This series of Practical Philosophy posts looks at some of
humanity’s current big issues from a fresh perspective. They will also explain
key terms and ideas relating to Intrinsic
Sustainable Development and the Primal
Episteme. This post looks at the “Intrinsic” in Intrinsic Sustainable Development.
The Concise Oxford English Dictionary states that
“Intrinsic” means “belonging naturally; essentially”. This is a very convenient
definition for our purposes since both natural
and essential are very significant
words in our fresh perspective. But at face value, the use of “Intrinsic” in Intrinsic Sustainable Development (ISD)
means that we are describing a new kind of development, one that is sustainable
into the distant future without any extra effort or special considerations.
This does not mean that sustainability will just happen without human
intervention, concern and effort: it does mean that sustainability and human
activity become interwoven, indistinguishable or one and the same as.
Notice that in the paragraph above, we do not say that
sustainability and economic activity become one and the same, although “economic”
is very close to what we have in mind. The problem with using the word
“economic” is that economics has been defined and developed in ways that
deliberately separate industrious human activity from the encompassing wider
social and ecological worlds. It is almost as if economics, at least in theory,
somehow takes place in an isolated vacuum or bubble. So we try and avoid the
word “economic” until we have a better understanding of the complete situation.
To get back to the task of this post, we can take
“Intrinsic” to refer to that kind of human activity in which social and
ecological relations belong naturally or essentially. In some ways this
statement has little meaning. Just how, for example, can you have living human
beings who depend upon natural resources and other living beings for their own
existence conducting activities that do not relate to the society and ecosystem
of which they are constituent parts? How long would you last living alone,
without prosthetics, on Mars?
But the statement is replete with meaning precisely because
some people think social and
ecological relations are unimportant. It is not that they would say “I would be
okay living alone on a lifeless planet” rather they have not considered, valued
or experienced the value of social
and ecological relations; they have ignored them or assumed that they would be
there forever no matter what they did. This ignoring social and ecological
relations or taking them for granted may or may not occur at the individual
level – as indeed it does, people are free to think what they like and we would
not want to impose upon that. But when it occurs at social levels in societal
values and cultures, and hence in the structures and institutions that
constitute a society, then that is something that we cannot accept.
Hence the current big issue that is represented by our use
of the word “Intrinsic” has to do with the considering or neglecting social and
ecological relations in societies and important social institutions. If we go
back to economics for example, you may look at any standard economic test book
as used in schools, colleges and universities and find social and ecological
relations either absent or marginalised by economic theory. The same is true of
standard accounting textbooks that provide the skills and procedures to assess
the performance of our companies and other organisations. But when it comes to
one of the most influential institutions of our day, the stock markets, one
that daily shifts millions of dollars around the world, you will find a
preoccupation with the abstractions of numeric analysis and wealth measured
solely in large amounts of money.
We can now be more specific with our use of the word
“Intrinsic”. We mean that sustainable development is a natural and essential part
of human activity to be found in a revised understanding and practice of
economics, accounting and markets. In turn, for us, this means that social and
ecological relations are represented in the theory and practice of economics
and, more importantly, in societal values and attitudes.
Practical
Examples
There are many examples of initiatives designed to acknowledge
and respond to the social and ecological relations that make our lives
possible, healthy and fulfilling. Within this category lie environmental
management, accounting, regulations and legislation; corporate social
responsibility; the Global Reporting Initiative; sustainable development
management and accounting; and a huge number of diverse NGOs and charities.
But there are few examples that can claim to have social and
ecological relations occurring intrinsically - naturally and essentially
- within their activities. The dominant thinking of our age does not have the
capacity to do this. We would typically have to look to a time before our own
age, to other ways in which knowledge has been possible.
However, there are initiatives that are striving towards
intrinsic social and ecological relations either by using ideas from a previous
age or by basing their approach on the empirically-grounded science that is now
revealing the extent and importance of social and ecological relations. The
revival of ancient Chinese thought in initiatives such as “Tian Xia” or
all-under-heaven thinking (see PR Blog) is an example of how ideas from an
earlier age can be used to take us into the future. Similarly Ecological Economics
uses the findings of empirically-grounded science to create fresh economic
insights. Whilst in business itself the Phoenix Economy Report from Volans
report argues that a new generation of entrepreneurs are starting to embed social
and ecological relations in their core values and the emerging Benefit Corporations
(see PR blog) in the USA changing laws so that they may work towards a Triple Top
Line approach in which social and environmental gains are made along with the economic
in everyday business activity.
But all these worthy initiatives are just that –
there is a long way to go to before social and ecological relations become intrinsic to our society and culture.
Research Example
“New model disentangles interdependencies
between social and ecological systems.”
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| Mapping Social & Ecological Relations in Madagascar |
The above figure is a map showing a rural agricultural
system in Madagascar as a social-ecological network. The map shows locations
of different clans, their social relationships, settlements, forest patches and
the ecological links.
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