Economists, value judgments, and climate change: A view from feminist economics
نویسنده
چکیده
A number of recent discussions about ethical issues in climate change, as engaged in by economists, have focused on the value of the parameter representing the rate of time preference within models of optimal growth. This essay examines many economists’ antipathy to serious discussion of ethical matters, and suggests that the avoidance of questions of intergenerational equity is related to another set of value judgments concerning the quality and objectivity of economic practice. Using insights from feminist philosophy of science and research on high reliability organizations, this essay argues that a more ethically transparent, real-world-oriented, and flexible economic practice would lead to more strongly objective, reliable, and useful knowledge.
منابع مشابه
Economists’ Odd Stand on the Positive-Normative Distinction: A Behavioral Economics View
This chapter examines economists’ indefensible attachment to the positive-normative distinction, and suggests a behavioral economics explanation of their behavior on the subject. It reviews the origins of the distinction in Hume’s guillotine and logical positivism, and shows how they form the basis for Robbins’ understanding of value neutrality. It connects philosophers’ rejection of logical po...
متن کاملClimate Lecture 2009 : " The Economics of Climate Change " In Recognition
A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Oscar Wilde’s bon mot expresses how some environmentalists and philosophers view the guild of climate economists. Admittedly, this perception is an exaggeration and in many cases misleading. Nevertheless there lies some truth in it. At first glance, climate economists focus primarily on the costs of emission reduction and underesti...
متن کاملValues in Time Discounting
Controversies about time discounting loom large in decisions about climate change. Prominently, a particularly controversial debate about time discounting in climate change decision-making has been conducted within climate economics, between the authors of Stern et al. (Stern review on the economics of climate change, 2006) and their critics (most prominently Dasgupta in Comments on the Stern r...
متن کاملThe Ethics of Intergenerational Distribution : Reply and Response
Recent concerns among economists over global climate change have given rise to an uneven literature on intergenerational welfare economics. Environmental & Resource Economics in its March 2011 issue published a paper by the political philosopher John E. Roemer that contains not only errors of interpretation of what others have written, but also misunderstandings of settled matters. I respond an...
متن کاملمطالعهای بر آثار لوئیز بورژوا از دیدگاه زیباییشناسی فمینیسم
In the world of art, gender, race and social class issues were ignored traditionally and it was assumed there is a kind of human that is universal, historical, without sex and is male and white of course. From this perspective, woman was only as the subject of artistic creation and thus art has been mixed with gender. But Feminist Aesthetics increases woman value from just being a subject and d...
متن کامل