How Would You Like Your 'Sustainability,' Sir? Weak or Strong? A Reply to My Critics.

Journal article

This article concentrates on the Jacobs and Daly criticisms (1994) of my earlier article in the same journal (1994) criticizing the concept of 'sustainable development'. Daly and Jacobs agreed with my criticisms of 'weak' sustainability, but defended 'strong' sustainability on the grounds that natural and manmade capital were 'complements' in the productive process and that economists are wrong, therefore, in assuming that they are infinitely substitutable. This article maintains that they are confusing different concepts of 'complementarity' and 'substitutability'. It is also agreed that, in fact, they do both sell crucial passes in their defence of strong sustainability without providing any clear criteria for their abandonment of it in certain cases. It is also denied that the fact that environmental services may provide different satisfactions from those obtained from other goods and services elevates it to the status of some over-riding moral value, or that discounting future costs and benefits is 'unfair' to future generations.

Authors: Beckerman, W

• Journal: Environmental Values
• Volume: 4
• Publication date: 1995-01-01
• ISSN: 0963-2719
• Language: English