Environmental Ethics

In this paper, I will reconstruct and evaluate Martha Nussbaum’s critique of John Rawls on the political status of nonhuman animals. Nussbaum’s criticisms go beyond pointing out the inadequacy of Rawls’s own view on the issue of nonhuman animals. Rather, she thinks that the Rawlsian social contract cannot plausibly be used to adequately construe humans as having duties of justice to nonhuman animals. I will review attempts in the secondary literature on Rawls and nonhuman animals that are most relevant to (...) Nussbaum’s criticisms and argue that there are plausible resources to defend Rawls against these objections, at least in terms of the possibility of his theory being modified to go beyond his own view in a helpful way. The conclusion is that Nussbaum’s arguments are not decisive against Rawls, so her own theory will be a rival rather than a nonrival to the Rawlsian social contract tradition on the issue of duties of justice to nonhuman animals. Even so, the theories can be allies in advocating for animal rights. (shrink)

Whilst the phenomenon of ‘plant blindness’ is often problematised, conceived of as a negative phenomenon, whereby plants are overlooked in favour of animal kin, I would like to make the case for a kind of positive plant blindness, which takes into account the necessary blind spots requisite for our aesthetic appreciation of plants. Namely, I shall demonstrate that the phenomenality of growth and the elusiveness of what I shall call ‘plant emergence’, qua plant movement, necessarily involves certain ‘blind spots’ in (...) our perception, which moreover shape our aesthetic appreciation of plants. By looking at plant blindness phenomenologically, we can begin to recover what Merleau-Ponty calls the ‘perceptual sense’ of our aesthetic appreciation of plants, as to eventually cultivate this appreciation. Accordingly, we shall demonstrate that the perceptual sense of our appreciation of plant ‘movement’ is a plant's growth. Whilst perceptual aids such as time-lapse photography might well help to accentuate the movement of plant growth, I shall argue that it is the unfolding nature of plant emergence, which stretches out over time, that underpins our aesthetic appreciation. With emphasis on the movement of vegetal growth, I shall explore the ways that this phenomenon shapes our aesthetic appreciation of our environments in general. In turn, I hope to illustrate how environmental aesthetics will benefit from a richer analysis of plant life. (shrink)

Contemporary society is dominated by the reality of the Anthropocene ecological crisis. In a certain subset of the ecopolitical literature, however, this topic is framed as a problem of governance. Supposedly, the unintended consequences of numerous micro-level human actions can be addressed by macro-level government interventions. Such discourses of eco-governmentality are informed by an emphasis upon the ‘planetary’ and the desirability of political centralisation. Our article seeks to critically engage with both the notion of a supposedly ‘planetary’ community of interests, (...) and also reject the idea of global eco-governmentality. In our view, not only does the misguided emphasis on global ecological governance oversimply the planetary predicament, obscuring differences between cultures and social power structures; but it also runs the risk of obviating local democracy and could also lead to an ecologically legitimated undemocratic global technocracy. Instead of centralisation, further decentralisation could be key to both thinking and acting ‘glocally’, without expecting too much from political systems. We make the case against eco-authoritarianism and also reject ecomodernism. Recent critiques relating to the pitfalls of ecomodernism can help us construct a more inclusive, bottom-up form of ecopolitics. (shrink)

Bringing about a genuinely sustainable post-growth society requires transformations in the domains of civil society, the state and business. In the domain of civil society, consumption needs to reduce, and humans need to adopt alternative lifestyles, such as voluntary simplicity and zero-waste. In this article, as a researcher of post-growth and a long-term practitioner of voluntary simplicity and zero-waste, I rely on an autoethnographic study to bring to the surface lived nuances and challenges associated with this mode of living. Such (...) challenges are associated with, for example, a lack of opportunities and stability, changes in relationships, employment, health, anxiety and stress. Far from saying that sustainable lifestyles are impossible, I make gentle suggestions to create better spaces for sustainable lifestyles, while avoiding placing hope solely in individual actions. I conclude that advocating voluntary simplicity and zero-waste must be approached with care, empathy and honesty. (shrink)

