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Realism and Impartiality: Making Sustainability Effective in Decision-Making
Miquel Bastons1, Jaume Armengou2
1Department of Business Administration, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, C/Immaculada, 22, 08017, Barcelona, Spain. bastons@uic.es.
Science and Engineering Ethics
|November 26, 2016
Summary
Sustainability is a decision-making method that enhances realism and impartiality in assessing environmental and social impacts. This approach, termed ethical sustainability, requires prudence and benevolence for practical effectiveness and ethical sense.
Area of Science:
- Environmental science and policy
- Ethics and decision-making theory
Background:
- Societal concern exists regarding human impact on the environment.
- The concept of sustainability, while widely discussed, lacks clear definition and practical application.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore sustainability as a decision-making method.
- To redefine sustainability by focusing on the assessment of decision consequences.
- To introduce realism and impartiality as core components of sustainable decision-making.
Main Methods:
- Utilizing the World Commission on Environment and Development definition of sustainability.
- Analyzing decision-making from two perspectives: scope of effects and assessment criteria.
- Evaluating partial sustainability approaches against criteria of realism and impartiality.
Main Results:
- Sustainability, when viewed as a decision-making method, expands the scope and objectivity of consequence assessment.
- This perspective reintroduces realism and impartiality into decision-making.
- Partial approaches to sustainability are limited by insufficient realism (emotional altruism) or impartiality (tactical altruism), or both (egoism).
Conclusions:
- Realism and impartiality are foundational for effective sustainable decision-making.
- Ethical sustainability emerges from these principles, requiring the virtues of prudence and benevolence.
- This framework offers practical effectiveness and ethical grounding for sustainability.
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