Begins like this:
I’m serving on a panel of environmental economists at the September
2009 “Business and Environmental Ethics Conference” hosted by the
Walker College of Business at
Appalachian State University (here is the link to last years
ethics conference
[I'm hoping I'm able to post a video afterwards!]). Not knowing
anything, at all, about ethics (or ethical behavior [smug wink]), I
begin reading, er, skimming the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
entry on
Environmental Ethics. I learned a number of intrinsically useful things, including the difference between instrumental value and intrinsic value.
“Things,”
such as environmental and natural resources, can have instrumental and
intrinsic value. Instrumental values are generated from our use of
these things. In contrast, things have intrinsic values if they have
value in and of themselves. My 10 minute talk in September will focus
on environmental ethics and benefit-cost analysis – a tricky subject. ...
Read the whole dang thing here: http://theenergycollective.com/TheEnergyCollective/41517.