Ethics and Environmental

Decision Making

R. J. Nelson*

Environmental ethics tends to be dominated by the idea that the right environ-
mental actions require a change in the value systems of many people. I argue that
the "rebirth" approach is perverse in that moral attitudes are not easily changed
by moral suasion. A properly ethical approach must begin where we are, as
moderately moral people desiring the best for all. The real ethical problem is to
develop procedures for collectively defining environmental ends that will be fair to
the parties participating in the decision process. This idea is essentially utilitarian,
and depends on the maximization of expected social utility. This type of environ-
mental ethics is contrasted with current theories of social choice in welfare
economics and with Rawls' theory of justice as fairness.

It is widely believed that environmental problems are essentially ethical in

character and that the key to their resolution is to be found in changing our
value attitudes toward nature. Wholesale (or even retail) slaughter ofanimals
or trees in satisfaction of the demands of hunters, unrestrained consumers of
energy, lumber profiteers, and dam builders a la pork barrel is morally
wrong. Destructive practices can be stopped in the long run only when the
guilty parties are brought to appreciate the basic interdependencies of all
events in the natural order and are induced to change their moral outlooks
and priorities. 1
I am in wholehearted agreement with the proposition that environmental
questions are essentially about values, and hence about what is right and
wrong in our actions that affect nature. But 1 am extremely skeptical of the
possibility of changing anyone's moral outlook to any significant degree,
with the exception of very small children, who are more susceptible to moral

• Department of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106. Nelson

is a logician with special interests in philosophy of mind and the connection of ethics and collec-
tive decision making. He served as a consultant to the RockefeIler Foundation in the area of
environmental affairs for several years. He was also a co-principal in a project on phosphorus
pollution control in Lake Erie supported by the RockefeIler Foundation, a study which led to his
interest in the issues discussed in this paper.
I An excellent example of this view is to be found in Environmental Ethics, ed. Donald R.

Scoby (Minneapolis: Burgess Publishing Co., 1971). Almost every paper in this collection of
essays claims that no lasting changes can be made until our ethic is revised.

263
264 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. J

influence than the rest of uso Preaching, or more euphemistically, instruction

in moral and ethical attitudes, does not work very weIl: Christianity, which
has dominated the spirituallife ofthe Western world for two thousand years,
has yet to enjoy the brotherly love it preaches. And the prospect of extending
our feelings of benevolence, which are already weak, to animals, trees, and
rocks is therefore very bleak. The likelihood of translating wholesome senti-
ments, whenever we have them, into concrete action is bleaker yet. There is
no objective reason, so far as I can see, for supposing that the gap between
perceived duty and self-interest is easier to close in environmental matters
than elsewhere, for example, in paying taxes or keeping promises. In these
more familiar moral situations we do muddle along somehow, and perhaps
even improve our ways very slowly. But the environment will not wait, and
muddling along speIls trouble and perhaps doom.

11
If a certain strategy fails to bring about a desired end, then it would seem
good sense to abandon it. Furthermore, if there is good evidence that it will
never succeed even though the end is ethically compelling, then holding to
that strategy is in a certain sense morally wrong. For a consequentialist at any
rate (and I suspect that in environmental affairs most of us are consequen-
tialists) an act is right if it has the desired end as a consequence. The act is
surely not wrong if it intends the end but misses. But it is wrong if it always
fails to generate the end and is known to fail. A self-defeating act ofthis kind is
procedurally perverse. Yet, such acts which are known to be ineffectual are
often launched with the best of intentions. On my view, preachment and
moral suasion, whether in spiritual or mundane affairs, are quite often pro-
cedurally perverse, though not immoral. Attitudinal reform (a valued end) is
sought, but for the most part fails. This is one of the least dubitable facts of
human existence.
Those who advocate ethical reform, especially of others, seek a general or
global resolution ofthe environmental crisis: once attitudes are changed, they
say, specific local attacks can be launched using whatever resources the
reborn have at hand. An alternative strategy which is available to those of us
who are skeptical of ethical rebirth, for reasons adumbrated in the foregoing,
is to take up each problem or problem type in its particularity and deal with it
as best we can given our differing attitudes. The driving idea here is that an
environmental problem should be approached locally, not globally, and that
increased information about local conditions imparted to those directly con-
cerned will tend to induce a disposition to do what is right. 2 This is an up-to-
date version of the essentially classical ethical position that the more a person

