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Abstract.-Our political system places great stock in the value judgments of the ~itizenry. However, in some decision making situations, involving difficult questions about public resource allocation, carefully considered value judgments are a scarce commodity. Especially in decisions about the rate at which irreplaceable natural resources should be used, we lack procedures that allow for well-informed citizen input about values. This paper presents a value framework of functional, held, and assigned values that defends the role of citizens as the appropriate source of value judgments, and proposes the citizen jury as a source of such value judgments.
INTRODUCTION
As Rene Dubos (1976) recounts, when the city of Chicago held a World's Fair in 1933, the fair's guidebook contained a section titled "Science discovers, Industry applies, man confonns," with text proclaiming that "Individuals, groups, entire races of men fall into step with ... science and technology." While science and technology have in the ensuing
60 years become pervasive, few people today would suggest that humankind should meekly follow the lead of science and technology. Rather, as Dubos notes, the present view is that scientific technology must be managed with a strong concern for the long-range consequences of human interventions into nature.
A similar shift in view has occurred in public land management. In 1910, Gifford Pinchot declared: "The first principle of conservation is development, the use of the naturnl resources now existing on this continent for the benefit of the people who live here now" (p. 43). In contrast, the newly published mission of the U. S. Forest Service includes
"advocating a conservation ethic in promoting the health, productivity, diversity, and beauty of forests and associated lands." As the supply of pristine natural areas lands have certainly changed. has dwindled and as our understanding of ecosystems, and the various services they perfonn, have improved, the values we assign to public
1 Thomas C. Brown is an Economist and George L. Peterson is a General Supervisory Engneer, USDA Forest Service, Rocky
Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, located at Fort
Collins, Colorado.
In response to changing values, emphasizing concern for our environment and for our descendants, managers are tIying to operationalize new concepts such as ecosystem management, sustainability, and biological diversity so that they affect everyday decisions. We hope to shed some light on this process of reflecting values in actions, by considering three questions:
(1) Are ecosystem management, sustainability, and biological diversity policies or values? (2) If values, are such values merely preference-based, or do they derive from some deeper foundation? (3) What is the role of the public in this new environmental era, and how can that role be facilitated? In answer to the last question, we propose the use of citizen juries as a source of value judgments for difficult, value-laden public natural resource decisions. The common thread uniting these three questions is that wise land management depends on an understanding of the public's values.
POLICY OR VALUE?
Ecosystem management, sustainability, and biological diversity are increasingly popular buzzwords in environmental management circles. The U. S. Forest Service, for example, recently adopted ecosystem management as its modus operandi.
After much discussion, however, there is little agreement about how to implement these concepts in environmental policy and management. Different academic backgrounds have spawned special interests that bring narrow interpretations to the conference table. Because the buzzwords do not have operational defmitions, they mean different things to different people and nothing to some people.
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Public land management, given scarcity, is essentially a matter of choosing among conflicting objectives or states of the resource. For a management policy to be useful, it must provide some criteria for choosing or compromising among conflicting goals. For example, a policy may (l) state categorically that vehicle use is prohibited in officially designated wilderness areas, (2) declare that wildfires will be extinguished if certain risk criteria are exceeded, or (3) state that timber will be sold if the bid price exceeds agency costs. These three examples of policies each reflect a consideration of various goals or values.
The wilderness access policy addresses a conflict between wilderness preselVation and user accessibility. Similarly, the fire policy attempts to resolve a conflict between ecological process and resource protection, and the -harvest policy addresses a conflict between lumber availability and industty jobs on the one hand and taxpayer relief on the other.
Unlike these three policies, ecosystem management, sustainability, and biological di~ersity fail to provide the manager with a basis for choosiI,lg or compromising among conflicting goals. These three concepts are policies only in the loosest sense of the word, because they are currently so poorly defined that they provide only vague guidance to managers.
Rather than policies, we suggest these three concepts are more like goals or values, to be balanced with other goals or values in the course of reaching useable policies.
