I. Introduction: Commodification and Environmental Goods

Should there be markets for environmental goods? For instance, should we trade carbon and biodiversity credits? The debate over markets and nature is often polarized. On the one hand, there is a position that assumes that ‘all nature is for sale’ or, more precisely, that there are no principled reasons for excluding certain environmental goods from commodification. Markets are seen as an important tool for dealing with environmental problems, precisely because these are market failures. A combination of existing markets, new markets (for example, carbon trading), and hypothetical markets (environmental valuation and cost–benefit analyses) should allow for socially optimal outcomes. This approach can be found in several major reports,11 Stern 2007; TEEB 2008; UNEP 2011. and is adopted by many governments and international institutions.

On the other hand, the opposite position argues that ‘nature is not for sale’ or, more precisely, that most environmental goods should not be commodified. For instance, Robert Goodin and Michael Sandel both argue that emissions trading is morally problematic (see below).22 Goodin 1994; Sandel 2005. Sandel also criticizes other variants of nature commodification, such as trophy hunting and ticket resale for nature parks.33 Sandel 2012. Moreover, markets are often seen as the cause of environmental problems, rather than being a solution. These scholars plead for limiting the scope of markets, both real and hypothetical.44 See, for instance, O’Neill 2001. For authors such as O’Neill, ‘hypothetical markets’ refer to economic valuation, namely putting a price value on a good, but not trading the good (treating it ‘as if’ it is a commodity). The notion ‘real market’ is used here only to contrast with such hypothetical markets. A more radical interpretation considers these new environmental markets, such as emissions trading, as the newest stage of capitalism. The Green Economy, for instance, is seen as a discourse that legitimizes further capital accumulation, by turning environmental goods into commodities.55 See, for instance, Kenis and Lievens 2016.

Environmental goods are here understood in the broadest sense: namely, all goods related to nature and the environment, such as wood, water, emissions, animals, species, and so on. The antagonism between the slogans ‘all nature is for sale’ and ‘nature is not for sale’ should not be understood too literally. Obviously, in their extreme version, both positions cannot be true. On the one hand, much of nature is for sale. Some natural or environmental goods are regular commodities: timber, oil, minerals, food, visits to nature parks, fish, land, and so on. On the other hand, most of nature is not in markets: the Earth, landscapes, global biodiversity, particular species, nature reserves, wild animals, and so on. Nonetheless, both slogans represent important positions in the debate, arguing for less or more market-based policy instruments for environmental goods; in particular, they argue for or against new environmental markets.

The antagonism in the debate, however, veils the more interesting and relevant question: namely, in which cases are markets desirable and in which cases not? What is the demarcation criterion between desirable and undesirable commodification of environmental goods? While the question of demarcating nature commodification is still underdeveloped, it is also becoming increasingly relevant. First, the urgency of global environmental crises demands new solutions, and markets are put forward as a plausible mechanism. Second, some new markets extend beyond the traditional sphere of environmental goods: trading biodiversity and atmosphere seems to relate to more fundamental aspects of nature than trading wood, animals, and land.

Almost all cases of existing nature commodification contain some controversial elements—for example, land can be bought and sold, but its use is very strictly regulated; drinking water is priced, but many hold that ownership should not be private; pet animals can be sold and bought, but once an animal becomes someone’s pet, reselling is relatively unusual. Traditionally, there were always limits on the sale and use of environmental goods. In the words of Polanyi, such goods are more embedded or entangled than typical manufactured goods.66 Interestingly, Polanyi himself claimed that land cannot be a commodity (‘a fictitious commodity’); see Polanyi 2001, pp. 71–80. Thus there is, and always will be, societal, political, and ethical debate about which aspects of nature can be commodified and to what extent. However, the fact that society can decide the moral limits of the market does not tell us which markets are desirable or undesirable and why—for this we need to examine the arguments in favour of and against markets.

An obvious starting point for this question is the debate on the moral limits to markets.77 Anderson 1993; Radin 1996; Sandel 1998, pp. 87–122; Satz 2010; Walzer 1983. Much of this debate deals with two broad categories of goods, but environmental goods do not fit well into either of these categories. The first category concerns ‘personal goods’, such as surrogate motherhood, baby selling, prostitution, kidney selling. Markets might corrupt something in the personal relations between people: prostitution might corrupt sexuality; surrogate motherhood might corrupt the mother–child relationship.88 Anderson 1990, pp. 185–92. Trading nature, however, is not primarily about interpersonal relations, since it always involves something external as well, such as wood, or landscapes. Seen from this perspective, environmental goods seem closer to typical consumer goods (radio, car) than to personal goods.

