Between Scylla and Charybdis? On the place of economic methods in sustainability science

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftForschungsartikelBeigetragenBegutachtung

Beitragende

Abstract

The flaws of mainstream economic methodology are becoming widely acknowledged. Should we, therefore, reject all of its concepts within the quest for sustainability? A predicament looms: neither would it make sense to
neglect useful tools, nor to redundantly replicate the mainstream’s narrow perspective on sustainability problems. We argue that avoiding both fallacies is possible because power of judgment facilitates non-dogmatic methodological decisions: the scientists’ judgment, that is, the capacity to apply general concepts to specific situations, supports their decisions concerning which methods are suitable for tackling a given sustainability problem. The intersubjective quality of judgment prevents the resulting methodological pluralism from drifting toward arbitrariness.

Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Seiten (von - bis)421-432
Seitenumfang12
FachzeitschriftSustainability Science
Ausgabenummer3
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - 2017
Peer-Review-StatusJa

Externe IDs

Scopus 84991811314
ORCID /0000-0002-2688-8947/work/142244297

Schlagworte

Forschungsprofillinien der TU Dresden

Schlagwörter

  • Economic methods, Power of judgment, Sustainability, Methodological pluralism, Ontology, Sustainability