Ecosystem management is an overriding philosophy management of ourselves as a component of the greater whole
(the ecosystem), management of our interactions with and impacts on the whole, and management of the whole so as to maintain, enhance, and sustain long-tenn improvement in the quality of human life. Use of the word" system" in " ecosystem" implies that the whole is a complex interaction of many things, with it's overall behavior and condition being greater than the sum of its parts. Because it is a very complex system that we understand poorly, it is difficult or impossible for us to predict its behavior in response to many of the things we do. Ecosystem management is therefore a goal toward which we strive-a concept of the good or the preferable-not an operational way of doing things. It suggests, simply, that sustained improvement in human welfare depends on a hannonious relationship with the whole ecosystem of which we have become a dominant part.
Sustainability is also a goal or value toward which we strive. Our biological mandate is to sUlVive and improve our ability to sUlVive as a species. Having outrun most of our predators and opposing forces, developed a technological culture, and multiplied in unprecedented numbers, we have begun to dominate the larger ecosystem and mine its capital.
However, the ecosystem is a depreciable and depletable asset, not a bottomless pit into which we can continually dump the consequences of our existence. Sustainability means that humans are living in symbiosis with the greater whole so as to maintain or increase environmental capital, relative to human welfare. However, as discussed in more detail later, sustainability is sometimes a goal that must be compromised with other goals.
Biological Diversity is a goal or value embodying a cautious and conselVative approach to environmental management in the face of incomplete infonnatio~ as well perhaps as a felt obligation towards other species. It is another concept of the good or preferable, whether as an instrument in meeting some other good or as an end in itself.
To consider these three goals or values as policies only leads to confusion at decision time, because they fail to resolve conflicts or provide specific management direction. But if values rather than policies, how can these values play a role in public land management decisions? What is the source and role of value in such decisioQS? To begin to answer these questions, let us first consider in some detail the way we use the word
"value."
THE SOURCE OF VALUE
Perhaps the most fundamental.distinction among the ways we use "value" is between those uses of" value" that rely on human preference and those that do not. Nonpreference-related uses of
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" value" include the mathematical and the functional.
In the mathematical sense, "value" means "magnitude." We may say, for example, that the values of n in the expression n
2
=4 are 2 and -2. In the functional sense, value refers to the physical or biological relationships of one entity to another. For example, we speak of the value of cover for elk habitat, the value of nitrogen for wheat production, or the nutritional value of vitamin
C. These values are input-output relationships. They exist whether or not humans prefer them or are even aware of them
they are discoverable, but exist no matter what we prefer.
Preference-related values include held values and assigned values. A held value is an " enduring conception of the preferable that influences choice or action" (Brown 1984:232). Such conceptions of the preferable could concern modes of conduct
(e.g., honesty, fairness), end-states (e.g., happiness, wisdom), or qualities (e.g., friendliness, intelligence). Environmentally oriented values include beauty, sustainability, productivity, naturalness, and diversity.
A person's held values may conflict, as do generosity and frugality, or duty and pleasure, and thus usually do not individually provide specific direction for action. Similarly, an agency's goals often conflict, as productivity and beauty or development and diversity sometimes do, and the conflicting goals must somehow be balanced in the course of developing specific policy.
An assigned value is the "expressed relative importance or worth of an object to an individual or group in a given context"
(Brown 1984:233). An assigned value is thus the standing of an object relative to other objects, where an "object" signifies whatever can be preferred to something else (including physical things, persons, emotions, images, thoughts, symbols, etc.). A person's choice or purchase indicates an individual assigned value. A Iru\iority vote or a market price is an example of a group assigned value. An assigned value results from preference
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relationships between a person (or many people) and an object, given the person's held values and the context of the valuation
Thus, an assigned value is the result of held values and often incorporates a context-specific resolution of conflicting held values.
Functional values have a role to play in the world of preference-based values, for knowledge of functional values can affect preference-based values. If someone values health, for example, and knows of the functional value of vitamin C to health, valuing health may lead the person to value vitamin C.
However, the value assigned to vitamin C is preference-based because that value follows from the value assigned to health.
Clearly, assigned values are the result of preference. But are held values, upon which assigned values rely, also based in preference? While the reasoning seems circular, held values are indeed also preference-based. That is, held values are "objects" that are ordered via preference relationships. A held value
be considered a "preference of;the first order," but nevertheless a preference.
