Duurzame onzekerheid en onenigheid

Abstract

Sustainable uncertainty and disagreement. Because environmental problems usually transcend state borders and are closely interrelated they require an integrated approach. But such an approach is frustrated by the existing multiplicity of communities with diverse and sometimes diverging ethical visions and moral vocabularies. There is a strong tension between on the one hand the diversity of actors that have a stake in sustainable development and on the other hand the need for a close cooperation between these various stakeholders. There is a general tendency to resolve this tension between diversity and sustainability through a quest for unity and harmony, either in the form of one single world community, one single worldview, or one single universal scientific method. After I have argued that all these different roads to unity and harmony end up in deadlock, and that we should simply accept and respect plurality and diversity, I will focus on 'boundary work’, that is: on practical and theoretical efforts to facilitate and foster communication, coordination and collaboration across the fences that separate communities and their different social worlds.