2 Local may in same cases imply geographically regional but need not. What is intended is the
Fall 1979 ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION MAKING 265

knows, the more he is inclined to do what is right. The more information in

the form of arrays of plausible alternative concrete environmental objectives
and the more knowledge of interdependencies in nature, the greater the likeli-
hood that persons will decide to do what is right. This optimistic philosophy
rests on the proposition that good sentiment, Le., benevolence, varies
directly with information, and, therefore, imparting information is a reason-
able substitute for moral suasion.
The typical procedure here, which has emerged in many university and
other research facilities across our country, is to define specific environmental
objectives that take into account reasonable compromises and trade-offs, and
then to note that achieving the "optimal" one would make everyone better
off. This procedure reduces the problem of changing our ways to inducing the
proper decision agents to act according to what appears to be optimal. It
seems to be an essentially utilitarian approach which need not exclude the
welfare of animals, indeed of any sentient creature, and is meant to appeal to
all who will accept optimal solutions, namely ones that add up to the best for
everyone in the long run. 3 The hope is to assimilate moral suasion to decision
theory.
Current utilitarian practices ofthis kind employ computer modeling. 4 Here
multiple objectives are carefully specified, literally hundreds of alternative
environmental decisions relative to these multifold objectives are identified,
and the consequences (total environmental impact) of acting on any of the
alternative decisions are simulated by a program that embodies a model ofthe
environment. This method of scenario analysis seems to guarantee rational
action. You can seethe consequences ofpolicy, and since a whole spectrum of
more or less desirable outcomes can be inspected in detail, there is little
problem in choosing the best - the one that maximizes total benefits including
contained costs. Computer analysis of this kind would seem to realize the act
utilitarian 's fondest dreams, for it represents possible outcomes of alternative
actions in their detailed aspects - provided the model has some fit with our
best ecological, water-treatment, resource-utilization, etc., theories.
Un/ortunately, someone, or more likely many persons in concert, must still
evaluate outcomes, must declare that this is better than that. The decision
maker must strive his moral best to judge in his own head which ofthe many
possible outcomes best serve the interests of all , including, if you please, the

development of a good strategy to handle cases, not the environmental problem in one fell
swoop.
3 Cf. J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, ed. Samuel Gorovitz (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1971), p.

21. In this passage Mill explicitly includes all sentient creatures in the good.
4 M. D. Mesarovic, J. G. Klabbers, and J. M. Richardson, "An Examination of Alternative

Strategies for Control of Eutrophication in the Lake Erie Basin: Application of Regional Multi-
level Model," Modeling and Simulation, Vol. 5, Pt. 5, Proceedings ofthe 5th Annual Pittsburgh
Conference, 1974, pp. 195ff.
266 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. J

affected flora and fauna. This done, ifthe possible environmental states under
which we decide are risky, the decision maker can maximize expectations,
thus following quite rational procedures for the best interests of alle
Yet I say this is "unfortunate" for two reasons. (1) The more detailed and
refined the analysis of outcomes of a spectrum of alternative actions is, the
more likely is disagreement among those of us, including legislators and our
agents in regulatory offices, who have to decide what action to choose. Unlike
the business establishment there is not one decision-making person, but
many. Paradoxically, the more information the harder the choice. Indeed,
one of my central theses is that the local utilitarian, one who wishes to
improve the environment in ways best for all, always starts from a vaguely
perceived, commonly held goal which, when expressed as specific alternative
objectives, is in some sense blocked by collective disagreement; thus arises the
need for generating a collective or social set of utilities. We must emphasize
that in environmental affairs at least utilitarian goals are far from clear, and
there is little or no initial collective agreement on acts. (This idea is developed
in the following pages and receives a technical formulation in n. 10.) (2) The
harder the choice, the more likely that we will resort, after all, to suasion and
eventually to instituting programs to alter values, perceptions, and moral
attitudes. Combining (1) and (2), the greater the information the more we are
compelled, lacking some method of social decision, to persuade others to
adopt our own value schemes, and hence to lapse into procedural perversity.
These points deserve further elaboration and demonstration.
(1) If we were to take a poIl to determine attitudes toward environmental
conditions, I expect that nearly 100 percent of those polled would show a
preference for pure air over polluted, pure water over poIluted, abundant
energy over little, and the wilderness protected from the other fellow forever .
There would no doubt be a scattering of misanthropes, revolutionaries, and
twisted visionaries who would drive the percentage slightly below 100, but let
us factor them out. Most ofthem do not want to participate in a social collec-
tive to decide anything whatever, while we do, even if we disagree among
ourselves on some points.
Now everyone knows that pure water comes at a cost, and that a more
realistic and useful poIl would ask for a preferential ordering ofvarious mixes
of water at different quality levels with corresponding costs. So let us assurne
that we have available a composite quality index that aggregates concentra-
tions of carbon, phosphorus, heavy metals, coliform bacteria, and so forth.
You as poIlster now invite us to order our preferences for water at index i at
cost c. Presumably c is a trade-off function of i and there will be quite a large
number of alternatives i generated by assigning values to c. Let us say that
there are ten which are discriminably different to those of us polled, that is to
say, that differ in ways significant enough so that a preference ordering is psy-
chologicalIy feasible. Now my claim is that there will be a distribution of
Fall 1979 ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION MAKING 267

