Environmental Ethics

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)

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)

Environmental philosophy – broadly conceived as using philosophical tools to develop ideas related to environmental issues – is conducted and practised in highly diverse ways in different contexts and traditions in Asia. ‘Asian environmental philosophy’ can be understood to include Asian traditions of thought as well as grassroots perspectives on environmental issues in Asia. Environmental issues have sensitive political facets tied to who has the legitimacy to decide about how natural resources are used. Because of this, the works, practices, and (...) researchers in Asian environmental philosophy are exposed to being (mis)used by diverse stakeholders and actors to support political ends not related to environmental sustainability. Two processes are at play at the nexus of the construction of identities in relation to conceptualisations of nature: eco-orientalism and ecological nationalisms. This paper analyzes and exemplifies these dynamics through a conceptual framework that distinguishes ideological and socio-technical explanations of environmental degradation. Finally, to minimise the risks of political misuse, five pathways are presented to carefully help curate environmental, philosophical statements: contextualise, quantify uncertainty and ‘uniqueness’, downscale, confront claims with local realities and literature, and collaborate with researchers from other disciplines. Conjointly, these pathways aim at favouring intercultural collaboration while valuing diversity, thus supporting the development and exchanges in environmental philosophy in Asia and beyond. (shrink)

This paper considers the prospects for a green Kantian philosophy. It does so by revisiting Steven Vogel’s postnaturalist objections against Kant. Though Descartes is part of the story, Kant is a primary environmental obstacle for Vogel. Like others in environmental philosophy, Vogel criticizes Kant for his dualism, anthropocentrism, idealism, and nonconsequentialism. The present paper looks into the first two objections. It begins by reconstructing Vogel’s argument against “nature” to appreciate his claim that modern philosophy haunts contemporary environmental philosophy. After pointing (...) out difficulties with Vogel’s objections, resources in Kant are explored to assuage Vogel’s concerns regarding noumena and non-human animals. The paper concludes with a glimpse of an alternate interpretation of Kant that has the potential to respond to the remaining worries of idealism and nonconsequentialism. (shrink)

Ocean-based salmon farming, as presently practiced, is thought to pose an existential threat to what we today think of as wild salmon. This raises ethical questions about, first, the value of wild salmon, and, second, the value of wild salmon of the particular type that exists today. This essay uses the debate around ocean-based salmon farming as a case study of ‘irreversible damage’, a concept that figures heavily in environmental laws and regulations, in particular, in the so-called ‘precautionary principle’. It (...) is argued that although ocean-based salmon farming may, on the face of it, seem to be a prime example of a threat of irreversible damage, a wish to avoid irreversible damage does not support banning such farming. In contrast, it is argued that concern for irreplaceable value might support a ban. The findings suggest that it would often be appropriate for environmentalists and conservationists to focus more on irreplaceable value and less on irreversible damage. (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)

The Free Market as the synthesis of totalitarianism and anarchism --- The most efficient market is the most politically-concentrated market --- There really needs to be a single consolidated global military as a result of eradicating the military other AND a single consolidated global police as a result of eradicating the military arsenal AND simply total internalization of relations of power as a result of eradicating the polis AND the principle of radical economic sustainability which is simultaneously that of radical (...) political preservation as the single principle of total internalization of relations of power only---man is something that shall be overcome. (shrink)

The end of nature problem can be framed as a dilemma: either all human intentional actions are natural or they are all unnatural and destroy nature as an effect. Given the scope of human influence, the latter entails that there is no nature left on Earth. Therefore, the environmentalist project of protecting nature is either unnecessary or futile. Prevailing attempts to forge a middle path – by, for example, distinguishing natural from unnatural human activities – struggle to find metaphysical grounding. (...) I argue that the biological concept of human proper functioning can ground the relevant distinction between natural and unnatural human activities. Only unnatural activities can destroy nature; specifically, those activities that trace back to beliefs about value that diverge from the human lifeform. (shrink)

This paper aims to engineer the concept of biomimetic design for its application in agricultural technology as an innovation strategy to sustain non-human species’ adaptation to today’s rapid environmental changes. By questioning the alleged intrinsic morality of biomimicry, a formulation of it is sought that goes beyond the sharp distinction between nature as inspiration and the human field of application of biomimetic technologies. After reviewing the main literature on Responsible Innovation, we support Vincent Blok’s “eco-centric” perspective on biomimicry, which considers (...) the human and natural worlds as indistinguishable parts of a shared Earth. We propose this approach as a complement to the “evomimetic” critique, which warns biomimetic research against the limits of adaptationism. By merging these two reframing of the biomimicry concept, we thus pave the way for a new understanding of the use of human-inspired technology (such as artificial intelligence) to help the “evolution” of domesticated species into (semi)autonomous natural-technological hybrids. In particular, the examples we consider concern the potential of AI-enabled robotic bases in technological beekeeping. (shrink)

