Ethics and Public Responsibility in GeographyAuthor(s): Hugh MasonSource: Area, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Jun., 1992), pp. 236-237Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20003139 .

Accessed: 10/06/2014 10:33

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) is collaborating with JSTOR todigitize, preserve and extend access to Area.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.151 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 10:33:01 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

236 IBG Annual Conference

The third session continued to explore both the global and European themes, often in con junction. Roy Morgan (Silsoe) provided European and global perspectives on soil erosion, recognising that the US perspective was not universally transferable, and that the study of soil erosion has generated several half-truths (eg soil erosion is a cause of land degradation, soil erosion is a consequence of land use). A new approach is demanded that emphasises land cover, environmental protection, the need to manage abandoned land, and the identification of financial benefit. Martin Parry (Oxford) explored the array of potential impacts of global climatic change on Europe, through a series of iterations of his computer-based climatic model. For instance, in one scenario, northern Europe might become warmer, and southern Europe drier, leading to a huge range of human impacts (agriculture, energy requirements, transport, water supply) that would at least require adjustment, and perhaps, policies. Michael Redclift (Wye) pointed out that global environmental change is often viewed as a set of problems whose solution requires a new paradigm: in questioning this assumption, he argued for a dialogue that should lead to closer collaboration between the governments of the ' North ' and ' South ', and a recognition that, however global, most problems ultimately require individual, personal responses. Finally David Harvey (Oxford), in a fresh and radical examination of values and the environment, began by recognising that while money is some ways forms a logical basis for environment assessment in a capitalist society, it leaves much to be desired. Its value changes, it concerns exchange more than use value, and it poses the moral problem of equating value with price. Values reside in nature, but how are they best measured? Nature is culturally constructed, so that we tend to adopt the metaphor of value we prefer (eg equilibrium, evolution) and inevitably the values we adopt are linked to social and political structures.

Ron Cooke University College, London

Ethics and public responsibility in geography This was, above all else, a useful and friendly session, more of a workshop than a set of formal presentations. Suggestions were made, additional ideas floated, and at one point when a some what obscure book published over fifty years ago was mentioned by one person, another just happened to have it with him!

Tom Elkins started the morning by looking at the ethics of geographers in war-both at the direct military application of geography and at the more indirect use made of apparently neutral geographic research. Although he made reference to a number of British geographers, the core of the paper drew upon his extensive knowledge of German geography and geographers of both the inter-war and and Second World War periods.

David Livingstone took a somewhat wider time frame in a paper which examined the links which were forged in the nineteenth and early twentieth century between climate and moral statement. Appraisals of both people and places were supported by a very detailed and scientistic interpretation of climate. This paper developed on ideas which David Livingstone has initiated in other places and it generated considerable discussion and interest

The session was brought firmly back into the latter part of the twentieth century by Martin Phillips who addressed the work which Habermas has done since the 1970s. In particular he examined the idea of a communicative ethic or morality and the way in which this served as a grounding for concepts of social emancipation. These he related to current debates in geography. The paper generated a number of apposite questions and comments and it is clearly opening up a wider area for discussion.

In a thoughtful and wide ranging paper John Silk explored a number of avenues of research and scholarship in geography noting the way in which values had been sidelined. He saw dangers in trends of ' postmodernism ' in that they induced a degree of indifference (in the proper

meaning of the word) to values. The main argument which he developed was for a livelier sense of value and of values to pervade geographers' work which itself was capable of being subjected to

moral evaluation.

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.151 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 10:33:01 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

IBG Annual Conference 237

As lunchtime approached and indeed arrived, Hugh Mason delivered the last paper of the session at a speed which denied the nicities of punctuation. He argued that in situation of ethical pluralism the ethical questions raised in applied geography could not be disregarded, nor could they be addressed simply by the application of a code of moral practice. Instead he suggested that conflicts and priorities were best addressed on an individual case basis: an approach which incorporated geographical as well as ethical input.

At this point the majority of the audience fled for lunch leaving the hardy, the deaf and the sleeping to attend the study group AGM!

Hugh Mason Portsmouth Polytechnic

This content downloaded from 185.44.78.151 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 10:33:01 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions