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Sustainable development and environmentalism: an ethical framework for policy and decision making in developing countries with special reference to Bangladesh

Ahsan, Mohammad Kamrul 2012. Sustainable development and environmentalism: an ethical framework for policy and decision making in developing countries with special reference to Bangladesh. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.
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Abstract

There is a growing consensus that the currently dominant economic practices, which excessively rely on incessant profitability‘, fails appropriately to value ethical components of environmental problems: valuation of bearers of intrinsic value (e.g. all creatures), or again bearers of inherent and instrumental value (e.g. species and ecosystems). This has led to a systematic defect in relevant decision-making with diverse associated economic, social and environmental disbenefits. Although the UN formulation of sustainable development (as opposed to the currently dominant development paradigm) provides us with guidance on formulating an alternative framework for sustainable development, it involves some serious problems. Some of these problems suggest the need for revisions, while others seem fatal to the definitions as they stand. This study argues that a different revision, suggested by the basic needs approach, can surmount the various problems, and present and defend a revised definition accordingly. The revised account recognises economic inequality and social injustice as the underlying causes for environmental injustice and thus appropriately focuses on the principles of environmental justice. This conveys a framework for corresponding systemically the interconnectedness between the seemingly competing aspects of sustainable development, the dynamic flux between development needs and environmental limits. I defend Attfield‘s version of biocentric consequentialism, which supplies a strong theoretical basis for such an ethically informed and comprehensive policy framework for sustainable development. Furthermore, I tackle different approaches to security and argue that it is hardly possible to attain a sustainable future,while disregarding the human security view in its wider sense. The study examines in close detail the applicability of the proposed policy framework for sustainable development to developing countries, with special reference to Bangladesh. It offers a list of recommendations for Bangladesh and concludes that a sustainable future for Bangladesh (and developing countries at large) is for the most part reliant on the successful implementation of recommendations of the broad general kind made in this study.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Status: Unpublished
Schools: English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BJ Ethics
D History General and Old World > DS Asia
H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 30 March 2016
Last Modified: 31 Mar 2021 11:22
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/41969

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