Breaking with the orthodoxy, Compassionate Conservationists have taken issue with the way that individual wild animals are routinely sacrificed for the sake of species preservation or for the good of the ecosystem. Though explicitly aligning themselves with virtue ethics, there has been some confusion about what this means in practice. How is the perfectly compassionate person to act when the choice is between intentionally harming animals and protecting biodiversity? And what if the choice is between direct and indirect harm to (...) animals? Some critics suggest that when faced with these kinds of conflicts of value, Compassionate Conservationists will invariably base their choices either on the arbitrary feelings an action elicits in them, or else revert back to the decision-making procedures that characterize Traditional Conservation. In response, I argue (first) that these critics fail to appre- ciate that compassion often plays an essential role in moral deliberation. Second, that being compassionate matters even if it does not end up having a discernable effect on what one chooses to do. When one is faced with a tragic predicament in which harming individual animals is unavoidable, for instance, it matters here that one respond with an appropriate compassion. Third, that even when a situa- tion’s difficulty requires one to appeal to the impersonal norms of justice, here too it is required that one proceed with compassion. I end by illustrating these points through the close consideration of a case study: New Zealand’s controversial preda- tor extermination campaign. (shrink)

My focus in this philosophy paper is rocks. When I say rocks, I mean the solid mineral material that forms parts of the earth’s surface, otherwise known as pebbles, boulders, or a mountain range. Specifically, my aim in this paper is to detail the kinds of moral responsibilities that humans have toward rocks within an ethical framework of Indigenous Kinship Ethics. This responsibility is complex and contextual–like all moral responsibility–but complexity is not a compelling argument to dismiss ethical obligation. To (...) do this work, first I overview the metaphysics of the force that drives moral responsibility with so-called ‘natural objects’: what I refer to as the relations-measure. Then, I detail the moral responsibilities that human agents have to rocks, as well as rocks have to human agents through a two tiers of humility model. I offer one example of relationality with rocks within Indigenous Kinship Ethics–the reverential role that Siedi rocks hold in Sámi culture, both in Sápmi and in the Sámi-American diaspora–to detail the kinds of moral responsibilities to rocks that Indigenous Kinship Ethics commits us to in pluralistic ways. Lastly, I discuss the implications of moral responsibility to so-called natural objects in global conversations on Indigenous Environmental Justice. (shrink)