percentages across the alternative mixes, and that it is highly unlikely that a
majority will prefer some one over all others, much less a consensus even for
those of us (excluding the crazy ones) who are determined to make a reason-
able decision. If you believe this to be overly pessimistic, then add more
factors to the aggregated indices and include not only water, but air, litter,
animallife, etc., forming a multiple objective including lumped costs. And
finally, include in your considerations some measure of all the known inter-
actions and ecological trade-offs among the elements of the objective func-
tion. A good computer simulator will yield just such highly refined alterna-
tives as outcomes to a wide range of policies and actions which one might
specify.
It seems clear apriori that the more information which is accumulated and
absorbed into our considerations in the ways roughly indicated, the greater
the ground for rational individual choice (for example, by maximizing ex-
pected utility over the alternatives). At the same time, paradoxically, the
lower is the likelihood that the individual evaluations underlying each per-
son 's preference ordering of the myriads of alternatives will be compatible
enough to ensure a rational collective choice, even if we are one and all the
most benevolent and altruistic ofutilitarians. 5 The added information and in-
creased refinement of our objectives have produced a situation where the
group capacity for concerted action appears to be completely blocked.
It is worth noting that this phenomenon, which is manifested whenever we
proceed from initial broad agreement to specification of details necessary for
action, does not occur in labor disputes. Indeed, where there is initial broad
disagreement, if not conflict, refinement of objectives seems to enhance the
likelihood of settlement of some kind. We all support pure water, for
example, so long as we are sufficiently vague about costs and specific aspects
of quality. But we do not all support higher wages for labor; and, whereas
refinement of objectives inhibits social choice of water alternatives, the cor-
responding refinement of employment condition objectives (generating
"packages") always seems to improve the prospects for successful arbitra-
tion . 6 So the principle that increased information tends to stymie collective
decision can be said to apply (so far) only to environmental problems,
although a similar phenomenon appears to occur in all collective situations
where there is initial agreement on indefinite goals.
(2) The principle that increased information tends to facilitate individual

5 Of course, a lot depends on how our calculus is set up: what are the intervals of definition of

the quantitative variables, what interactions are really known and can be represented mathemati-
cally, and so forth. I suspect, however, that no matter how the details of a model vary, one from
the other, the values incompatibility among individuals will manifest itself strongly as a direct
function of informational detail.
6 This point is discussed in some detail in areport of mine to the American Arbitration Associ-

ation, "Dispute Settlement Using a Technique of Social Decision Theory," J une 1977.
268 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. J

and to complicate social decisions might be taken by some moral philos-

ophers to make a case for rule utilitarianism, the doctrine that our decisions
to maximize the well-being of all should follow rules of practice that human
experience has shown to yield the desired goods on the whole. These rules
would presumably include such moral maxims as "Conserve resources so the
future of your people is not jeopardized," and strictures such as "Don 't
inflict pain unnecessarily on animals," and "Don 't act so as to endanger
health and well-being of organisms," along with the more familair "Keep
promises," and "Contain your sexuality." The idea behind the switch to rule
utilitarianism is that group decision blocked by use of adecision calculus will
be enabled by adoption of rules which, if followed, inlprove the environ-
mental condition as an ingredient of the greatest happiness for the greatest
nunlber.
But there are two difficulties that attend such a move: (a) rule utilitarian-
ism, ifit works at all , judges acts to be right ifthey come under general rules or
conjunctions of rules that are in turn justified by their putative nomological
connection with certain events which in sum represent the greatest benefit for
alle But a standard objection to utilitarianism has double force here. There is
at most a probable connection between keeping promises, for example, and
beneficial ends. And even if the probability were high overall, this happy cir-
cumstance would have little evidential weight for affairs as complex as those
we encounter in problenls ofthe environment. We are far from being able to
state general rules for policy to foUow even in everyday dilemmas such as:
who is to be put on the dialysis machine, the black urchin or the 60-year-old
millionaire pillar ofthe community? Rule utilitarianism may be a satisfactory
ethical theory for questions of personal morality where the experience of our
civilization promises desirable or even preferred consequences of right acts,
but it is hopelessly inadequate for the class of problems before us here.
Indeed, environnlental problems are those marked by many complex inter-
acting processes and interdependent conditions. It is a fact of logic that the
more that has to be taken into account, the more special the case. And the
more special the case, the stronger the case for act utilitarianism, as has been
observed many times.
(b) If rule-following procedures were to be advocated for environmental
decisions, we would be open to the same criticism which I leveled against ethi-
cal reformers. The suggestion to adopt some rule that presumably generates
the desired ends is just a soft seIl of a certain system of values: the imperative
"Don 't inflict unnecessary pain or death on animals" intends that your belief
system include the proposition that unnecessary pain, etc., is undesirable-
unless, of course, you think that actions are directly caused by imperatives or
commands. The possibility of inducing persons to change their value out-
looks is one I have already viewed with skepticism for a good empirical
reason: it is procedurally perverse. Of course, there remains a difference
Fall 1979 ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION MAKING 269

between recommending an end and recommending a rule, but the content of

the rule is what makes it perverse, if it is perverse.
The upshot ofthese reflections appears to be that the best avenue to modest
improvement in our treatment of the environment is by way of some kind of
social choice mechanism that wor ks in the face of wide discrepancies in our
value perceptions, even in cases of open conflict. And this means directing
our moral energies away from self-defeating moral suasion, which is so
prevalent today in the most concerned circles, to deliberation on our social
choice practices. The imperatives posed by the environment are simply not
going to be met by harping on traditional moral desiderata - even and
especially when extended to sentient beings other than human.

