Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-mx8w7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-10T22:34:07.203Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

6 - Quality of Life: On Values, Knowledge and Worldviews

Bert J. M. de Vries
Bert J. M. de Vries
Affiliation:
Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
Get access

Summary

Introduction

The scientific worldview cannot give meaning in itself to our lives and it cannot resolve the ethical questions surrounding sustainability issues. The scientific ‘facts’ about the world, important and accurate as they may be, have to be complemented with what people value and believe. It is time to have a look at the more subjective, personal side of the quest for sustainable development. Are there empirical data and theoretical concepts about the subjective side of sustainability?

Previously I have stated that sustainable development is about quality of life. But what is quality of life – are we merely shifting the problem? Sustainable development is to act here and now in such a way that the conditions for a (decent/high) quality of life elsewhere and later are not eroded. But for whom and for how long? Throughout history, individuals have struggled to realise their idea of ‘the good life’, by exploiting environmental opportunities and cooperating with and oppressing others. Since the dawn of civilisation philosophers have reflected on what ‘the good life’ entails. What can we learn from them?

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Sustainability Science , pp. 146 - 178
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

An excellent comprehensive introduction into the philosophical background to this chapter.
Tarnas, R. The Passion of the Western Mind – Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View. New York: Ballantine Book/Random House Publishers, 1991.
A description of and simulation experiments with a world model, exploring future pathways for the world depending on which worldview is dominant.
Rotmans, J., and Vries, B. de. Perspectives on Global Change – The TARGETS Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
de Vries, B., and Petersen, A. Conceptualizing sustainable development: An assessment methodology connecting values, knowledge, worldviews and scenarios. Ecological Economics 68 (2009) 1006–1019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
A series of short articles with opposing views on 21 environmental issues in the United States.
Easton, T.Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Environmental Issues. 11th ed., Contemporary Learning Series. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006.Google Scholar
Thompson, M., Ellis, R., and Wildawsky, A.. Cultural Theory. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990.Google Scholar
van Egmond, N., and de Vries, B.. Sustainability: the search for the integral worldview. Futures 43 (2011) 853–867.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
An example is a construction model of health indices across countries, in which functional limitations, self-reports of health, and a physical measure are interrelated to construct health indices (Meijer et al. 2011)
The story on Himalayan villagers is taken from Thompson in de Vries et al. (2002)

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×