हम सोच कर दुनिया नहीं बनाते। दुनिया को समझ कर हम सोचना सीखते हैं। कॉस्मोविज़न एक ऐसा शब्द है जिसका मतलब नींव का एक समूह होना चाहिए जिससे ब्रह्मांड, जीवन के रूप में इसके घटकों, जिस दुनिया में हम रहते हैं, प्रकृति, मानवीय घटनाओं और उनके संबंधों की एक व्यवस्थित समझ उभरती है। इसलिए, यह विज्ञान द्वारा पोषित विश्लेषणात्मक दर्शन का एक क्षेत्र है, जिसका उद्देश्य हम जो हैं और जो हमारे चारों ओर है, और जो किसी भी तरह से (...) हमसे संबंधित है, उसके बारे में यह एकत्रित और ज्ञानमीमांसीय रूप से स्थायी ज्ञान है। यह मानव विचार जितना ही पुराना है, और वैज्ञानिक ब्रह्मांड विज्ञान के तत्वों का उपयोग करने के अलावा, यह दर्शन और विज्ञान में ब्रह्मांड और जीवन को संदर्भित करने वाली हर चीज को शामिल करता है। एक कॉस्मोविज़न विचारों, परिकल्पनाओं और मान्यताओं का एक समूह नहीं है, बल्कि अवलोकन, विश्लेषण, साक्ष्य और प्रदर्शन पर आधारित एक प्रणाली है। कोई भी कॉस्मोविज़न परिभाषित करने, स्थापित करने या प्रस्तावित करने का इरादा नहीं रखता है, बल्कि केवल समझने, विश्लेषण करने और व्याख्या करने का इरादा रखता है। हममें से प्रत्येक व्यक्ति अपने सोच और व्यवहार के लिए पृष्ठभूमि के रूप में, रूपों को स्थापित किए बिना, जीवन भर अपने कॉस्मोविज़न का निर्माण और परिवहन करता है। भाषाई रूप से, "कॉस्मोविज़न" शब्द जर्मन से लिया गया है, जो कई दार्शनिकों द्वारा इस्तेमाल किए गए "वेल्टनशाउंग" की अवधारणा के बराबर है। हालाँकि, यह भाषाई संबंध लागू नहीं होता है क्योंकि यह हमारे द्वारा प्रस्तावित ब्रह्मांड-दृष्टि के विपरीत है। यह जर्मन शब्द वास्तविकता के एक पूर्व-तार्किक या प्रोटो-प्रयोगात्मक दृष्टिकोण को संदर्भित करता है, जिसमें एक सहज संदर्भ होता है और आलोचनात्मक ज्ञान से बहुत दूर होता है जो इसके निर्माण के समय भी अस्तित्व में नहीं था। निस्संदेह, ब्रह्मांड-दृष्टि, जिस अर्थ में हम उन्हें समझते हैं, इन प्रोटो-प्रयोगात्मक या पूर्व-तार्किक तत्वों को समाहित करता है और उनका उपयोग करता है जिसमें इतिहास, सामूहिक अचेतन और हमारे द्वारा धारण किए जाने वाले सभी मूलरूप शामिल हैं। हालाँकि, जिस अवधारणा को हम यहाँ लागू करते हैं, उसमें ब्रह्मांड-दृष्टि इस सामग्री से बहुत आगे निकल जाती है, सबसे पहले इसे लगातार वर्तमान आलोचनात्मक सोच के अधीन करके, और अंत में विश्लेषणात्मक अनुभव (और न कि विचार या अंतर्ज्ञान) को अपना वास्तविक ब्रह्मांड बनाकर। एंटोनियो लोपेस इस विषय-वस्तु की व्यापकता को उजागर करते हैं: "ब्रह्मांडीय दर्शन विचार की उपज नहीं हैं। वे जानने की सरल इच्छा से उत्पन्न नहीं होते हैं। वास्तविकता की समझ इसकी संरचना में एक महत्वपूर्ण क्षण है, लेकिन फिर भी, यह केवल एक है। यह जीवन के मूल्यांकन के अनुभव से, और हमारी मानसिक समग्रता की संरचना से, जीवन को वास्तविकता के ज्ञान में, मूल्यांकन में, और इच्छाधारी वास्तविकता में चेतना तक ऊपर उठाना वह धीमा और कठिन कार्य है जो मानवता ने जीवन की अवधारणाओं के विकास में किया है।" -/- . (shrink)

This paper seeks to intervene in environmental ethics and social epistemology. Within a predominant strand of environmental ethics, one witnesses accounts based on nonhumans’ ability to suffer, and consequently, the passivity of nonhumans. On the other hand, social epistemology is often not social enough insofar as it does not include nonhumans. Seminal accounts of epistemic injustice often conceal or exclude the possibility that nonhumans can be subjects of knowledge and victims of epistemic injustice because of an anthropocentric bias that maintains (...) propositional language is a necessary condition for knowledge. By presenting a non-anthropocentric, corporeal epistemology, this paper reveals a more affirmative account of nonhumans as epistemic agents with tacit, embodied knowledge. To prevent epistemic depreciation turning into ethical indifference or wrongdoing, this paper focuses on whether it is possible to commit epistemic injustices against nonhumans. In particular, this paper argues that humans can commit fourth-order epistemic exclusion, testimonial injustice, and testimonial smothering against nonhumans. (shrink)

This paper seeks to intervene in environmental ethics and social epistemology. Within a predominant strand of environmental ethics, one witnesses accounts based on nonhumans’ ability to suffer, and consequently, the passivity of nonhumans. On the other hand, social epistemology is often not social enough insofar as it does not include nonhumans. Seminal accounts of epistemic injustice often conceal or exclude the possibility that nonhumans can be subjects of knowledge and victims of epistemic injustice because of an anthropocentric bias that maintains (...) propositional language is a necessary condition for knowledge. By presenting a non-anthropocentric, corporeal epistemology, this paper reveals a more affirmative account of nonhumans as epistemic agents with tacit, embodied knowledge. To prevent epistemic depreciation turning into ethical indifference or wrongdoing, this paper focuses on whether it is possible to commit epistemic injustices against nonhumans. In particular, this paper argues that humans can commit fourth-order epistemic exclusion, testimonial injustice, and testimonial smothering against nonhumans. (shrink)

Should historical injustices always be repaired? Most public institutions and present holdings reveal links to past injustices, making reparation imperative. However, what if repairing historical injustices conflicts with distributive justice demands? Through discussions of post-colonial injustices against Indigenous peoples and of the injustices committed by the Global North against the Global South, particularly in the context of climate change, this book argues that repairing historical injustices can and must be reconciled with the imperatives of distributive justice.

