ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the status of environmental values as a philosophical system and how environmental values might or might not conflict with the institutions of the US policy process or the values of scientific analysis. It argues that environmental risk, as a policy problem, requires moving beyond the market principle of efficiency as the basis of decision making and toward the articulation and use of environmental values to produce good public choices. The book is concerned with the existence of a replacement for market values with environmental values in the case of environmental risk, the historical roots of the distinction between market and non-market domains of value, and the translation of environmental values into practical policy. It describes the conflicts between environmental values and competing value systems, especially concerning the instrumentalist values of the market paradigm.
