The target article extends molar behaviorism in two positive ways: beyond average aggregates and beyond restricted laws of Although a molar framework based on purely overt events shows promise for advancing behavior theory, Rachlin's specific form of teleological behaviorism is in need of clarification.

Technical developments have profound social and environmental impacts. Both are observed in the implications of regimes of instrumentality for commons access regimes. Establishing social, material, ecological, intellectual, and moral infrastructures, technologies are partly constitutive of commons access and may militate against governance according to principles of ecological justice. This article examines the relationship between regimes of instrumentality and commons access regimes, exploring the effects of bioprospecting on the biodiversity commons.

We present a formal analysis of Douglas Hofstadter’s concept of superrationality. We start by defining superrationally justifiable actions, and study them in symmetric games. We then model the beliefs of the players, in a way that leads them to different choices than the usual assumption of rationality by restricting the range of conceivable choices. These beliefs are captured in the formal notion of type drawn from epistemic game theory. The theory of coalgebras is used to frame type spaces and to (...) account for the existence of some of them. We find conditions that guarantee superrational outcomes. (shrink)

Having an adequate and extensively recognized resource governance system is essential for the conservation and sustainable use of crop genetic resources in a highly populated planet. Despite the widely accepted importance of agrobiodiversity for future plant breeding and thus food security, there is still pervasive disagreement at the individual level on who should own genetic resources. The aim of the article is to provide conceptual clarification on the following concepts and their relation to agrobiodiversity stewardship: open access, commons, private property, (...) state property and common heritage of humankind. After presenting each property regime, we will examine whether and how these incentivize the conservation, improvement and sharing of crop genetic resources, and conclude by defending a mixed property regime. (shrink)

The role of Amartya Sen's early work on famine notwithstanding, food security is generally seen as but one capability among many for scholars writing in development ethics. The early literature on the ethics of hunger is summarized to show how Sen's Poverty and Famines was written in response to debates of past decades, and a brief discussion of food security as a capability follows. However, Sen's characterization of smallholder food security also supports the development of agency in both a political (...) and an economic sense. Economic agency is discussed and tied to longstanding literatures on the moral significance of farming within political economy. Finally, while the newly emergent literature on food sovereignty includes many themes, it is shown to be re-articulating arguments that stress smallholder's economic agency as a development goal. This pattern of argument thus provides a way to reconcile at least some of the claims being advanced under the banner of food sovereignty with the human development.. (shrink)

We asked whether and how generations vary in their perceptions on moral matters ranging from their justifications of crime and questions concerning bodily autonomy. In our exploratory study using data from the World Values Survey, we found that Generations Y and Z are more likely than their older counterparts to justify crimes, such as cheating on taxes or stealing property, and to favor greater bodily autonomy in issues such as suicide and abortion. They also rank lower the importance of God (...) and national pride. Implications are offered for employers who wish to motivate and incentivize a multi-generational workforce. (shrink)

John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel can be given a reading that links events and the mentality of characters to mainstream schools of liberal and neo-liberal political theory: libertarianism, egalitarianism, and utilitarianism. Each of these schools is sketched in outline and applied to topics in rural political culture. While it is likely that Steinbeck himself would have identified with an egalitarian or utilitarian view, he resists the temptation to deny his Okie characters an authentic voice that matches none of these schools so (...) well as it articulates an agrarian mentality once associated with Thomas Jefferson and today articulated by Wendell Berry. This reading of The Grapes of Wrath, in turn, can be interpreted as both a rebuke to contemporary social theorists who continue to impose an ill-fitting left-right dichotomy on working class political culture in rural America and as a roadmap suggesting ways that philosophy and rural sociology might engage one another more directly and productively with respect to contemporary rural development and environmental quality issues. (shrink)

Antisocial punishment—punishment of pro-social cooperators—has shown to be detrimental for the efficiency of informal punishment mechanisms in public goods games. The motives behind antisocial punishment acts are not yet well understood. This article shows that inequality aversion predicts antisocial punishment in public goods games with punishment. The model by Fehr and Schmidt (Q J Econ 114(3): 817–868, 1999) allows to derive conditions under which antisocial punishment occurs. With data from three studies on public goods games with punishment I evaluate the (...) predictions. A majority of the observed antisocial punishment acts are not compatible with inequality aversion. These results suggest that the desire to equalize payoffs is not a major determinant of antisocial punishment. (shrink)

