Value as ethics: Climate change, crisis, and the struggle for the future

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic research in Houston, Texas, I contribute novel ethnographic insights into how oil and gas experts understand notions of value. I show that prevailing notions of value are normatively defined in economic terms and closely tied to understandings of an American “way of life.” Questions of value, I suggest, reveal our idiosyncratic and shared ethical orientations toward what we think is important and the futures we are fighting to create. The climate crisis, as such, is not a crisis of emissions or hydrocarbons but a crisis of how value is assigned to worldly things. I conclude by arguing that until we address questions of value, we are unlikely to address the existential crisis of anthropogenic climate change.

Introduction to special issue: Value, values, and anthropology

“…In reflecting on our discussions at the Annual Meeting of the 2022 Society for Economic Anthropology as well as on the articles collected in the following pages, we suggest that there are at least six ways we can become more precise with value theory: In considering the ethical and ontological presuppositions that always precede the ascription of value (Field, 2023; Rivers, 2023); In taking seriously the affordances that various qualia provide to specific things when they become valued (Graber, 2023); In noting how the relationships that underscore value ascriptions shift when people find themselves relating not to other people but rather to imaginary social totalities such as states or national communities (Majeed, 2023; Phillips, 2023); In appreciating the weird ways that value ascriptions are often sticky despite the best wishes of a given group of people (Majeed, 2023; Phillips, 2023); In accepting how value ascriptions are often retrospective and infused with certain claims about what the past was like (Khorasani, 2023); and In reckoning with the fact that humans often occupy multiple contradictory value regimes at the same time (Dean, 2023; DuBois, 2023). …”

“…Similarly, Sean Field's (2023) contribution focuses on the work of the US oil and gas industry in the context of anthropogenic climate change. He specifically addresses how people understand and place themselves inside a given “way of life.” In turn, specific value judgments about one's work, politics, and consumption flow from one's overarching way of life.…”

“…1. In considering the ethical and ontological presuppositions that always precede the ascription of value (Field, 2023;Rivers, 2023); 2. In taking seriously the affordances that various qualia provide to specific things when they become valued (Graber, 2023); 3.…”

“…And, put a bit more simply, this special issue answers the following question: Once we accept the basic premises of value theory, what can we say that is more specific about how life works?In reflecting on our discussions at the Annual Meeting of the 2022 Society for Economic Anthropology as well as on the articles collected in the following pages, we suggest that there are at least six ways we can become more precise with value theory:1. In considering the ethical and ontological presuppositions that always precede the ascription of value (Field, 2023;Rivers, 2023); 2. In taking seriously the affordances that various qualia provide to specific things when they become valued (Graber, 2023); 3.…”