Deliberating values

Recent literature on ecosystem services call for serious consideration of value pluralism to challenge the monism prevalent in the individualistic valuation approaches that hitherto has dominated value assessment in decision-making. In this, deliberative valuation (DV) approaches are claimed necessary to bring about a pluralistic outcome in terms of valuation results that are inclusive and ethically considerate. Based on social interaction and value discussions in groups, DV depends heavily on how group processes are managed and facilitated. Yet, though recurrently asked for, no empirical study has addressed how facilitation is or can be used in DV to enhance its ideals. In this paper, we explore how facilitation shapes group dynamics to support deliberative ideals and identify a workable definition of what deliberation on values actually constitutes in practice. Drawing on a DV case study on environmental management in a coastal community in Sweden, we suggest there is a trade-off between different deliberative ideals of pluralism in deliberative democracy and deliberative ecological economics, respectively, which stems from paying too little attention to knowledge about the emotional dimension of group dynamics in political decision-making processes. Attending to this trade-off, we propose how to facilitate deliberating values in deliberative group processes in general and in DV in particular.