Paper short abstract:

This paper defends the moral importance of human development progress within planetary boundaries. It argues that the pursuit of human development progress in the Anthropocene must be consistent with a moral demand of sustainability, understood as the preservation of Holocene stability.

Paper long abstract:

The philosopher Brian Barry argues that the core concept of sustainability is that there is some X that should be preserved indefinitely for future generations (Barry, 2007). Johan Rockström’s pioneering work on planetary boundaries argues for the importance of several earth systems in preserving Holocene stability (Rockström et al., 2009). These boundaries are defined as thresholds for the stable functioning several Earth systems relevant to the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, fresh water, nitrogen flows, and biodiversity among other things. The moral relevance of these boundaries is that they are the conditions of the possibility for the emergence, and likely the continuance, of human civilizations that allow for human development progress. This paper argues therefore that the preservation of Holocene stability is a compelling candidate for the X that should be preserved indefinitely for future generations.

Human commercial, military, and agricultural activity has now so affected the Earth that the Holocene has been replaced by the Anthropocene. Moreover, these human activities threaten to disrupt the Earth systems that preserve of Holocene stability. This paper argues that the preservation of this stability should constrain the activity of the present generation on behalf of the claims of future generations. This would allow for continued human development progress. Progress in human development is a valuable because human development consists of valuable elements, health, education, and income. Although income is only contingently and instrumentally valuable, health and education are valuable for their own sake as well as for what they permit humans to achieve. The planetary boundaries framework suggest the need for constraints on certain kinds of activities in pursuit of human development, but not on human development itself. Indeed the point of the framework is to preserve the conditions for human development. This paper also then defends the revision of the Human Development Index so that it is a measure of sustainability constrained human development. And, finally it argues that despite the importance of nature-based solutions, technological innovation is necessary to the project of advancing human development within planetary boundaries. Hence, while preserving Holocene stability is moral requirement for policy and institutions in the Anthropocene, the promotion of technological innovation is an important desiderata.