Making good decisions well

I have three main aims in this text, which are consecutive and contingent. (1) I propose to extend the traditional (and widely accepted) analytical critique of the production and use of monetary unit proxy values to represent the economic worth of ecological phenomena. Based on living systems criteria established in Chapters 3 and 4 my aim, in Chapter 5, is to develop an analytical critique of the pragmatic defence of this practice. (2) Having rejected the use of money based analytics as a basis for articulating living systems ecological economic values, I proceed, in Chapter 6, to consider the merits of deliberative democracy as an alternative. My aim in this chapter is to subject deliberative democracy to the same living systems criteria and to further consider the political robustness of deliberative institutions that may meet these living systems criteria. (3) My final and ultimate objective is to provide some normative post-normal science methodology cum ecological economics political theory concerning possible designs for epistemologically robust, democratically legitimate, participatory science concerning sustainable development oriented environmental valuation activities. In Chapter 7 I propose some institutional structures of democratic government through which environmental values for priceless living system factors of economic production might be effectively articulated.