Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
2
Worldviews and ethical values
Towards an ecological paradigm
Aims
This chapter examines a wide range of academic and policy writing on sustainable
development, attempting in the process to offer a critical evaluation of the significance
and implications of the many worldviews, values and perspectives that inform or
have emerged from it. A worldview can be understood as a set of beliefs and assump-
tions about life and reality that influence the way we think and behave. Worldviews
help us describe the reality before us and they encompass many assumptions about
such things as human nature, the meaning and value of life, society, institutional
practices and much more. The German term
Weltanschauung
, from which the
anglicized term 'worldview' is derived, is often translated as a total outlook on life
and the universe (Koltko-Rivera, 2004). Consequently, a number of philosophical
and ideological contributions to our continuing of what sustainability and sustainable
development may mean or become are constitutive elements of a global dialogue on
the future we want. Consequently, each
worldview
, or perspective, has its own attend-
ant literatures and an array of subtle, and not so subtle, implications for action.
Many offer an array of action-orientated normative prescriptions and proscriptions.
On sustainability and sustainable development
As noted in
Chapter 1
, Blake Ratner has suggested that the most appropriate way
to understand the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development is as a
'dialogue of values'. Different individuals, communities, pressure groups, institutions
and governments are likely to view sustainability and sustainable development from
different perspectives. They will share some understandings while contesting others.
For some people, sustainability will be seen as a goal and sustainable development
as a process, with an underlying assumption that any equilibrium will always be
dynamic and changeable rather than static and secure. For Ratner, given the
complexities and debates involved, it is necessary to distinguish between trivial or
populist conceptualizations and more meaningful ones:
When advocates use the term [sustainable development] to mean 'sustained
growth', 'sustained change' or simply 'successful' development, then it has little
meaning, especially when development is considered as growth in material
consumption. More meaningful interpretations are multidimensional, often
distinguishing among social goals (including justice, participation, equality,
empowerment, institutional sustainability and cultural integrity), ecological goals
