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

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

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

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)421-432
Number of pages12
JournalSustainability Science
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - 2017
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

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

Keywords

Research priority areas of TU Dresden

Keywords

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