The second category concerns ‘political goods’, such as education, votes, immigration rights, prisons, conscription. Here, Anderson argues that these refer to political values and therefore differ significantly from market goods: the provision is non-exclusive, it is principle- and need-regarding, and it is regulated through voice.99 Ibid., pp.192–3. Some environmental goods seem to fit into this category. For instance, a national nature park is non-exclusive (open to everyone), principle-based (protection of nature), and can be the result of a political procedure. However, at the same time it is perfectly possible for a forest to be owned privately: it can be exclusive, want-based, and bought. Political goods are about civil rights and duties, about people’s status as citizens, and this is less clear for most environmental goods.

Most participants in this debate stress context-sensitivity, but their general argument is that markets are undesirable for these two categories. Such a general argumentative strategy seems implausible for environmental goods. Markets are unproblematic for some environmental goods, but undesirable for others. In order to examine the question of moral desirability of market instruments, the strategy of this article resembles that of the moral-limits-to-markets debate. It engages with the proponents of market instruments by examining their arguments pro markets and whether there are relevant arguments against. The arguments and framings of proponents therefore need to be taken as a starting point. The strategic advantage is that this allows engaging with those defending market instruments, such as economists and policy-makers.

This article will discuss two new environmental markets in particular: carbon markets and biodiversity offsetting. It has an applied and a general goal. The applied goal is straightforward: examining the respective moral desirability of these two markets. The broader goal is to use these two cases to review the main arguments for and against environmental markets and to offer more nuance in the debate. The cases are chosen in order to show that the positions at each end of the spectrum—that all new environmental markets are morally acceptable and that none of them is—are untenable.

First, some controversial, new environmental markets are not necessarily morally undesirable—a general ‘nature is not for sale’ position is hard to maintain. For this, I review the possible moral arguments against environmental markets, in order to show that there are cases in which they do not apply. This will be done for carbon markets. Second, some (other) new environmental markets are nonetheless morally undesirable—in other words, nor can the position ‘all nature is for sale’ be defended. Here, a more limited argumentative strategy suffices: namely, showing that there is at least one significant moral argument against several environmental markets. This will be done for biodiversity offsetting. This argument will reveal an important demarcation line between desirable and undesirable environmental commodification. The last section of the article reflects upon the remaining question: if an environmental market is normatively undesirable, what kind of institutions are then appropriate?

中文翻译：

---

调查文章：交易性质：什么时候环境市场（不）可取？

一、引言：商品化与环境商品

环境商品应该有市场吗？例如，我们应该交易碳和生物多样性信用吗？关于市场和自然的争论往往是两极分化的。一方面，有一种立场假设“所有自然都可以出售”，或者更准确地说，没有原则性的理由将某些环境产品排除在商品化之外。市场被视为处理环境问题的重要工具，正是因为这些都是市场失灵。现有市场、新市场（例如，碳交易）和假设市场（环境估值和成本效益分析）的组合应该能够实现社会最优结果。这种方法可以在几份主要报告中找到，11斯特恩2007 年；TEEB 2008 ; 环境署2011 年。并被许多政府和国际机构采用。

另一方面，相反的立场认为“自然不是出售的”，或者更准确地说，大多数环境产品不应该被商品化。例如，罗伯特·古丁（Robert Goodin）和迈克尔·桑德尔（Michael Sandel）都认为排放交易存在道德问题（见下文）。 22古丁1994 年；桑德尔2005 年。Sandel 还批评了自然商品化的其他变体，例如自然公园的战利品狩猎和门票转售。 33桑德尔2012 年。此外，市场通常被视为环境问题的根源，而不是解决方案。这些学者呼吁限制真实和假设的市场范围。 44例如，参见 O'Neill 2001。对于像 O'Neill 这样的作者来说，“假设市场”指的是经济估值，即对商品赋予价格价值，而不是交易商品（将其“视为”商品）。这里使用“真实市场”的概念只是为了与这些假设市场进行对比。更激进的解释将这些新的环境市场（例如排放交易）视为资本主义的最新阶段。例如，绿色经济被视为一种通过将环境商品转化为商品来使进一步资本积累合法化的话语。 55例如，参见 Kenis 和 Lievens 2016。

环境商品在这里是广义上的理解：即所有与自然和环境有关的商品，如木材、水、排放物、动物、物种等。“所有自然都是出售的”和“自然不出售”的口号之间的对立不应该从字面上理解。显然，在他们的极端版本​​中，这两个位置都不正确。一方面，大部分大自然都在出售。一些天然或环境商品是常规商品：木材、石油、矿产、食品、参观自然公园、鱼类、土地等。另一方面，自然界的大部分不是市场：地球、景观、全球生物多样性、特定物种、自然保护区、野生动物等。尽管如此，这两个口号都代表了辩论中的重要立场，主张减少或更多地以市场为基础的环境产品政策工具；特别是，他们支持或反对新的环境市场。

