Embracing the Values of Sustainable and Democratic Societies (part 2)

Book Update #3 – Values Chapter

In book one of my guidebook series, I am writing about how we can cultivate our intellectual, ethical, and emotional resources to embrace ecological limits and advance the transition towards sustainable and democratic societies.

This latest writing update examines some of the topics I’ve been researching over the past several weeks and some of the ideas I’ve been writing about in a chapter on ethics and values.

Moments from the research journey

Exploring basic yet crucial concepts

I spent one day researching the question “what encourages open-mindedness?” It’s an important question, because we may find that our values need to shift to create a new society. We’ll certainly face ethical challenges throughout the transition. Our ability to approach these demands with an open mind is essential—I believe our society’s ability to change will be proportional to our ability to change as individuals (in community with others).

I found a fairly recent article claiming that open-mindedness wasn’t yet clearly defined, so its author set out to provide a fuller definition. In many articles I’ve read, it’s been a theme that many basic concepts we regularly use in our thinking and our discussions are less concrete that we tend to treat them.

I don’t find that theme very surprising. Concepts help us to interpret our reality, but it seems like we only need a rough definition of them to navigate everyday life. The regular use of concepts we haven’t thoroughly examined is exactly what I’d expect to find in societies that appear to be sleepwalking towards collapse. To change how our world works, part of our task must involve the development of stronger or more elaborate definitions of core cultural concepts. Ultimately, I found little in the way of methods for helping people become open-minded beyond what already seems obvious (e.g. reflection about why it’s an essential quality, regularly reminding ourselves to approach challenges with curiosity rather than judgment, etc.).

Answering the question, “How much (research) is enough?”

A constant struggle is how to know when I’ve done enough research and can finally move on to writing. It’s often unclear what it would take to reach that point, but eventually something clicks. A link to a book about values for sustainability sent to me by Gus Speth pointed me in the right direction. When I followed the link, I found that I was familiar with several of the authors who had contributed a chapter—Speth himself, Peter Brown, Paul Raskin, and Tim Kasser. The number of leading thinkers involved suggested that this edited collection was a unique resource on this topic, and that what the contributors did or didn’t say would likely represent much of what the field has to offer.

I read through several chapters, noting where a statement had significance for my work.

• From one of the chapters: “According to the celebrated psychologist Shalom Schwartz, ‘none of the theory-based attempts to classify the substantive content of values…enjoys wide acceptance today’ (Schwartz, 1994).” I take note of experts highlighting where the topics I’m writing about are unsettled. It provides support for the idea that as long as I’ve read widely and can make a solid case for my perspective, it may be as good as anything else out there.
• Also, “Were value systems truly universal, it might imply that they could not evolve. Ehrlich (2000: 305-331) is very clear that human ethical systems and values have evolved, and in some circumstances or at particular times, very rapidly. Mary Midgley (in conversation, March 2007) is equally emphatic on this point.” I take note anytime the feasibility of value shifts is brought up.
• Speaking of which: “Recent work by Schwartz (e.g. 2006) suggests [value shifting] is entirely possible, because he and coworkers have repeatedly shown that people belonging to different cultural groups accord different collective priorities to the values types, and that each community tends to have its own unique value-priority profile. If so, there is reason to believe that the processes of education and introspection described below could bring about, if not a revolution in our attitudes to nature, at least significant shifts in the oppositions between technological change and traditional methods, and between individual advancement and community-based action, in favour of greater emphasis on conservation and collective values.” These statements bolster my sense that the pretty obvious methods of education and introspection are valid and perhaps the main routes towards value shifts.

These chapters reinforced the sense I got from prior reading, particularly from very recent articles in the newer field of inner transformation for sustainability, that there are no “secrets” or particularly well-researched means of shifting (or educating for) particular values. There are ideas, but they aren’t better or very different than what I already thought. It gives me confidence that the discussion I will provide—a thorough examination of the ethical demands and complexities of the transition—will be fairly novel and helpful for the reader to wrap their mind around value shifting.

The exciting thing about finding a unique resource like this book is the way it provides a foothold for answering that elusive question of when I’ve read enough to feel reasonably informed about what others have said. Such “foothold” resources don’t just offer their own insights, but can also help you locate other unique resources on the same topic when you investigate who has cited them. Among those citations should be other leading thinkers on the topic, who can often lead you to even more high-quality articles. One can go from not knowing the main points of expert agreement and disagreement in a field to fairly quickly finding the most vetted and representative views this way.

I performed that search and found that the book had far fewer citations than I expected, but one was a great article by Carol Berzonsky and Susanne Moser that confirmed there’s little scholarly discussion of how to shift values: “While many have deplored and critiqued the values that underlie unsustainable practices (e.g., McKibben, 2010; Hamilton, 2010; Orr, 2011) and many have described the more hopeful endpoints of the sustainability transition (e.g., Earth Charter Commission, 2000; Raskin, 2006), few in the transformation discourse address the process by which such a profound cultural transformation might occur.” Needless to say, I went on to search for articles citing this one as well.