111

Rejection of procedurally perverse action either in the form of suasion or

advocacy of rule utilitarianism in environmental affairs does not entail rejec-
tion of the basic verity that the more knowledge the better. In particular, the
intensive cultivation ofbasic research in ecology, methods ofwaste and water
treatment, resource and pollution economics, and the rest certainly affords a
refined understanding of the causal patterns underlying environmental
phenomena, both desirable and undesirable, and provides the necessary
material for computer analysis. Given, then, a collection of described poli-
cies, the actions implied by them, and their associated computer-generated
consequences, an environmental issue boils down to a question of social
choice. As a group, how are we to decide which policy or action is the best for
all?
Our basic assumption is that we face specific problems from the positions
we now occupy, armed with whatever ethical attitudes and biases we in fact
possess. We presume that deciding parties are ordinary people who are
moderately moral in outlook, although at times self-interest outweighs sense
of duty and altruism, and who in environmental affairs are utilitarians: they
judge a good environment to be part of astate of well-being and maximum
happiness for everything in the natural order capable of it. 7 They disagree on
details. For example, the enthusiastic hunter Xis one of the parties to deci-
sion, but he places a lower value on the life of a deer than on his own life or
that of other persons, and has convinced hirnself that keeping down the
number ofheads improves life-prospects ofthe herd as a whole. Ywould like
to see the deer left to themselves in what he takes to be the natural balance of
things, and at times would perhaps like to shoot X! Wis in business, and as a
businessman is out to gain his own ends no matter what within the law. He

7 I am indebted to Mortimer Kadish for the happy locution moderately moral. A more precise

statement of what I mean by loeal utilitarianism will be given below.

270 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. I

pollutes a stream running through his property and eonsiders the poor state
of the water to be an "externality." Yet, in his role as a deeiding party he
honestly believes that everyone is on the whole better off if he is allowed to
eontinue his present praetiees. He disagrees with Z who also wants the best
for all; but Z thinks he ean aehieve the happy state only with better water,
even if jobs be lost. Yet they are both reasonable persons and, when it comes
down to it, might aeeept aresolution oftheir eonflieting views ifthe proeedure
for doing so were just.
Presupposing this somewhat fietional state, the ethieal situation is not one
that is pereeived to require reform of the value system of the hunter or of the
businessman or of anyone else, but rather one that demands exereise of
rational and fair proeedures for making a soeial deeision. In looking at the
situation in this way we still aeknowledge that our problems are essentially
ethieal, but in the sense that we desire ethieally correet proeedures or means
rather than the eorreet apriori pereeption of ends; for as a group we do not
know what those ends are beyond the initial ethieal position we postulated,
whieh is utilitarian. Loeal ends emerge after the soeial ehoiee meehanism has
operated on individual preferenees, and not before. A vague global utilitarian
end plus immediately feIt need motivates our deliberations, while the right
loeal end is generated by soeial ehoiee. The position is still eonsequentialist:
the right aet is the one that intends the good; but the good is what ordinary,
moderately moral persons in the deeiding group determine it to be by a eor-
reet proeedure under the guidanee of their initial utilitarian eonvietions.
I have already made the central claim ofthis paper that ethieal problems of
the environment should be handled loeally, not globally. These ends must be
determined by sonle kind of soeial ehoiee meehanism and not by ethieal
rebirth, whieh I hold is procedurally perverse. What we have to find are ethi-
eally eorreet or just procedures. I now want to put down a few remarks whieh
I hope might guide such a seareh.
As just explained, we are not simply eoneerned with how oneought to aet
in order to obtain eertain ends, but with how one ought to deeide what a
proper loeal soeial end iso More speeifieally, we assurne that eaeh agent
(member of the deeiding party) preferentially orders the eolleetion of alter-
native aetions regarding the loeal situation aeeording to both his evaluations
of the eonsequenees of eaeh poliey and the morality of the aet itself. This is
just to aeeept the fact that the moderately moral person does not always
deeide on the basis of his own interest or the general weal but also takes into
aeeount what he thinks is morally obligatory on hirn. Thus, Xmight prefer A
to Bon the grounds that A represents the best environmental state, while yet
finally ranking B over A because he thinks that the aetual produetion of the
state A might involve deeeption or broken eommitments of some kind. (I do
not mean to imply here that X is formalist, and not utilitarian even in the
restrieted loeal sense; he might take moral eommitments to be part of the
Fall 1979 ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION MAKING 271