It is perhaps obvious by now that we are not using tt preference" in a trivial sense, such as to simply indicate what one "likes." Rather, preference is being used in its broadest sense, as the basis for human choice. That is, preference allows for or gives rise to choice. We are making no claims about the source of preference or about the nature of free will as it applies to choice. It
be that some of our preferences are heavily influenced hereditariIy or by early childhood experiences so that we have incomplete control over some of our choices, and it may be that individuals differ considerably in the amount of personal control they have over their choices. These complex and fascinating issues are beyond, and, we atgue, irrelevant to, this discussion We are taking preferences as given as a property of the individual.
This value framework rests on two philosophical bases.
First, personal freedom, or sovereignty, is central to the political, philosophical, and economic definitions of value in public policy and is the foundation from which preference becomes the practical justification of value. In the political sense, the "right to decide" rests in the sovereign power. In a democratic society, sovereignty resides in the individual citizen, i.e., "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," with government "deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed,
It and with the powers of government limited by the rights of its citizens. In harmony with this political justification of value and derived from the same underlying political philosophy, market-based economic theory anchors value in consumer sovereignty, as the product of the choices consumers make among their budget-constrained alternatives. Thus, except in the realm of abstract philosophy, value is defined, assigned, and justified by sovereignty as an act of human choice.
Second, value (except in the functional or mathematical senses) is absent without the valuer. As stated by Santayana
(1896:18),
It • • • there is no value apart from some appreciation of it, and no good apart from some preference of it before its absence or opposite. . . Or, as Spinoza clearly expresses it, we desire nothing because it is good, but it is good only because we desire it.
It
Within the constraints imposed by law and public policy, individuals express and assign value by exercising their sovereignty through individual preferences and choices, and those same individuals collectively express and assign social values and impose legal constraints upon their choices by exercising sovereignty through due process of law by social choice. Philosophers can state beliefs and posit ethical maxims and prophets can cry repentance from the walls of the city, but sovereignty rules Ithe land.
Given this value framewoIk, when biologists argue for an environmental policy that aims to restore an area to its " natural" condition, they are in essence stating a preference for one held value (naturalness) over others (e.g., utility, refinement).s And when philosophers claim that a species or ecosystem has intrinsic value, they are in essence stating a preference for one held value (preservation) over another (e.g., serviceability).
Some statements of biologists and even philosophers seem to claim that the source of such concepts as naturaIness or biological diversity is deeper than mere human preference. For example, Rolston (1982:145) argues that
It intrinsic natural value recognizes value inherent in some natural occasions, without human reference.
It
Rolston's claim appears to be that natural entities, like species and ecological processes, have value that transcends (does not derive from) human preference. The intrinsic value claim seems to suggest a non-preferential truth that can and has been discovered by the author. However, we would argue that the claim actually reflects either (1) a faith that nonhuman entities of nature have inalienable rights, or (2) a functional value (a physical relationship). In the first case, the claim is a held value. While the assignment of value to natural entities just because they exist (not for any service they render to humans) is certainly reasonable, we wish to note that someone
chose to assign such value. We must unavoidably regard the claim as preference based, no matter how keenly it is felt.
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In the second case, the attribution of intrinsic value to some entity simply indicates that the entity is an essential input in a physical input-output relationship. For example, accepting the value of biological diversity to ecosystem robustness as a functional value might lead one to say that biological diversity is inherently or intrinsically valuable; however, it is essential to recognize that the attribution of intrinsic value to biological diversity is dependent on assigning value to ecosystem robustness.
Although held and assigned values are preference-based, people do oot necessarily prefer that which will increase their welfare. While avoiding a specific defInition of welfare, we suggest that it is generally accepted that preferences depend on knowledge, and that lack of knowledge may lead to preferences that do not enhance welfare.
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In other words, well infonned preferences may differ from poorly infonned preferences, and welfare may differ depending on one's preferences. For example, our welfare may depend on certain natural processes (on certain functional values), whether or not we are aware of them; that
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is, certain natural processes may be "of value" (be important to our welfare) even though we do not assign value to them because we are tmaware of them. The dependence of preference on knowledge certainly suggests that science has a role in resource management and that the public whose values help determine resource allocation should be well infonned of scientific findings. However, in a democratic society, resource allocations derive from peoples' values, even if its citizens are ill-infonned.
