The Values of Nature

Clive Spash and Tone Smith

SRE-Disc from Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business

Abstract: The values of Nature are today ever more contested in attempts to reduce them to a narrow economics calculus and financial metrics. The crisis of modernity is evident is that the concept of Nature itself has been subject to post-modern deconstruction as archaic Romanticism while simultaneously being made into a modernist capital form by economists, bankers and financiers. In this paper we start by defining the meaning of Nature before moving to its values, the two being inseparable. Nature is seen as combining three aspect: (i) being ‘other’ than human, (ii) a biophysical structure and (iii) a quality which humans commonly and intuitively reference but struggle to specify. When turning to the values of Nature we describe the three major meta-ethical systems of Western philosophy—utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics. The contestation especially between utilitarian and rights-based approaches is explored. The role of intrinsic value in these systems is outlined. Modern mainstream economic valuation is then placed in context of the forgoing discussion and critically reviewed as a misguided but hegemonic approach to valuing Nature. The terrain of debate is laid out, briefly covering recent developments of rights to Nature and Nature’s contribution to people. That Nature cannot be dismissed as a concept (something attempted by some post-modernists and strong constructionists), but remains importantly contested in terms of its values, is central to understanding the on-going social-ecological conflicts created by modern economies.

Keywords: environmental values; Nature; ethics; utilitarianism; rights; virtue; incommensurability; intrinsic value; economic valuation; moral considerability/standing; plural values (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 B55 D46 D63 Q5 Q57 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env, nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-upt
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https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/sre-disc/sre-disc-2021_03.pdf (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: The Values of Nature (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wiw:wiwsre:sre-disc-2021_03

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