Research usually links the rise of the far right to a variety of negative emotions, especially fear and anger. This article analyses the case of the far-right ecological settler movement community Anastasia which, in the context of environmental activism, discursively centres on the positive emotion of love. Our key theoretical contribution is to highlight the importance of love for far-right mobilization while disentangling different functions of love discourse. We add an original perspective to debates on the role of emotions, far-right (...) mobilization and environmentalism by highlighting the relevance of (a) the explicit rejection of negative emotions, (b) the creation of ‘spaces of love’ in rural areas and (c) love as a discursive tool of legitimization. Methodologically, we rely on an analysis of primary text sources such as novels and Anastasia publications as well as on semi-structured interviews. Our findings are important for understanding the growing phenomenon of ‘authoritarian sustainability’. Moreover, they also shed new light on the emotional underpinnings of the contemporary wave of far-right mobilization in party and protest politics more generally. (shrink)

The capabilities approach has attracted broad interest in environmental ethics. One very interesting application is the environmental or extended capabilities approach which promotes the notion of environmental capabilities that contribute to the flourishing of non-human beings and ecological systems. The approach however lacks any account of the capabilities of ecological systems. This essay applies the environmental capabilities approach at the ecosystem level and examines how the flourishing of an ecosystem can be understood in terms of capabilities. Ecosystem flourishing presumes the (...) ability of a given system to maintain its characteristic functions, diversity and quality, and do so even in the face of various disturbances. Resilience can be understood as a central capability of ecosystems to maintain their characteristic functioning in disruptive circumstances, which is particularly important with regard to human-induced environmental changes. This argument evokes duties of ecological justice regarding ecosystems. The nature of these duties is considered and linked with a discussion on how the environmental capabilities approach can promote more holistic decision-making. (shrink)

In times of environmental degradation and depletion of land, large scale ocean farming of seaweeds, so-called seaweed culture, has lately been examined as a possible problem solver of the climate crisis. However, to understand the role of seaweed today one needs to get immersed in a complex nexus where various scientific, environmental, commercial, social and cultural interests merge. From the interdisciplinary registers of feminist blue humanities this article investigates the potential of what is here referred to as ‘feminist seaweed cultures’ (...) acknowledging environmental ethics and entanglements between humans and seaweeds in art and science. The analysis of visual artworks by ikkibawiKrrr, Ingela Ihrman and Matthew Bennington & Tom Pope opens a portal into the life and work of female seaweed pioneers active in Korean and British waters; namely the sea women haenyeo and botanists Margaret Gatty and Anna Atkins. Through proposing 'feminist seaweed cultures' as analytical tool the aim is firstly to reconceptualize seaweed as a product in aquaculture, and second to focus on visual ecological art to investigate how such artworks may deepen and make human relations to seaweed more ethical, generative and ambivalent. The findings indicate that the work of both the contemporary artists and the historical collectors can be described as feminist seaweed cultures, however in different ways. The ethical and situated perspectives provided by feminist seaweed cultures can thus foster new and old alignments between humans and seaweeds, art and science, land and sea, to support various ways of living well together in times of environmental disruptions. (shrink)

For several decades, there has been interest in traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in ecological research and conservation. Traditional knowledge and practices are recognized as essential for understanding sustainable uses of natural resources and for developing enduring eco-social policies and cross-cultural conservation ethics. In addition, there has been a growing effort in environmental policy to recognize aesthetic and spiritual values that indigenous peoples attribute to nature. In philosophy, some Western aestheticians have turned their attention to aesthetic diversity and initiated cross-cultural approaches. (...) Nonetheless, environmental aestheticians have so far paid little attention to the potential of TEK in nature appreciation. In this article, I examine Sámi notions of landscape, the environmental knowledge of Sámi reindeer herders, and their appreciation of what is commonly referred to as the natural environment. I challenge scientific cognitivism, arguing that Sámi TEK employs perceptual categories that could provide the basis for a robust ‘cognitivist’ approach and, furthermore, that Sámi appreciation of nature exemplifies a unified view that Allen Carlson called for in his late work. However, I also argue that for cultural outsiders, acquiring TEK is fraught with epistemic and ethical challenges and requires humility and diligence. (shrink)

