Research Seminar in Decision and Action Theory: Katie Steele (Australian National University)

Title:

What the Demands of ‘Sustainability’ Cannot Be

based on joint work with Susumu Cato (University of Tokyo)

Abstract:

Since the goal of ‘sustainable development’ gained authority with the release of the Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987), various economists have sought to characterise the demands of sustainability as a constraint on the evaluation of social outcomes and/or choices. One popular characterisation refers to a model under which each generation has some level of well-being and makes a choice that affects the well-being of subsequent generations. The idea is that an admissible choice for the present generation is one that is compatible with a trans-generational series of choices (or a ‘pathway’) that yields non-declining well-being, should such a pathway be feasible (and minimally choice-worthy). There have been various important criticisms of this characterisation of the demands of sustainability. We argue here that the constraint has a more basic problem of consistency, in that it conflicts with ‘path independence’ (the choice correlate of ‘quasi-transitivity’). We go on to explore ‘ways out’ of the consistency problem, and in so doing illuminate some tensions between the other more substantive criticisms of this sustainability constraint.