Normative ecological economics as a condition for sustainable development

Abstract

 This paper aims to highlight the absolute competitiveness between positive and normative economics. The article presents this controversy as a pretext to analyse a specific field of operation of ecological economics. The normative approach in the ecological economics is needed in the complex age of increasing deficits and confronting threats to biological and social sustainability. Reliable data from biology, physics, chemistry and medicine inform us what is dangerous. They also suggest directions of changes and their necessary scale. The normative approach, based on the guidelines from the basic natural sciences, allows for the creation of economic theories and models and then derives specific, quantitative premises for actions taken in the economy. The thesis of this article boils down to the statement that the effective involvement of ecological economics in the theoretical and practical solving of sustainable development problems is possible only through the use of the normative approach.