Individual, Community & Entirety
Individual, Community & Entirety
Individual, Community & Entirety
Abstract
The interests of human beings have been considered in different reflections throughout the history of humankind. Philosophers, theologians, political economists and famous literary writers have examined the different interests, like Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Alasdair MacIntyre and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to name a few.
The challenge of this element is to develop a framework which focuses on three interests of a human being: interest (i) in the individual, i.e. in him or herself, (ii) in society and (iii) in entirety. While Mainstream Economics focuses mainly on the individual, Ecological Economics is concerned with all three interests. To begin with, note the behaviour of living beings’ issues from their needs. In contrast to non-human beings, human beings can and do reflect on their needs. This opens up alternatives, e.g. to postpone the satisfaction of certain needs in favour of other needs. Reflection that leads to a decision operates within the sphere of rationality, a sphere different from that of needs. This explains the observation that the development and behaviour of human individuals is far less predictable than the development of non-human beings.
In contrast to Mainstream Economics which focuses on needs and preferences, our standard of choice in this element focuses on the term interest. Interest is linked to needs, but it is separated by reflection, and thus human beings gain distance to move beyond what they directly perceive. The concept of interest, contrary to that of needs, is orientated toward longer periods of time. This element opens new perspectives for long-term environmental research, in particular concerning sustainability. Our practical examples show how difficult it is to deal adequately with interests. This is particularly true for interest in entirety.
Key Contributer: Reiner Manstetten
Related elements: TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF NATURE – BASICS OF LIFE – HOMO OECONOMICUS & HOMO POLITICUS – IGNORANCE – SUSTAINABILITY & JUSTICE – POWER OF JUDGEMENT – RESPONSIBILITY – ABSOLUTE & RELATIVE SCARCITY
1. History
What is referred to in this element as the interests of human beings has been considered in different forms of reflection throughout the history of mankind. Philosophers, theologians, political economists have examined the different interests as well as famous writers of literature. We will consider these different approaches, thus enabling the reader to obtain different points of view to understand how human beings manage to make a decision based on reflection and ultimately translate this choice into action. This is of particular importance for environmental problems since they are often characterised by the fact that very different kinds of interests make their solutions so difficult, if not impossible – SUSTAINABILITY & JUSTICE – HOMO OECONOMICUS & HOMO POLITICUS – POWER OF JUDGEMENT – RESPONSIBILITY. Philosophers have widely discussed the different interests and their consequences for the life of human beings.
Self-interest in philosophy
Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679) was the first to formulate the self-interest of human beings, which later led to the concept of homo oeconomicus that still dominates Mainstream Economics [for more information see Section 3.1 below and HOMO OECONOMICUS & HOMO POLITICUS].
Philosophy’s interest in community
One particular significance of the interest in humanity for solving environmental problems lies in the fact that, as Hans Jonas (1903 – 1993) demonstrated, no concept of environmental education can be formulated without including an interest in the long-term survival of humanity. Accordingly, Jonas (1979/1984: 36, German edition) formulates the following categorial imperative: ‘Act in such a way that the consequences of your actions are compatible with the permanence of true human life on Earth’. In other words, this interest includes the dimension of sustainability” (Faber and Manstetten: 2010: 149) – SUSTAINABILITY & JUSTICE – RESPONSIBILITY.
Alasdair MacIntyre (*1929) showed in his book (1999) that a “human being is not only an independent individual, but to an equal extent (if not originally) a creature that is dependent on other creatures; a creature which could hardly survive for a large part of its life without the attention and care of other human beings” (Faber and Manstetten 2010: 146) and therefore is necessarily interested in the community that surrounds him or her.
Interests in literature
As in philosophy, different writers of classic literature dedicated parts of their works to representing and dealing with different kind interests that determine people’s behavior. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832) reflected the self-interest of human beings in his famous drama ‘Faust’: “Thus I reel from desire to fulfilment, and in fulfilment languish for desire” (Goethe 1976, Faust I, Verses 3249 f.).
Another German poet and writer, Novalis (1772 – 1801), refers to the interest in the entirety and the interdependence of human beings and nature when he writes: “Does the cliff not become a unique [you], whenever I speak to it? And what am I but the stream when I look sadly down into its waters and lose myself in its flow?” (Novalis 1949: 89). Similar motives can be discovered in the work The Archipelago by Friedrich Hölderlin (1770 – 1842) (Faber and Manstetten 2010: 82-84, 153; see also Becker and Manstetten 2004).
Interests in religion
Not only great minds in philosophy and literature have reflected on interests but also religiously orientated authors, as for example John of the Cross (Juan de la Cruz, 1542 – 1591), “one of the great Christian mystics, writes in his book Ascent of Mount Carmel: ‘If you cling to anything, you refrain from casting yourself into the entirety. For to come wholly to the entirety, you must let go of yourself completely. And when you reach the point of holding the entirety, then hold it without desires’ (Juan de la Cruz 1981: 82, our translation). For John of the Cross, a properly understood interest in the entirety is a continual process of opening oneself up and of letting go. It is expressed when human beings do not cling to their own needs and interests, nor allow themselves to be directed by the particular demands of their own community, but rather develop their listening and hearing potential beyond all that seeks to lay claim to them” (Faber and Manstetten 2010: 152).
The three interests in the work of Adam Smith
Adam Smith (1723 – 1790) is generally accepted as the founder of Economics in general and Mainstream Economics in particular. He dealt at length with all three interests in his work, mainly in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. To illustrate this, we quote him: “How selfish soever [sic] man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it” (Smith 1759/1776: 9).
For a comprehensive analysis of Smith’s work in general, see Hottinger (1998), and for his view on the three interests in particular, see Manstetten, Hottinger and Faber (1998). It becomes evident that in Smith’s view all three interests are of relevance, in particular self-interest and interest in the community; but interest in the entirety is not to be neglected.
2. Theory
In this Chapter we deal with self-Interest (Section 3.1), interest in the community (Section 3.2) and interest in the entirety (in Section 3.3). Each time we shall first define the concept and thereafter explain its importance for the understanding of human behavior and decision making in general and concerning environmental problems in particular.
We shall make use of our teleological approach which we introduced in TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF NATURE, which has also been employed in BASICS OF LIFE. It will emerge that the three interests can be directly related to the three tele in the following way:
– self-interest corresponds to the 1st telos, self-preservation,
– interest in community corresponds to the 2nd telos, self-replication and self-renewal
– interest in entirety corresponds to the 3rd telos, services to others.
2.1 Self-Interest
Self-interest and the first telos
“The most natural form of interest appears to be interest in the development of one’s own self: self-interest. Although it appears to be the conscious form of humanself-preservation and self-interest, it is not entirely congruent to the first telos – TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF NATURE, Chapter 2, Section 2.1. An animal follows its first telos by largely appearing to be one with its particular urge. An animal does not, however, have an interest in the development of its self – for this would mean that it weighs up alternative possibilities of self-development. It would be better to say that the animal is the development of its self. Apart from highly developed animals such as apes, elephants, dolphins and perhaps dogs and wolves etc., it seems rather pointless to ascribe interests to animals. As the term interest includes the possibility of distancing oneself from a state of being in the pure present and turning towards alternative actions beyond the present, it cannot be applied to animals as we experience them.
– Who am I in my individuality?
– Who do I wish to be as an individual human being distinct from other human beings?
– What is good for me in light of who I wish to be?
Individual freedom and rational utility maximisation
– Does every human being always know what is truly in his or her interest?
– Are not some, or many, or perhaps even most people often mistaken about what is good for them?
– Do we ever really know who we truly are?
– How can we judge whether someone has defined their self-interest appropriately?
Self-interest in modern times
Every interest that a human being makes his or her own can be viewed as a self-interest. In a more narrow and more common sense, however, the term self-interest comprises all those interests of a human being that refer to one’s own person. Everybody experiences themselves directly within the boundaries of their own body; they experience joy and pain individually; they know that everyone will die a personal death, and thus every human being is, as a person, something distinct and unique in regard to everything else. In its uniqueness the individual person cannot be represented by anyone else. However, linked to this uniqueness are aspirations and interests through which every human being wishes to preserve and develop his or herself as an independent, autonomously existing unit. Self-interest in this sense is familiar to all of us in our everyday experience.
