Conference Outline

In Search of Sustainable Well-Being: Science and Technology for Sustainability 2008

Kotaro Suzumura
Vice-President, Science Council of Japan
Professor, School of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University

Over the past five years, the Science Council of Japan has organized a series of International Conferences on Science and Technology for Sustainability. Each round of these conferences was highly successful in facilitating scientific understanding of the respective focal aspect of sustainability. However, it is hard to deny that we are still left with no clear and deep perception of the basic concept of sustainability as such, which we may hand over as an intellectual asset of the Science Council of Japan. Since this concept plays a crucial role in many basic documents which are made public by the Science Council of Japan, we are obliged to rectify this unsatisfactory state of the art. It was with the awareness of this urgent task that we have embarked on the design and implementation of the Sixth International Conference on Science and Technology for Sustainability, which is scheduled to take place on September 12-13, 2008 in Tokyo. We have chosen the focal issue of this year's conference to be sustainable well-being. The conference will consist of two keynote lectures, one delivered by a social scientist and another by a natural scientist, and three sessions, each one being planned and implemented by one of the three divisions of the Science Council of Japan. Recollect that the Division 1 consists of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Division 2 consists of Medical and Life Sciences, and the Division 3 consists of Physics and Engineering. It is hoped that we may shed complementary light on the basic concept of sustainability by deliberate collaboration among these divisions of the Science Council of Japan.

The intellectual origin of the concept of sustainability may be traced back at least as far as to the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, which was organized by the United Nations and chaired by Gro Brundtland. According to the so-called Brundtland Report, “[s]ustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present [generation] without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need.” It is clear that this definition of sustainable development has two crucial components, viz., the concept of “needs” and the concept of “limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.” It deserves emphasis that the concept of sustainability embodies a belief to the effect that the satisfaction of future needs is as important as the satisfaction of present needs. It is in this sense that it echoes the classical concept of intergenerational equity due to Henry Sidgwick. Recollect that Sidgwick posed an intriguing question and offered a justly famous answer to it in a well-known passage of The Methods of Ethics (1907, p.414): “[I]t may be asked, How far we are to consider the interests of posterity when they seem to conflict with those of existing human beings? It seems, however, clear that the time at which a man exists cannot affect the value of his happiness from a universal point of view; and that the interests of posterity must concern a Utilitarian as much as those of his contemporaries ... .” It was this concept of intergenerational equity that Arthur Pigou and Frank Ramsey succeeded from Sidgwick and made an effective use in creating, respectively, the “old” welfare economics and the theory of optimal savings.

We should also pay due attention to the conceptual complexity and diversity of the concept of well-being per se. Most, if not all, economists are welfaristic in their perception of well-being, where being welfaristic simply means that utility or welfare is regarded as the only thing of intrinsic value in the evaluation of human well-being. To begin with, Pigou's “old” welfare economics, being a lineal descendant of Sidgwick's utilitarian philosophy, was based explicitly on the welfaristic, if not utilitarian, concept of well-being. Lionel Robbins, whose criticism against the epistemological basis of Pigou's “old” welfare economics kicked off several attempts to construct “new” welfare economics so as to replace the defunct “old” welfare economics, was welfaristic in his own economic analysis and policy proposals. Last but not least, most proponents of “new” welfare economics represented by Nicholas Kaldor, John Hicks, Tobor Scitovsky, Abram Bergson and Paul Samuelson were also welfaristic in the choice of their own informational basis of normative exercises. Indeed, the dividing line between “old” welfare economics and “new” welfare economics lies not in the loyalty, or the lack thereof, towards welfarism as such; instead, it lies in whether or not one is ready to accept cardinality and interpersonal comparability of individual utilities.

In sharp contrast, the Brundtlant Report talks not about utilities or welfares, but about needs. In this sense, it is akin in spirit to the recent upsurge of non-welfaristic approaches to normative social evaluations. To cite just a few representative examples, we have only to refer to John Rawls' theory of justice based on the concept of social primary goods [Rawls (1971, p.54)],” Amartya Sen's theory of well-being based on the concept of capabilities and functionings, and Ronald Dworkin's theory of equality based on the concept of resources. In some of these non-welfaristic approaches to well-being, one may not only go beyond the welfarist fence towards non-welfarism, but also go beyond the broader consequentialist fence towards non-consequentialism. This is because we may talk sensibly about rights, liberties, opportunities and procedures in the context of conceptualizing human well-being only when we are ready to cross the broader fence of consequentialism as such.

It should be clear that plenty of dishes are already on the table. It is our sincere hope that the Sixth International Conference on Science and Technology for Sustainability will serve as a forum for exchanging opinions about these fundamental issues, on the basis of which we may shed more focused lights on the Science and Technology for Sustainability. Lest I should be misunderstood, let me emphasize that all the sessions in this conference will be plenary sessions, which will be open to the general audience. Thus, it is desired that all the presentations will be made accessible to those who have general knowledge, intelligence, and sincere desire to digest new scientific developments without having prior professional expertise in any specific area of research.

Two keynote lectures will be given by the intellectual leaders in the area of social sciences and life sciences.

The session to be planned and executed by the leadership of Division 1 will be focused on the philosophical investigation into the concept of sustainable well-being and the basic design of social and economic policies for the promotion of sustainable well-being. It follows from the very nature of sustainability that such policies should pay due attention, not only to the present generation, but also to the future generations. Even within the present generation, there may be conspicuous differences in location and resource endowments, the stages of economic development, and the political and social institutions. Care should also be taken with the fact that these differences cannot but affect the identity and size of future generations.

The session to be planned and executed by the leadership of Division 2 will be focused on “the limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.” It would be nice if this session may shed fresh lights on the controversial issues related to the problem of global warming. Since this is an issue related to the allocation of resources over several generations, the problem of malleability of human identities cannot be overlooked in this context, neither is the interaction between “the state of technology and social organization”, on the one hand, and “the environment's ability to meet present and future needs” unilateral.

The session to be planned and executed by the leadership of Division 3 will be focused on the dual risks that endanger the pursuit of sustainable well-being, and the design and implementation of action plan that includes social safety nets for the sake of coping effectively with these risks. The first risk is the problem of persistent poverty that suppresses the attainable level of sustainable well-being much less than what is desirable as well as theoretically feasible. The second risk is the natural and social hazards that suddenly assault upon the society and economy beyond reasonable expectation. It is hoped that the discussion in this session will lead to the better understanding of a social action plan for the promotion of sustainable well-being.

Good luck for all of us in planning and materializing the Sixth International Conference on Science and Technology for Sustainability.