Summary of Sagoff, Chapter 3

Banu Kocer

In Chapter 3 Sagoff criticizes combining preferences and values. He argues that individuals have conflicting preferences and values as consumers and as citizens. Hence, he contends, as opposed to economic theorists, that individuals cannot be attributed a single comprehensive social role.

Sagoff starts the chapter with an example he gives to his students in class that, he suggests, could be used as an introductory course in environmental ethics since it clearly points to the conflict between individuals’ consumer interests and public values which in turn has a bearing on environmental regulation and environmental ethics.

The example concerns the opinion of the Supreme Court in Sierra Club versus Morton. The case involves an environmentalist challenge to a decision by the US Forest Service to lease the Mineral King Valley to Walt Disney Enterprises to build a ski resort. Mineral King Valley is a quasi-wilderness area in the middle of Sequoia National Park.

Although the students reflected high interest in visiting the ski resort if it were developed they believed that decision in this case should not be based on satisfying consumer demand and opposed the Disney Plan on ethical and cultural grounds.

Sagoff compares his students’ opinion with that of Americans in general and points to the fact that despite similar consumer preferences favoring the ski resort American public opinion reflected overwhelming opposition to the project.

Sagoff contends that it is likely for people who are interested in visiting the ski resort to at the same time to condemn the possible consequences of their own self-interests as consumers because individuals have divided preferences or conflicting preference maps.

Sagoff notes that this distinction is also acknowledged by economists. He refers to Marglin’s view that regards the Economic Man and the Citizen as two different individuals and argues that market and political preference maps are inconsistent. Based on this argument of Marglin Sagoff questions the meaning of optimality. Holding that an optimal policy is one that maximizes the satisfaction of preferences he asks how we can assert what an efficient policy is if individuals possess conflicting preference maps.

He is critical of economists who favor combining both sorts of preferences on the same preference map. Sagoff contends that such attempts are bound to fail because trying to combine preference schedules would require a single comprehensive social role for an individual which doesn’t exist in practice for there’s no such thing as a purely economic or purely political individual with one all-purpose preference ordering.

Sagoff next talks about another economist view which argues that efficiency analysis need not to take into account the concerns of social equity or justice and therefore an individual’s self-regarding preferences might be used to determine efficient social policies. According to this view political preference orderings then could be relied upon to organize the redistribution of opportunities and wealth.

Sagoff argues against this way of thinking by asserting that it assumes that citizen preferences express individuals’ altruistic concerns about the distribution of consumption opportunities in society in general, but, Sagoff contends, citizens advocate many ideal-regarding convictions and beliefs which are not directed to the ways consumption opportunities are distributed. To support his view Sagoff gives the example of environmentalists who, he argues, do not necessarily advocate policies they politically favor for the sake of their distributive effects. This example didn’t sound relevant to me since Sagoff seems to separate environmentalism and environmental justice movement which advocates policies for the sake of their distributive effects.

In the next subsection Sagoff points to a distinction between allocation and distribution. The allocation of resources, he contends, has to do with how they are used; whereas the distribution deals with who uses them or who benefits from their use. Sagoff refers to policy analysts’ argument of a trade-off between equality and efficiency in cases where

policy problems do not allow a clear separation between issues of allocation and of distribution. Yet, he contends, efficiency and equality do not necessarily conflict each other but they’re rather complementary concepts. Accordingly, the debate between efficiency and equality positions is not characterized by the conflict between them but by the extent to which each is plausible only in comparison to the other. Discussions of the trade-off between efficiency and equality have little to contribute to the practical and political concerns of social regulation.

Sagoff next talks about the rights and interests of future generations. He contends that the interests of future generations would depend on two factors: First, on the advertising of today’s people, and second, on what would be available to them. If future individuals have no exposure to anything that we would consider natural or unspoiled, Sagoff contends, they will not acquire a taste for them. Hence, their wants will be determined more or less by what we leave to them.

Sagoff next brings up Parfit’s argument concerning future generations; that any policy we adopt today will make people born in the future better off than they would have been had we made some other decision. Based on this way of thinking Sagoff holds that a policy which makes no one worse off would be satisfactory from the point of view of both efficiency and equality. Hence, whichever policy we choose will be just and efficient with respect to future generations. But, Sagoff contends, this way of thinking leaves the moral question concerning future generations open. Considering Parfit’s view Sagoff holds that we determine both the identity and the preferences of future people. If we leave them a deteriorated environment their tastes will adapt to their conditions. Yet, even though they might not complain this would be morally bad for us to do. So the problem is that how efficient and equitable this kind of future might seem to be it will be tragic at the same time.

Sagoff contends that our moral obligation to leave future individuals an environment consistent with ideals we know to be good is an obligation not necessarily to those individuals but to the ideals themselves. These are ideals that do not concern the utility but the meaning of things. He further argues that the allocation of resources in environmental law need not always be based on norms of distribution but may also be justified in the context of appreciation of nature where aesthetic and moral theory find a common root. Sagoff advocates paternalism with respect to future generations because, he contends, in the debate of public policy for environment moral questions must be answered.

In the next subsection Sagoff elaborates on the nature of the conflicts with regard to environmental decisions. A conflict to be involved in a public decision about environment, Sagoff argues, arises not only among people but also within people. As in the case of the Disney project a conflict confronts what people want as individuals and what they believe as citizens. Individuals as self-interested consumers oppose themselves as moral agents and concerned citizens. So the conflict is not allocational or distributional but rather an ethical one.

Arguing that the concepts associated with the principles of allocatory efficiency and distributive equity are not suitable for environmental ethics purposes Sagoff next talks about things we value as a means of defining our relations with one another. The things we value, he contends, are not always the things we’re willing to pay for. They may even be cheapened by being associated with money. It can be said, Sagoff argues that the worth of the things we love is better measured by our unwillingness to pay for them. This doesn’t mean that the things we’re unwilling to pay for are worthless to us. We simply think we ought not to pay for them because they have a dignity rather than a price. The environment we share, Sagoff contends, has such a dignity. The way we use and preserve our common natural heritage helps to define our relations with one another as well as with past and future generations.

In the last subsection Sagoff favors the need for compromise in the society as a response to the tension arising due to conflicting values and preferences. The choice for public policy should not be between the perfect market and the perfect environment. Sagoff contends that compromise is essential if we are to act as a community to accomplish any goal because a functioning community cannot be attained simply by sharing public goals. To function as a community, Sagoff argues, we must also reach the compromises necessary to realize political and economic achievement.

A thorough and accurate summary. My comments below are merely a critical reaction to Sagoff:

I find Sagoff's critique of mixing citizen values and consumer preferences unconvincing. On p. 55, for example, Sagoff says, "To try to combine these preference schedules into one is to search for a single comprehensive role the individual plays; it is to ask the individual to behave not as a parent, citizen, consumer, or the like but in all and none of these roles at once." (55) But it seems to me that no such behavior is demanded. To match preference schedules is merely to ask you to make a choice among alternatives that include public and private goods.

Similarly, Sagoff argues that there is a "logical mistake" in mixing preferences and values. Presumably this "logical mistake" would occur in sentences of the sort that are used in shadow pricing values—sentences like this:

The worth to me that we prohibit logging in national forests is $X

But there is nothing nonsensical or logically mistaken about this that I can see.