We are in a time of rapid change on multiple levels. Change can be seen as positive by one group and negative by another. As a result, different perspectives on any given change can draw completely different conclusions. In these proceedings we want to address different approaches to change from all kinds of perspectives within the realm of citizen science and participatory research. We discuss both active, transformative change, and the observation of change monitored by citizen science in all kinds (...) of disciplines. We highlight the potential of citizen science to be a change maker in research and society, and as a tool to manage the change happening around us. The proceedings "Change - The transformative power of citizen science" showcase a selection of topics that have been presented and discussed at the ECSA/ACSC 2024 double conference in Vienna and highlight the transformative power, citizen science can have. (shrink)

This paper critically interrogates the anti-fat beliefs that are employed in environmental bioethics, particularly in response to climate change. Fat bodies have been associated with climate change because they are presumed to consume more resources and produce more greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, we argue that such interpretations employ mistaken assumptions to justify placing disproportionate blame on already oppressed individuals, reinforcing weight stigma, which increases the vulnerability of fat people to a range of harms and disproportionately affects communities of (...) color. For these reasons, conceiving fat bodies as harmful to the environment is both misguided and unjust. (shrink)

Background: Exposomics, the study of the exposome, is flourishing, but the field is not well defined. The term “exposome” refers to all environmental influences and associated biological responses throughout the lifespan. However, this definition is very similar to that of the term “environment”—the external elements and conditions that surround and affect the life and development of an organism. Consequently, the exposome seems to be nothing more than a synonym for the environment, and exposomics a synonym for environmental research. As a (...) result, some have rebranded their “standard” environmental health research with the neologistic exposome term, whereas others ignore or seek to abandon the seemingly redundant concept of the exposome. -/- Objectives: We argue that exposomics needs to sharpen its mission focus to counteract this apparent redundancy. Exposomics should be defined as a research program in environmental health aimed at enabling a comprehensive and discovery-driven approach to identifying environmental determinants of human health. Similar to the aim of the Human Genome Project, exposomics aims to analyze the complete complexity of exposures and their corresponding biological responses. Exposomics’ primary premise is that the existence of undiscovered, potentially interconnected, nongenetic (environmental) risk factors for health necessitates a comprehensive discovery-driven analysis approach. -/- Discussion: We argue that exposomics researchers should adopt our reconceptualization of exposomics and focus on the productiveness and integrity of their research program: its purpose and principles. We suggest that exposomics researchers should coordinate the writing of reviews that assess the program’s productiveness and integrity, as well as provide a platform for exposomics researchers to define their vision for the field. (shrink)

Astrobiocentrism is a vision that places us in a scenario of confirmation of life in the universe, either as a second genesis or as an expansion of humanity in space. It manages to raise consistent arguments in relation to questions such as what would happen to knowledge if life were confirmed in the universe, how would this change the way we understand our place in the cosmos? Astrobiocentrism raises a series of reflections in the context of confirmed discovery, and it (...) develops concepts that work directly with what would happen after irrefutable evidence has been obtained that we are not alone in space. Unlike biocentrism or ecocentrism, the astrobiocentric view is not limited to the Earth-centric perspective, and for it incorporates a multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary understanding. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to make a reflection on the astrobiocentric issues related to the challenges and problems of the discovery of life in the universe and the expansion of mankind into space. Here we explore some aspects of the transition from biogeocentrism to astrobiocentrism, astrobiosemiotics, homo mensura, moral community, planetary sustainability and astrotheology. (shrink)

In the view of the Marxist philosopher Domenico Losurdo, liberalism is ‘the most dogged enemy of freedom’. This surprising statement runs contrary to the received wisdom among liberal thinkers. Losurdo and other ‘counter-historians’ of liberalism are very effective at exposing the historical atrocities that liberal states have committed, and which have been supported by liberal philosophers – including slavery, racism, genocide, and the subjugation of the working class. But what implications, if any, does this have for contemporary theory? I will (...) argue that there is an important contemporary variation of this ‘counter-history’. Liberalism-in-practice is currently implicated in various forms of environmental degradation and resulting structural violence against disempowered groups. Moreover, divorcing these failings of liberalism-in-practice from liberalism-in-theory is a challenging philosophical endeavour, because even the philosophy of liberalism has difficulties adjusting to environmental issues. The contemporary version of the counter-history thus presents a powerful although not decisive challenge, one worthy of greater discussion. (shrink)

I argue for a transformative revival or actualization of the very core of an integrative, methodologically secured form of intellect‑mystical asceticism. This approach draws on traditional sources that are re‑examined from a systematic—synthetic and transcultural—philosophical perspective and in light of the multi‑civilizational global environment of the 21st century. The main traditional points of reference in this paper are provided by Nicolaus de Cusa and Ibn Sīnā, and I refer toa few others, such as Attar of Nishapur, in passing. I begin (...) by developing a basic concept of intellect‑mystical asceticism. It is distinguished from mystification, science, scientism, and modes of everyday communication and cognition. Then, I make the case for an updated, transcultural approach to intellect‑mysticism that can foster the internal (social) and external (environmental) reintegration of the human noosphere and technosphere in future planetary development. In this context, a modern intellect‑mystical philosophical notion of “knowing non‑knowing” (wissendes Nichtwissen, docta ignorantia) is developed. It is inspired by Nicolaus de Cusa and contextualized from a systematic transcultural angle at the same time. Finally, I discuss the problem of the practical, or rather ascetic, realization of the related possibilities of intellect‑mystical self‑enfolding. Here, the preceding steps of the reflection are mapped onto an outline regarding distinct developmental stages of such a transformative intellect‑mystical practice in Ibn Sīnā’s Remarks and Admonitions (al‑Ishārāt wat‑Tanbīhāt). (shrink)

Environmental ethicists often make claims about the intrinsic value of nature or parts thereof. Advances in intrinsic value theory, most notably Ben Bradley’s ‘Two Concepts of Intrinsic Value,’ successfully cleave the concept of intrinsic value into two: a Moorean and Kantian variety. This paper seeks to classify and organize different environmental theorists within a Bradley-inspired framework, helping to bring clarity and charity to the claims of older and newer environmental ethicists. These two types of intrinsic value help explain why different (...) thinkers have differing intuitions on e.g., culling cases. As well as valuing nature suis generis, the paper considers the value that might accrue from other relational properties in nature, such as beauty, biodiversity, and rarity. (shrink)

We suggest that the emerging field of the conservation humanities can play a valuable role in biodiversity protection in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where most land remains under collective customary clan ownership. As a first step to mobilising this scholarly field in PNG and to support capacity development for PNG humanities academics, we conducted a landscape review of PNG humanities teaching and research relating to biodiversity conservation and customary land rights. We conducted a systematic literature review, a PNG teaching programme (...) review, and a series of online workshops between the authors (10 PNG-based, 7 UK-based). We found a small but notable amount of PNG research and teaching focused on biodiversity conservation or customary land rights. This included explicit discussion of these topics in 8 of 156 PNG-authored humanities texts published 2010-2020 and related teaching content in the curricula of several different humanities-based programmes. We discuss current barriers to PNG academic development. The growth of fully fledged in-country conservation humanities will require a joint collaborative effort by PNG researchers, who are best placed to carry out such work, and researchers from abroad who can access resources to support the process. (shrink)

Synthetic biology has immense potential to ameliorate widespread environmental damage. The promise of such technology could, however, be argued to potentially risk the public, industry, or governments not curtailing their environmentally damaging behaviour or even worse exploit the possibility of this technology to do further damage. In such cases, there is the risk of a worse outcome than if the technology was not deployed. This risk is often couched as an objection to new technologies, that the technology produces a moral (...) hazard. This paper describes how to navigate a moral hazard argument and mitigate the possibility of a moral hazard. Navigating moral hazard arguments and mitigating the possibility of a moral hazard will improve the public and environmental impact of synthetic biology. (shrink)

