social ethics questions

6/2/22, 6:01 AM Launchpad: Introduction to the Environment: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-introduction-to-the-environment?module_item_id=17540457 1/3

Launchpad: Introduction to the Environment

Since we have been reflecting on the total relationships that make any corporate entity possible, we must now reflect on our biggest non-human partner, which is the environment. This week we will explore traditional business relationships to the environment and alternative ways of conceiving this relationship. Much like our earlier emphasis on rethinking the meaning of labor in order to transform the top-down corporate organization of such, we must do the same with our understanding of nature: can we conceive the environment as a partnership in a communal project, and how would this change our corporate engagement with it?

In reflecting on our relation to the environment we especially need to ask: How should we understand climate change, its causes, its trajectory, and our remedy for tackling it? This issue now demands radical engagement, requiring our full attention and our most comprehensive and holistic analysis. Traditionally, over the past 30 years, however, there has been a common mindset toward dealing with climate change which has often avoided thinking about radical change. This uncritical mindset typically has fallen into one of the following positions, which Shaw's text largely traces out:

let capitalism fix climate issues through its own market mechanisms capitalism might not be able to fix it, but let it do its thing yet with more government regulations try a green reformation within capitalism with more government regulations and incentives

What none of these positions ask is just how much capitalism is itself responsible for climate change. This has been the elephant in the room, but it is now becoming discussed more openly. Whatever one believes about the benefits of capitalism, if we are to ethically assess it in light of massive issues such as environmental degradation then we need to critically analyze it in terms of how it is organized and for what ends (especially if we want to save its benefits somehow). Remember the historically

6/2/22, 6:01 AM Launchpad: Introduction to the Environment: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-introduction-to-the-environment?module_item_id=17540457 2/3

factual nature of capitalism: the privatization of the social means of production for making private profit. Most importantly, what we need to reflect on within this system is its typical way of making profit: by running down the cost of labor and land, which involves offloading "externalities" on to others (i.e., privatize the gains, socialize the losses), while increasing productive yield for exchange value so that the social surplus is then captured in monetary form by the few private "owners" of others' labor. Just as we saw how racism stems from the economic devaluation of human lives, so environmental degradation stems from the economic devaluation of our ecosystem--seeking its exploitation as if an indifferent "free" resource for private gains, rather than cultivating the creative potentials of nature, which are common to us all, for building sustainable and flourishing societies. Moreover, capitalism perpetuates its own ethos and culture of degrading the environment, so that it seems "natural" (rather than contingently habituated) to treat nature in such a narrow and destructive way (remember the Merchant article?).

This problematic nature at the heart of capitalism, however, is now becoming more widely brought under scrutiny, with new reports suggesting that capitalism as it has historically been constituted, with its traditional business structures, will keep perpetuating the crisis and even seems incapable of comprehending the extent of the crisis. Your readings for the week highlight some of the recent accounts of the problems within capitalism (see especially the Bios report in Paddison). If we think that capitalism can somehow fix these environmental problems that it generates (or if we rightly want to salvage some of its gains), then we nevertheless still need to take a hard, in depth look at some of the problematic structures at its heart in order to figure out a way forward.

How then can we begin battling climate change in a way that transforms the status quo of capitalism? Some key questions to begin asking are:

Does economic "growth" always need to be pitted against caring for our environment? Are there ways we can understand economic growth without also entailing increased emissions? Are there other ways we can understand the very idea of economic growth itself? Can and should growth be measured in terms other than the GDP and the maximization of profit? Remember the difference between "real wealth" and "false wealth" (social use values and exchange values)?

How might we measure growth qualitatively rather than merely quantitatively (monetarily)? Is this possible within capitalism and its profit motive, or does it take us beyond capitalism? If the latter, what might that look like, and how would the traditional business structure need to change? What are some viable green energy sources--beyond fossil fuels--that might be used without diminishing economic growth?

Can climate change be tackled solely as a business, or even economic, issue? Or merely by top- down government regulations that nevertheless allow businesses to do their thing?

Or do we need to think holistically in terms of combining the right kinds of government regulations along with grassroots political organization, social/cultural change from local

6/2/22, 6:01 AM Launchpad: Introduction to the Environment: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-introduction-to-the-environment?module_item_id=17540457 3/3

communities that empower individuals as stewards, and transformation of corporate structures that reflect such social/cultural changes?

What would effective grassroots political organizing look like, and how could it forge a creative coalition with certain kinds of businesses? What types of business structures would be most amenable to these creative, community- based coalitions? What would this more holistic approach look like? Are there already some concrete examples such as cooperatives?

How might the cooperative model provide not only an alternative economic democracy but also a way of producing and consuming more attuned to local/global environmental needs?

Which of the ethical theories (or combination) might equip us with the framework necessary for both critically analyzing the issues as well as thinking holistic transformative practices?

The video below provides a good demonstration of some problems in trying to fight environmental degradation merely through market mechanisms and their deployment of government regulations that accommodate them.

The Story of Cap & Trade (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM)