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CONTEXT AND CHOICE: A NEW APPROACH TO MAKING ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE DECISIONS A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Canberra JAN C. SCHOONEVELDT 1 September 2000
11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The ideas and questions developed in this thesis (but not the conclusions) have been brewing in my mind over the last thirty years as I struggled to come to terms with the intellectual ambiguities, uncertainties and contradictions that I felt all around me. It is impossible, over such a time span, to acknowledge the hundreds of people who have taught, worked with and supported me in one way or another. But I owe a special debt of gratitude to my official and unofficial supervisors: Dr John Harris, A/Professor George Cho and Professor Stephen Boyden. Without their patience, support and encouragement, this thesis would never have been written. I also want to make special mention of the University of Canberra. As one of Australia's newer, more creative and flexible universities, it has allowed me to follow intellectual pathways that are not usually open to doctoral candidates. Acknowledgement is also due to Peter Farrelly who assisted with the layout and diagrams. But above all, I acknowledge the incredible support of my partner, Donna Reid and my children, Emma and Christian. They gave me the freedom to experience the delights of the world of ideas and the opportunity to test them out.
SUMMARY This thesis develops a framework for making ecologically sustainable decisions. It is an integrative thesis that draws its data from the fundamental concepts underlying the disciplines of psyschology, linguistics and biology. Its orientation is essentially theoretical, but its application is practical. It is presented in three parts. Part 1 sets out the theoretical context and proposes a basis for understanding decision-making processes in an interactive, evolutionary context. This part focuses particularly on subjective factors that play a role when an organism is in the process of making a decision. Part 1 provides an underpinning for the core of the thesis. Part 2 forms this core. It considers the context in which decisions are made and overviews current decision-making frameworks that aim at ecologically sustainable outcomes. It proposes a process of metabolic mapping of materials and energy flows across integrated socio-political bioregions as a basis for decision-making. : Part 3 considers the implications of the approach in terms of its utility, reliability and validity. This part also looks at the role of ethics in decision-making and outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the new approach. The principle rinding is that research and decision-making are fundamentally distinct, often confused concepts. An integrative approach to decision-making is required to counter the increasing fragmentation in research and professional and administrative specialisation. A research tool that bridges the plethora of theoretical orientations is proposed. This involves the use of a semantic metalanguage to capture meaning in a rigorous and verifiable way. Such a metalanguage gives us a means of understanding the subjective experience of organisms, and in particular, their subjective perception of reality which guides their decision-making. A second finding is that, unlike research, which necessarily involves a process of context reduction, sound decision-making necessarily involves a process of context augmentation. And finally it proposes a method of metabolic mapping on a bioregional basis operating under the principle of subsidiarity as the most appropriate route towards sustainable decision-making.
Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS '. 11 INTRODUCTION 12 I 1. OVERVIEW 12 2. THE PROBLEM 12 3. FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY 14 4. ASSUMPTIONS. 16 5. MEANING 17 6. DEVELOPMENT OF THE APPROACH 20 7. DANGERS AND LIMITATIONS. 22 8. PRESENTATION OF THE THESIS.: 23 9. OPTIMISTIC Vs PESSIMISTIC VIEWS 24 CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES 26 1.1 OVERVIEW 26 1.2 MEINONG'S THEORY OF OBJECTS 26 1.3 UNIVERSAL MEANING 29 1.4. SCIENTIFIC PARADIGMS 35 1.4.1. The mechanistic paradigm 35 1.4.2. The systemic paradigm 36 1.4.3. The evolutionary paradigm 37 1.4.4. The social constructivist paradigm 37 1.5. THE NATURE OF SCIENCE. 39 1.6 SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE REALITY 43 1.6.1. Two realities 45 1.6.2. Subjective experience is embedded in objective reality 46 1.6.3. Objective reality as a subset of subjective experience 47 1.6.4. Subjective experience and objective reality overlap 48 1.6.5. Two ways of experiencing the same reality 49 1.7 INTROSPECTION AND INTER-SUBJECTIVITY 51 1.8 OTHER APPROACHES 55
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.9 BIOHlSTORY 55 1.10 WHY USE A BIOHISTORICAL FRAMEWORK? 57 1.10.1. Explanations 58 1.10.2. Explanations and the domains of knowledge 61 1.10.3. Ecological adjustment 63 1.10.4. An environmental ethic 65 1.10.5. Problems with the biohistorical approach 66 1.11 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY 67 1.12 DISTANCE AND TIME 67 1.13 SUMMARY 71 CHAPTER 2: MOTILITY AND CHOICE 72 2.1. OVERVIEW 72 I 2.2. MOTILITY 72 2.3. GENUINE CHOICE 74 2.4. PERCEPTION 2.5. INDICATORS OF REALITY 78 2.6. ACTIVATION LEVEL 79 2.7. LEARNING AND MEMORY. 83 2.7.1. Biological memory 2.7.2. Biological learning 84 85 2.8. LEARNING AND CHOICE 87 2.9. STAGES IN EVOLUTION 89 2.10. WHAT ABOUT PLANTS? 90 2.11. SUMMARY 91 : 76 CHAPTER 3: REALITY SPACES 93 3.1. OVERVIEW 93 3.2. PLACE AND SPACE 94 3.3. IN THE BEGINNING 97 3.4. MOTILITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 99 3.5. SUBJECTIVE REALITY 102
TABLE OF CONTENTS 3.6. BIRD TERRITORIES 107 3.7. CONCLUSION i 112 CHAPTER 4: IMAGINATION AND CONSCIOUNESS 113 4.1. INTRODUCTION 113 4.2. PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTS 113 4.3. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STEREOTYPES 116 4.4. INTERNALISED PERCEPTION... 116 4.5. CAN ANIMALS IMAGINE? 118 4.5.1. Inferences from Animal studies 4.5.2. The Development of Imagination in Children 119 123 4.6. THE MEANING OF "THIS" 124 4.7. CONSCIOUSNESS ' 126 4.8. WHAT IS CULTURE? 127 4.9. CULTURE AND DECISION-MAKING 133 4.10. MEMES 135 4.11. THE PLACE OF LANGUAGE 137 4.12. SUMMARY. 138 INTRODUCTION TO PART 2. 139 CHAPTER 5: HUMAN DECISION-MAKING 144 5.1. OVERVIEW : 144 5.2 RESEARCH AND DECISION-MAKING APPROACHES COMPARED. 144 5.3 MECHANISTIC DECISION - MAKING 146 5.4. SYSTEMIC DECISION-MAKING... 147 5.4.1 Open versus Closed Systems 149 5.4.2 Feedback loops 150 5.4.3 Self organising systems 151 5.4.4 Relevance to decision-making 151 5.5 EVOLUTIONARY DECISION-MAKING 153
TABLE OF CONTENTS 5.6. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVIST DECISION-MAKING 154 5.7. TYPES OF THINKING AND DECISION-MAKING 154 5.8. ENTREPRENEURSHIP 157 5.8.1. Markets and Values 159 5.8.2. Measuring Entrepreneurial Behaviour 161 5.9. GOVERNANCE 164 5.9.1. Entrepreneurial government 166 5.9.2. Subsidiarity 167 5.9.3. The Slowness of Governance Type Decision-making 168 CHAPTER 6: ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE DECISION-MAKING APPROACHES 170 6.1. OVERVIEW 170 6.2. HUMAN ECOLOGY i 171 6.3. CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE DECI- SION-MAKING '. 174 6.3.1. Criterion 1 176 6.3.2. Criterion 2 177 6.3.3. Criterion 3 177 6.3.4. Criterion 4. 178 6.4 THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE AND RISK ASSESSMENT 178 6.5 ECO-EFFICIENCY 179 6.6 PRESSURE-STATE-RESPONSE (PSR) MODELS 181 6.7 THE FOOTPRINT MODEL 187 6.8 THE NATURAL STEP (TNS). 191 6.9 METABOLIC APPROACHES 192 CHAPTER 7: THE PROPOSED FRAMEWORK 196 7.1 OVERVIEW ' 196 7.2 GROUPS. 196 7.3 SOCIAL INTERACTION IN NATURAL GROUPS 198 7.4 ARTIFICIAL GROUPS 1 201 7.5 ENTREPRENEURIAL GROUPS.; 204 7.6 THIRD SECTOR ORGANISATIONS 205