In The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing explains how bare land is formed. Capitalism produces ‘ruins’ by stripping living beings of the capacity to form their own ecological relations, a necessary condition for the reproduction of life. Contemporary capitalism alienates living beings from ecological relations, i.e. capitalism generates “the ability to stand alone, as if the entanglements of living did not matter. Through alienation, people and things become (...) mobile assets; they can be removed from their lifeworlds in distance-defying transport to be exchanged with other assets from other life worlds, elsewhere” (Tsing 2021, 5). Cutting the threads of the web of life through capitalist alienation, however, produces bare land as a side effect, infertile waste deprived of the means to reproduce itself without capitalist support. Alienation is the deracination of living beings from their lifeworld, transforming them into passive cogs for capitalist accumulation. However, Tsing upholds matsutake mushrooms, rare fungi popular among Japa- nese foodies, as exemplars of the resilience of ecological relations. Even amidst ruins, matsutakes successfully form beneficial relations with other living beings, like pine trees, other fungi and human beings. The insistent capacity to regenerate ecological relations is the ineluctable means of reproduction for the matsutake mushroom. Even at the end of the world, the matsutake persists by perpetually co-producing new lifeworlds for itself and fellow living beings (see also Haraway 2016). I claim that Tsing’s approach to capitalist alienation is descriptively convinc- ing but lacks the affective force for ecological class consciousness. Tsing surveys the web of life from the perspective of living beings quite distant from humankind, articulating a theoretical diagnosis rather than a political exhortation. On an affective level, it is challenging to generate ecological class consciousness among the (presumably) human readers of my chapter if they are presented with only the biographies of mushrooms growing far beyond my home. As Chantal Mouffe (2018, 72) argues, the construction of an emphatically political identity requires an appeal to the affects, like hope, indignation or compassion. Latour and Schultz also stress that ecological politics currently suffers from an affective misalignment, with people failing to identify with the fate of their increasingly inhospitable environments (2022, 47). Why would European humans care about these unknown fungi? The reproduction of our CO2-intensive livelihoods largely depends on the emission of bare land elsewhere, so in the short run, we stand to benefit more from putting our heads in the sand. I employ Chakrabarty’s (2021) suggestion of grounding post-humanist politics first in strategic anthropocentrism to subsequently push for a post-humanist expansion of our human understanding. One must first feel personally interpellated by the crisis of the global means of reproduction before one can grasp the need for an ecological class politics beyond human confines. I turn to John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath as a kindred spirit with more mobilising potential. Steinbeck tells the story of a family of impoverished farmers from Oklahoma, the Joads, travelling to California in pursuit of a better life, yet only encountering more poverty, exploitation and anti-immigrant racism. Steinbeck describes in detail the environmental and social devastation, but he focuses on the commodified labour power of migrant farmers rather than commodified mushrooms. Steinbeck’s main characters are also uprooted from their entangled histories in the land and community of rural Oklahoma, but they present a more familiar face of the ecological class deprived of the means of reproduction. Steinbeck’s outcry against alienation-as-deracination is clear, but the shift in perspective facilitates the empathetic outrage required for building ecological class consciousness. Steinbeck’s strategic anthropocentrism helps human readers understand why alienation-as-deracination is a concern. (shrink)

Energy politics lie at the heart of human activity. In a time of ecological and energy crises, it is fundamental to realise that our reality systems are always open to change and that, in order to respond to the challenges of a changing energy landscape, we must explore the full possibilities of technology in a radical way. This analysis aims to consider the ethical implications of energy and technology, presenting an urgent case for cosmotechnical pluralism, that is the diversification of (...) world-views, knowledges, technologies in the realm of global politics. To reconstruct the world and its politics around the existence of several ways of navigating and conceiving it, literally leads to a change in reality. The notion of cosmotechnics will present a way of conceiving of the cosmic, epistemic and technic order as interconnected: in this spirit, this exploration will travel through the prisms of cosmology, epistemology, morality, to subsequently enter into the room where energy policies are created. By employing this tripartite framework, policy directions will be suggested on the path towards energy justice in the hope of shining some light on what moral practices of policy-making in the field of energy politics could look like. (shrink)

In recent years, exposome research has been put forward as the next frontier for the study of human health and disease. Exposome research entails the analysis of the totality of environmental exposures and their corresponding biological responses within the human body. Increasingly, this is operationalized by big-data approaches to map the effects of internal as well as external exposures using smart sensors and multiomics technologies. However, the ethical implications of exposome research are still only rarely discussed in the literature. Therefore, (...) we conducted a systematic review of the academic literature regarding both the exposome and underlying research fields and approaches, to map the ethical aspects that are relevant to exposome research. We identify five ethical themes that are prominent in ethics discussions: the goals of exposome research, its standards, its tools, how it relates to study participants, and the consequences of its products. Furthermore, we provide a number of general principles for how future ethics research can best make use of our comprehensive overview of the ethical aspects of exposome research. Lastly, we highlight three aspects of exposome research that are most in need of ethical reflection: the actionability of its findings, the epidemiological or clinical norms applicable to exposome research, and the meaning and action–implications of bias. (shrink)