The economic-scientific concept of self-interest
The economic-scientific concept of self-interest is derived from human self-interest, interpreted in this sense. This concept, however, determined by the strictures of science, is a reduction of the interest in one’s own person. The human being is reduced to the figure of the ‘egoistic, rational utility maximiser.’ (Mueller 1995: 1ff). This means: Self-interest is understood in modern economic theory egoistically or, more precisely, egocentrically as the rational pursuit of the goal of the maximum need satisfaction of an individual – HOMO OECONOMICUS & HOMO POLITICUS.
Difference between economic optimality and what is normally regarded as happiness
Origin of the dynamics of modern society
From self-interest to an interest in community
In the context of the implementation of a legal system in a previously lawless situation, the dilemma of a purely egoistic, self-oriented self-interest lies in the fact that it must set itself aside (in some circumstances for a long period of time), in order for a state of law to emerge in which someone can pursue their goals without hindrance – HOMO OECONOMICUS & HOMO POLITICUS. The relevant period of time can be so long that the bearer of the interest may die before it ends. For a rational egoist it would therefore be best if everyone else were to engage themselves in the establishment of a system of communication and law – the result being, if everyone were to think alike, that no form of communication would occur (Faber, Petersen, Schiller 2002; see also Bernholz 1997). In reality, there is no necessity to derive those interests of human beings relating to the society from their egoistic strivings (a certain exception is that narrow view of the scientific perspective as it appears in the so-called ‘rational choice theories’ to which extensive parts of economics can be included). As Adam Smith also recognised, ‘being human’ includes having an interest in community, an interest which is no less elemental than the interest in one’s own person” (Faber and Manstetten 2010: 141-145, see also Smith’s citation at the end of Chapter 1 above).
2.2 Interest in community
Interest in community and the second telos of living things
Forms of communities
The need to participate in and be recognised by a world shared by all members of a society, places human beings within the scope of the second telos – TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF NATURE, Chapter 2, Section 2.2. Against these needs for participation and recognition, human beings’ self-development (the first telos) drives them beyond their own self-interest fixed solely on their own person, towards an interest in some form of community. In one of its most original forms, this community is the family (in this form, the human beings’ second telos is most closely related to that of other living things). A circle of friends, a gang, a firm, a party, a sports club, a religious community, the state, or even the entirety of humanity – all these are equally communities to which human interest extends. Those interests which relate to participation in a community are forms of the interest in community.
Realisation of the second telos of human beings
Such interests represent the manner in which human beings realise their second telos in their human way – TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF NATURE. Human self-reproduction and self-renewal does not consist solely of natural reproduction. For human beings, the passing on of life is the performance and passing on of what constitutes ‘being human’. This includes exercising and passing on capabilities that allow human beings to be communal – in the philosophical tradition this is known as ‘virtues’; these include the reception and further development of proven forms of life – traditionally, one speaks of manners and customs. This also includes the expansion and passing on of technical, practical and theoretical knowledge, as well as the practice and passing on of art, wisdom and religion (Sen 1985). These interests in the community extend to the entirety of social life in all its different cultural forms. In particular, almost everything that is part of education is only possible within the framework of an interest in community. Since it is only education that makes the development of a reasonable self-interest possible, the interest in community is a prerequisite for any such self-interest.
A concealed aspect of the second telos: service
Not every case of selfless service within a community is praiseworthy
Interest in the state
We differentiate the state from other communities for several reasons:
4. This last aspect has special significance. The interest in the preservation and the development of the biocoenosis Earth – BASICS OF LIFE, Chapter 2, Section 3.1 – does extend beyond the interest in the state, but it must be taken into consideration that such an interest remains a purely private affair if it is not given a political form in public. If the state is the space in which interests can become a will that is binding for all, it is only from this space that a nomos (Greek: law; normal rules and forms people take for granted) concerning nature can be fixed in binding rules. Strictly speaking, the state is the only institution that makes it possible to commit a community on a long-term basis to an interest in ecology with all the consequences this entails. The framework of the state is equally indispensable for those who criticize the ecological policies of current states. If they relinquish this framework, then their criticism becomes either impotent or destructive – HOMO OECONOMICUS & HOMO POLITICUS.
