The Ecological Rationality of Mechanisms Evolved to Make Up Minds
In: American behavioral scientist: ABS, Band 43, Heft 6, S. 940-956
ISSN: 0002-7642
In: American behavioral scientist: ABS, Band 43, Heft 6, S. 940-956
ISSN: 0002-7642
In: American behavioral scientist: ABS, Band 43, Heft 6, S. 940-956
ISSN: 1552-3381
Selective pressures favoring rapid decisions would have led to the evolution of simple decision-making mechanisms that could take the form of heuristics and rules that use as little available information as possible. Such decision heuristics can only be ecologically rational—yielding accurate inferences in particular problem domains—if they exploit the way that information is structured in the environment. The author presents a variety of fast and frugal heuristics that are ecologically rational and shows how they can be organized in the mind's adaptive toolbox of decision-making strategies.
Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- PART ONE The Intensification of Rationalization and Its Alternatives -- 1 Rationalization Under the Premise of Plasticity -- 2 Rationalization and Ecological Irrationality -- 3 Rationalization Under the Premise of Greenness -- 4 Rerationalization -- 5 Derationalization -- PART TWO The Sociology of Environmental Degradation -- 6 The Political Economy of Waste -- 7 Accounting for Waste and Accountability for Waste -- 8 Environmental Classes and Environmental Conflict -- PART THREE Toward a Symbiotic Relationship with Nature -- 9 Science and Applied Science as Partial Knowledge -- 10 Parasitism: A "Light Cloak" or an "Iron Cage"? -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Book and Author
Lowi, T. J.: Think globally, lose locally. - S. 17-38. Lafferty, W. M.: Democracy and ecological rationality: new trials for an old ceremony. - S. 39-65. Jinadu, L. A.: Globalization and the new partnership: an African perspective. - S. 67-81. Deblock, C.; Brunelle, D.: Globalization and new normative frameworks: the mulitlateral agreement on investment. - S. 83-126. Perreault, N.: Czechoslovakia: secession and the formation of a new partnership. - S. 129-151. ... Seymour, M.: The virtues of partnership. - S. 267-283. Pelletier, R.: The institutional arrangements of a new Canadian partnership. - S. 285-300
World Affairs Online
In: Environmental politics, Band 4, Heft 4, S. 215-236
ISSN: 0964-4016
CONCERN ABOUT THE SLOW PROGRESS OF LIBERAL REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACIES ON QUESTIONS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT HAS ENCOURGAED RESEARCH INTO ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF DEMOCRACY WHICH MIGHT BETTER INFORM ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION-MAKING. FORMS OF DELIBERATIVE, STRONG OR "PARTICIPATORY" DEMOCRACY WHICH EMPHASIZE GREATER PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN DECISION-MAKING HAVE PARTICULAR APPEAL FOR MANY ENVIRONMENTALISTS. HOWEVER, THERE HAS BEEN SURPRISINGLY LITTLE CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THESE THEORIES IN AN ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT. THIS ARTICLE EVALUATES THEORIES OF PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY IN THE CONTEXT OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN NEW ZEALAND WHERE MAJOR RESTRUCTURING HAS CREATED NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR EXPERIMENTATION. THIS OPPORTUNITY TO "GREEN" THEORIES OF DEMOCRACY SHOULD FORCE THEORISTS TO CONSIDER ECOLOGICAL RATIONALITY, COMMUNITY DIVERSITY, THE NEEDS OF FUTURE GENERATIONS, CLAIMS OF INTRINSIC VALUE, AND THE POLITICAL SOVEREIGNTY OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES.
