Accountability, Philosophy and the Natural Environment

287 Pages·2021·3.448 MB·English

by  Glen Lehman

Accountability, Philosophy and the
Natural Environment
Using a philosophical and interdisciplinary approach, this book looks at
how accountability can provide solutions to our current environmental and
global political problems. When a social system has external elements
imposed upon it, or presented to it, political problems are likely to emerge.
This book demonstrates that what is needed are connecting social elements
with a natural affinity to bring people together despite their differences.
This book is different from others in the field. It provides new insights by
critiquing the extant understandings of accountability and expands the
possibilities by building on Charles Taylor’s philosophies. Central to
the argument of the book are perspectives on authenticity and expressivism
that are found to provide a radical reworking of our understanding of
being in the world, and a starting point for rethinking the way individuals
and communities ought to be dealing politically with accountability and
ecological crises. The argument builds to an accountability perspective that
utilises work from interpretivism, liberalism, and postmodern theory.
The book will be of interest to researchers in environmental philosophy,
critical perspectives on accounting, corporate governance, corporate social
reporting, and environmental accounting.
Glen Lehman is Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow in the
School of Accounting and Information System, University of South
Australia.
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Renewable Energy Enterprises in Emerging Markets
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Cle-Anne Gabriel
Accountability, Philosophy and the Natural Environment
Glen Lehman
For more information about this series, please visit:
www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Sustainability-and-Business/book-series/RRSB
Accountability,
Philosophy and the
Natural Environment
Glen Lehman
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2021 Glen Lehman
The right of Glen Lehman to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lehman, Glen, 1961- author.
Title: Accountability, philosophy and the natural environment /
Glen Lehman.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. |
Series: Routledge research in sustainability and business |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020033172 (print) |
LCCN 2020033173 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367481018 (hbk) | ISBN 9781003037989 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Social accounting. | Environmental auditing. |
Human ecology. | Philosophy of nature.
Classification: LCC HN25 .L429 2021 (print) |
LCC HN25 (ebook) | DDC 304.2--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033172
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033173
ISBN: 978-0-367-48101-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-03798-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
PART I
Critical accountability 5
1 Key themes in accountability research 7
2 The art of interpretation and Nature 20
3 Markets, the business case, and interpretivism 36
4 Postmodernism and interpretivism: Basic issues 61
5 The public sphere, corporations, and society 82
6 External relations: Re-engaging the company
with the community in which it operates 95
PART II
Philosophical perspectives 113
7 Basic concepts in accountability research:
Key accountability theorists and issues 115
8 Basic issues in accountability: Interpretivism,
openness, and transparency 133
vi Contents
9 Liberal accountability: Current environmental
and social challenges and policy 147
10 Critical and radical accounting and
accountability: Basic philosophical issues
in accountability research 173
PART III
The environment 195
11 Deep Ecology and interpretivism 197
12 Deep Ecology, community, and interpretation 207
13 Perspectives on Deep Ecology: Basic issues 217
14 Deep Ecology and interpretation: Social
Ecology and how people relate to the world 227
15 Perspectives on Nature: An environmental
values perspective 246
16 New directions for environmental democracy 270
Index 272
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my parents, Douglas and Patricia, for supporting this
research over many years. I have also benefitted from many very helpful
discussions on these topics with various scholars. I should also thank those
among the social and environmental accounting community who have
supported me and my various scholarly endeavours unstintingly. In
particular, I have received support from Dr. George Couvalis, Dr. Andrew
Grienke, Professor Russell Craig, Professor David David, Emeritus Professor
Chris Mortensen, Professor David Parker, Emeritus Professor Prem Sikka
and Caitlin Pendergrast.

Introduction
This book advocates for an expressivist language of accountability that
enables a moral endeavour beyond the constraints of a narrow economic
focus. The main aim of the book is to offer alternative possibilities to reflect
on the damage unleashed by technical accounting and neoliberal ideology.
It challenges current approaches to reform accounting processes that often
embed assumptions such as commodifying nature as a reserve for con-
sumption with little regard for values external to human representation.
Transformative action in the form of an evaluative framework is offered
to embrace discursive priorities for accounting to better enable ecological
(and thereby moral) understanding. In recent times, modern management
and processes of accountability have been subject to critical scrutiny. This
problem arises because these processes have focussed on markets and effi-
ciency without full consideration of their environmental and social impacts.
Often these problems arise because bureaucratic managerial processes mask
these factors in the design of all-encompassing business procedures. These
problems are not new, but they have been made increasingly salient with
reports of companies damaging relationships with employees, other mem-
bers of our community, and the natural environment.
The accountability, environmental and management perspective, offered
focuses on how we conceive the meaning of Nature and its importance to
the project of ‘emancipatory accountability’, enabling the creation of a ri-
cher encompassing narrative and policies to protect Nature.1 Interpretation
is a critique of accountability researchers’ over-reliance on the methods of
the natural sciences advocating objectivity, arguing truth is not correctness
as espoused by such research. Rather, truth emerges from an interpretivist
process that involves how values are expressed through language.
The examination, analysis, and arguments are based on the values and
views expounded by interpretative thinkers who bring a particular focus to
politics, conflict resolution, and the ideas of a civil society. By taking an
interpretivist perspective, the argument offers a framework that critiques
the excessive reliance on procedure and a certain procedural form of moral
naturalism that dominates the social sciences. In philosophy, naturalism is
the supposition or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or