TABLE OF CONTENTS 8 7.7 GOVERNANCE AND BUREAUCRATIC POWER 206 7.8 SELFISHNESS AND ALTRUISM 207 7.9 THE SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISE 209 7.10 BIOLOGICAL AND BUSINESS ECOSYSTEMS 214 7.11 BIO-CULTURAL REGIONS 216 7.12 METABOLIC MAPPING 219 INTRODUCTION TO PART 3 221 CHAPTER 8: JUSTIFICATION: RELIABILITY AND UTILITY 223 8.1 OVERVIEW 223 8.2 EPISTEMIC PERMISSIBILITY 223 8.3 ONTOLOGY 226 8.4 PARADIGMS 227 8.5 A NEW OVERARCHING PARADIGM 228 8.6 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY ; 230 8.6.1 Reliability in the biophysical sciences 231 8.6.2. Reliability of semantic metalanguage in positivist frameworks 232 8.6.3 Reliability of semantic metalanguage in social constructivist frameworks... 235 8.6.4 The reliability of entrepreneurial and governance decision-making 237 8.7 UTILITY 238 CHAPTER 9: VALIDITY 240 9.1 OVERVIEW 240 9.2 CRITERIA FOR A DECISION-MAKING THEORY 241 9.3 MEINONG 242 9.4 WHlTEHEAD 243 9.5 VALIDITY 245 9.5.1 Common sense usage ;. 245 9.5.2 Technical uses 9.5.3 Systemic validity 247 248 9.5.4 Validity in decision-making ; 248
TABLE OF CONTENTS 9.6 TIME 249 9.7 IMPLICATIONS OF AN EVENTS-BASED TIME 255 9.8 EXPECTATIONS AND OPPORTUNITY 256 9.9 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND GOVERNANCE 257 CHAPTER 10: OVERVIEW: LIMITATIONS, IMPLICATIONS AND ETHICS 258 10.1 OVERVIEW 258 10.2 METHOD 260 10.3 SCIENTIFIC "LANGUAGES" OR PARADIGMS 262 10.4. BIOHISTORY 263 10.5 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY 264 10.6 PROCESSES OF BOUNDARY SETTING 266 10.7 TYPES OF DECISION-MAKING. 266 10.8 SIGNIFICANCE AND LIMITATIONS 267 10.8.1. Balancing entrepreneurial and governance decision-making 267 10.8.2 Use of a semantic metalanguages 269 10.9 ETHICS ' 270 10.9.1. The genetic fallacy 275 10.9.2. The naturalistic fallacy 276 10.10 GETTING AROUND THE NATURALISTIC FALLACY 277 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 281 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1. Interactive Approach 39 Figure 1.2.Categorization of the Four Main Scientific Paradigms 41 Figure 1.3. Exponential Growth in Fragmented Knowledge 42 Figure 1.4. Two Separate Realities 45 Figure 1.5. Subjective Experience Embedded in Objective Reality 46 Figure 1.6. Objective Reality as a Subject of Subjective Experience 47 Figure 1.7. Subjective Experience and Objective Reality Overlap 48
TABLE OF CONTENTS 10 Figure 1.8. Two Ways of Experiencing the Same Reality 49 Figure 1.9. Two Views of Reality: A, as Experienced from Within and B, as Imagined from Outside 50 Figure 1.10. Wilson's Four Areas of Knowledge 62 Figure 1.11. Proposed Classification of Human Knowledge 63 Figure 1.12. The Relationship Between Distance and Time 68 Figure 2.1. Schematic Version of the "Boyden Box" 78 Figure 2.2. Relationship Between Metabolic Rate and Body Weight 82 Figure 3.1. Retinal Patterns for Observers moving towards Objects and Objects i moving towards Observers 105 Figure 3.2. Retinal Patterns of Events 106 Figure 5.1. System Feedback Actions: positive, negative, stable and unstable... 150 Figure 6.1. Diagrammatic Representation of the PSR Model 182 Figure 6.2. The "Amoeba" Model 185 Figure 8.1. The Potential Utility of a semantic metalanguage in (1) introducing meaning into the biophysical sciences and (2) anchoring the social sciences... 239 Figure 9.1. Relative Occurrence of Events 251 Figure 10.1. Semanitic Analysisnas Inputs to the Main Sientific Paradigms 264 Figure 10.2. Relationship between the Four Paradigms and Their Philosophical and Methodological Implications 265