The realization that our held values are, as far as we can be sure, a matter of preference (are "up to us") does not trivialize those values or make them an iIwalid guide for public land management. Our values may flow from the highest reverence for nature, even from a conception of nature as the key to the mystety of God.
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Neither does the rooting of value in preference suggest that all assigned values are equally valid for a given decision Reliance on preference does not negate the concept that there is some truth to which we may aspire, or negate the dependence of our future welfare 0Jl the values that our current actions reflect. But our social/political decisions must rely on some amalgam of the plurality of values of society, not on what a minority consider to be the truth.
This principle, that resource allocation should be based on the values of the full constituency affected by the allocation, has important implications for value measurement when long range commitments of public resources are being considered. We now tum to the measurement of values that appropriately represent the relevant constituency.
APPROPRIATE VALUES
Recognizing that policy is based on human values, in combination with what physical and biological relationships
(functional values) we can detennine and effectively convey to people, we must proceed to decide how best to measure human values and incorporate them into policy decisions.
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While in a representative democratic system we rely heavily on the judgments of our elected governmental representatives, those representatives, as well as the resource managers who articulate and execute policy, must by law or by good sense rely on the values of the citizenty. Of most use would be a system of assigned value measurement that countetbalanced the political system's heavy reliance on or susceptibility to pressure groups.
Among various more broadly based framewOIKs for measuring public values, a prominent approach is economic valuation of relevant costs and benefits, as an input to the infonnation system we call benefit-cost analysis.
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A common complaint with the economic approach to incorporating values into policy decisions is that the difficulty of measuring the values of nonmarket goods tends to depreciate them relative to matket commodities, so that the economic analysis suggests an inefficient solution biased towards resource development. For example, without adequately valuing the full costs of a timber harvest, whether they be to downstream water users because of erosion caused by the harvest, or to persons who value the old growth that will be lost, the harvest may seem more advantageous than it is. In response to this valid complaint, economists, especially in the last 20 years, have worked to improve methods for estimating the economic value of nonmarket goods. The early efforts focused on private-like goods such as recreation opportunities, but more recent woIk has focused on public goods such as species preselVation While there is still much controversy about the ability of nolllllalket valuation methods to estimate values comparable to those available for market goods, let us assume for the moment that such methods exist, and thus that we can reliably estimate what people really would lpay (or accept in compensation) for all relevant goods. We propose this assumption in order to focus on a more fundamental sustainability issue the relative value of resources over time (i.e., the discount rate).
First consider a short-term decision about a proposed reallocation of resources, one that affects only the current generation and one where the discount rate is of little importance. If a benefit -cost analysis shows that benefits exceed costs of the proposed reallocation when the values of all relevant resources are measured, the reallocation is considered to be
"efficient" (Le., it satisfies the Potential Pareto Improvement criterion, such that the gainers could pay the losers for their loss and still be better off). This proposed reallocation would clearly then be a candidate for serious consideration. However, efficiency is only half of the economic picture, for the efficiency detennination ignores the equity of the proposed reallocation
There are two major equity concerns. First, the losers may not actually be reimbursed, so some people may gain at others' expense. Second, monetaty values depend on the existing income distribution, since those with more income essentially have more "votes" in detennining the values. If a different income distribution. would have produced different monetaIy values, a different benefit-cost determination might have resulted. If a fairness criterion is accepted, any income distribution less fair than the current one that would result in different monetaIy values can be ignored~ however, if an income distribution more fair than the current one would produce different monetary values, the equity concern is a serious one.
Resolution of equity concerns is a political matter, all an economist or other analyst can do is articulate the distribution of costs and benefits associated with the proposed resource reallocation
Accepting the existing income distribution as given is generally considered to be a reasonable course, since it is assumed that economic values are not very sensitive to the income distribution, and the existing distribution is the outcome of the distribution of sovereign power. The more important equity concern for short term decisions is whether losers will accept their loss. In practice, the losers are typically the general taxpayers while the gainers are a specific group, often allowing the action to move forward with limited opposition, especially when the action is generally regarded as having social merit, such as with public education.