good. The issue is not relevant here.) Supposing, then, that each agent has
ordered the alternatives, the question is, what is an ethically correct way of
combining preferences to a group or social preference ordering? 1fthis can be
done, the highest in the order is the local proper end.
The similarity of the decision situation thus hypothesized to that consid-
ered in models in welfare economics and the theory of elections is quite strik-
ing. 8 As in those cases, the problem may be stated as one of aggregating
individual preferences to a social preference ordering; however, our interest
here is not in constructing formal models meant to show the possibilities of
aggregation under certain assumptions, but rather is frankly prescriptive in a
certain metatheoretical sense. I do not want to attempt anything so ambitious
or presumptuous as prescribing an ethically correct procedure, but only to
sketch what seem to be basic principles. The kind of prescription I have in
mind is already illustrated in the assumption that each agent when ordering
alternatives takes his evaluations of the consequences of an act and his judg-
ment of the morality of the act itself both into account. My theory does not
tell hirn what that evaluation and judgment should be; it only prescribes that
both be considered. The assumption might be an accurate description ofhow
certain individuals actually do decide, but that is a question to be left to social
science. The welfare economist might not regard the outcome of social choice
(for example, the impact of collective choice on the market) as an ethical
end - there is far from wide agreement on this score - while an ethically cor-
rect decision procedure does, as already asserted: our problem is to generate
an ethically satisfactory environmental end via social choice.
Unlike the model considered by Arro\\' and those scientists directly influ-
enced by his work, environmental decision making by a group involves riskin
an essential way. In the welfare model it is assumed that decisions are made
under conditions that involve no risk. Environmental conditions, on the
other hand, are saturated with risk, namely with climatic, seasonal, eco-
nomic, and demographic circumstances which we are not able to predict with
certainty, and hence over which we are able to exercise relatively little con-
trol. Hence environmental computer analysis (which I am also hypothesiz-
ing, but which is not essential) takes into account both command or control
variables - the constituents of policy - and exoganous or environmental vari-
ables - which define various states ofthe environment to which we can assign,
at best, various probabilities of occurrence. Two examples will perhaps make
the distinction clear. In the market or in voting (two cases Arrow specifically
has in mind) the act and the consequence of an act are identical, although the
same entity is no doubt described in different ways in psychological contexts,
on one hand, and economic ones, on the other. For this reason Arrow

8 Kenneth J. Arrow, Social Choiceand Individual Values, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale Univer-

sity Press, 1963), p. 1.

272 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol.l

assurnes that the decision problem is one under certainty, not risk: there is no
range of outcomes of the act as in cases where the state of nature makes a dif-
ference, and there is no possible lapse between individual act and outcome.
On the other hand, the decision to ban phosphorus fertilizers can have radi-
cally different consequences depending on future clin1atic, flood, erosion,
etc., phenomena; hence any decision one way or the other is risky.
The two problems of social decision making, Arrow's and ours, thus are
nontrivially different, although similar in respect to the problem of aggrega-
tion. The differences deepen when we consider procedures for fashioning a
social decision out ofthe individual preference orderings. The Arrowian style
is to find, ifpossible, a function whose domain is the set ofpossible individual
orderings (an element of which will consist of a particular ordering for each
individual) and whose range is the possible social orderings. For exan1ple, if
there are three alternatives, X could prefer A to Bto C, or A to Cto B, etc., as
could likewise Y: there are six possible orderings for each. Hence, the domain
of the function has thirty-six elements for the two person group with three
alternatives. One of them might be A to B to C for X, and C to B to A for Y.
The welfare function sought allows us to map these orderings into an aggre-
gate or social ordering, and similarly for all other thirty-five possible pairs.
When the decision has to be made under risky conditions, definition ofthe
problem appears to be far more complex. A possible method for environ-
n1ental decision is to treat the problem as one of maximizing expected social
utility. In order to sketch the idea, I have to assurne here that the reader is
familiar with the procedure of solving decision problems under risk by the
method of maximizing expected utility. As abrief refresher, we suppose that
the individual is confronted with a set of alternative actions each one ofwhich
generates several outcon1es depending on various possible states of nature.
These outcomes are ordered preferentially by the individual, and he assigns a
real nurrlber to each element ofthe ordering in any way he chooses under the
single restriction that the magnitudes ofthe numbering reflect the ordering of
the alternatives. This assignment is called a utility junction. The order-
preserving character of this function assures that the considerations that led
to the original ordering - in the environmentally relevant case, subjective
evaluations of outcomes together with judgments of morality-are exactly
reflected in the associated numbering. We assurne that the several states of
nature have probabilities of being realized which total unity. The individual
now computes the sum ofthe products ofnumerical outcomes and associated
probabilities for each alternative acL The one which yields the largest sum is
the best act in the sense that it maximizes expected utility. 9
In extending this procedure to an analogous social decision method we

9 R. Duncan Luce and Howard Raiffa, Games and Decisions, lntroduction and Critical Survey

(New York: lohn Wiley and Sons, 1957), pp. 275ff.

