Abstract
Curren and Metzger's work makes a bold, normative claim: The moral goal of sustainability is human flourishing. Their eudaimonic theory has as its summum bonum 'living well' according to the fundamental psychological needs and potentials of our species. With this, Curren and Metzger implicitly affirm precisely what, today, many theoretical ethicists strain to deny - a stable human nature. (Or what Marx, emphasizing humanity's sociality, termed 'species-being') Relatedly, Curren and Metzger's work stands in clear opposition to the 'deep ecology' tradition as well. For deep ecology criticizes any special focus on human need as an illicit 'speciesism' and instrumentalization of nature. Though the authors do not engage with deep ecology specifically, their contrast (and surprising confluence) with this school of thought is well worth exploring. For the meta-ethical assumptions on either side of this humanist/biocentric divide have real import for how sustainable policies are conceived and crafted.