The Agrarian Vision: Sustainability and Environmental Ethics

Chapter 11: Sustainability

Chapter 11 Sustainability What It Is and What It Is Not The somewhat presumptuous title of this chapter is not intended to suggest that I will now define sustainability once and for all. On the contrary , the continuing debate over the meaning of sustainable practice will prove increasingly useful and important for future generations. In fact, I have three main purposes. First, I review and consolidate themes related to the idea of sustainability that have been introduced throughout the book. In that modest sense, I say what sustainability is. Second, I discuss a trend only hinted at previously: that sustainability is best understood as a social movement. Although there are helpful and useful elements in this trend, in the next chapter I argue that we rest content with the idea that sustainability is just a social movement at our peril. In that modest sense, I say what sustainability is not. Finally, I try to sort out the puzzle that concluded the last chapter: how my leading ideas— resource sufficiency and functional integrity—match up with the more widely discussed notions of weak and strong sustainability. Accounting-based approaches typical of resource sufficiency have been the main focus in technical literature emanating from the discipline of economics, but these approaches are not always associated with what is called weak sustainability. Similarly, ecologists have tended to do the kind of system modeling suggested by the idea of functional integrity , but again, this kind of modeling is not necessarily associated with strong sustainability. It is thus a mistake to read the terms of the weak versus strong debate into the difference between resource sufficiency and functional integrity. I argue that when taken as leading ideas, the philosophically important difference between resource sufficiency and functional integrity is that different types of value judgment inform each approach. This suggests that resource sufficiency and functional integ- Sustainability: What It Is and What It Is Not 235 rity represent a fundamental moral ambiguity in the way sustainability functions as an ideal. The value judgments implicit in any conceptualization of resource sufficiency are fairly clear: enough for whom, and to do what? For functional integrity, however, values specify the borders of the system in question and implicitly rely on a community ideal. Consonant with themes argued in previous chapters, I believe this makes functional integrity a more promising framework for a public discourse about what we want to achieve in pursuing sustainability. The “paradox of sustainability” arises because substantive, researchbased approaches to sustainability may be too complex to effectively motivate appropriate social responses, especially in a culture where science is presumed to be “value free.” We want to pursue sustainability, but we don’t really want to be very clear or honest about what that means. Nevertheless , I conclude that debate over the meaning of sustainability can stimulate a fuller appreciation of the complex empirical processes and potentially contestable values implicated in any attempt to accomplish sustainability. In some quarters, it will be possible to pursue this debate in much more complicated mathematical, theoretical, and empirical terminology than I use here. In broader interdisciplinary and public contexts , it will be more effective to use language that is much simpler and more emotionally evocative than mine. In such contexts, it will prove useful to discuss functional integrity in terms of agrarian ideals. Sustainability and Philosophy Philosophers spend a large part of their time scrutinizing words and concepts, attempting to clarify what they mean and the implications of their meaning for human endeavors. Philosophical analysis of words and concepts yields a more explicit statement of assumptions that are generally taken for granted when people speak in a certain way. Analysis can reveal ambiguity that leads to confusion and miscommunication, and it can provide insight into how interpreting a concept in one way or another can lead to large and systematic differences in the way two people using a single vocabulary approach a given topic. Again, agriculture is a case in point. Programs in sustainable agriculture apply human, biological, and financial resources to the development of technology and social institutions . They generally draw on agronomy and other agricultural sciences to research and disseminate tools and techniques that farmers can use, or they draw on the applied social sciences to support decision making 236 The Agrarian Vision and social organization to address the local problems of rural communities . Philosophy is a very abstract activity, and sustainable agriculture is a very...