IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fan/rissri/vhtml10.3280-riss2013-002004.html

The Dark Side of Sustainability: Avoiding and Shortening Lives in the Anthropocene

Author

Listed:
  • Marcello Di Paola
  • Mirco Daniel Garasic

Abstract

In this paper, we critically rehearse the morality of avoiding and shortening the lives of present and future consumers in order to decrease humanity?s impact on global eco-systems and spare scarce natural resources in the Anthropocene. Our main objective is not originality, but rather providing a short tour of some relatively unexplored recesses of moral reflection, as it tackles practices of sustainability that may not accord easily with our wishes about what life in our own geological epoch should have been like. We shall discuss these practices only as moral options to be embraced by individuals voluntarily, out of a sense of obligation (or perhaps also in pursuit of various benefits that may be offered as positive incentives) - not as coerced, mandatory activities imposed on individuals by some agents, such as governments.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcello Di Paola & Mirco Daniel Garasic, 2013. "The Dark Side of Sustainability: Avoiding and Shortening Lives in the Anthropocene," RIVISTA DI STUDI SULLA SOSTENIBILITA', FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2013(2), pages 59-81.
    • Handle: RePEc:fan:rissri:v:html10.3280/riss2013-002004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=50178&Tipo=ArticoloPDF
    Download Restriction: Single articles can be downloaded buying download credits, for info: https://www.francoangeli.it/DownloadCredit
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hamkins, Joel David & Montero, Barbara, 2000. "Utilitarianism in Infinite Worlds," Utilitas, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 91-96, March.
    2. Broome, John, 2006. "Weighing Lives," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199297702.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marie-Louise Leroux & Pierre Pestieau & Grégory Ponthière, 2015. "Longévité différentielle et redistribution : enjeux théoriques et empiriques," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 91(4), pages 465-497.
    2. Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2012. "The Public Economics of Increasing Longevity," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 200(1), pages 41-74, March.
    3. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2006. "Population Ethics," Cahiers de recherche 14-2006, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    4. Leroux, Marie-Louise & Ponthiere, Gregory, 2013. "Utilitarianism and unequal longevities: A remedy?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 888-899.
    5. , B. & ,, 2014. "Escaping the repugnant conclusion: rank-discounted utilitarianism with variable population," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(3), September.
    6. Fleurbaey, Marc & Zuber, Stéphane, 2015. "Discounting, beyond utilitarianism," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy, vol. 9, pages 1-52.
    7. Richard Cookson & Owen Cotton-Barrett & Matthew Adler & Miqdad Asaria & Toby Ord, 2016. "Years of good life based on income and health: Re-engineering cost-benefit analysis to examine policy impacts on wellbeing and distributive justice," Working Papers 132cherp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    8. Nicholas Stern, 2013. "The Structure of Economic Modeling of the Potential Impacts of Climate Change: Grafting Gross Underestimation of Risk onto Already Narrow Science Models," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(3), pages 838-859, September.
    9. John A Weymark, 2012. "Social Welfare Functions," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers vuecon-sub-13-00018, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    10. BLACKORBY, Charles & BOSSERT, Walter & DONALDSON, David, 2003. "Population Ethics and the Value of Life," Cahiers de recherche 05-2003, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    11. Geir B. Asheim & Stéphane Zuber, 2017. "Rank-discounting as a resolution to a dilemma in population ethics," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 17041, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    12. Bales, Adam & Cohen, Daniel & Handfield, Toby, 2013. "Decision theory for agents with incomplete preferences," MPRA Paper 49954, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Aurélie Méjean & Antonin Pottier & Marc Fleurbaey & Stéphane Zuber, 2020. "Catastrophic climate change, population ethics and intergenerational equity," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 873-890, November.
    14. Asheim, Geir B. & Kamaga, Kohei & Zuber, Stéphane, 2022. "Maximal sensitivity under Strong Anonymity," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    15. Marla Ripoll & Juan Carlos Cordoba, 2011. "A Contribution to the Economic Theory of Fertility," 2011 Meeting Papers 1207, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. BOSSERT, Walter & WEYMARK, J.A., 2006. "Social Choice: Recent Developments," Cahiers de recherche 2006-01, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    17. Antony Millner, 2013. "On Welfare Frameworks and Catastrophic Climate Risks," CESifo Working Paper Series 4442, CESifo.
    18. Marie-Louise Leroux & Gregory Ponthiere, 2009. "Optimal tax policy and expected longevity: a mean and variance utility approach," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 16(4), pages 514-537, August.
    19. Buchholz, Wolfgang & Schumacher, Jan, 2010. "Discounting and welfare analysis over time: Choosing the [eta]," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 372-385, September.
    20. Gregory Ponthiere, 2016. "Utilitarian population ethics and births timing," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 117(3), pages 189-238, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fan:rissri:v:html10.3280/riss2013-002004. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Stefania Rosato (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/sommario.aspx?IDRivista=168 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.