Indigenous knowledge and work in social science demonstrates the importance for well-being of people’s relationships with places, but western moral theorists have said little on this topic. This paper argues that there is a neo-Aristotelian virtue associated with forming a relationship with a place or places; that is, human beings can form relationships with places that affect their perceptions, emotions, desires and actions, and such dispositions, when properly developed, increase the chance that people will flourish. As well as discussing the (...) virtue, the paper considers related vices and briefly outlines implications of this virtue for dispossession, pro-environmental action, and education. (shrink)

EU co-legislators recently approved the EU carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which establishes a uniform carbon price on both EU and imported products, in ETS covered sectors. This violates the CBDR-RC principle. Yet, CBAM advocates claim that the resulting unfair mitigation can be offset by scaling up climate finance, to the benefit of poorer countries. I argue that the CBAM’s unfairness is compounded by previous climate injustice, as avoidable emissions by developed countries pushed the climate crisis to the point where (...) fair mitigation is no longer viable. This implies that a disadvantage within the distributive sphere of emissions abatement cannot be counterbalanced by additional advantages within the distributive sphere of climate finance. (shrink)

This paper explores the issue of racial bias in artificial intelligence (AI) through the lens of the bioethical principle of justice, with a focus on Joy Buolamwini’s “Coded Bias” and the work of the “Algorithmic Justice League.” AI technologies, particularly facial recognition systems, have been shown to disproportionately misidentify individuals from marginalised racial groups, raising profound ethical concerns about fairness and equity. The bioethical principle of justice stresses the importance of equal treatment and the protection of vulnerable populations. Through qualitative (...) research, including content analysis of Buolamwini’s works and case studies of AI bias, this paper assesses the efforts of the Algorithmic Justice League to combat racial bias in AI. It emphasises their advocacy for the development of fair, equitable algorithms and calls for systemic reform in AI development to ensure justice for marginalised communities. (shrink)

Kì í ṣe nipa ronu la fi ń ṣẹda àwọn ayé; ṣùgbọ́n nípa agbọye ayé wa la fi ń kọ ẹ̀kọ bí a ṣe lè ronu. Cosmovision jẹ ọrọ kan ti o yẹ ki o tumọ si ipilẹ awọn ipilẹ lati eyiti o ṣe afihan oye eto ti Agbaye, awọn paati rẹ bi igbesi aye, agbaye ti a ngbe, iseda, iṣẹlẹ eniyan, ati awọn ibatan wọn. Nítorí náà, ó jẹ́ pápá ìmọ̀ ọgbọ́n orí ìtúpalẹ̀ tí àwọn sáyẹ́ǹsì ń jẹ, ẹni (...) tí ète rẹ̀ jẹ́ àkópọ̀ àti ìmọ̀ alágbero nípa ohun gbogbo tí a jẹ́ tí ó sì ní nínú, tí ó yí wa ká, tí ó sì ní í ṣe pẹ̀lú wa lọ́nàkọnà. O jẹ nkan ti o ti dagba bi ero eniyan, ati, ni afikun si lilo awọn eroja ti imọ-jinlẹ imọ-jinlẹ, o yika ohun gbogbo ni imọ-jinlẹ ati imọ-jinlẹ ti o tọka si agbaye ati igbesi aye. Cosmovision kii ṣe akojọpọ awọn imọran, awọn idawọle, ati awọn arosinu ṣugbọn eto ti o da lori akiyesi, itupalẹ, ẹri, ati ifihan. Ko si cosmovision ti o pinnu lati ṣalaye, fi idi mulẹ, tabi daba ṣugbọn loye nikan, ṣe itupalẹ, ati itumọ. Olukuluku wa kọ ati gbe oju-aye rẹ jakejado igbesi aye, laisi iṣeto awọn fọọmu, bi ipilẹṣẹ fun ironu ati ihuwasi wa. (shrink)

