|
Foreward
to Fronties Vol.6,
A Survey of Sustainable Development
by
Amartya Sen
One
of the contingent rewards of agreeing to write a foreword
to a book is not only that one gets a free copy of the
book, but also that one is forced to read the book even
if its size and substance suggest that it may not be
altogether light reading. The reward is inescapably
contingent, since it is dependent on whether the book
is actually worthwhile to read.
This imposing
volume of carefully edited essays passes the test handsomely.
It is not only an excellent collection of essays on
an extremely important subject, but it is also a reader's
delight in that the editors provide an informative tour
of a vast - and rapidly growing - field of research,
giving the reader the opportunity to make intelligent
decisions on what he or she would particularly like
to read. I feel very privileged to be able to present
this volume to what I hope will be a large readership.
Indeed, with
the illuminating and user-friendly introduction that
the editors themselves have provided, my task is made
much simpler, and I shall use the opportunity to comment
briefly on the nature of the subject and how a reader
may view a volume of this kind.
|
Nobel
Laureate Amartya Sen looks over his new copy
of "A Survey of Sustainable Development" presented
to him by GDAE Co-director Neva Goodwin.
|
What,
then, is so special about yet another book on sustainable
development? This is certainly a rapidly growing
field of research and of publishing. The understanding
that nature and the environment in which we live
are deeply vulnerable may be a new thought, but
its far-reaching implications have made this a much
studied area of investigation and assessment. |
The
frailty of each individual life (including its ultimate
cessation) has, of course, been well understood for
a very long time, leading to ancient and modern studies
of the so-called "human predicament." But that predicament
has been typically seen as a plight of the individual,
and frequently contrasted with the durability of mankind
as a whole. Even Alfred Tennyson's great "elegy," grumbled
about the partiality of nature, and contrasted the infirmity
of individual life with the security that nature provides
for our group future:
So
careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single
life.
With the growing
recognition that it is not merely the single life, but
also the "types" (indeed all the known types) that are
threatened, and that the lives that can be led may well
stand in great danger of being impoverished or obliterated,
environmental studies have become inescapably a major
area of intense research and investigations.
This may be reason
enough for trying a get a well-selected and well-organized
compendium of essays and other contributions, but the
case for a book of this kind is stronger than such general
reasoning may suggest. If, despite several brilliant
contributions that have tried to integrate the environmental
literature, it still seems rather murky, this is partly
because of the fact that both the nature of the questions
asked and the content of the answers given admit a variety
of different concerns and motivating contexts. Do we
view the environmental challenge from the perspective
of preserving nature or that of preserving the lives
that human beings can lead? The latter is more anthropocentric
than the former, and thus much more limited, and yet
it is not clear from what perspective any non-anthropocentric
conservationism may be assessed. There are disputes
also between different anthropocentric approaches. For
example, should we be concerned only with those environmental
issues that influence the standard of living of human
beings, or also with the conservation of those natural
objects that people find reason to value (whether or
not they contribute directly to what can be seen as
their "standard of living")? And again, how are the
judgments that people make (or - alternatively - the
interests they actually have) to be exactly identified,
in an articulated form, and how are they to be related
to particular programs of conservation, which may compete
with one another for our limited resources, or even
for our narrow span of attention and commitment?
In the environmental
literature, each individual analysis tends to make specific
assumptions, if only implicitly, on these issues, and
they respectively opt for particular lines of reasoning,
taking distinctive positions on these contentious matters.
But the discerning reader, not to mention the activist
environmentalist, has reason enough to wonder how to
compare and contrast these different approaches, and
how to deal with what may or may not be an embarrassment
of riches but certainly is an embarrassment of some
sort as a prelude to action. We are, thus, inclined
to seek a more comprehensive understanding that would
allow us to form our own views of these divisive issues,
in the light of what each approach has yielded or seems
to promise.
This problem
of diversity is endemic in the field. A great deal of
the environmental literature has focused in recent years
on the task of sustainability, but there have been several
distinct characterisations of what it is to be sustained.
As a result the implications of sustainability have
emerged in very diverse lights in different parts of
the literature. To take another source of contrast,
the choice variables on which environmentalists concentrate
as instruments of conservation can vary greatly depending
on the focus of the discipline to which the analysts
themselves belong or with which they are most familiar.
Economists often have quite a different focus on policy
variables (concentrating on markets, prices, taxes,
property rights, etc.) than what anthropologists choose
to discuss (such as values, perceptions, cultures, etc.).
Similarly, natural scientists frequently take a somewhat
different route (focusing on scientific possibilities
or technical variations) from what social scientists
end up discussing. There are many discipline-related
contrasts of approach, which supplement the diversities
related to basic ethics and valuational priorities.
Wide variance
of contexts and concerns is, thus, a major feature of
environmental studies. Even when there is a general
agreement that the environmental challenges are important
and that they call for some reasoned response, the direction
of investigations can be widely divergent. What this
informative and stimulating book does is to present,
in a single volume, a great many - 66 to be exact -
essays and book chapters, with a remarkable diversity
of approaches and outlooks. It thus meets a very important
need, and does it with efficiency and style.
Bearing in mind
this motivation, it is perhaps important not to see
the table of contents as an integral and indivisible
agenda, each item of which must be fully tackled by
each participant, rather than as a menu where the reader
is told what is being offered, so that she can decide
precisely what she wants to read, in what detail. With
a book of this kind, it is extremely important to exercise
one's discretion, in the light of one's own interests
and the guidance that is provided by the editors. We
have to know something about each of the extant approaches,
but may have good reason too to spend a lot more time
on some approaches rather than others. Indeed, the reader
may end up reacting against particular contributions
included here, even when he or she profits greatly from
others. This is a choice that has to be exercised in
an informed way. In giving us these options, and in
general in providing a very rich menu that covers a
wide cross-section of the massive span of the extant
environmental and sustainable development literature,
the editors have put us greatly in their debt.
Finally, I should
note that this book completes the fine series on "frontier
issues in economic thought" which Neva Goodwin has been
editing for the Global Development and Environment Institute
of Tufts University. Having already done a great deal
to advance a comprehensive understanding of ecological
economics, consumption and the consumer society, economic
and social goals, the changing nature of work, and the
political economy of inequality, this volume extends
the guided tour to the frontiers of environmental studies.
It is pleasing that the series is ending with a volume
that is particularly important in its own right. This
is, thus, an occasion for a double celebration, and
I am very happy - and privileged - to be allowed to
join the combined festivities.
Amartya Sen Master's
Lodge Trinity College, Cambridge
Excerpted
from: A Survey of Sustainable Development: Social and
Economic Dimensions. Jonathan M. Harris, Timothy Wise,
Kevin Gallagher, and Neva R. Goodwin, eds. Copyright
(c) 2001 by Island Press. Posted to this website by
permission of the publisher.
Top
of Page
|
