2001/01/01 by Eldon H. Franz · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Environmental Science · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Religion, Ecology, and Ethics #Environmental Philosophy and Ethics #Economic and Environmental Valuation
paper · pdf · doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2001)051[0469:evap]2.0.co;2
openalex publication_date 2001/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
“Ecology,” according to the aims statement of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), “is the scientific discipline that is concerned with the relationships between organisms and their past, present, and future environments” (ESA 2001). In relation to society's present and future impacts on the environment, scientific knowledge of the living systems of the Earth provides the technical basis for determining how those systems are responding to human activities and whether they are threatened or sustained by human agency (Lubchenko et al. 1991). The policy role of ecology has been growing steadily since it swept into public view in conjunction with the environmental movement that emerged during the 1960s and that had clearly arrived by 1970 (Dunlap and Mertig 1992). Antecedents to the events of those years can be traced far back in human history, of course, but it was particularly evident at the time that the echoes of past voices were being joined by a chorus of ecologists projecting ecological science with broad appeal and real effect for the first time beyond its traditional, purely academic concerns and alerting the public to the implications of ecology for the future of the planet (e.g., Carson 1962, Commoner 1966, Ehrlich 1968). As President Richard Nixon ushered in the “decade of the environment” in his 1970 State of the Union Address, Time reported in its 2 February 1970 issue that “the national concern over the environment has reached an unprecedented level of intensity” (Luce 1970, p. 5). On the cover, the visage of Barry Commoner projected a powerful image of ecology, which took the stage for the first time in the public eye. The acrylic painting created for the cover by Mati Klarwein was a provocative depiction of alternative worlds. One side of Commoner's face was bathed in sunlight and backed by a vibrant landscape rendered in full color. The other side was shadowed and rendered in stark gray tones. In the background were images of a polluted and toxic environment. The symbolism was crystal clear: the “good” versus the “bad”; the ecologist as moral agent. The magazine's feature articles on the “environmental crisis” included a full-page spread dubbing Commoner the “Paul Revere of ecology” (Anonymous 1970, p. 58) for his work on the threats to life from the environmental consequences of fallout from nuclear tests and other pollutants of the water, soil, and air. The Paul Revere of ecology. Could there have been a more compelling metaphor for the arrival of ecology on the national stage than Paul Revere? A more emotive “call to arms”? From all appearances to the public at large, the facts of ecology, the environmental movement, and the complex of emotions and values involved in the assault against environmental problems were linked at that moment, as indeed they are now. Such a juxtaposition of facts and values is neither surprising nor unique. Social movements are successful to the extent that they are able to mobilize public opinion by appeals to conscience that call on values (Ball-Rokeach and Tallman 1979). Social action is driven by values, and the environmental movement is no exception. All actions, whatever they may be, simultaneously take facts and values into account by their very nature (Gewirth 1978). Moral norms influence behavior whenever decisions are made that have consequences for others (Figure 1). Our perceptions of a shared environment and recognition that our individual and collective welfare depends on the environment results in feelings of responsibility whenever we contemplate the consequences of our actions for the environment. The result of making the connection between awareness of consequences and the recognition that those consequences can be averted by action, known as “norm activation,” is an important factor in motivating environmental action (Heberlein 1972, Stern et al. 1999). However, the association of the environmental movement and its value-laden, normative perspectives with the science of ecology leads to important questions about the proper relationships among ecology, values, and policy. Such questions are frequently asked by ecologists of a positivist persuasion who feel that they must “walk the line” between science and values to become involved in addressing policy issues (Roebuck and Phifer 1999). This problem has perplexed the community of ecologists for some time. George Woodwell, when he was president of the ESA, wrote in 1976 that the society “seems in disarray when presented with worldly problems. It is uncertain, torn between traditional objectives of scholarship and progressively consuming participation in public affairs as the environmental squeeze tightens” (Woodwell 1976, p. 8). As ecologists view the current status of the human predicament, the need for greater participation of the community of ecologists beyond the realms of traditional scholarship in halting environmental degradation and the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services is no longer in question. Recognizing the profound responsibilities that ecologists have to humanity, a group of 20 senior ecologists has recently pledged to take the lead (Bazzaz et al. 1998). In making the bridge from science to society at large, the conundrum of ecology and values broadens for ecologists because of conflicting views on the nature of the ecological domain itself. Consider, for example, the words of Theodore Roszak in Where the Wasteland Ends (1972). For Roszak, ecology is “the subversive science” (1972, p. 400), as it had been first so called by Paul B. Sears (1964). Further, according to Roszak, “Ecology does not systematize by mathematical generalization or materialist reductionism, but by the almost sensuous intuiting of natural harmonies on the largest scale” (1972, p. 400). But the ecology of scientific journals is, quite to the contrary, exactly what Roszak suggests it is not: a science of mathematical generalization and reductionism. Nothing of an exceptional science, let alone a subversive science, appears on those pages, and nary a hint that the intuiting