The state and supranational obligations
Interest in humanity and ethics
Interest in the long-term survival of humanity and the idea of sustainability
One particular significance of the interest in humanity for environmental education lies in the fact that, as Hans Jonas (1979) demonstrated, no concept of environmental education can be formulated without including an interest in the long-term survival of humanity – SUSTAINABILITY & JUSTICE. Accordingly, Jonas formulates the following categorical imperative: ‘Act in such a way that the consequences of your actions are compatible with the permanence of true human life on Earth’. In other words, this interest includes the dimension of sustainability. The struggle for human rights and the commitment to a sustainable economy are two inseparable sides of an interest in humanity. Sustainability and Justice would be the two criteria by which the measure for all that lives in the sense of all humanity must be established. It is, however, a difficult task (one which can only be mentioned within the framework of this analysis) to concretise the contents of the two terms sustainability and justice to such an extent that concrete political recommendations could follow from them” (Faber and Manstetten 2010: 145-149, see also Jöst, Manstetten (1996); Faber, Manstetten, Proops (1996: 75 ff.); Manstetten (2001), Baumgärtner, Faber, Schiller (2006, Part 3, Klauer et al. 2017) and in particular SUSTAINABILITY & JUSTICE).
2.3 Interest in the entirety
Interest in the entirety and the idea of sustainability
“It is evident that living things generally do not have the goal of serving other living things. Nonetheless, the third telos is also part of their being. This is equally true for humans in that they, too, are living things: As natural funds, human beings provide services to the Earth as the sum of all biocoenoses – BASICS OF LIFE, Chapter 2, Section 2.1. The human body is the living space of multiple micro-organisms which, symbiotically or parasitically, find their foundations of life here – TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF NATURE. Human respiration is part of the cycle of oxygen and carbon dioxide which encompasses all of life. Even human excretion enters the processes of nonhuman nature wherever it directly enters into the environment.
In its truest sense, however, human beings do not perform their third telos through their natural being, but rather provide services as cultural creatures, as founders and shapers of their own world within the framework of self-interest and interest in the community. However, the consequences of this world-founding and world-shaping do have the greatest effect on nonhuman nature as well. What kind of services are these? If we look back at primarily agrarian epochs, we see that humankind created artificial landscapes with meadows, fields, irrigation plants, terraced slopes and mountainsides, hedges, strips of bush and woodland, gardens, buildings, streets and walking paths. It is to human activity that we owe living spaces such as the Lüneburg Heath in Germany or the secondary forests of the low and high mountain ranges in Europe. Humankind has bred new species of animals and further developed older ones. Furthermore, humans have taken many plants and animals to places they never would have reached on their own. Thus, the conditions in biocoenoses have often been fundamentally changed – EVOLUTION – BASICS OF TIME. Wild species have found new habitats within the cultivated areas of human beings – as invited guests (like the swallows in many parts of Europe) or as disreputable pests and vermin (like mice and cockroaches). Although original habitats such as forests and savannas were destroyed in the course of these processes and species were driven out or completed eradicated, new possibilities for life also developed at the same time. Hence, the diversity of animal and plant species was greater in agrarian Germany of the 18th century than ever before – IGNORANCE. Today, however, it is difficult to shake the impression that (in regard to nature in its entirety) the scientific-technological-economic world of humanity represents a giant fund of disservices for many nonhuman life forms, and in certain respects even for humans themselves.
Human beings as the only creature not in harmony with nature
The human being is the only creature that can behave in such a way that its actions are not in harmony (see Faber and Manstetten 2010: 120-121 and Faber and Manstetten 2007) with the biocoenosis in which it lives: During the lifespan of human beings, the third telos – TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF NATURE, Chapter 2, Section 2.3 – is not an inescapable fate for them, even if they cannot escape suffering, sickness and, ultimately, death. As a perceptive, self-determined creature, a human being can enter into a free relationship with nature. Humans have the possibility of using their gifts to serve the life they find there. As Albert Schweitzer put it: to show reverence for life in attitude and action – RESPONSIBILITY. Reverence for life requires freedom from the determinations of nature, for in nonhuman nature one can find few, if any indications that living things encounter the life of other living things with reverence (see Schweitzer 2000). On the other hand, the perception of nature and the freedom to creatively reshape it also enable human beings to treat nature, once it is subject to them, without any respect for the things that be and live, as mere material for their needs and interests. Such a disregard for nature is not only expressed in a way of life based on private self-interest or the interests of particular separate communities – HOMO OECONOMICUS & HOMO POLITICUS – even an attitude which aims for sustainability – SUSTAINABILITY & JUSTICE – can fail to regard nature as the comprehensive House of all that Lives.
