Sustainability from an order ethics perspective

Abstract

This chapter examines the sustainability concept from an order ethics perspective. Order ethics focuses on those “rules of the game” that channel how individuals interact and that govern whether the involved individuals (can) realize ethically desirable or undesirable group outcomes. This chapter argues that the very notion of sustainability can best be understood from an order ethics perspective. The chapter first explores important milestones of the sustainability concept. It then analyzes sustainability as a semantic innovation that differs from conventional normative categories such as justice, virtue, or solidarity. The third step spells out implications of the sustainability agenda for (global) governance. The fourth step applies the order ethics approach to the level of the organizational order of the individual firm. The chapter concludes with implications for how sustainability can inspire the research program of order ethics.