Fall 1979 ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION MAKING 273

note, first, that the ordering of outcomes by the individual goes just as in the
Arrowian case with the added move of assigning numbers. It is at this point
that we face the comparable problem of aggregation. Arrow seeks a welfare
function directly on preferences as previously described, while we proceed (in
this one of several possible methods) by aggregating corresponding numbers
to yield composite evaluated outcomes. Then we nlaximize over these out-
comes using the same probabilities as in the case of the individual decision
maker. This is maximization ofexpected social utility. This process yields a
"best" -namely the alternative act (and afortiori policy) that will yield the
desired local end, depending, of course, on what state of nature actually
obtains. 10
We must now face the question ofhow such a procedure is to be secured as
ethically correct. 1 1 In section I, what I argued for in effect was the replacement
of moral suasion by a correct procedure for defining an environmental end. 12
So what we must seek is a procedure of aggregating individual utilities which
is in some sense fair. The apriori guiding idea is that everyone's preferences
should be treated on a par in the aggregating process, and that the resulting
composite evaluated outcomes must fairly represent the collective. I am going
to introduce two principles which have been recognized elsewhere as part of
the possible method of social choice I have been outlining. 13 The first is a kind
of equality principle which states that the function used to aggregate individ-
ual utilities must be symmetrical. What this means is that it makes no differ-
ence whose utilities are substituted for which independent variables in the
aggregating function - every individual 's utilities have the same significance
as every other. It is an equality principle in the sense that persons are to be
treated equally as decision agents, and not that they get equal benefits. An
altruist could in certain cases participate eqUallY in adecision in which he
came out on the low end either with respect to welfare or to rights, and accept
the outcome. The second is a kind of Pareto principle which says that if at
least one individual ofthe deciding group prefers outcome A to Band the rest

10 The characterization of our agent as "utilitarian" can now be made more precise. He is a

kind of act utilitarian (or even rule utilitarian if one chooses to count metarules as rules) who
acquiesces in a method that maximizes social utility over consequences of acts that reflect both
his appraisal of ends and his judgment of the morality of the act. 1 do not claim that this is a
suitable, univer5al ethical stance, but only a plausible one toward what 1 have termed local
environmental problems. It may be adequate for many other complex situations which have
value or ethical overtones.
11 See Paul Kantor and R. J. Nelson, "Social Decision Making in the Presence of Complex

Goals," Theory and Decision 10 (1979): 181-200.

12 It is, of course, conceivable that a group could willingly employ sonle such ethically correct

procedure to determine the right course of action, and then not follow it. 1 am assuming (I nlust
assume, because there is little choice) that the moderately moral, utilitarian agent acts according
to the consequences, which is no less than what is taken for granted in any consequentialist
ethical theory.
13 Kantor and Nelson, "Social Decision Making."
274 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol.l

of the group is indifferent, then the aggregating function must rank A over
B. 14 There are other conceivable principles which could be used, but these will
suffice here as an illustration of a possible methode
If all of the individual utility functions assign real numbers to the out-
comes, then the only function satisfying the equality principle and the Pareto
principle jointly is the simple sum of utilities. 15 The utilities of each person
assigned to alternative aare added (subject to constraints to be discussed in a
moment); likewise those assigned to b, and so forth. Then the alternative act
corresponding to the highest sum is best. This is the core of the method of
maximizing expected social utility.
In sketching out this method as a possible method for environmental ends I
have deliberately sidestepped two quite technical matters concerning any
method of aggregation, the simple sum or any other. These matters are
among the stickiest in decision theory, and cannot be adequately expressed
much less treated in a short paper which is intended to present an outline of a
certain ethical stance. So I shall only indicate the nature of the questions and a
possible way of handling them leaving their justification (such as it is) to the
references. Both questions have to do with the comparability of the prefer-
ences of individuals.
First, it is necessary that the utilities of each individual lie on a cardinal
scale, which means roughly that certain mathematical operations on the
numbers be meaningful. 16 Second, the utilities of all individuals must be on
the same scale-if they were not, addition would be as meaningful here as
adding two lengths, one given in centimeters and one in inches. The first
requirement is supposed to have been met: it is covered in one plausible way
in the utility theory of Von Neumann and Morgenstern. 17 The other require-
ment calls for some slight comment. Presumably, if utilities of a pair of indi-
viduals are on the same cardinal scale, then it does make sense to say that their
utilities are comparable - that if one sum of utilities is greater than the other,
the first is preferable to the pair of individuals as a pair. For example, if X
rates A four, and B five, and if Y rates A three, and B one, then the composite
evaluated outcomes are seven and six, and we say that as a social group X and
Y prefer A to B. This is reasonable because Y's preference of A over B is
greater than X's of B over A (three minus one is greater than five minus four).
This argument will have to suffice to show that the sum is a reasonable way of
aggregating the utilities to the composite: it is Pareto fair and it represents
differences in degrees of preference.

14 For a good discussion of this type of principle see A. K. Sen, Collective Choice and Social
Welfare (San Francisco: Holden Day, lnc., 1970), pp. 21ff.
15 See Kantor and Nelson, "Social Decision Making." Clearly these conditions are not suffi-

cient for a "correct" procedure.

