Economists, Value Judgments, and Climate Change April 4, 2008

Economists, Value Judgments, and Climate Change: A View from Feminist Economics

Presenter: Julie A. Nelson, PhD, is a Senior Research Associate with the Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University.

Recent discussions about ethical issues in climate change, as engaged in by economists, have avoided questions of intergenerational equity while making strong implicit value judgments about the quality and objectivity of economic practice. Using insights from feminist philosophy of science and research on high reliability organizations, Dr. Nelson argues that a more ethically transparent, real-world-oriented, and flexible economic practice would lead to more reliable and useful knowledge.