After several weeks, I partially examined or completely read over 100 articles on the topics of ethics and values for sustainability. The process relates to a core message in my book—at some point limits have to be imposed. With all that reading accomplished and a few “foothold” resources discovered, I decided to switch from research to writing mode.

My current writing topic: the fact judgments at the core of an eco-democratic value system

I have been working on distilling the components of a value system that could justify the goal of creating ecologically sustainable and democratic societies (an “eco-democratic” value system). Most who read this will take for granted that such a goal is worthwhile, but I think the more we explore the underlying reasons, the better we’ll understand where we’re trying to go and both the benefits and costs involved. Ultimately, I believe we’ll feel more compelled to act and much more prepared to actually create new societies.

Here I consider which facts seem most important in justifying efforts to create sustainable and democratic societies.

1) We are not self-sufficient, but rather fundamentally dependent beings. Perhaps the most significant example is our dependence on the Earth. If our priority is survival, then we need to create a balanced relationship with global ecosystems by respecting ecological limits.

2) We are also fundamentally dependent on other human beings. This means that our ability to meet our needs is connected to the ability of others to meet their needs. It is also true that our life outcomes are significantly shaped by chance, thus people’s current inability to meet their needs does not necessarily reflect what they deserve. Whether our priority is to meet our own needs or the needs of others, these facts can justify efforts to create balanced relationships among ourselves—particularly in terms of the distribution of wealth.

These first two statements remind us that we are never totally independent, in two very consequential ways. First, we rely on functioning ecosystems and physical resources, so if we hope to survive we must respect ecological limits. That means placing limits on how much we consume and adopting smaller-family norms to stabilize and gradually reduce the size of the human population. It also means we must aim to distribute wealth equitably, because economies would no longer grow and sharing would become the only way to meet people’s unfulfilled (physical) needs. We would need to learn to live within limits. Our lifestyles would be defined by sufficiency—a focus on meeting our needs at adequate levels rather than the pursuit of endless wants.

The second consequential way in which we’re dependent is that we rely on other human beings to meet our needs, whether through the care, love, and support others provide or the goods and services we all collectively produce. It is also a fact that our life outcomes are significantly influenced by the luck of when, where, and to whom we’re born. These two facts can be used to justify the substantial wealth redistribution that must occur if we want to create sustainable societies that aim to meet the needs of all.

3) Human nature is extremely wide-ranging. We can be selfish or selfless. We can be competitive or cooperative. We can be each of these things at different times. But people are generally inclined towards reciprocation, which is the foundation of cooperation. We have within us the capacity to accept personal limits for our collective good. Our worldview and actions are shaped by our culture, a fact that can be used to promote cooperative behavior.

This statement is an answer to the question, “Is it really possible for humans to accept limits, sufficiency, and sharing?” We’ve already noted that humans rely on one another just to survive as well as to thrive, and our evolutionary history strongly supports the idea that we are geared for cooperation. If we change our cultural norms and institutions to bring out our capacity for collective action and solidarity, we might find ourselves more willing to embrace limits, sufficiency, and sharing than some might think.

4) Our basic needs as human beings go far beyond the consumption of resources. We are much more complex than that. Fulfilling human lives are built from a focus on eudaimonic well-being.

This statement is an answer to the question, “Is it possible for humans to not just accept but actually embrace limits, sufficiency, and sharing?” All living things must consume resources to meet their basic needs. But research suggests that what makes human beings feel fulfilled is more complex than these material requirements. We need the components of eudaimonic well-being, which include:

• Feeling that there’s a purpose to our life
• Self-acceptance
• Diving deeply into particular topics, skills, or projects
• Close, healthy relationships
• Personal growth

We can design our societies to facilitate these sources of fulfillment. In doing so, we can promote human flourishing and reduce the overconsumption behavior we may exhibit when trying in vain to substitute for these sources.

5) Societal change is possible through collective action.

History shows that social movements can transform societies. In the absence of an engaged public, the superrich wield disproportionate influence over governments and promote policy decisions that serve their wishes at the expense of public interests. As everyday people work together and aggregate their power, they can deepen the level of democracy and fight for control of policy. With high-quality and high-quantity collective action, we can create an economy that enshrines ecological limits and a culture that promotes eudaimonic well-being.

Perhaps you can think of additional facts that seem central to an eco-democratic value system.

In addition to core facts, I believe our value system is constructed from our assumptions (beliefs we either haven’t verified yet or simply can’t), ethical intuitions (beliefs or feelings about right and wrong that can’t be reduced to facts), and value-laden concepts like freedom, progress, wisdom, and many more. I think we form our moral picture of the world from the connections between these components. My goal is to provide frameworks that help people to think more deeply about where their values come from, how well these values resonate with the societies we must create, whether their actions align with their values, and how to achieve greater value-action alignment.

If you’re interested in reading a draft of this book and providing feedback, please subscribe here at freedomsurvival.org.

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Check out the previous post, which highlights early work on this chapter about the values of sustainable and democratic societies. Or check out the next post, an essay on climate justice and ethical complexity.