In: Telos, Heft 97, S. 141-154
ISSN: 0040-2842, 0090-6514
A review essay on books by: Andrew McLaughlin, Regarding Nature: Industrialism and Deep Ecology (Albany, NY: State U New York, 1993); Al Gore, Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1992); & David Oates, Ecological Belief in an Age of Science (Corvallis, OR: Oregon State U Press, 1989 [see listings in IRPS No. 76]). McLaughlin's book offers an ecological critique that blames personal insecurity & consumerism for environmental ills. Drawing on deep ecology, the book provides an analysis of ecological ethics & advocates a stronger role for the state in the creation of deep ecological policies. Gore's book argues that the task of restoring the natural balance of the earth's ecological system could reaffirm the US's longstanding interest in social justice, democratic government, & free market economics. Oates's book develops an ecological ethics that rests on the notion that the human & the natural coincide, & advocates the "environmentalizing" of rationality. All three books are assailed as superficial, arguing that they reflect new class empowerment & communal disempowerment. W. Howard
In: New political economy, Band 1, Heft 1, S. 27-40
ISSN: 1356-3467
THIS ARTICLE IS BASED ON THE PREMISE THAT ANY NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY WORTH ITS NAME NEEDS TO ACHIEVE AN EFFECTIVE INTEGRATION OF EMPIRICAL, NORMATIVE AND CRITICAL ASPECTS. IN THESE TERMS, ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICAL ECONOMY CURRENTLY APPEARS IN POOR SHAPE. IT OFFERS A MORE CONSTRUCTIVE SIDE OF AN EMERGING ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICAL ECONOMY WHICH IS GROUNDED IN A MODEL OF HUMAN INTERSUBJECTIVITY AND COMMUNICATION, RATHER THAN IN ANY MODEL OF AN ALTERNATIVE ECOLOGICAL SUBJECT TO COUNTERBALANCE THE INSTRUMENTAL RATIONALITY OF ECONOMIC MAN.
Cover -- André Gorz and the Sartrean Legacy -- Contents -- Preface -- List of Abbreviations -- 1 Introduction to a Life -- 2 Sartre and the Existential Subject -- 3 Gorz and the Moral Conversion -- 4 An Existential Journey -- 5 Marxism, Alienation, and the End of Work -- 6 Ecological Crisis and the Limits to Economic Rationality -- 7 Critical Theory and the Sociology of the Subject -- 8 Freedom and Its Foundations: Towards a Person-Centred Social Theory -- Afterword: A Conversation with André Gorz -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.
In: Capitalism, nature, socialism: CNS ; a journal of socialist ecology, Band 11, Heft 4, S. 109-129
ISSN: 1045-5752
Provides a background for 20 years of eco-Marxist debate. The author proposes that the value of scientific & technological knowledge cannot be expressed entirely in quantitative terms of socially necessary labor-time. Thus, it may be necessary to reevaluate the foundations & concepts of historical materialism if we are to construct a new environmental rationality. The recent discrediting of Marxism has placed neoliberalism in the forefront of environmental economics, with no clear basis for assigning values to natural goods & environmental services. The author calls for a qualitative theory that combines market values with ecological & cultural ones. J. R. Callahan
In: Foresight, Band 2, Heft 2, S. 173-181
This article discusses prospects of strengthening new increasingly global economic activities and environmental governance by focusing on the institutional relationship between information society policy issues and environmental policy issues. These two sets of issues have some common denominators insofar as they are both comprehensive and go beyond traditional sector policy rationalities, as illustrated by the notions of "sustainable development" and "ecological modernization" in the case of environmental issues, and neither can avoid the problem of governance subjects such as social legitimacy and institutional dynamics between the main actors. The article also identifies a more functional relationship between these issues and discusses challenges common to both as well as asking whether there is institutional potential and capacity to find "synergy" by integrating environmental policy elements into moves towards information society and vice versa. The case study of Finland reveals that information society strategy lacks environmental policy objectives and discusses the factors behind this failure. The lack of integration of different policy areas is an issue of organizational power with policy actors showing no real interest in radically changing prevailing bureaucratic institutions and socioeconomic structures. Beyond organizational factors the policy problems seem to be based on the inconsistency of different policy rationalities with information society reasoning being justified by economic‐technical rationality whereas environmental policies are justified by natural scientific rationality, which policy makers do not consider to be in their interests. The article concludes with the assertion that the principles of ecological modernization could potentially unite environmental policies and positive environmental aspects of information society policies.