然而，辩论中的对立掩盖了更有趣和相关的问题：即，在哪些情况下市场是可取的，在哪些情况下不是？环境商品的理想商品化和不理想商品化之间的划分标准是什么？虽然划分自然商品化的问题仍然不发达，但它也变得越来越重要。首先，全球环境危机的紧迫性需要新的解决方案，并提出市场作为一种合理的机制。其次，一些新的市场超越了传统的环境商品领域：生物多样性和大气交易似乎与自然的基本方面有关，而不是木材、动物和土地的交易。

几乎所有现有的自然商品化案例都包含一些有争议的元素——例如，土地可以买卖，但其使用受到非常严格的管制；饮用水是有价的，但许多人认为所有权不应该是私有的；宠物可以买卖，但一旦动物成为某人的宠物，转售就比较少见了。传统上，环境商品的销售和使用总是受到限制。用 Polanyi 的话来说，这些商品比典型的制成品更嵌入或纠缠在一起。 66有趣的是，波兰尼本人声称土地不能成为商品（“虚构的商品”）；参见 Polanyi 2001，第 71-80 页。因此，关于自然的哪些方面可以商品化以及在何种程度上可以商品化的社会、政治和伦理争论一直存在，并且将永远存在。然而，社会可以决定市场的道德界限这一事实并不能告诉我们哪些市场是可取的或不可取的以及为什么——为此，我们需要研究支持和反对市场的论据。

这个问题的一个明显起点是关于市场道德限制的辩论。 77安德森1993 年；雷丁1996；桑德尔1998 年，第 87-122 页；萨茨2010 ; 瓦尔泽1983 年。这场辩论的大部分内容涉及两大类商品，但环境商品并不适合这两类商品。第一类涉及“个人物品”，例如代孕、卖婴儿、卖淫、卖肾。市场可能会腐蚀人与人之间的人际关系：卖淫可能会腐蚀性行为；代孕母亲可能会破坏母子关系。 88安德森1990 年，第 185-92 页。然而，交易性质主要不是关于人际关系，因为它总是涉及一些外部的东西，比如木头或风景。从这个角度来看，环境商品似乎更接近于典型的消费品（收音机、汽车），而不是个人商品。

第二类涉及“政治商品”，例如教育、选票、移民权利、监狱、征兵。在这里，安德森认为，这些指的是政治价值观，因此与市场商品有很大不同：该条款是非排他性的，它是关于原则和需求的，并且是通过声音进行监管的。 99同上，第 192-3 页。一些环保产品似乎属于这一类。例如，国家自然公园是非排他性的（对所有人开放）、以原则为基础（保护自然），并且可以是政治程序的结果。然而，与此同时，森林完全有可能由私人拥有：它可以是独占的、基于需求的和购买的。政治商品关乎公民权利和义务，关乎人们作为公民的地位，而对于大多数环境商品来说，这一点不太清楚。

这场辩论的大多数参与者都强调上下文敏感性，但他们的一般论点是市场不适合这两个类别。对于环境商品来说，这种普遍的争论策略似乎是不可信的。市场对某些环境商品没有问题，但对另一些商品则不受欢迎。为了检验市场工具的道德可取性问题，本文的策略类似于市场道德限制辩论的策略。它通过检查市场工具的支持者的支持市场的论点以及是否有相关的反对论点来与市场工具的支持者进行接触。因此，需要将支持者的论点和框架作为起点。战略优势在于，这允许与那些捍卫市场工具的人进行接触，例如经济学家和政策制定者。

本文将特别讨论两个新的环境市场：碳市场和生物多样性补偿。它有一个应用的和一般的目标。应用的目标很简单：检查这两个市场各自的道德可取性。更广泛的目标是利用这两个案例来审查支持和反对环境市场的主要论点，并在辩论中提供更多细微差别。选择这些案例是为了表明在光谱两端的立场——所有新的环境市场在道德上都是可以接受的，而它们都不是——是站不住脚的。

首先，一些有争议的、新的环保市场在道德上并不一定是不道德的可取的——一般的“自然不出售”的立场很难维持。为此，我回顾了反对环境市场的可能的道德论点，以表明在某些情况下它们不适用。这将针对碳市场进行。其次，一些（其他）新的环境市场在道德上仍然是不受欢迎的——换句话说，也不能捍卫“所有自然都可以出售”的立场。在这里，一个更有限的争论策略就足够了：即表明至少有一个重要的道德论据反对几个环境市场。这将用于生物多样性补偿。这一论点将揭示理想和不理想的环境商品化之间的重要分界线。文章的最后一部分反映了剩下的问题：