Even the core of the idea of sustainability contains an anthropocentric interest
Space for interest in the entirety
– do we know, can we know, what the entirety that we belong to is?
– How can we know what the interest is of the entirety to which human beings belong?
– What should the entirety be interested in apart from itself?
– How is it to differentiate within itself?
– What are the limits of its interest?
– Or is humanity not called upon, after all, to define the interest in the entirety (with all the possibilities of error)?
The order of humanity and order of the Earth
The fact that humankind as a population is part of the biocoenosis means that Earth is relevant for the order of humanity – TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF NATURE. If we limit what we regard as ‘the entirety’ to this biocoenosis, we can say that from the viewpoint of the interest in the entirety, the order of the Earth and the order of humanity should be one. However, this unity is no longer a ‘natural’ given (ever since human beings have stepped out of an unconscious state of being in regard to the third telos of living things). On the contrary, such unity must be in part discovered, in part invented. This discovering and inventing cannot be achieved by either science or the wisdom of everyday life (Faber and Manstetten 2010: Chapters 4 and 6), although both can contribute. It leads human beings into the dimension of the wisdom of the sage (Faber and Manstetten 2010: Chapter 5) – with all its associated problems. Just as the third telos of living things cannot simply be placed in sequence with the first and second tele, the interest in the entirety cannot be viewed simply as the next step in the progression that led from self-interest to an interest in the community.
Some indications as to how interest in the entirety can be meaningfully understood
What does it mean to be ‘wholly human’?
Religious aspects of the interest in the entirety
Comments on the interest in entirety by the writer and poet Novalis
Novalis writes, ‘Does the cliff not become a unique [you] whenever I speak to it? And what am I but the stream when I look sadly down into its waters and lose myself in its flow?’ (Novalis 1949: 89; see also: Becker and Manstetten 2004). This insight, which precedes all humanity and yet is secretly and perhaps even most especially expressed in all humanity, seems (in a way that is difficult to grasp) open and disguised at the same time. It is open in every moment as long as we are able to open ourselves to the nature around and within us. It can be felt in every breath – our breathing which bears us along before we become conscious of it and precedes all forms of interest; indeed, we hardly ever become conscious of it as a need at all. Our breathing is a pure expression of the first telos, but in a form which simultaneously links us to all breathing creatures as a third telos – TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF NATURE, Chapter 2, Sections 2.1 and 2.3 –, even with the clouds and the wind as they represent the breathing of the Earth and particularly with the green plants that integrate the air human beings exhale into their cycle.
Comments on the interest in entirety by the poet Hölderlin
‘But alas this race of ours inhabits the night, it lives
In an Orcus, godless, every man nailed
Alone to his own affairs, in the din of work
Hearing only himself, in a crazy labour
With violent hands, unresisting, pitiable, and all
Their trying, like that of the Furies, brings nothing forth.’
(Hölderlin 1996: 34. See also: Manstetten 2001: 184)
If we are to become earnestly interested in the entirety, we must first recognise that we are separated from it by a multitude of barriers. Its order cannot reach us because we find ourselves, as Hölderlin puts it, in ‘a din of work’. This expression addresses the almost baffling network of the many intertwined structures we have erected as artificial funds (such as machines, cars, telephones, weapons etc.; see Faber and Manstetten 2010: 129ff; BASICS OF LIFE, Chapter 2, Section 2.3), as service-providers for human needs. If we wish to listen to what is on the other side of these, we must first admit that they have made us almost deaf. When we become quiet, they initially only cast the echo of innumerable human interests and needs. These needs and interests are, however, perhaps not truly our own. When we take a closer look at the network of all human artificial funds within the freedom an interest in the entirety affords us, we recognise that all artificial funds of the present are nothing but the precipitation of past needs and interests.
