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THE United States government recently announced an $18.7 billion settlement of claims against the oil giant BP in connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in April 2010, which dumped millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Though some of the settlement funds are to compensate the region for economic harm, most will go to environmental restoration in affected states.
很难说。众所周知，用金钱去度量环境破坏是很棘手的事。一个完好的生态系统或濒危物种，不是在市场中交易的东西。我们通过愿意或不愿意以一定数量的金钱去购买商品或服务，表达我们的价值判断，但我们不会在一个消费者的语境下，透露对环境的估价。在我们看来，它们的价值就在于它们存在着。对这种存在的定价，是没有一个显而易见的办法的。 In an attempt to do so, economists and policy makers often rely on a technique called “contingent valuation,” which amounts to asking individuals survey questions about their willingness to pay to protect natural resources. The values generated by contingent valuation studies are frequently used to inform public policy and litigation. (If the government had gone to trial with BP, it most likely would have relied on such studies to argue for a large judgment against the company.) 因此，经济学家和政策制定者们往往要诉诸一种叫做“条件估值”的手段，实际上就是向个人征询意见，问他们愿意为自然资源的保护付多少钱。条件估值研究得出的价值，通常会成为公共政策和诉讼的判断依据。（如果政府要和BP对簿公堂，很有可能会据此类研究提出对BP施以重判。） Contingent valuation has always aroused skepticism. Oil companies, unsurprisingly, have criticized the technique. But many economists have also been skeptical, worrying that hypothetical questions posed to ordinary citizens may not really capture their genuine sense of environmental value. Even the Obama administration seems to discount contingent valuation, choosing to exclude data from this technique in 2014 when issuing a new rule to reduce the number of fish killed by power plants. 对条件估值持怀疑态度的大有人在。不出意外的是，石油公司一直在批评它。然而许多经济学家也在质疑，他们担心向普通民众提出假设性问题，可能无法获取到他们对环境价值的真实感受。甚至连奥巴马政府似乎都不看好条件估值，2014年发布新规以遏制发电厂对鱼群的威胁时，他们没有把这种手段得出的数据包括在内。 Do we respond to contingent valuation studies the way we respond to all other known classes of economic decisions? Or do we behave differently when environmental value is involved? 我们在条件估值研究中做出的反馈，和其他已知经济决策类型中的反馈是相同的吗？我们会不会因为研究关系到环境价值，而有不一样的表现？ To find out, we conducted a study, just published in the journal PLOS One, that compared, at a neurological level, how people responded in both situations. 为了回答这些问题，我们进行了一项研究，结果发表在了最新一期的《公共科学图书馆·综合》(PLOS One)上。研究在神经内科的层面比较了人在两种情形下的反应。 In the budding field of neuroeconomics, researchers have found striking similarity in the brain structures responsible for valuation across a host of different kinds of decision making. Our study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine activity in the brain’s valuation areas when subjects were asked to value environmental proposals (for example, protection of sea turtles, cleanup of the Gowanus Canal in New York), snack foods (e.g., tortilla chips), consumer goods (e.g., “The Simpsons: Complete Sixth Season” DVD, a Moleskine notebook) and time spent on daily activities (e.g., jogging, doing laundry). 在方兴未艾的神经科学领域，研究人员已经发现，在一系列不同的决策过程中，负责估值的大脑结构有着惊人的相似。在研究中，我们请研究对象对环保提案（比如保护海龟，清理纽约郭瓦纳斯运河）、零食（比如墨西哥玉米片）、消费品（比如《辛普森一家：第六季全集》DVD，一本Moleskine笔记本）进行估价，还有应该在一些日常活动上消耗多少时间（比如跑步、洗衣），期间我们使用功能性磁共振成像来探查大脑估值区域的活动。 Across all four types of questions, neural activity indicated that participants were paying attention. But when it came to putting values on things, we found differences. Specifically, when people put values on consumer goods, foods and time spent on daily activities, this was correlated with neural signals in the traditional valuation areas of the brain. But when people answered survey questions about the value of environmental proposals, their brain activity was uncorrelated with these areas. 神经活动显示，受试者对这四类问题都投入了注意力。然而在估值时，我们发现是有差异的。具体来说，当人在评估消费品、食物、日常活动消耗时间的价值时，和大脑的传统估值区域的神经信号是相关的。然而，一旦要对环保提案估值，他们的大脑活动和这些区域就不相关了。 The takeaway was clear: The brain did not respond to contingent valuation studies the way it did to all other known classes of economic behavior. 由此明显可以得出：大脑对条件估值研究的反馈，和对其他已知经济行为类型的反馈，是不同的。 This means that contingent valuation does not line up with what we know about the neural basis of ordinary economic decision making. However, we do not yet know how it fails to line up. Contingent valuation may overestimate environmental valuation; it may underestimate it; it may overestimate sometimes and underestimate at other times. 这就意味着，条件估值和我们所知道的一般经济决策有着不同的神经基础。然而，我们尚不清楚为什么会有这样的不一致。条件估值可能会导致环境估值过高；也可能过低；可能有时候过高，有时候过低。 Where to go from here? The trick will be to figure out how to use functional magnetic resonance imaging technology, or other such tools, to directly estimate how people value the environment in economic terms. 接下来该怎么办？诀窍在于要设法利用功能性磁共振成像技术，或其他类似的工具，直接去估量人是如何从经济角度判断环境价值的。 Of course, none of that will settle deeper philosophical questions of environmental ethics — for example, whether we owe something to future generations that individual valuations of our natural resources do not capture. But additional research can give insight into how people genuinely value the world around them, which should give a clearer picture of how grave a harm is caused by disasters like the BP spill, and how much the offenders should pay. 当然，这些都无法帮助我们解决有关环境伦理的一些更深层次的哲学问题——比如，个人对自然资源的估值，会不会忽略了我们对子孙后代的某些责任。但是，通过进一步的研究，我们可以更多地了解到人对周遭世界的价值判断，届时，我们对BP石油泄漏这类灾难的严重程度，以及为害者该付出多大代价，会有更清晰的认识。 保罗·格利姆彻(Paul Glimcher)是纽约大学神经科学中心教授。迈克尔·利弗莫尔(Michael A. Livermore )是弗吉尼亚大学法学院副教授。 翻译：经雷 |
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