Rational Environmental Choice: Lessons for Economics from Law and Ethics

Abstract

In an interesting and thoughtful bookThe Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law and the Environment, Mark Sagoff provides us with a sustained critique of the methods used by economists to inform environmental policy and regulation. He debunks the relevance of the efficiency criterion in particular, even when it is supplemented with a concern for equity, and argues that environmental problems are better analyzed in moral, aesthetic, cultural, and political terms. To make this argument, Sagoff relies on four key distinctions. These distinctions, which overlap to some extent, are drawn between: (1) the citizen and the consumer, (2) values and preferences, (3) public and private interests, and (4) virtues and methods.