The consequences of past interests define the present
The first thing we notice is to what extent the consequences of past interests define the present: What was built up or constructed long ago largely defines and delimits the space of the interests of today (see particularly: Schiller 2002: Chapter 4 and Faber, Frank, Klauer, Manstetten, Schiller, Wissel 2006). The way this space is configured today, it allows no other order than that of humanity, for it is permeated by next to nothing of the order of natural biocoenoses – BASICS OF LIFE, Chapter 2, Section 2.1. This space can only be changed in the future – in some cases after a short period of time but more often after a long one – BASICS OF TIME. However, instead of opening it up, we leave future people with new such structures, generally ones that are even more complex than the ones before them.
Limitations of human freedom in the future
Such structures in turn limit human freedom to form and pursue new interests. They do not simply form a static part of our lives, but also absorb a large part of our energy. Artificial funds exist and provide services only as long as they are operated by human beings – that is to say, kept running, cared for and renewed. In addition, the further we progress, the more they begin to demand our services for reason of the environmental damage they cause, the pollutants they deposit – JOINT PRODUCTION –, and the raw materials they deplete. As such damage is often of a long-term nature, our concerns extend ever further into the future. The more complex the network of artificial funds becomes, the more these funds themselves as well as the effects they cause place demands on those who operate them. The richer we are in such funds, the more concern they cause us. For this reason, we can say, human beings tend to be too busy with the world they themselves have created for anything to be heard that might be speaking to them from beyond this world.
Two tasks of environmental education
(i) To call people’s attention to all those structures –both within themselves and the world that surrounds them – that are hindering them from the perception of this interest. These structures do not consist merely of their own self-interest and their limited interests in the community, but equally of deposits from the past that still exist; i.e. they are stocks – BASICS OF LIFE, Chapter 2, Section 2.2.).
Only once these two tasks (which we can do no more than identify here) have been tackled, can we begin to seriously search for a concrete human way of life (nomos) of a kind which is appropriate for the house of all that lives” (Faber/Manstetten 2010: 141-155).
3. The MINE Project: Focus on Fundamental Concepts
3. Practice
A certain detachment as a necessary precondition for proper understanding
– At first sight the readers may ask:
– Are they not much too aloof?
– Is time not running out so fast that we cannot afford to consider such thoughts?
Interest in the entirety and corresponding appropriate attitudes
Three attitudes in particular express human receptiveness in regard to nature:
(ii) the willingness to freely serve,
To (ii) Attentiveness also teaches us to see the way we are disfiguring the face of this world, thus showing us what our service could look like. In contrast to attentiveness, service toward nature expresses a certain attitude of care. On the one hand, such care is directed toward the preservation of free nature, untouched by human beings. Places where nature is still capable of its own development, such as the tropical rainforests, require protection from intrusions that do not respect its own development capability. On the other hand, care is also about humans using nature in such a way that natural biocoenoses – BASICS OF LIFE, Chapter 2, Section 2.1 – are allowed space for their own development. Cultivated landscapes in Germany during the 18th century displayed a far greater diversity of species than the original primary forests before their cultivation. Nature, shaped in this sense and sustainably cultivated, can express a harmony that can even seem superior to that of natural biocoenoses. Service toward nature has nothing to do with servility. On the contrary, it is owed to the insight that humans are receiving beings as long as they live. As humans receive services from so many other living things, the latter may expect to receive of human gifts as well. Our service is a form of freely giving of our own power to form and shape, knowing that we too are beneficiaries. Our service demonstrates a free binding of our human selves to the foundation that sustains us – SUSTAINABILITY & JUSTICE.
Final remark: interest in the entirety, power and powerlessness
The fact that we have just attributed virtues to the interest in the entirety which seem primarily passive tells us that interest in the entirety as such cannot become political – HOMO OECONOMICUS & HOMO POLITICUS – POWER OF JUDGEMENT – RESPONSIBILITY. It cannot actively intervene in practical affairs. When it does become political, there is a danger of it becoming totalitarian: Totalitarianism is a fractional, often limited and truncated concept of the entirety of being, one that commissions people to fulfil it in historical missions – as was propagated, for example, in the ideologies of Marxism-Leninism or National Socialism. However, even the visions of an environmental state can become totalitarian (Hannon 1985). In light of extreme shortages of resources (a threat likely to arise in regard to water in many parts of the world over the next decades; see Jöst et al. 2006), it is to be feared that governmental institutions will demand extensive powers to allow them to implement solutions, ones that Acould result in a restriction or even disregard of human rights. In such situations, it is imperative to point out that the entirety which concerns us both as human beings and living things transcends the scope of any political activity and that, conversely, political activity must come to terms with the fact that it is limited – and must recognise the limits which it is set, the foremost of which are human rights.