Researchers of different calibres from phenomenology to posthumanism and beyond have outlined the processuality of the body and the environment (Alaimo 2010; Gendlin 2017), stressing the importance of changing the ontological presuppositions of the body-environment bond (Schoeller and Duanetz 2018: 131), since the existing models facilitate the alienation and intangibility of the environment, thus, leading to reduced societal awareness of the importance of environmental issues (Neimanis, Åsberg, Hedrén 2015: 73–74). In this article, I argue that in questions relating to food, (...) product-oriented ideologies dominate over process-oriented ethicality, in part, due to an embodied and lived ideology that can be best described via the concept of reactive nihilism and substance ontology. The article aims to demonstrate a necessity to rethink and recontextualize situated practices as alternatives to the prevalent ontogenealogies of the Global North. By problematizing the complimentary axis of reactive nihilism in food contexts and the genealogy of contemporary pop food “ethics”, I argue for a shift away from product-oriented ideologies and supplementation of the ontologies-we-live-by with situated alternative models. In the first part of the article, I use a genealogical approach, tracing the predominant meaning cluster encapsulated in Feuerbach’s famous expression “Man is what he eats” (Feuerbach 1846-1866, X: 5) in today’s contexts. To illustrate the leading discourses, I follow a Deleuzian understanding of the concept of “reactive nihilism” and contextualize food choices with the dominant understanding of the body in the Global North. With this discussion, I hope to provide context for the need to reconsider local ontologies as knowledge resources for the future. In the second part of the article, the framework present in the Global North is then complemented by a discussion of some local factors, to suggest ways in which global food philosophy and, particularly, lifestyle choices of food consumption could benefit from acknowledging the knowledge embedded in food consumption trends in Latvia. (shrink)

The article analyzes the significance of situated knowledges for going beyond dominating conceptual dichotomies that a) establish status quo dialectics, b) proliferate homogenization of the Global Northern experienced materialities, and c) conceal and suppress alternate affectual body-environment experiences and materializations. With the example of postsocialist ontogenealogies, the article analyzes the potential blind spots when failing to consider both sides of a status quo dialectic in their interconnectedness. To conclude, the article suggests the potential of situated knowledges as a vehicle for (...) future environmental ethicalities. (shrink)

Ray and Cooper (2024) argue that bioethicists should take environmental justice seriously as a matter of health justice; as part of this project, they defend a legal right to a healthy environment....

Some argue that procreation is immoral due to its negative environmental impact. Since living an “eco-gluttonous” lifestyle of excessive resource consumption is wrong in virtue of the fact that it increases greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact, then bringing another human being into existence must also be wrong, for exactly this same reason. I support this position. It has recently been the subject of criticism, however, primarily on the grounds that such a position (1) is guilty of “double-counting” environmental impacts, (...) and (2) that it over-generalizes to condemn other clearly permissible behaviors, such as saving lives, or certain instances of adoption and immigration. Here, I will defend the environmental argument against procreation from these criticisms. I will do this, first, under the assumption that our individual consumption and emissions cause significant harm. I will then address the problem of causal impotence, and argue that, even if our individual contributions to environmental problems ultimately make no difference to the amount of harm that occurs, procreation is still immoral for many, if not most, of those living in the developed world. (shrink)

The Antiquities Act gives the president the power to designate “objects of historic or scientific interest” as “national monuments.” Presidents have used this power expansively, protecting massive tracts of federal land, often by claiming that very large things, such as the Grand Canyon or even entire landscapes, are “objects” in the requisite sense. There is legal debate over such uses of the Act, with critics arguing that they depart from the original intent and meaning of the legislation. What has been (...) less discussed, however, is whether the Act allows presidents to protect just the object of interest (whatever it turns out to be), or whether it allows presidents to protect a substantial amount of land around objects of interest. I draw from language in the Antiquities Act and existing case law to argue the latter. Due to the nature of “historic and scientific interest,” protecting an object with such interest often requires protecting certain features of the broader landscape. This holds regardless of what counts as an “object of interest.” As a result, it offers a way to argue on certain critics’ own grounds for more expansive designations: even granting a narrow, originalist conception of what qualifies as an “object,” large designations can be justified. (shrink)

“Throw away anything that sounds too complicated. Only keep what is simple to grasp...If the information appears fuzzy and causes the brain to implode after two sentences, toss it away and stop listening. Doing so will make the news as orderly and simple to understand as the truth.” - In “GHG emissions,” The Kingfisher Story Collection, (Vuong 2022a).