The Forestry Pilot Plan set intomotion collectively-owned and managed forestry in overforty communities in Quintana Roo, Mexico and hasshown the promise of a forestry development model thatpromotes conservation by giving local people a genuinestake in sustainable resource management. Today, thelegacy of the PPF is under great pressure. Externally,neoliberal policy reform restructures agrarianproduction in ways that favor individual overcollective management of natural resources.Internally, organizational problems createinefficiencies within both forestry ejidos(cooperative agrarian communities) and theirintermediate level forestry civil societies. Peasants'capacity to defend their (...) interests and dealeffectively with their production problems throughstrong representative organizations is beingundermined by new rules for economic associationwithin the ejidos and by the turning over of technicalservice financing to the market. Though organizationalinnovations within the ejidos hold positive potential,existing civil societies merit continued assistance askey actors promoting sustainable forestry. Studyingcommon property management regimes across multiplelevels and dimensions reveals that in Mexico, policyreform overlooks the crucial social resourcesrepresented by peasant organization, undermining thepossibility of sustainable forest management whileassigning the peasant most of the cost ofconservation. If conservation is indeed encouraged bythe genuine participation of those with a stake insustainable use of natural resources, national andinternational communities that value Mexico's tropicalforests should also invest in both social and economiccosts of conservation. (shrink)

This paper examines the question whether, and to what extent, John Locke’s classic theory of property can be applied to the current debate involving intellectual property rights (IPRs) and the information commons. Organized into four main sections, Section 1 includes a brief exposition of Locke’s arguments for the just appropriation of physical objects and tangible property. In Section 2, I consider some challenges involved in extending Locke’s labor theory of property to the debate about IPRs and digital information. In Section (...) 3, it is argued that even if the labor analogy breaks down, we should not necessarily infer that Locke’s theory has no relevance for the contemporary debate involving IPRs and the information commons. Alternatively, I argue that much of what Locke has to say about the kinds of considerations that ought to be accorded to the physical commons when appropriating objects from it – especially his proviso requiring that “enough and as good” be left for others – can also be applied to appropriations involving the information commons. Based on my reading of Locke’s proviso, I further argue that Locke would presume in favor of the information commons when competing interests (involving the rights of individual appropriators and the preservation of the commons) are at stake. In this sense, I believe that Locke offers us an adjudicative principle for evaluating the claims advanced by rival interests in the contemporary debate about IPRs and the information commons. In Section 4, I apply Locke’s proviso in my analysis of two recent copyright laws: the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). I then argue that both laws violate the spirit of Locke’s proviso because they unfairly restrict the access that ordinary individuals have previously had to resources that comprise the information commons. Noting that Locke would not altogether reject copyright protection for IPRs, I conclude that Locke’s classic property theory provides a useful mechanism for adjudicating between claims about how best to ensure that individuals will be able to continue to access information in digitized form, while at the same time also allowing for that information to enjoy some form of legal protection. (shrink)

National membership in itself aggravates global inequality, and plural membership does all the more so. A key mechanism by which that occurs are double taxation agreements that have the effect of favoring the global rich at the expense of the global poor. One egalitarian solution is a levy on multiple citizenship; another is redesigning double taxation agreements along prioritarian lines. Revising the OECD Model Tax Convention could be a feasible strategy for implementing such reforms.

The tension between individual freedom and the public interest has been at the center of environmental debates since Garrett Hardin’s article on the tragedy of the commons. Debates over bottled wat...

The focus here is on analytical and instrumental requirements for those collective decision exercises that lend themselves to a judgment-driven resolution. These have not as yet received much concerted technical attention from either of the two main movements in the field. They remain somewhere beyond the purview of the objectively-predicated instruments that mainstream GDSS (Group Decision Support System) designs tend to favour. Yet neither are they so inherently ill-structured as the situations with which the GDNSS (Group Decision and Negotiation Support (...) System) community is concerned, these usually allowing only a subjectively-predicated, compromisive or consensus-based conclusion. If the technical requirements peculiar to judgment-driven decision exercises are to be well met, it will be through the offices of analytical instruments that can help assure the rationality of the resolutions at which they arrive. The primary purpose of these pages is to offer some suggestions about the types of analytical instruments that might serve this end. (shrink)

The willingness to trade off large but ill-defined future consequences for immediate work characterizes social problems such as environmental sustainability. This commentary argues that important applications of behavioral models of self-control are being overlooked in the experimental literature. Tying the experimental literature to longterm health, environmental, and other risks makes the experimental work more germane, and raises new research questions for experimental modeling.