4. Literature
Key Literature
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Faber, M., Manstetten, R. (2010) Philosophical Basics of Ecology and Economy. Routledge, London and New York. [Chapter 12 is the basis for this concept.]
Further Reading
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Becker, C. and Manstetten, R. (2004) Nature as a You: Novalis’ philosophical thought and the modern ecological crisis. Environmental values 13: 101-118. [The paper gives a perspective on entirety from a literary point of view.]
References
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Baumgärtner, S., Faber, M., Schiller J. (2006) Joint Production and Responsibility in Ecological Economics: On the Foundations of Environmental Policy, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, Brookfield, USA.
Becker, C., Manstetten, R. (2004) ‘Nature as a You: Novalis’ Philosophical Thought and the Modern Ecological Crisis’, Environmental Values 13: 101-118.
Bernholz, P. (1997) Homo Oeconomicus and Homo Politicus: a Comment, Kyklos 51: 409-415.
Debreu, G. (1959) Theory of Value, Wiley, New York.
Faber, M., Frank, K., Klauer, B., Manstetten, R., Schiller, J., Wissel, C. (2006) ‚On the Foundation of General Theory of Stocks‘, Ecological Economics 55: 155-172.
Faber, M., Manstetten, R. (2007) Was ist Wirtschaft? Von der Politischen zur Ökologischen Ökonomie. Alber, Freiburg.
Faber, M., Manstetten, R. (2010) Philosophical Basics of Ecology and Economy. Routledge, London and New York. [Chapter 12 is the basis for this concept.]
Faber, M., Manstetten, R., Proops, J. (1996) Ecological Economics: Concepts and Methods, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.
Faber, M., Petersen, T. (2008) ‚Gerechtigkeit und Marktwirtschaft – Das Problem der Arbeitslosigkeit‘, Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, 9:405-423.
Faber, M., Petersen, T., Schiller, J. (2002) ‘Homo Oeconomicus and Homo Politicus in Ecological Economics’, Ecological Economics 40: 323-333.
Hannon, B. (1985) ‘World Shotgun (Communication)’, Journal of Social Biological Structure 8: 239-341.
Hottinger, O. (1998) Eigeninteresse und individuelles Nutzenkalkül in der Theorie der Gesellschaft und Ökonomie von Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham und John Stuart Mill, Metropolis, Marburg.
Jöst, F., Manstetten, R. (1996) ‚Grenzen und Möglichkeiten einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung‘, in: Eichhorn, P. (ed.), Umweltorientierte Marktwirtschaft. Zusammenhänge – Probleme – Konzepte, Gabler, Wiesbaden.
Jöst, F. Niemes, H., Faber, M., Roth, K. (2006) „Begrenzen Chinas Wasserressourcen seine wirtschaftliche Entwicklung?“, Discussion Paper Nr. 433, Department of Economics, University of Heidelberg. https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/md/awi/forschung/dp433.pdf
Klauer, B., Manstetten, R., Petersen, T., Schiller, J. (2017) Sustainability and the Art of Long-Term Thinking. Routledge, London and New York.
Manstetten, R., Faber, M. (1999) Umweltökonomie, Nachhaltigkeitsökonomie und Ökologische Ökonomie: Drei Perspektiven auf Mensch und Natur‘, in: Beckenbach, F. et al (eds.), Jahrbuch Ökologische Ökonomik, Vol. 1, Zwei Sichtweisen auf das Umweltproblem: Neoklassische Umweltökonomik versus Ökologische Ökonomik, Metropolis, Marburg: 53-97.
Manstetten, R. (2000) Das Menschenbild der Ökonomie: Der homo oeconomicus und die Anthropologie von Adam Smith, Alber, Freiburg, München.