16 Ibid.
17lohn Von Neumann and Oscar Morgenstern, Theory 0/ Games and Economic Behavior,
2nd ed. (Princeton, N.l.: Princeton University Press, 1947).
Fall 1979 ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION MAKING 275

To get the utilities of a group of individuals onto the same scale presents us
with a final problem which has a number of plausible solutions. We suppose
that two alternatives, say A and B, are chosen and assigned the same utilities
for all decision agents. For example, in a pollution problem an outcome en-
tailing complete eutrophication of the lake (the lake becomes a swamp) and
one costing a sum of money beyond the means of any specified economy
might each be assigned extremely divergent utilities which are fixed for all
agents. When these are assigned, the individual scales can then be trans-
formed (normalized) to the same scale by solving systems of equations.
Transformed scales of each individual still represent his preferences since, if
the individual were now to maximize his expected utilities, he would obtain
exactly the same result as by using his original untransformed utilities. It was
in aiming at this result that we required that the individual 's utilities be on a
cardinal scale. Unfortunately this method requires that the two fixed points
be selected either by prior agreement among the agents or by a dictator , a
regulation, a law, or whatever. This is certainly not wholely satisfactory,
although there is reason to believe that extreme situations can often be iso-
lated in local environmental problems, as indicated in the example, although
not in nlore general, global circumstances. 18
The final step of the procedure, which calls for computing expected utilities
in terms of the composite evaluated outcomes, presents us with one more
problem of considerable moment. The assignment ofprobabilities to states of
nature, which is required in decision making under risk, presents theoretical
problems that 1 doubt have been seriously considered. The standard theory,
which goes back to Ramsey, 19 permits one to obtain subjective probabilities
after first determining outcome utilities, using a certain chance mechanism.
The probabilities that result, however, are wed to each individual, not to the
collective of agents. The sense in which subjective probability so determined
would have any significance at all for a group is far from clear, although the
method can be applied to the composite preference ordering underlying the
composite evaluations. A way to avoid the problem is by a method, still based
on the equality and Pareto principles, that evaluates acts (not outcomes)
directly taking into account possible outcomes as much as possible (a kind of
procedure under uncertainty, rather than risk) using whatever information is
available, and then to sum over the utilities of each act. The highest is the best
social act, although the end is uncertain. 20 Such a procedure is still, 1 claim,

18 Other methods compel each individual to assign the real number one to his most preferred

and zero to his least preferred alternative. Cf. Sen, Collective Choice. It is not very clear that the
procedure affords comparison of utilities as does our fixed point method.
19 F. P. Ramsey, "Truth and Probability," The Foundations 0/ Mathematics (New York:

Humanities Press, 1965).

20 This is the procedure actually advocated in Kantor and Nelson, "Social Decision Making."

Adecision procedure under uncertainty is one in wh ich there are several unpredictable states of
nature to be reckoned with; probabilities cannot be meaningfully assigned in any way.
276 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Val. 1

an ethically correct one as it enables each decision agent to register his evalu-
ations of consequences and of the moral quality of the act itself, and follows
fair principles of obtaining the best social acL
This completes my discussion of ethically correct procedures for the envi-
ronment with an indication along the way of some of the problems that face
any n1ethod of social choice, illustrated in terms of one possible method and
its difficulties. I am less concerned to plump for that particular method than I
am to suggest a territory that might appropriately be called environmental
ethics. Once again, the heart of it is that environmental ethics should not
proceed through suasion or rebirth from someone's correct ethical percep-
tion of environmental ends (whether yours or mine), but from a fair method
of collective choice of specific objectives. For the remaining discussion, in
which I shall return to a further comparison with welfare economics, it will be
useful to have a summary ofthe method ofmaximizing expected social utility:
1. Each decision agent in the face of a local problem preferentially orders
the outcomes or consequences that flow from corresponding actions and poli-
cies. This almost certainly entails quite sophisticated modeling and computer
simulation to generate the alternatives.
2. Each agent assigns real numbers to the elements of this ordering. It is
assumed that these assignments fall on a cardinal scale.
3. All of the individual scales are normalized.
4. Corresponding utilities are summed. This step generates composite
social evaluations. The summing procedure satisfies the fairness principles of
equality and a Pareto condition.
5. Assuming probabilities can be associated with each state of nature, the
expected utilities are computed. The maximum is the best social act (and a
fortiori, policy).