This paper investigates a structural void that, especially in the context of poor or developing nations, prevents economic growth from being more inclusive and benefiting wider sections of society. The authors initially examine the imperative for inclusive growth, one encompassing a focus on poverty and development. Utilizing social choice theory, and a capability deprivation perspective, we observe that the poor experience deprivations due to a deficiency in their personal autonomy. This in turn is deeply interwoven with the concept of identity. (...) Legally recognizing the poor as individuals, and providing them with proof of their identity, will empower them and facilitate inclusive growth and poverty alleviation. These conceptual arguments are illustrated with the description of a biometric-linked developmental initiative that is providing proof of identity to 1.2 billion residents of India. By establishing a robust identity management system, the project aims to ensure more inclusive growth and efficiently target welfare programs. The authors further investigate how the establishment of identity rights facilitates financial inclusion, property ownership, and necessity-driven entrepreneurial action. Biometric identification on this scale is, however, fraught with dangers to civil liberties and has other serious ethical consequences. In the last section, issues around privacy and security are debated while highlighting the need for external review and independent monitoring to define the project’s boundaries and usages. (shrink)

Those who are risk averse with respect to money, and thus turn down some gambles with positive monetary expectations, are nevertheless often willing to accept bundles involving multiple such gambles. Therefore, it might seem that such people should become more willing to accept a risky but favourable gamble if they put it in context with the collection of gambles that they predict they will be faced with in the future. However, it turns out that when a risk averse person adopts (...) the long-term perspective, she faces a decision-problem that can be analysed as a noncooperative game between different “time-slices” of herself, where it is in the interest of each time-slice (given its prediction about other slices) to turn down the gamble with which it is faced. Hence, even if a risk averse but rational person manages to take the long-term perspective, she will, in the absence of what Hardin called “mutual coercion”, end up in a situation analogous to the “tragedy of the commons”. (shrink)

Collective action processes in complex, multiple-use common-pool resources (CPRs) have only recently become a focus of study. When CPRs evolve into more complex systems, resource use by separate user groups becomes increasingly interdependent. This implies, amongst others, that the institutional framework governing resource use has to be re-negotiated to avoid adverse impacts associated with the increased access of any new stakeholders, such as overexploitation, alienation of traditional users, and inter-user conflicts. The establishment of “platforms for resource use negotiation” is a (...) way of dealing with complex natural resource management problems. Platforms arise when stakeholders perceive the same resource management problem, realize their interdependence in solving it, and come together to agree on action strategies for solving the problem (Röling, 1994). This article sets the scene for a discussion in this Special Issue about the potential of nested platforms for resource use negotiation in facilitating collective action in the management of complex, multiple-use CPRs. The article has five objectives. First, we define “collective action” in the context of this paper. Second, we discuss the importance of collective action in multiple-use CPRs. Third, we introduce the concept of platforms to coordinate collective action by multiple users. Fourth, we address some issues that emerge from evidence in the field regarding the role and potential of nested platforms for managing complex CPRs. Finally, we raise five discussion statements. These will form the basis for the collection of articles in this special issue. (shrink)

The field of environmental economics, while offering powerful tools for the diagnosis of environmental problems and the design of policy solutions to them, is unable to effectively incorporate normative concepts like justice or rights into its method of analysis, and so needs to be supplemented by a consideration of such concepts. I examine the two main schools of thought in environmental economics ? the New Resource Economics and Free Market Environmentalism ? in order to illustrate the shortcomings of their methods (...) of analysis, taken on their own, and to demonstrate how a consideration of concepts like rights or justice might usefully supplement them. (shrink)

Enterprise strategy provides an accepted theoretical framework for integrating the moral responsibilities of organizations into their strategy formulation and implementation processes. We argue that, when extended to the ecological level of analysis, enterprise strategy provides a sound theoretical framework for ethically and strategically accounting for the ultimate stakeholder, planet Earth. Within the framework of enterprise strategy, a value system based on sustainability can provide a sound ethical basis for developing ecologically sensitive strategic management systems which allow organizations to satisfy the (...) demands of the myriad green stakeholders that represent the planet in the immediate business arena. This provides a new "flavor" of enterprise strategy in which organizations "stand for sustainability." We call this new flavor "eco-enterprise strategy.". (shrink)