The economy and global competitiveness are the bottom line for society and governments, or so says conventional wisdom. But what are the real needs that must be satisfied to live rich, fulfilling lives? This is the question David Suzuki explores in this wide-ranging study. Suzuki begins by presenting the concept of people as creatures of the Earth who depend on its gifts of air, water, soil, and sun energy. He shows how people are genetically programmed for the company of other (...) species, and suffer enormously when we fail to live in harmony with them. And he analyzes those deep spiritual needs, rooted in nature, that are also a crucial component of a loving world. Drawing on his own experiences and those of others who have put their beliefs into action, "The Sacred Balance" is a powerful, passionate book with concrete suggestions for creating an ecologically sustainable, satisfying, and fair future by rediscovering and addressing humanity' s basic needs. (shrink)

Some philosophers believe in improvement: they think that the world is a better place than it used to be, and that future generations will fare even better. Others see decline: they claim that the condition of humanity has deteriorated and will continue to do so. Much ink has also been spilt over what explains these historical patterns. These two disagreements about the shape of history concern largely descriptive issues. But there is also a third, purely normative question that has been (...) neglected: is it better if a history features a pattern of improvement rather than deterioration, holding other things equal? This paper develops an answer to this normative question and explores some of its implications for matters related to the future of humanity. (shrink)

Industrial agriculture led to a worldwide homogenization of crops and modes of cultures, but also of landscapes and relationships to the land, threatening at the same time biodiversity and cultural diversity. Developing alternatives to the agro-industrial system inherited from the twentieth century is therefore one of the greatest challenges facing humankind today. This article advocates for the promotion of the French concept of “terroir” as a foundational framework for preserving biocultural diversity, illustrating an ethical way of relating to the land. (...) Already enshrined in European law for three decades and under study at the UNESCO and the FAO, it encourages farmers to adopt ecologically virtuous practices, while ensuring greater economic incomes. Moreover, it enhances the value of their work and their specific relationship with their environment in the long run. It also epitomizes broader worldwide initiatives, which propose basing agriculture not against the environment (both human and natural) but in symbiosis with it. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of interspecies communication in the pursuit of coexistence with wolves returning to the Netherlands. Low-conflict coexistence with wolves in densely populated countries calls for an abandonment of the traditional culture-nature dichotomy. Moreover, it requires that humans learn to understand the wolf’s needs and ways perceiving the world, and engage in a ‘negotiation process’ with wolves about how to share the landscape. However, the mere knowledge of how other beings perceive the world does not suffice; it (...) might even lead to a more controlling human attitude towards wildlife. Sharing landscapes with resurging wolves in a more ‘meaningful’ or ‘convivial’ way, requires a willingness to co-adapt and recognize wolves as beings with agency and a legitimate claim to space. A mutual learning process is needed, in which humans and nonhumans both can learn how to thrive, and how to avoid unnecessary conflicts in a shared landscape. (shrink)

There are extensive literatures on two kinds of non-anthropocentric values: animal welfare and such environmental goods as biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. These values are also widely recognized and have influenced public policy. But there is no generally accepted overarching conception of the welfare of life on Earth. Such conceptions are described here, their potential utility is explained, and various objections and difficulties are addressed. So broad a conception of welfare must have multiple components, including an expansive conception of physical health (...) and, for sentient life forms, a conception of hedonic well-being. These are incommensurable, so methods are needed for accommodating and aggregating incommensurable values. Such methods are described. Finally, three problems of application are briefly discussed: establishing well-grounded measures of welfare, obtaining the data necessary to use them, and making the results intelligible to decision-makers and the public. (shrink)

Rewilding is often promoted and defended with eudaimonistic reasons, by appeals to living better, happier lives. It has long been argued eudaimonistic reasoning is hopelessly self-interested and, in an environmental context, anthropocentric. Holmes Rolston’s classic critique of environmental virtue ethics stands to challenge the rewilding movement’s increasing focus on happier lives, rather than intrinsic natural value. This critique misses the mark, however, by insisting on an impressively longstanding, yet unhelpfully rigid distinction between egoistic and altruistic ethical reasoning. In this way, (...) Rolston’s critique serves as an example of some much older and larger tensions which haunt everyday ethical thinking, tensions between desiring the good and doing what’s right, between self-love and selfishness. This paper embraces Rolston’s lifelong love of our living world, while nuancing what it means to hope for a Good Life within it. (shrink)