IV
There are several misunderstandings that could arise concerning this pos-
sible method, which I should like to deal with very briefly. (1) Such a proce-
dure will not work in view of Arrow's "Impossibility Theorem." (2) The
procedure is not utilitarian since it rests on a Rawls-Pareto type of difference
principle. 21 (3) It too is procedurally perverse, after all.
(1) Arrow has shown that collective decisions often cannot be rendered.
Specifically his problem, as reviewed above, is to find, if possible, a way of
combining individual preferences to form group preferences. When partici-
pants in a collective decision order alternative ends in a manner that reflects

21 I do not intend to blur distinctions. A Pareto principle says for society to choose A over B if

at least one person prefers it and all others either prefer it or are indifferent. Thus Rawls' indiffer-
ence principle in effect allows A over B even if someone other than X prefers B to A provided that
Xis the least advantaged. I am using "Pareto-type" as a cover for both.
Fall 1979 ENV1RONMENTAL DEC1S10N MAK1NG 277

their preferences, these individual determinations are then colligated in some

way to yield a ranking that represents collective preferences. Arrow has
demonstrated that the desired unified preference ordering cannot always be
obtained if procedures that satisfy certain basic conditions of free, equal
choice and fairness are observed. 22 This is the famous "impossibility theo-
rem." It has had more impact on theories of human action and choice in the
social sciences than any other single result in the past twenty-five years. The
present objection claims this result obviates any possible method of obtaining
a collective preference, including the one just discussed.
The reply is that Arrow's theorem applies to preference orderings, not to
utility functions. However, there is a related Arrow-type impossibility
theorem that applies to utility functions also, provided that they satisfy a cer-
tain mathematical requirement which says (approximately) that any trans-
formation of the individual's function leaves the collective preference order-
ing unchanged. 23 Our possible method does not have this property, although
it does present other problems which 1 have taken some pains to identify to
the reader.
(2) On my view of environmental ethics, a utilitarian is one who (a) is initi-
ally utilitarian: he wants the best for all in the sense that he is willing to enter
into a collective choice situation (see section 111, above); (b) in local situations
he is willing to express his preferences including his moral inclinations, to
accept composite outcome evaluations by a fair method (in the "possible
method," by summing normalized utilities), to accept the act identified by
maximizing social expected utility, and to accept the outcome thus
determined as ethical (see section 111). (a) and (b) together imply that what is
best for all- the greatest happiness for the greatest number - in a local
situation is what is determined to be the best by a fair collective procedure.
The only apriori principles are those constraining the procedures, the fair-
ness principles.
As 1 understand it, Rawls' indifference principle says essentially that
changes in the arrangement of goods should be to the greatest benefit of the
least advantaged. 24 And, on his theory, this principle is one that would be
chosen in the original position, which is one in which no person knows "his
place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his
fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence,
strength, and the like." 25 This is a Pareto-type principle, as is our second

22 See Arrow, Social Choice. The conditions state that all possible orderings of preferences

must be admissible (domain condition); that if every individual prefers A to Bor is indifferent
between them, so must society (a Pareto condition); collected choice over a set of alternatives
must depend on the ordering ofindividuals only and not on irrelevant orderings (irrelevance con-
dition); collective choice must not be dictatorial.
23 Cf. Sen, Collective Choice, p. 124.

24 lohn Rawls, The Theory o/lustice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 302.

25 Ibid., p. 12.
278 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Vol. J

principle of fair aggregation. However, the difference principle concerns

goods (as weIl as offices) while ours concerns not goods or benefits but the
individual 's voice in adecision: if only he prefers A over B while the others are
indifferent between A and B, the collective must also prefer A over B. The
group could weIl, in a local situation, conclude to an outcome under this prin-
ciple that would violate Rawls' indifference principle, yet be best for all on the
whole-on the group's perception of what is best for alle That's one way in
which the position is merely utilitarian.
A more serious misunderstanding would be to confound Rawls' universal
ethical stance with our local one. Rawls' key notion is that men in the original
position would support his principle of justice as fairness as underlying all of
the institutions and practices of society everywhere for all time. The concept
of a local environmental ethic, however, assurnes men to be in their actual
positions bearing their real biases, interests, and hopes and having the
nloderately moral attitude that we expect of a~l, save the crazy ones. Rawls
seeks, and thinks he has found, an apriori social end so perceived by people
behind the "veil of ignorance." The present theory (in its very limited way)
seeks only a mechanism for collectively facing present environmental
danger .26
(3) But isn 't this approach to environmental values and decisions also
procedurally perverse? lust as in the instance of those who seek ethical
rebirth, here too persuasion, threats, and moral instruction are possibly
required to secure the right action in environmental affairs.
There is no pat reply to this - mainly because the objection is right (see n.
12). Adoption of an environmental ethic ofthis kind requires a "selling job,"
too. But it seems to me, still, that convincing a person (whom Iassume is our
ordinary citizen, brought up with about the same moral sense as ourselves
and suffering the same lapses) that he should participate in a fair method of
determining a proper end has a greater expectation of succeeding than con-
verting hirn to adesignated value system. After all , in politics we have learned
and do practice what we conceive to be a fair method (imperfeet as it is) of
deciding what is the common good. The environment calls for more of the
same (but under a nlore elaborate decision mechanism), and a prescriptive
theory of collective choice has, I think, similar prospects for adoption.

26 This kind of distinction was clarified for me by Mortimer Kadish, although the formulation

here is mine.