Abstract:
Since the late 1980s, ecological economics has strengthened as a field of critical thinking not only to the current economic system, seen as ecologically unsustainable, but also to the dominant economic theory and to its belief in market mechanisms to solve environmental problems. Ecological economists have a mostly favorable view of methodological pluralism that has given credibility to a large set of procedures, including those from neoclassical economics. This vision is controversial, because for many authors the pluralism is an obstacle to the field definition. However, criticisms of pluralism were not properly accompanied by methodological discussions. In order to understand the controversies in ecological economics, we identify different positions on methodological pluralism in the field and their relationship with principles shared by ecological economists. We argue that the principles of ecological economics, particularly related to the biophysical view of the economic process, should result in a critical or structured pluralism.
Keywords:
ecological economics; methodological pluralism; ecological macroeconomics; ecosystem valuation