Volume 16, Issue 1, Spring 2009
Adam Briggle
Pages 14-24
Retail Sanity, Wholesale Madness
The Question Concerning Sustainability
This paper looks at the question of sustainability through the prism of a collective action problem fundamentally driven by human desires and needs. It ftrst characterizes the problem of non-sustainability by combining environmental ethics with the philosophy of technology. The paper then considers four basic strategies for resolving the collective action problem: virtue, regulation, price, and innovation. Each solution has its own set of weaknesses and strengths, meaning that achieving sustainability will remain a difficult balancing act.