necessitate some form of totalitarianism or quasi-totalitarianism, or at any rate the end of constitutional democracy as we have known it (15-16).* It is the thesis of this paper that the above assumptions and judgments, though widely shared, are in fact false. Not only may it be technologically and economically possible to follow a “mixed” energy strategy for the future, it is also possible — indeed normal and necessary — to follow a mixed value strategy as well. Technological options, it will be argued, are highly equivocal as to value consequences. This is not a problem for political and social decision makers, however, since throughout history societies — including our own — have pursued a mixed strategy of value implementation and can and probably will continue to do so in the future. We shall illustrate how this mixed strategy has operated in the past by focusing on the values of freedom and equality, and attempt to show how the implementation for these values of various projected energy strategies are necessarily equivocal but not undesirably so. The debate over the alternative sources of energy is as confused, overlapping and cross-cutting as it is often bitter. But increasingly there has emerged a tendency for proponents of virtually all positions to posit or accept the existence of two broad types or “paths” of energy production — the “hard” path and the “soft” path. The former stresses continued emphasis on such by now conventional sources of energy as coal, oil, and nuclear power, while the latter is associated with a wide variety of solar or otherwise “renewable” energy sources including wind power, geothermal energy, biomass conversion, active and passive solar systems, and similar non- conventional means.t My concern in this paper is not to enter the debate between the proponents of the two paths on the level of technological or economic considerations but rather to attempt to clarify the debate which is occurring on the level of philosophy and politics, explicitly or, even more often, implicitly. To discuss the philosophical and political implications of alternative energy futures requires coming to grips with two closely related but nevertheless distinct and independent sets of issues. One of these hinges on the empirical analysis of alleged causal relationships between alternative energy sources and social values and institutions. Will increased coal mining lead to greater injury among workers? Will “cogeneration” make it possible for small businesses to survive rising energy prices by consuming their own wastes? Though far from simple, these are essentially questions of fact which can, in theory at least, be resolved through the collection and analysis of data. But there is also another set of issues which must be resolved which has to do with political and ethical values themselves and their interrelationships. To what extent are different values incompatible or complementary? Insofar as values such as protection of individual lives or greater economic equality are incompatible which should be preferred? What is the proper ethical relationship between security of nuclear shipments and protection of individual rights of movement and speech? What are the appropriate criteria or mechanisms for making such judgments and choices? *Heilbroner writes that "candor compels me to suggest that the passing through the gauntlet ahead may be possible only under governments capable of rallying obedience far more effectively than would be possible in a democratic setting" (15). Brown writes that “it would seem likely that if industrial civilization survives it will become increasingly totalitarian in nature" (16). tLovins says of soft technologies that “They rely on reversible energy flows . . . They are diverse . . . They are flexible and relatively low-technology, which does not mean unsophisticated but, rather, easy to understand and use without esoteric skills, accessible rather than arcane . . . They are matched in scale and in geographic distribution to end-use needs . . . They are matched in energy quality to end-use needs ..." (6).
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