Sustainable Development is a Dead-End: The Logic of Modernity and Ecological Crisis

Simon Lumsden

Environmental Values, 2021, vol. 30, issue 3, 277-296

Abstract: This paper examines the theory of sustainable development presented by Jeffrey Sachs in The Age of Sustainable Development . While Sustainable Development ostensibly seeks to harmonise the conflict between ecological sustainability and human development, the paper argues this is impossible because of the conceptual frame it employs. Rather than allowing for a re-conceptualisation of the human–nature relation, Sustainable Development is simply the latest and possibly last attempt to advance the core idea of western modernity — the notion of self-determination. Drawing upon Hegel's account of historical development it is argued that Sustainable Development and the notion of planetary boundaries cannot break out of a dualism of nature and self-determining agents.

Keywords: Sustainable development; Jeffrey Sachs; planetary boundaries; Hegel; modernity; self-determination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3197/096327120X15916910310518 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envval:v:30:y:2021:i:3:p:277-296

DOI: 10.3197/096327120X15916910310518

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environmental Values
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().