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However, now consider a decision that has implications for future generations, and again assume that comparable economic values for all relevant goods can be estimated reliably for the current generation. Further, assume that preferences remain constant over all generations and that any real price changes are accounted for in the analysis. Based on the commonly observed propensity to discount the future, the typical procedure in benefit-cost analysis is to discount future costs and benefits at some IIlalket-based rate of interest. When such a rate is used for veIY long range decisions, however, the implications can be dramatic, because a positive net benefit (an "efficient" outcome) is more likely the sooner the benefits happen and the later the costs are incurred. Clearly, the greater the discount rate (i.e., the more the current generation discounts the future), the more likely a proposed resource reallocation that benefits the current generation at the expense of the future will be declared
" efficient." Equity issues thus become extremely important if
II the costs and benefits are not equally distributed over time.
The intertemporal equity concern can be looked at from the perspective of the initial distribution of income or from the perspective of gainers and losers. From the first perspective, consider that the actual values used in the benefit-cost computation are the current values times the discounting factor.
The further into the future a cost or benefit occurs, the less is the present value of that cost or benefit. The effect of discounting is therefore to lower the income (the votes) of future generations, and this unequal distribution of income can have a compelling effect on the results of the analysis when costs and benefits are not equally distributed over time. Using the fairness criterion mentioned above, it may be difficult to argue that a discount rate based on the rate of time preference of the current generation, as established in the matket, produces for the analysis a fair distribution of income across generations. From the second perspective, it is easily seen that the effect of discounting when the benefits occur sooner than the costs is that the current generation gains and future generations lose. From either perspective, an important constituency of the decision-future generations-bas been poorly represented.
In contrast to the standard discounting approach, Rawls
(1971) has suggested that decisions affecting the future should be made with decision makers placed behind a "veil of ignorance" about which generation they belong to. This impartiality criterion suggests equal use of irreplaceable resources across generations, implying a zero discount rate. But with a zero discount rate, if enough generations are involved, use of nonrenewable resources (such as oil) approaches zero for any given generation Likewise, irreversible development (such as building a dam in a unique natural area) is essentially precluded. Furthermore, a zero discount rate may foreclose future options by undervaluing investments that produce wealth and new technology that would be of great value to future generations.
Clearly, some compromise is needed between a zero discount rate, which would preclude many resource uses and perhaps prevent valuable investments, and a typical matket rate that reflects only the atomistic time preferences of the current generation. This compromise has been called a social rate of discount. Marglin (1963) presents three arguments for a social discount rate, which we will reduce to two. The "authoritarian" argument follows from Pigou who regarded the government
the actual representative of not onl
1 the current generation but of all future generations as well. I The argument is that the government in this role should consider the wishes (the values) of both current and future generations. Because the welfare of future generations depends on current consumption patterns, the government should assure protection of future welfare by policies that forcr sufficient saving (e.g., resource protection).
In essence, the government would proclaim what it deemed to be an appropriate discount rate.
The other argument takes a more democratic approach, realizing that the government is run by and for the current generation, such that any saving for the future must rely on the values of the current generation The basis of this argument is that most citizens have a set of held values that include a concern for the larger group (including the future) as well as concern for self. As Etzioni (1988:83) states, "people do not seek to maximize their pleasure, but to balance the service of two major purposes to advance their well-being and to act morally." If people do value the welfare of the future, then what is needed is a way for that value to be expressed and measured-a way that avoids the atomistic context of the matket place.
People acting alone have little power to affect the future, just as they have little power to affect air quality or provide for public defense, because others, while applauding a person's
. altruism (for they too value the future or clean air or public defense), may remain free-riders. The welfare of the future, like air quality and public defense, is a public (i.e., nonrival and nonexcludable) good. Typically with a public good, the benefit to person A that flows from ~ is less than the cost to A. However, not only A benefits from people the aggregate benefit from ~ p( s cost, even if the benefit to each individual is small. While A has no personal incentive to incur the cost, everyone else would like A to. In fact, each individual is better off if eveIYone else incurs the cost. Thus, the logical solution is collective (e.g., government) action-what Hardin (1968:1247) calls "mutual coercion mutually agreed upon" -to assure that eveIYone shares the cost. To simplify Marglin's presentation (ignoring, for example, intragenerational utility interdependency), the total cost, to be shared by all, should increase to the point where the marginal social benefit equals the marginal social cost. In the context of decisions affecting future generations, the future (a public good) is properly valued in benefit-cost analysis by choosing a social discount rate that reflects this comparison of marginal social benefit and marginal social cost, a comparison that results from the values of the current generation.
