To Kep or Destroy

This topic submitted by Burt on 2/19/03. Additions were last made on Friday, April 4, 2003. Section:

I agree with what Hays has already written. For me the major issue is one of definition---how do you measure ("value") "value." This is an aesthetic and philosphical question as well as an economic one, although there are links that can be made between the two. (For example, a contented and healthy work force is usually a more productive work force. It is also commonplace for local chambers of commerde and their ilk to promote the opportunities and advantages of a non-economic nature of their locales in order to attarct businesses, just as it is for businesses to do the same to attract their workforces (although this, too, has environmental consequences, which you would need to consider if you were to make the link between economic and "non-economic" values.

In any acse, you will need to be aware of the need to define "value" in philosophical and aesthetic terms. You seem to be aware of this need and that is to your credit. But I do want to caution you on it. Begin with Loren C. Owings ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES 1860-1972 and Catherine C. Le Maistre et. al SEARCH FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS: AN INITIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. Check also Roderick Nash, THE RIGHTS OF NATURE. He has a good annotated bibliography. You may even want to go back to the Greeks and especially to Plato who writes about issues of absolute beauty (in Timaeus, I believe)

Go for it! Good Luck

Burt

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