of natural harmonies is involved. Roszak's perspective is quite contrary to the nature of the peer-reviewed literature of ecological science. This confusion of the meaning of ecology between such extreme views is so profound in the vernacular that Mark Westoby (1997) has asked what options there are for ecological scientists who feel that the very word ecology has lost all scientific meaning. Ecology and policy are largely the domains of different individuals and institutions (Figure 2). As depicted here, the ecology and policy subsystems have common contexts, including aspects of the environment, culture, and values, but otherwise are independently bounded and differ from each other in focus, methods, and objectives. The ecology subsystem functions largely on a research agenda, while the policy subsystem sets priorities and goals and frequently must resolve conflict (Attfield and Dell 1996). One common feature that has traditionally been characteristic of both domains is the high degree of importance the practitioners have attached to objectivity. By objectivity, most would imply that the accepted methodologies of ecology and policy are based on depersonalized interactions between the observer and the objects of observation, that is, interactions that are free from the effects of individual preferences and feelings and from the cultural context and its associated biases (Douglas 1978, Thompson et al. 1990). An objectivist model of the interaction between ecology and policy would acknowledge the necessity of a causal linkage between contextual values and policy (Figure 3) but not between contextual values and the ecology subsystem directly. While policymakers might attempt to separate the factual claims to truth from the values used to determine what is right, that is, attempt to sever the linkage to contextual values, the exercise is a schizophrenic and futile approach to policy (Kartez 1989). Thus, policymakers are generally expected to weigh the values of society as a whole in the decisionmaking process (Dietz and Stern 1998). From the perspective of ecologists, this objectivist model can be justified by an internalist frame of reference. From that frame, it is argued that the practice of ecology can be autonomous and isolated from external influences (note the location of the eyeglasses in Figure 3). The figure clearly marks the boundary between internal and external. The resulting frames of reference also reflect a division in social and historical studies of science: Internalists focus on the autonomous growth of science, whereas externalists emphasize the cultural and value contexts of that growth (Graham 1981). In actuality, however, the very nature of the research approaches and methods that are used to investigate an ecological or technical problem are value based (Shrader-Frechette and McCoy 1993), as are the criteria that are used to judge the quality of the results (Costanza 2001). These so-called constitutive values arise from, among other things, the deeply personal nature of the choices about what is to be studied, the criteria to be applied, and the methods to be used, and they are the source of the rules governing what is acceptable in the practice of science or policy in general (Longino 1990). The same normative considerations in determining the boundaries of acceptable practice influence both the subsystems of science and policy (Tribe 1972). Constitutive values, then, are associated in general with the conceptual locations of the boundaries of the subsystems of ecology and policy and how they relate to their context. There are, therefore, two kinds of values that must be considered, those associated with the cultural context that is common to both subsystems and those associated with the subsystems themselves (Figure 4). Neither the ecology nor the policy subsystem is bounded by means that are independent of the individuals making the observations: No theory can be accounted for in value-free terms (Polanyi 1958). In the words of Maturana (1981), “Everything said is said by an observer to another observer that could be himself” (p. 31). All observers who are fully functioning have feelings. Descartes' duality, based on the separation of emotions from the process of knowing, is an illusion (Damasio 1994). Cogito ergosum has to be amended by what is now known of the neurobiological foundations of the self. Without feelings, rational decisionmaking behavior is impossible (Damasio 1999). If the objectivist model fails because of the inescapable involvement of human observers, how can scientific institutions be judged according to their fidelity to the search for truth—some degree of concordance with the notion of objectivity? In reality, the constitutive values of science are not maintained by individuals but by a community of scholars. Given that science is a collective endeavor, the characteristics of the institutional arrangements that order the interactions among the members of a scientific group can be used to judge the extent to which the group is involved in unbiased scholarship (Figure 5). The significant role of publication and the peer review process in operationalizing these criteria is apparent. In large part, the criteria depend upon provisions for open communication between members of the group, who continuously reflect on the evidence for the knowledge claims being made (e.g., Lauenroth and Burke 1998). The stakes for doing the work that is necessary to maintain the boundaries are high because the credibility and authority of the positions generated from within the domains thus bounded depend upon it (Gieryn 1999). Given that the boundaries of subsystems are based on a socially constructed set of constitutive values (Longino 1990), any number of alternative subsystem boundaries and patterns of interaction among subsystems and their contexts are possible. The alternatives–impacts model is one of the most common operational models, and it has been widely accepted within the community of applied ecologists (Figure 6). The key features of this model include (1) the general belief that the influence of contextual values on the ecology subsystem can be kept to a minimum by taking all possible steps to guard against cultural bias (for an alternative view challenging this belief, see Jasanoff 1996, Harding 1998) and (2) the isolation of the ecological subsystem from the decision itself by limiting the responsibility of the ecologist to determining and reporting the impacts of alternatives generated by the policy subsystem. Uncoupling