Degrowth research critiques the ideology of growth but does not explain how degrowth values gain public traction and turn into a new ideology. This article shows that degrowth values emerge from the contestation of institutions that maintain the growth imperative and the proposition of new institutions embodying alternative values. First, the article problematises the (counter)hegemonic challenge posed by degrowth, explaining why degrowth research needs to question the institutions that influence social practices. Second, it conceptualises degrowth as a double movement of (...) contestation and proposition that works within and against the ideological apparatus sustaining the growth imperative. The historical struggle to save the Lutkemeerpolder in Amsterdam – the last remaining agricultural land in the city – shows how a degrowth ideology developed through the contestation of the institutional apparatus sustaining the growth of the airport-related industry. This struggle unfolded into a wider movement that has proposed new institutions embodying degrowth values such as commoning and conviviality. (shrink)

In our contemporary world, the rights of nature have become an important legal device for environmental protection. Some of the most influential rights of nature frameworks can be found in non-Western contexts and have been strongly influenced by ecocentric accounts of nature. This article addresses the question of whether rights of nature can be implemented in Western contexts as well, focusing in particular on Europe. It first examines ecocentric justifications of the rights of nature and discusses two possible non-ecocentric alternatives. (...) Second, two models for implementing rights of nature—the nature’s rights model and the legal personhood model—are compared to demonstrate how different combinations of elements from both models can fit different socio-cultural contexts, including Western ones. (shrink)

Hope is a disputed concept in the context of the climate movement. Basic analysis suggests that hope is important for political action – however, groups including XR have explicitly disavowed hope, and the facts of the crisis might more readily incline us to despair. Some authors, for instance Diana Stuart, have attempted to resolve this contradiction by arguing that ‘anti-hope’ climate activists are only rejecting forms of ‘false hope’, and that we should instead see their action as being motivated by (...) other forms of hope: one oft-mentioned candidate is the ‘radical hope’ discussed by Jonathan Lear. In this paper, I aim to do two things. Firstly, I show that we should not understand climate hope as ‘radical hope’, but rather as what I call ‘spontaneous hope’ – drawing on Jonathan Gingerich's work on ‘spontaneous freedom’. Secondly, I show that there is a relationship between spontaneous hope and the feeling of (righteous) anger. This in turn can help explain empirical work which establishes a link between climate activism and anger. (shrink)

This book charts the multidimensional course of what has come to be known as the “Vegetal Turn” in environmental humanities - a wave of theoretical and practical interest in the complexities and peculiarities of plant life and plant-human relations. The Vegetal turn consists of increasingly sophisticated, inter- and trans-disciplinary, inter- and trans-cultural explorations of the multiple systems and networks of communication, intelligence, technical-operational capabilities, and relations articulated by and via plants - as well as the ethical, economic, cultural, and political (...) dimensions of plant-human interactions and practices. The volume includes contributions from philosophy and the humanities more generally that explore and reflect on the history, prospects, and applications of four main themes that the Vegetal Turn has brought to general attention: the mind of plants, and what their peculiar mentality can tell us about mind more generally; plant personhood and/or moral standing, and the justifications and implications of attributions thereof; plant relationships with humans, plant-based human relationships, and the ethics of human practices with or regarding plants - from agriculture to the arts, from forest management to urban design ; as well as the rights and/or political representation of plant life and the other life-forms that depend on it, human as well as non-human, present and future. (shrink)