Partnerships can play an important role in addressing environmental concerns and fostering environmental improvement. In this context, we argue that a more elaborate understanding is needed of how partners intend to reach beyond the partnership boundaries and target stakeholders at the firm, industry, supply-chain, or societal levels. As environmental improvement is intertwined with the process of change, we build on the theory of planned change to explain how the focus on selected partnership mechanisms may help partners anticipate and overcome barriers (...) when targeting environmental improvement at these different levels. We test our framework, using a sample of 566 environmental partnerships formed in the USA, and provide rich insights into how partners intend to reach beyond the partnership boundaries. From a practical perspective, these insights may inform corporate managers’ decision to configure environmental partnerships in terms of the target group and suitable partnership mechanism. From a theory perspective, the study helps develop a more systematic understanding of what partners intend to do and when partnerships may provide benefits in addressing level-specific change barriers. These insights provide a first step in positioning partnerships in the broader context of environmental change and encourage future research to move from the intentions to the actual outcomes. (shrink)

Near the end of his target article, Baron argues that we need to address the question of how to conduct education in consequentialist decision making. However, recent trends in education have deemphasized and denigrated decentered and decontextualized thought. It is argued here that perspective decentering and decontextualized thinking are absolutely essential to the development of consequentialist reasoning.

ABSTRACT Stephen Gardiner’s A Perfect Moral Storm offers an in-depth analysis of the ethical facets of climate change. In this paper, I contend that he nonetheless overlooks an important structural layer to climate vulnerabilities and injustices because he analyzes them implicitly interactional. I argue that climate change should rather be understood as a form of structural injustice as outlined by Iris M. Young. In this reading, the unjust socio-economic structural processes that give rise to climate change, the production and consumption (...) of fossil fuel energy, are at their core marked by (i) oppressive and dominating power relations that position agents (ii) intersecting with other structural constraints. Crucially, (iii) these structural processes arose historically, persist over time, and entrench the burden on those suffering in the future. This viewpoint improves our understanding of how the climate crisis unfolds over time in a way that augments Gardiner’s analysis. The structural approach can advance the climate justice debate both theoretically and practically. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that what we ought to do collectively does not imply anything about what each of us ought to do individually. According to this line of reasoning, if cooperating will make no difference to an outcome, then you are not morally required to do it. And if cooperating will be personally costly to you as well, this is an even stronger reason to not do it. However, this reasoning results in a self-defeating, yet entirely predictable outcome. If (...) everyone is rational, no one will cooperate, resulting in an aggregate outcome that is devastating for everyone. This dismal analysis explains why climate change and other collective action problems are so difficult to ameliorate. The goal of this paper is to provide a different, exploratory framework for thinking about individual reasons for action in collective action problems. I argue that the concept of commitment gives us a new perspective on collective action problems. Once we take the structure of commitment into account, this activates requirements of diachronic rationality that give individuals instrumental reasons to cooperate in collective action problems. (shrink)

In this study, edited on the basis of a critical review of domestic and foreign literature, as well as authors’ own analyzes, previously presented in several articles (Słodowa-Hełpa 2015; Gorynia 2021 and 2022), mainly in two shorter texts published in popular magazines with a range of Poland (Gory-nia and Słodowa-Hełpa 2022a, 2022b), selected aspects of the concept of the common good from the perspective of the Covid-19 pandemic were presented. The authors’ conviction that in the process of searching for cures (...) to overcome civilization turbulences, the common good cannot be eliminated from the social, political, economic and moral space, was the inspiration to take up this issue. Therefore, the search for answers to the following four questions was considered leading: Will pandemic experiences catalyze a better understanding of the common good? How can they reduce its deficit? To what extent can a return to the concept of the common good, offering real forms of participation and shared responsibility, help in overcoming the painful effects of the present and future threats to civilization? Can respecting the principles of the common good be considered an imperative in the process of overcoming problems of an increasingly global scope? In view of the ambiguity of the category of the common good and the related interpretation difficulties, it was deemed necessary to place the main part of the study in the background of the most general approach to the essence of the analyzed category and its status in philosophical and economic terms. The summary outlines conclusions and postulates concerning the conditions for the functioning of global common goods and the possibility of using them in international cooperation. (shrink)

Free market environmentalists believe that the extension of private property rights and market transactions is sufficient to address environmental difficulties. But there is no invisible hand operating in markets that ensures that environmentally sound practices will be employed just because property rights are in private hands. Also, liability laws and the court systems cannot be relied upon to force polluters to internalize the social costs of pollution. Third, market prices do not provide an objective measure of environmental matters. Finally, there (...) is a right to a livable environment that justifies regulations protecting the public from unreasonable environmental risks. (shrink)

Operant psychologists are looking for alternatives to radical behaviorism. Rachlin offers teleological behaviorism, but it may pose as many difficulties as radical behaviorism. There is, however, a less drastic way to defend Rachlin's thesis of It portrays operant principles as relating distal efficient causes to behavioral effects.

