for promising students such as yourself. And the tuition is a pittance next to Stanford's.

H: After hearing what you had to say today, I'm pretty sure that the difference in price is no indication of a difference in educational value.

A: You can be sure of that! And check out the new, Ethically Enlightened Environmental Economics course that we'll be offering.

H: I hope that's not an oxymoron.

A: We shall see.

H: Well, thank you again, Mr. A. We hope you can return to give us some better ways of thinking about value, particularly environmental value.

A: I'd be most pleased to do that. In fact, I'm off to begin preparing right now...

H: Ok, helioskiagrablog readers. There you have one more in our series of exclusive interviews. Aristotle, the philosopher with the theory of everything, thinks that natural capital is most definitely not the natural theory of natural value.

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