This chapter is a journey into the ontological significance of place in consideration of the Atlantic Tasmanian salmon industry and its challenges to the ethical discourse around the social license to operate (SLO) beyond the oxymoron of a name. It centres the discourse around the salmon itself. A once totem animal, responsible for the balance of Canada’s abundant ecosystem, now reduced to a mere source of protein, manipulated, and commodified by Tasmania’s ‘big business’ and against the SLO of Flanagan’s ‘Toxic’. (...) It applies Ortega y Gasset’s mid-twentieth century solution to the problem of our western disconnection from place to the current neoliberal political framework. This welcomes an inclusive dialogue with kinship structures of the Mi’kmaq peoples reflected also in the ontological narrative of the First Nations people of Tasmania. This multidisciplinary journey necessitates a concept of the SLO founded upon ethical responsibility and a cultural license if it is to genuinely hold to account the corporate sovereign. (shrink)

Recycling carbon revenues as Equal Per Capita Carbon Dividends (ECDs) is thought to neutralise the two main objections to carbon pricing, namely that it is regressive and that it hinders the poor from meeting basic needs. This article focuses on the waste objection to carbon pricing plus ECDs. If the rationale for ECDs is to protect the consumption of the worst off, why pay carbon dividends to the rich as well? I examine three different normative arguments in favour of ECDs. (...) First, the argument of common ownership of the atmosphere, which can be based on both libertarianism and isolationist egalitarianism. Second, the argument that the rich are net contributors to ECDs through their carbon taxes. Third, a consequentialist argument focusing on the pragmatic advantages of ECDs, especially in terms of social acceptability and low information costs. I conclude that none of these arguments can provide a normative justification for ECDs. (shrink)

This volume offers critical philosophical and interdisciplinary perspectives on contemporary and historic accounts of living in accordance with the broad natural world as at the center of a good and wise life. It also explores the meaning and idea of nature in these different perspectives as it relates to and is distinguished from cultural life. It builds on the work of Pierre Hadot and others on the connection that philosophers, mystics, scholars, and others (ancient and modern) have seen between nature (...) (as articulated in physics, metaphysics, ontologies, ecologies, biologies, and evolutionary theories) and forms of self-communal cultivation. (shrink)

This article re-investigates the underlying values driving the rapidly growing rewilding movement in Europe and North America. In doing so, we respond to a common academic narrative that draws a sharp distinction between North American and European approaches to rewilding. Whereas the first is said to promote a colonial vision of wilderness, European rewilding is claimed to value a more inclusive notion of wildness. We challenge this narrative through a genealogical investigation into the wild(er)ness ideas that inspired rewilding, showing that (...) North American and European rewilding draw from similar philosophical sources with cross-continental origins. Thus, we contend that a linguistic shift from ‘wilderness’ to ‘wildness’ fails to engage substantively with the colonial critique it alleges to resolve. Through two case studies, we show how both wilderness and wildness concepts have been employed to support either colonialism or decolonial resistance and draw attention to the need to consider specific socio-political contexts when assessing rewilding. Ultimately, we propose that reclaiming a liberatory meaning of wild(er)ness, articulated in a critical tradition of wild(er)ness advocacy, will be an essential step in decolonising rewilding. (shrink)

Periods of accelerated societal change in European history have disrupted gradual alteration in the landscape, creating breaks with the past. This has led to, what we refer to as, the contemporary landscape identity complex in the Netherlands. Composed of dissonant narratives surrounding the landscape that play out on the societal level, the contemporary landscape identity complex may create tensions that can obstruct conservation efforts. In this article, we map out this complex. Three narrative clusters, distilled from literature and supplemented by (...) interviews, aid in understanding the tension regarding the future of the Dutch contemporary rural landscape, namely: ‘the utilitarian narrative’, ‘the romantic narrative’, and ‘the eco-scientific narrative’. The contemporary landscape identity complex is fed by these narratives, specifically through how rural landscapes are imagined and discussed, as opposed to how they are lived and acted upon. The way such narratives play out in practice is further investigated through a case study on the ‘Bommelerwaard’, an area in the south-central of the Netherlands. From our results, we propose a pathway to reconcile the contemporary landscape identity complex towards a landscape conservation ethic that allows for a co-existence of a diversity of images and ideas about (semi-) natural landscapes. (shrink)