Core sustainability issues concerning the governance of seeds revolve around knowledge aspects, such as intellectual property rights over genetic information or the role of traditional knowledge in plant breeding, seed production and seed use. While the importance of knowledge management for efficient and equitable seed governance has been emphasized in the scientific discourse on Seed Commons, knowledge aspects have not yet been comprehensively studied. With this paper, we aim to (i) to analyze the governance of knowledge aspects in both global (...) and local/regional Seed Commons, (ii) to highlight disconnections in knowledge governance between the local Seed Commons and global governance of plant genetic resources, and (iii) to investigate the contribution of knowledge commoning to environmentally sustainable and culturally adapted food systems. For this purpose, we will analyze knowledge governance by the International Seed Treaty (ITPGRFA) and by two local Seed Commons, a Philippine farmer-led network and a German organic-breeding association. We take the analytical lens of commoning, focusing on social practices rather than specific resources. The main challenges include finding institutional arrangements, which fruitfully integrate aspects from both traditional and scientific knowledge systems, taking into account the complex interrelation between knowledge-related, material and cultural aspects of seeds. (shrink)

The costliness of disrupting a pattern may not be a useful criterion for distinguishing between acts and patterns; there are instances in which omitted components of patterns are hard to detect (e.g., typographical errors), or in which distortions are easily introduced (e.g., slurred words in a trite phrase). Are there behavioral criteria for distinguishing between acts and patterns?

Ninety-five freshmen each recruited three peers to play a "group bidding game," an N-person prisoner’s dilemma in which anyone could win movie tickets depending on their scores in the game. Prior to playing, all participants completed a measure of prosocial value orientation. Replicating and extending earlier findings (Sheldon and McGregor 2000), our results show that prosocial participants were at a disadvantage within groups. Despite this vulnerability, prosocial participants did no worse overall than asocial participants because a counteracting group-level advantage arose (...) for prosocials, who tended to be concentrated in groups. Implications of this assortative process for the egoism/altruism debate, and for hierarchical selection theory, are discussed. (shrink)

This paper argues that commitment to the Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP) in Western societies, which includes support for such ideologies as free enterprise, private property rights, economic individualism, and unlimited economic growth, poses a threat to progress in imposing greater standards of corporate environmental accountability. It is hypothesized that commitment to the DSP will be negatively correlated with support for the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) and support for corporate environmental accountability, and that belief in the NEP will be positively correlated (...) with support for corporate environmental accountability. The findings, based on a survey of MBA students, are generally consistent with the hypotheses. (shrink)

The conflict between agency and stakeholder theories of the firm has long been entrenched in organizational and management literature. At the core of this debate are two competing views of the firm in which assumptions and process contrast each other so sharply that agency and stakeholder views of the firm are often described as polar opposites. The purpose of this paper is to show how agency theory can be subsumed within a general stakeholder model of the firm. By analytically deconstructing (...) the assumptions of agency theory, it is argued that agency theory: (1) must include a recognition of stakeholders; (2) requires a moral minimum to be upheld, which places four moral principles above the interests of any stakeholders, including shareholders; (3) consists of contradictory assumptions about human nature and which give rise to the equally valid assumptions of trust, honesty and loyalty to be infused into the agency relationship. In this way, stakeholder theory is argued to be the logical conclusion of agency theory. Empirical hypotheses are presented as a means to substantiate this claim. (shrink)

Ecologically-motivated authoritarianism flourished initially during the 1970s but largely disappeared after the decline of socialism in the late-1980s. Today, 'eco- authoritarianism ' is beginning to reassert itself, this time modelled not after the Soviet Union but modern-day China. The new eco-authoritarians denounce central planning but still suggest that governments should be granted powers that free them from subordination to citizens' rights or democratic procedures. I argue that current eco-authoritarian views do not present us with an attractive alternative to market liberal (...) democracy even if we take a highly pessimistic view of our shared prospects under the latter sort of regime. (shrink)