Manstetten, R. (2001) ‚Das Ursprünglich-Einige und seine gebrechlichen Gestalten: Ein Essay über Natur, Kunst und Garten bei Novalis und Hölderlin‘, in: Röllicke, H.-J., Kuhl, M. (eds.), HORIN. Vergleichende Studien zur japanischen Kultur, Iudicum, München: 171-195.
Manstetten, R., Hottinger, O. und Faber, M. (1998) Zur Aktualität von Adam Smith: Homo oeconomicus und ganzheitliches Menschenbild. Homo Oeconomicus XV (2): 127-168. This paper is reprinted in Faber and Manstetten 2007: Chapter 4.
Mueller, D. (1995) Public Choice II. A Revised Edition of Public Choice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Schiller, J. (2002) Umweltprobleme und Zeit: Bestände als konzeptionelle Grundlage einer ökologischen Ökonomik. Metropolis, Marburg.
Schweitzer, A. (2000) ‚Die Weltanschauung der Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben‘, C. Günzler u. J. Zürcher (eds.), Verlag C.H. Beck, München.
The three interests in literature
Becker, C. and Manstetten, R. (2004) Nature as a You: Novalis’ philosophical thought and the modern ecological crisis. Environmental values 13: 101-118. [Discussion of the interest of entirety.]
Faber, M., Manstetten, R. (2010) Philosophical Basics of Ecology and Economy. Routledge, London and New York. [Chapters 7 and 8 deal with the interests in Goethe’s Faust in Novalis’ work.]
Goethe J.W. (1976) Faust Part I and II with Backgrounds and Sources, the Author of the Drama, Contemporary Reactions, Modern Criticism. Norton Critical Edition, translated by Walter Andt, Cyrus Hamlin (ed.), W.W. Norton and Company, New York, London.
Hölderlin, F. (1996) Selected Poems, translated by David Constantine, Bloodaxe Books Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne.
Novalis (1949) The Novices of Sais: Sixty Drawings by Paul Klee, Preface by Stephen Spender, translation from the German original by Ralph Mannheim, Curt Valentine, New York.
The three interests in philosophy
Jonas, H. (1979/1984) Das Prinzip Verantwortung. Versuch einer Ethik für die technologische Zivilisation, Insel, Frankfurt/M. Translated by H. Jonas and Hans Jonas and David Herr from the German into English: The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. [The most popular book of the philosopher Hans Jonas.]
Kant, I. (1785/1990) Foundations of Metaphysics of Morals, 2nd revised edition, translated with an introduction by Lewis White Beck, Macmillan, New York, Collier Macmillan, London.
MacIntyre, A. (1999) Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues, Duckworth, London.
The three interests in religion
Juan de la Cruz (1981) Poesias completas, Bruguera, Barcelona.
The three interests in political economy
Nutzinger, H.G. (1996)‚Zum Verhältnis von Ökonomie und Ethik‘, in: Nutzinger, G. (ed.), Naturschutz, Ethik, Ökonomie. Theoretische Begründung – Praktische Konsequenzen, Metropolis, Marburg: 171-196.
Sen, Amartya K. (1985) Commodities and Capabilities, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Manstetten, R. (2000) Das Menschenbild der Ökonomie: Der homo oeconomicus und die Anthropologie von Adam Smith, Alber, Freiburg, München.
Mueller, D. (1995) Public Choice II. A Revised Edition of Public Choice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
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The project team would like to thank the publishers Edward Elgar, Elsevier, Routledge, Springer and Taylor & Francis for granting a reproduction permission.
Furthermore, we want to express our gratitude to Bernd Klauer, Reiner Manstetten, Thomas Petersen and Johannes Schiller for supporting the MINE Project and granting the permission to use parts of the content of their book “Sustainability and the Art of Long-Term Thinking.”
We are indebted to Prof. Joachim Funke, Ombudsman for Good Scientific Practice at Heidelberg University and the legal department at Heidelberg University, for their advice and support.
The main source of this concept is the following publication:
Faber, M. and R. Manstetten (2010) Philosophical Basics of Ecology and Economy. Routledge, London and New York. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. The material is reproduced in MINE with permission of the Licensor through PLSclear (Ref. No: 8528, licenced 03.01.2019).