While recognizing the public good nature of the welfare of the future theoretically allows for the determination of a social discount rate, measuring that rate is not simply a matter of
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observation of human behavior. Choice of the social rate of discount requires resort to human judgments, hopefully made in light of a rich understanding of the issues. The rate is essentially an assigned value, a value assigned by the present that reflects the value the present places on the welfare of the future. The value will reflect an unavoidable compromise between our standard of Iiving and that of our descendants.
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A vehicle we suggest for making the choice is the citizen jury (Tonn et al. 1993). Such a jury would represent the citizemy just as a judicial jury does, and be compensated for its time. It would be chosen randomly, subject to certain selection criteria, from within a geographical area appropriate for the decision at hand. The selection criteria would assure two things: that jury members do not have exceptional- monetaIy interests in the outcome
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, and that they satisfy certain minimum standards of intellectual ability (because of the complex issues that jury members would be exposed to within a short time). Jury members would become fully infonned of the issues, the pros and cons of various rates of socialdime preference, during the deliberation process. Unlike trial juries (but not unlike grand juries), members would be able to ask questions of those presenting the technical and evaluative information And the jury would attempt to reach consensus about the rate that should be used in decisions affecting irreversible allocation of resources.
Separate rates may be determined for decisions iIwolving different kinds of resources, such as mineral energy deposits, unique ecosystems, species survival, or archeological sites. The choice may also reflect a judgment of the likelihood that technology will alleviate shortage, which is more likely for some resources (e.g., mineral energy deposits) than for others (e.g., unique environments).
Three important advantages of a citizen jury are that it is representative, well-informed, and formal. First, the citizenjury, unlike a task fo:rce or advisoty panel, is randomly chosen and thus represents society, not specific interest groups. Its frame of reference is the larger society; thus the welfare of future generations would be considered by the jury to the extent that the jury members considered the welfare of the future to be a concern of the current members of society. Second, unlike a survey (such as a contingent valuation survey used by economists), the citizen jury becomes well informed about the issue it is deliberating in the course of listening to and asking questions about the information that is presented by well-informed advocates of opposing viewpoints. Third, the citizen jury process is formal and systematic, following rules that would need to be established at the national level before citizen juries could routinely be used. National level sanction plus the histoty of jury use in the United States should lend authority and weight to citizen jury deliberations.
The essential difference between a citizen juty for the consideration of resource valuation and a judicial jury is that the former only recommends assigned values, while the latter proclaims a verdict. Nonetheless, properly constituted and utilized, a citizenjury's decision could
considerable weight among the ultimate decision makers in a democratic society like the United States, where use of juries is widespread.
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Indeed, this may be the reason such juries have not been used thus far, for to provide the "silent majority" with a voice in public resource management would tend to dilute the force of special interests as well as of the bureaucracy. A citizenjury would give new meaning to public iIwolvement, which too often is an exe:rcise in diffusing public criticism of an agency's preferred path.
To this point we have been assuming that the economic values of all relevant goods and services could be estimated from the choices of current citizens. However, some goods and services may be beyond the purview of economic valuation, such as the value of a subsistence way of life (see Brown and Burch 1992).
In this case, it may be reasonable to remove such goods and services (certain resources) from the economic analysis to consider them as constraints in the analysis and focus the analysis on the remaining, more easily valued, goods and services. In essence, this approach assigns infinite value to the removed resource. The decision -to remove a good from the analysis may result from a law that constrains decisions (such as the endangered species act). In other cases, a citizen juty could be consulted to suggest whether a good should be considered beyond the purview of economic valuation
However, benefit-cost analysis may be a poor tool for assisting analysis of a proposed resource reallocation, even if an appropriate discount rate has been estimated. If so, we are left wanting some procedure that fills the gap left by the exit of benefit-cost analysis. Principally, that gap is the lack of a procedure that attempts to consider the preferences of the larger society (that responds to other than the wants of special interests). To fill this gap, we would again suggest the citizen jury in decisions that hinge on an articulation of assigned value.
