The Research Seminar Series in Philosophy invites you to a seminar with Kalle Grill, "Sustainability – Needs and Values".
The term “sustainability” is heavily misused but still inspire many of us. I propose an understanding of the concept of sustainability meant to merit this inspiration and attract widespread endorsement, without being conflated with goodness in general. One central aspect of sustainable development is the focus on needs rather than mere wants. This focus on is intuitively attractive and similar thinking has motivated the theories of sufficientarianism and prioritarianism. I propose that one requirement on a sustainable world is that people’s needs are met. More specifically, I propose that a world is more sustainable the larger the fraction of its inhabitants that can or do meet their needs, and fully sustainable only if all can or do. However, avoidance of unmet needs is not all there is to sustainability, as we can see if we consider a future without beings with needs. Future generations do not, after all, have a need to exist, and still an empty future does not seem sustainable. I therefore propose that a world is fully sustainable only if it contains no unmet needs and if all relevant positive values are sufficiently realized in that world. I propose that human wellbeing, natural beauty, biodiversity, population size, and population diversity (perhaps along several dimensions) are all strong candidates for such positive values.
All interested are welcome to participate in this seminar.
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