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Exploring the Frontiers of Environmental Management: A Natural Law-based Perspective

Department of Management, Erivan K. Haub School of Business, St Joseph’s University, 5600 City Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19131-1395, USA, steingar{at}sju.edu

Dale E. Fitzgibbons

Illinois State University, Department of Management and Quantitative Methods, Williams Hall, Normal, IL 61790, USA, defitz{at}ilstu.edu

Dennis Heaton

School of Business and Public Administration, Maharishi University of Management, 1000 North Fourth Street-FM 1054, USA, dheaton{at}mum.edu

Environmental management (EM) is at a turning point in its evolution as a discipline. Daunting social, ecological and spiritual problems of global magnitude implore EM to be inspiring and efficacious in theory and practice. Ironically, the present EM movement, in its ontologically dualistic configuration—measuring and manipulating the environment as an abstract, objectified economic resource for human gain—is unknowingly contributing to the very ecological degradation it wishes to ameliorate. In order for EM to become a truly ‘transformative epistemology’,¹ its praxis must ontologically transcend the narrow foundations of staunch empiricism, logical positivism and rationalism that now firmly gird it. As a possible alternative to EM’s ‘monological flatland’, ² we introduce a holistic praxiological system grounded in the ancient Indian vedanta wisdom tradition. Natural law-based environmental management (NLBEM) portends a radical metamorphosis of EM into a discipline that makes a meaningful impact on today’s precarious global condition.

Journal of Human Values, Vol. 10, No. 2, 79-97 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/097168580401000202


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