Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. The Economy of the Earth
  • Cited by 39
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2012
Print publication year:
2007
Online ISBN:
9780511817472
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511817472
Subjects:
Politics: General Interest, Politics and International Relations, Philosophy, Political Philosophy
Information

Book description

Mark Sagoff draws on the last twenty years of debate over the foundations of environmentalism in this comprehensive revision of The Economy of the Earth. Posing questions pertinent to consumption, cost-benefit analysis, the normative implications of neo-Darwinism, the role of the natural in national history, and the centrality of the concept of place in environmental ethics, he analyses social policy in relation to the environment, pollution, the workplace, and public safely and health. Sagoff distinguishes ethical from economic questions and explains which kinds of concepts, arguments, and processes are appropriate to each. He offers a critique 'preference' and 'willingness to pay' as measures of value in environmental economics and defends political, cultural, aesthetic, and ethical reasons to protect the natural environment.

Reviews

"The second edition incorporates the increasing engagement of mainstream and evangelical religious communities with environmental protection into his argument for a democratic environmentalism not constrained by either economics or science. Sagoff's carefully reasoned and wide ranging arguments will infuriate economists, ecologists and elite environmentalists equally, but the book is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of environmentalism."
-Dan Tarlock, Chicago-Kent College of Law

"The Economy of the Earth presents a masterful synthesis of Mark Sagoff's seminal contributions to the theory of environmental policy analysis. Sagoff argues that good policy design requires accommodation between strongly held, incommensurable moral values. Yet the techniques of policy analysis rest on strong and sometimes naïve ethical assumptions. Sagoff shows how careful philosophical reasoning can reform the practice of policy analysis to better serve the democratic process. This provocative book deserves a central place in the environmental studies literature."
-Richard B. Howarth, Dartmouth College

"The first edition of The Economy of the Earth staked out a position that many felt but few had said: the most important reasons for protecting nature are moral and aesthetic, not economic and instrumental. In the second edition, massively revised and updated, Sagoff preaches the same sermon but even more clearly and eloquently. The second edition of The Economy of the Earth is as vital to debates about environmental policy as the first edition was in its time."
-Dale Jamieson, Director of Environmental Studies, New York University

"The new editions of The Economy of the Earth does go much farther than anything else Sagoff has given us in the way of a positive statement of his environmental philosophy and of its links to other sources in the philosophical canon. It merits a careful reading by environmental philosophers..."
Environmental Ethics, Paul B. Thompson, Michigan State University

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.