ECONOMICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT - A CASE OF ETHICAL NEGLECT

The economic development path favoured by mainstream politicians and e conomists is one of 'business land consumption) as usual', albeit with increased efficiency in resource use and with regulation and market-b ased incentives to temper undesirable environmental effects. Such tech nocratic environmental intervention is an inadequate tool for achievin g sustainability and fails to recognise that environmental problems ar e an ethical, as much as an institutional, issue. Their solution lies in changing personal moral values as much as in institutional action. The sustainable development debate focuses attention on the need for m odern society to adopt a new metaphysical attitude to match ecological reality in its promotion of human progress. Cultural heritages may be a starting point for the task of cultivating an ethical obligation to wards the natural environment. Different cultures embody alternatives to modernist ways of interacting with social and natural environments. If cultural heritages have a role in establishing an environmental et hic for today, it is necessary to examine whether particular cultural traditions are conducive to ecologically sensitive behaviour and to wh at extent there is congruity between traditional cultural prescription s and actual current behaviour. To do this, the paper contrasts Europe an and Chinese heritages. A persuasive thesis has been developed that modern environmentally destructive tendencies in science, economics an d public policy have deep historical roots in Western religious and ph ilosophical tradition, suggesting that recourse to traditional ethics in the West would do nothing to mitigate unsustainability. By contrast , there is much in traditional Chinese culture which suggests a relati onship between people and nature resonant of contemporary environmenta l ideals. Yet, the link between cultural tradition and current economi c behaviour is clearly not a robustly deterministic one, since destruc tive processes are now taking place against this cultural background d espite its clear behavioural norms aimed at harmony and moral well-bei ng rather than at more utilitarian goals. If the European cultural her itage is ecologically insensitive and others are not resilient to Euro centric materialism, what are the economic implications? Most optimist ically, there is a clear emergence of a Leopoldian 'land ethic' in the West, which combats the current promotion of irresponsible technologi cal civilisation inspired by an obsolete world view, sets up a moral c hallenge to the legitimacy of the currently dominant view of economic development, is changing public policy and popular culture and, in tim e, promises a new ecologically benign postmodernism in economic policy making. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.