In: Santa Fe Institute studies in the sciences of complexity
Preface. 1. Putting Social Sciences Together Again: An Introduction to the Volume, Timothy A. Kohler. 2. Nonlinear and Synthetic Models for Primate Societies, Irenaeus J. A. te Boekhorst and Charlotte K. Hemelrijk. 3. The Evolution of Cooperation in an Ecological Context: An Agent-Based Model, John W. Pepper and Barbara B. Smuts. 4. Evolution of Interference, Brian Skyrms. 5. Trajectories to Complexity in Artificial Societies: Rationality, Belief, and Emotions, Jim E. Doran. 6. MAGICAL Computer Simulation of Mesolithic Foraging, Mark Winter Lake. 7. Be There Then: A Modeling Approach to Settle
Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- PREFACE -- The Editor -- Table of Contents -- Section I: INTRODUCTION -- 1: Values and Value Judgments in Ecological Health Assessments -- 2: Strange Chemistry: Environmental Risk Conflicts in a World of Science, Values, and Blind Spots -- Section II: ISSUES IN ENVIRONMENTAL RISK DECISION MAKING -- 3: An Overview of Environmental Risk Decision Making: Values, Perceptions, and Ethics -- 4: Introduction to Issues in Environmental Risk Decision Making -- 5: Industry's Use of Risk, Values, Perceptions, and Ethics in Decision Making -- 6: Regulating and Managing Risk: Impact of Subjectivity on Objectivity -- 7: Back to the Future: Rediscovering the Role of Public Health in Environmental Decision Making -- 8: Telling the Public the Facts - or the Probable Facts - About Risks -- 9: The Urgent Need to Integrate Ethical Considerations into Risk Assessment Procedures -- 10: The Problem of Intergenerational Equity: Balancing Risks, Costs, and Benefits Fairly Across Generations -- Section III: VALUES AND VALUE JUDGMENTS -- 11: Introduction to Quantitative Issues -- 12: Ecological Risk Assessment: Toward a Broader Analytic Framework -- 13: Environmental Ethics and Human Values -- 14: Moral Values in Risk Decisions -- 15: Values and Comparative Risk Assessment -- 16: Risk and Rationality in Decision Making: Exposing the Underlying Values Used When Confronted by Analytical Uncertainties -- 17: Comparing Apples and Oranges: Combining Data on Value Judgments -- 18: The Ethical Basis of Environmental Risk Analysis -- 19: Ethical Theory and the Demands of Sustainability -- 20: The Cardinal Virtues of Risk Analysis: Science at the Intersection of Ethics, Rationality, and Culture -- 21: Value Judgments Involved in Verifying and Validating Risk Assessment Models.
In: Capitalism, nature, socialism: CNS ; a journal of socialist ecology, Band 6, Heft 1, S. 67-86
ISSN: 1045-5752
Ulrich Beck's theory of risk society (1986) fuses anti-institutional liberalism & cosmopolitan communitarianism to build a vision of the future in which ecology & postmaterialist concerns are linked with unimagined technological change. The risk society is a product of a dialectical process by which contradictions of the past generate new ideas about the structure & functioning of the world & society. The risk society does away with the dynamics of instrumental rationality, market mechanisms, bureaucratic divisions of labor, & class conflict. It rests on three new core dynamics: (1) the individualization of politics; (2) the reflexive urge toward modernization & the logic of unintentional consequences; & (3) the emergence of new ecological threats to the environment. The risk society will present the world with great scientific & environmental challenges, but also will provide the social groundwork for dealing with them -- belief in tolerance, multiplicity, & an unfinished notion of democracy. D. Generoli
Contends that the Polish village crisis is multidimensional & requires a new approach that incorporates cultural & ecological values. Socioeconomic & sociocultural dimensions of the crisis faced by Polish villages in postcommunist transition are discussed for the village of Lucim, including: decline in demand for domestically produced food, high interest rates, massive unemployment, a fragmented agrarian structure, low per-worker agricultural productivity, peripheral depopulation, loss of traditional family farming, environmental degradation & contamination, community weakness, an increase in social pathologies, & social differentiation increasingly based on money rather than education/qualifications. The example of Lucim illustrates the need for a transformation paradigm that harmoniously introduces economic rationality into villages, supports individual family farming, diversifies farm incomes, modernizes infrastructure, & alleviates rather than contributes to environmental contamination. 9 References. E. Blackwell
In: Contemporary political theory
Can international organizations be democratic? A skeptic's view / Robert A. Dahl -- A comment on Dahl's skepticism / James Tobin -- The democratic order, economic globalization, and ecological restrictions--on the relation of material and formal democracy / Elmar Altvater -- Democracy and collective bads / Russell Hardin -- The transformation of political community: rethinking democracy in the context of globalization / David Held -- Citizenship in an era of globalization: commentary on Held / Will Kymlicka -- A comment on Held's cosmopolitanism / Alexander Wendt -- Feminist social criticism and the international movement for women's rights as human rights / Brooke A. Ackerly and Susan Moller Okin -- Democratic liberty and the tyrannies of place / Douglas Rae -- Democracy and the politics of recognition / Elizabeth Kiss -- Group aspirations and democratic politics / Ian Shapiro -- American democracy and the new Christian Right: a critique of apolitical liberalism / Jeffrey C. Isaac, Matthew F. Filner, and Jason C. Bivins -- Between liberalism and a hard place / Courtney Jung -- Rationality, democracy, and leaky boundaries: vertical vs horizontal modularity / Susan L. Hurley
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