Elsevier

Ecological Economics

Volume 49, Issue 3, 1 July 2004, Pages 287-301
Ecological Economics

Methods
Towards a centerpiece for ecological economics

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2004.01.014Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper offers a hypothesis with cognitive claims for a social theory that is relevant for ecological economics. As background, a fable has Ego metaphorically viewed as a horse driven to problematic extremes with the solution becoming an integration and balance of means with the other horse, Empathy: the Ego’n’Empathy Hypothesis. Starting with a new root metaphor which is extended with a pre-analytic vision, the main support for the cognitive claims is with a mathematical model and a metaeconomic analysis. Armed with both scope and precision, along with an assortment of corroborative evidence from different disciplines, the paper provides support for establishing a new center. Cognitive claims have ego and empathy apart giving value and possibilities, and together, as ego-empathy, giving an emergent value possibility. This possibility suggests a rallying point for transdisciplinary work and a theoretical centerpiece for ecological economics. Suited as such, the economic ego of homo economicus is distinguished from the political ego of sacro egoismo. Corroboration with Adam Smith's moral philosophy–political economy is highlighted: the individual person of an empirical ethics stemming from both ‘self-interest’ and ‘fellow feeling’ is resurrected to support the Hypothesis. Awareness emerges like a complementary consciousness, an added value, strikingly similar to Smith's ‘impartial spectator’. Empirical demonstration concludes this integration of interests with a metaeconomic analysis for the case of soil and water conservation policy in the North American farming population. Taken together, the root metaphor with reasonable scope and precision, corroboration and demonstration help to structure the Ego’n’Empathy Hypothesis.

Section snippets

Proposing a hypothesis relative to a common goal

We share a common goal in establishing ecological economics with the implication of a world-wide scope, and agree with Söllner (1997, p. 196), “it is doubtful whether things will change for the better unless a new social value theory is postulated which is indispensable as the centerpiece…” of that economics. In going for this goal, the primary problem faced is not a strictly scientific one. We do not sequentially develop a single point of view inductively or deductively. Nothing new in science

Ego as present root metaphor and world theory

Ego, in the broad sense of Descartes’ famous formula Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) is considered the cornerstone for modern philosophy, as self-interest is to partisan politics, ego is to psychology, homo economicus is to neoclassical economics and subtly selfish is to biology. And, “like a rose…”, ego by any other name is still ego (i.e. I, cogito, das Ich, Geist, self-interest, ...Ego), the dynamo at the middle of modernism implying a theory worldwide in scope.

In a nutshell, we

Hypothetical scope with the analogical method

With cogito, Descartes introduced a method for investigating single objects to initiate theoretical treatment of a complex reality with a logical function, otherwise impossible. Generally, the rational method separates all external influences to regard a single object with reference to a purpose, and is rightly considered one of the great positive conscientious uses of the ego root metaphor. Hegel's Geist is another—though Smith's ‘self-interest’ is the outright champion contributor to world

Corroborating with theory of moral sentiment

In returning to the root of systematic economics in history, we review Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations (1776/1784) from the standpoint of Ego and The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759/1790) from the standpoint of Empathy. Rather than strictly separating the Inquiry from the Theory we take the view that they are two parts of an overall system—we connect the two sides to support the Hypothesis. Smith accomplished this connection through the notion of the ‘third station’ and the

Centering with ego and empathy

With all the complex swirl of simultaneous sequencing of a view around a pivotal point, what do we simply mean by ego and empathy? When a baby first intentionally reaches for an object the situation presupposes a separation between object and child. That separation, grasping and manipulating simply defines ego, primitive objective thinking, the crux of cogito, considered crucial for individuality to develop and for reason to flourish. With empathy the father observes an empathetic mother

The bridge of neuroscience

Cory sees neuroscience as the connecting discipline, bridging across evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology through evolutionary, cognitive psychology and other social sciences, and, ultimately, connecting to the humanities. Cory, 1999, Cory, 2004 brings neuroscience to the table, especially MacLean (1990), deciphering it for us as social scientists, suggesting the evolutionary path for each human involves the continued development of a triune brain.

At the core of the brain is the earliest

Empirical testing of the Ego’n’Empathy hypothesis

We seek a way to integrate the foregoing ideas to further theory, support the Hypothesis, and to point to an empirical approach used in testing it. The metaeconomic model has been subjecting the root metaphor to the test with respect to explaining conservation and eco-farming behavior in North American farming populations. Neoclassical economics persists in the fallacious economic story that farmers are in an egoistic–hedonistic pursuit of maximum profits. Our statistical evidence suggests,

Conclusions

Our project is ambitious. We propose to put heart into standard neoclassical economics, complementing what has gone before. Where the primary premise of economics is applied to egoism, we hypothesize the same principle applied to ego and empathy in structuring the Ego’n’Empathy Hypothesis. Further, we assert the third part, an emergent value from them working together.

There appear to be good grounds for adding empathy as a complement to the economic model, and thereby transforming it. We rally

Acknowledgements

This is the University of Nebraska, Agricultural Research Division Journal Series Number 13543. We would like to thank the three different sets of anonymous reviewers and the encouragement of two different sets of editors, all helping to bring many substantive improvements in this paper.

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