the assessment of impacts from the final decision in this way is characteristic of the model that has evolved for implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act and is an approach that has been taken in many ecological assessments (e.g., Franz and Bazzaz 1977). Many alternative versions of the model are conceivable, with the boundaries of either subsystem expanding to encompass the other. One extreme version is the ecology-subordinated model (Figure 7). In this version, research objectives and methods are themselves selected to conform with policy goals. From the perspective of most scientists, this model imposes unacceptable constraints on the independence of scientific institutions (Wagner 2001). In practice, the boundaries between the subsystems are rigorously negotiated and maintained (Jasanoff 1990). Particularly in cases of high uncertainty, the policy subsystem can act to frame the presentation of the findings and hypotheses of science in ways that would seem to be consistent with several alternative models (Jasanoff 1987). In these settings, the language of science plays a pivotal role by establishing the understanding and sense-making necessary for the evaluation of scientific input (Weber and Word 2001). In the final analysis, the boundary considerations that produce any number of alternative models are subject to influence by a continuous set of dynamic factors (Figure 8). Thus, not only is there no set scheme by which science and policy come together (Harris 1995), but the dynamic nature of the system and its components ensures that the nexus of ecology and policy will continue to be determined on a case-by-case basis (National Research Council 1986), not by theory (Shrader-Frechette and McCoy 1993), and that every particular interaction must be viewed as a hypothesis and a learning opportunity for all (Carpenter and Gunderson 2001). Given the important role of values, both contextual and constitutive, in the relationships between ecology and policy, has the emergence of ecology on the national stage brought any unique ethical principle into play? This is a question not simply of the interactions among ecology, values, and policy but also of ecological values and policy. How does ecological science inform our values and our actions on issues of policy concerning the environment? The most basic operation we perform as observers of the universe is to make distinctions (Maturana 1981). In making what is certainly among the most fundamental of such distinctions, our self-awareness and our perception of self-in-relation-to-environment are inextricably linked. In the words of R. Buckminster Fuller (1980), Environment to each must be All that is, excepting me. Universe in turn must be All that isn't me—and me. In the logic of this simple rhyme, it is clear that the only distinction between universe and environment for each individual coincides with the identity of the observer. This is our personal and quintessentially human frame of reference. Since our concept of environment emerges in relation to this frame both from within and in interactions with others from without, each of us constructs a personal environmental narrative (Allen et al. 2001) that overlaps and is shared to varying degrees with the environments of others of our own and other species. Given such distinctions, it seems completely natural that questions concerning our status as autonomous creatures vis-à-vis the nature and significance of our interactions with others and with the environment would follow. Such questions have long held a central place in the annals of human thought. That a science would emerge to focus on them seems completely natural too. Ecology is such a science. Ecology is the foundation of our knowledge concerning the bounds of existence and of the relationships of all life to the environment. The Earth, the ecosphere as we are coming to know it, is a living system. While dominance of this system by Homo sapiens is increasing (Vitousek et al. 1997), we live as but one species among millions of others, and the patterns and processes of the life-supporting environment are substantially dependent upon the others (Odum and Franz 1980). Furthermore, our species, other species, and all of the various components of the abiotic environment are linked by niche construction to the modification of the environment and thus to changes in the sources of natural selection and to each other's evolution (Laland et al. 1999). Given the ethical claim that we ought to preserve our own species, such ecological interdependencies imply a special obligation of care also for the environment, including other species. The unique contribution of ecology to human values is that ecology directs our perception of self-in-relation-to-environment toward our dependence on the environment and therefore to an ethical obligation to prevent environmental degradation and to ameliorate environmental damage—a duty to care for the environment. Ethical obligations to our own species are grounded in a variety of moral and legal principles. A special duty of care for others of our species arises frequently in transactions involving the fiduciary responsibility. Fiduciary responsibility is the solemn obligation of any person to whom property or power is entrusted for the benefit of another. It is the bedrock principle governing trusts and partnerships in business ethics and the legal frameworks that have been developed to administer it. But there is no comparable term when it comes to the duty of care for the environment. I propose a new term, parallel in derivation to fiduciary, to stand for the human obligation to care for the environment. Since the term fiduciary came to English through French from Latin roots, I suggest the new term vivantary (based on the French word vivant, also from Latin roots, meaning living system) for the human obligation to the living systems of the earth. Vivantary responsibility is the fundamental ethic that emerges from ecology. In reference to our obligation to living systems, vivantary responsibility can be applied at any level of living-system organization, from species to the ecosphere as a whole. As a direct parallel to fiduciary responsibility, vivantary responsibility is the bedrock principle of ecological ethics. Vivantary responsibility is the value that ecology uniquely brings to policy. In relation to the commitment of science to guide policy on the environment in the next century (Lubchenko 1998), vivantary responsibility is the key.