Such a jury could address specific proposals for resource reallocation, just as it could address the issue of the social discount rate. The jury would take the time to become fully informed about the proposal. While its decision would be advisoty, it would represent the only officially sanctioned impartial judgment that is likely to be available.
CHANGING VALUES
As the examples in the introduction of this paper illustrate, values change considerably over time. The common assumption of benefit-cost analysis, that the values of those currently living
(perhaps adjusted for past trends in real prices) can be accepted as adequate representations of the values of our descendants, is obviously heroic. Changing resource supplies and growing scientific knowledge will certainly influence the values of the future. One scenario, advanced by Krutilla (1967), is that technological advance will continue to lower the real cost of commodities, while increasing incomes will continue to raise the value of amenities, so that resou:rce development that consumes irreplaceable amenities, such as a unique environment, should be seriously questioned. To this argument we would add
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that as we continue to learn of the intricacies of the natural world and gain a fuller understanding of the relationship of human welfare to well-functioning ecosystems, we are likely to increase the value we place on such ecosystems. The implication of this scenario is that we should tend to avoid resource extraction where it conflicts with protection of unique amenities.
Another scenario is that as oil and natural gas supplies dwindle and population continues to grow, technology will fail to save the day with a· new clean source of energy, leading to declining real incomes and increases in the real prices of many commodities. The implication of this scenario is that we should lower our current consumption 'Of basic natural resources.
Other scenarios could be posited, but perhaps the main lesson of such scenarios is that there is great uncertainty about future conditions and values. Given this uncertainty, intergenerational fairness suggests that we should strive now to maintain options for our descendants by both protecting unique amenities and by lowering our consumption of ~asic resource stocks.
While we chided those who claim that natural entities have intrinsic value, we think there is an important place in the public discourse about resource management for held values that reflect a reverence for nature, a reverence of the kind that Wordsworth wrote of:
Such feelings suggest an ethical relationship to nature that is often lacking in our modem world. We would simply urge that the public discourse center on our role as guardians of our
I environment rather than on the polarizing notion that humans are only the problem, not the solution; and on an appreciation of human values rather than on "truths" that cannot be supported in the world of political conflict resolution
FINAL COMMENTS
In this paper we have taken peoples' held values as given, and focused on ways to measure assigned values that are relevant to public resomce management. But we do not wish to leave the impression that there is no role for public land management agencies in educating the public about values. We are all bombarded with infonnation that tends to affect our values (for example, commercial interests, in an effort to sell their products, in essence sell lifestyles that have implications for one's propensity to save for the future). It behooves agencies, which have been given the job of managing resources, to enrich the public's understanding of those resources and the role of those resources in human welfare. That enrichment certainly should include new infonnation about functional values, but can also include preference-based infonnation, such as that which would engender a respect or reverence for the natural world.
From the human perspective we see the ecosystem as having a purpose. That purpose is to support and sustain human welfare as deftned by the values and preferences we hold. But, because human life depends on the condition of the ecosystem as a whole, the higher purpose is to sustain the ecosystem such that it is capable of sustaining human life, and not only human life, but quality human life and hope of continued improvement into the future. This purpose lifts us out of the ecosystem, so to speak, into a role of stewardship. Because we have emerged as the species in control (some would
"out of control") but capable of reasoned action and self control, we must accept the responsibility to manage the behavior of the whole ecosystem by managing ourselves within the system as well as managing and nurturing the system with which we interact.
LITERATURE CITED
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Brown, Thomas C. 1984. The concept of value in resource allocation Land Economics 60 (3): 231-246.
Dubos, Rene. 1976. Symbiosis between the earth and humankind. Science 193: 459-462.
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ENDNOTES
3 Biologesl diversity also selVes as an indicator of the robustness and health of the greater system.
4 Other nonpreference-related uses of "value" include its use in art to indicate luminosity or brilliance, and its use in music to indicate the length or duration of a note.
5 We must be careful with our use of the word "natural." Some who hold the aforementioned value th~t prefers "naturalness" seem to be espousing a dualistic definition' of nature that defines homo sapiens as outside "nature." Thil view perhaps reflects an
Augustinian Interpretation of Genesis, whereby humans fell from grace and from their natural place with the choices of Adam and Eve
(see Pagels 1988). However, as with any species, we see the human species as a natural phenomenon. The problem is that we have gotten out of balance with the rest of nature, and we don't want to continue to destroy those aspects of nature that are of value to us. e As Aristotle (ca B.C. 320) so wisely perceived, "As evel}' knowledge and moral purpose aspires to some good, what Is in our view the good at which the political science aims, and what is the highest of all practical goods? As to its name there is, I may say, a general agreement. The masses and the cultured classes agree in calling it happiness, and conceive that "to live well' or "to do well' is the same thing as "to be happy.' But as to the nature of happiness
they do not agree ... "
7 There is much disagreement about what constitutes welfare, from the pure libertarians who believe that welfare is enhanced whenever people are free to choose, no matter what within the law they choose, to those who argue that welfare is enhanced only when equality is enhanced. However, the claim that welfare may not be maximized if preferences suffer from lack of knowledge is probably accepted by most welfare theorists, no matter how they specifically define welfare, except perhaps by the pure libertarians who simply equate welfare with free choice.
8
The follOwing excerpt from W. H. Carruth's poem "Each in his own tongue" expresses this notion beautifully:
A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high;
And all over upland and lowland,
The charm of the golden-rod,
Some of us call it Autumn,
And others call it God.
9 Any system relying on current values of the citizens will fail to assure sustalnability If basic needs are not met. Only once those basic survival needs are met can we save for the future. We are assuming in this discussion that basic needs are met. Thus we are assuming population has not outstretched the limits imposed by resources and technology.
10 Benefit-cost analysis is an Information system, not a sovereign decision criterion, unless the law defines it as such. As an Information system, the responsibility Is to fully inform all stakeholders In a gven social choice, so that each stakeholder makes an informed expression of personal values.
11 The point Is that while valuing all relevant resources (not just marketed goods) helps to accurately determine whether a proposed reallocation is efficient, it still yields an analysis with strong equity
Implications If a discount rate based on the atomistic decisions of the current generation is used. This point was recently made by
Howarth and Norgaard (1992:473), who state, "incorporating environmental values per se In decision-making will not bring about sustain ability unless each generation is committed to transferring to the next sufficient natural resources and capital assets to make development sustainable. "
12
Pigou (1932) wrote "It is the clear duty of Govemment, which is the trustee for unbom generatiDns as well as for Its present citizens, to watch over, and if need be, by legs/ative enactment, to defend the exhaustible natural resources of the country from rash and re~k1ess spoliation. . .. there is a valid case for some artificial encouragement to investment, particularly to investments the return from which will only begin to appear after the lapse of many years."
13 Such a compromise must be mindful of the grim implications of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As Georgescu-Roegen
(1980, p. 58) concludes:
Every time we produce a Cadillac, we irrevocably destroy an amount of low entropy that could otherwise be used for producing a plow or a spade. In other words, evel}' time we produce a Cadillac, we do it at the cost of decreasing the number of human lives in the future. Economic development through industrial abundance may be a blessing for us now and for those who will be able to enjoy it in the near future, but it is definitely against the interest of the human species as a whole, if its interest is to have a lifespan as long as is compatible with its dowl}' of low entropy. In this paradox of economic development we can see the price man has to pay for the unique privilege of being able to go beyond the biological limits in his strugge for life ... .!t is as if the human species were determined to have a short but exciting life. Let the less ambitious species have a long but uneventful existence.
14 Nearly all citizens will have some monetal}' interest if the outcome affects taxes or prices. Exceptional interest, however, refers to those who stand to gain or lose more than usual. For example, if the issue had to do with whether to allow development of a ski resort on a national forest, ski resort owners or adjacent private property owners would not be appropriate jul}' members.
15 Tens of thousands of jul}' trials, and 80% of all jury trials, are held each year in the United States (Hans and Vidmar 1986).
235