La emergencia climática impacta en el derecho humano a la salud, por lo que los Estados y la comunidad internacional deben tomar medidas concertadas y urgentes para enfrentar esta problemática. Este informe tiene como objetivo brindar herramientas desde un enfoque centrado en la relación entre el clima y la salud para abordar algunas de las preguntas sobre las obligaciones de los Estados incluidas en la Opinión Consultiva sobre Emergencia Climática y Derechos Humanos presentada por Colombia y Chile ante la Corte (...) Interamericana de Derechos Humanos. En este contexto, la adaptación de los sistemas de salud emerge como una prioridad para enfrentar los desafíos de la emergencia climática, especialmente para los grupos vulnerables, como mujeres, niños, personas mayores, personas con discapacidad y pueblos indígenas. Se describen facilitadores para una transición justa hacia una sociedad resiliente al cambio climático, incluyendo diversas formas de justicia (reconocimiento, procedimental, distributiva, intergeneracional y epistémica). Así como también, el deber de los Estados de investigar y establecer prioridades de investigación como garantía del derecho a la salud. Se aborda la brecha epistémica en el acceso al conocimiento científico y se enfatiza la importancia de la justicia epistémica para superar desigualdades en el acceso y la utilización del conocimiento. Palabras claves: derechos humanos, salud, cambio climático. (shrink)

Our home, planet Earth, is under threat from a host of environmental problems: global climate change, loss of biodiversity, and pollution of the air and waterways from industries. I posit that this global crisis arises from the loss of our sense of place in the world. Drawing upon insights on sense of place from the Daoist text, the Daodejing, I make the case for an ecological ethics of weiziran (為自然), that exhorts us to recover our sense of place in the (...) world by dwelling rightly in our relation with the natural environment. (shrink)

With its unique blend of humor and deep self-examination, “Meandering Sobriety” ensures that every reader will interpret and experience its wisdom in a truly personal and enlightening way.

I consider cases where you increase the risk that, e.g., someone will die, without increasing the risk that you will kill them: in particular, cases in which that increasing of risk is accompanied by a decreasing of risk of the same degree such that the risk imposition has been offset. I defend the moral legitimacy of such offsetting, including carbon-offsetting.

Invasive alien species are frequently discussed in academic literature by practitioners, government agencies, and popular media, but what does it mean for a species to be alien and why it this seen as a bad thing? To answer these questions, I have analysed texts about invasive alien species in academic journals and in communication from government agencies. The almost totally unanimous answer to the first question was that a species is alien if and only if it is introduced to an (...) area outside its natural range by humans. I found three primary answers to the second question, namely that (1) alien species are more probable to behave invasively or that it is impossible to know for sure if an alien species will behave invasively, (2) being alien is bad in itself or at least that alien species have a lower value than native species and native environments, and (3) being moved by humans is unnatural and being unnatural has negative value. All three answers probably contribute to why being alien is considered a negative property in species but none of them seem like a satisfying answer to why being alien should be seen as a bad thing in a species. (shrink)

This paper aims to map the different theoretical options related to the Precautionary Principle (PP). Great part of the literature on it can be systematized by answering to three different questions: is there a basic structure in the PP? If so, in which interpretation of the PP does this structure express itself? Finally, are its damage or knowledge conditions fixed or adjustable? The first question separates realist from non-realist approaches. The second question allows us to discriminate monist, dualist, or pluralist (...) positions in relation to the three interpretations of the PP: decision rule, procedural requirement, or epistemic rule. Finally, the third question distinguishes rigid from non-rigid formulations of the principle. Based on this mapping, one can not only navigate through the different formulations of the PP present both in official documents and in specialized literature, but also deflect some of its common objections, and understand Hans Jonas’ eventual connection with PP. Notwithstanding, this mapping does not capture other important themes attached to PP, which motivates a final distinction between narrow and broader forms of PP. (shrink)

There is a remarkable trend in contemporary environmentalism that emphasizes ‘accepting responsibility’ for the natural world in contrast to outdated preservationist thinking that shirks such responsibility. This approach is often explained and justified by reference to the anthropocene: this fundamentally new epoch—defined by human domination—requires active human intervention to avert planetary catastrophe. However, in this paper, I suggest this rhetoric encourages a flight from history. This often jubilant, sometimes anxious, yearning for unprecedented human innovation and—ultimately—control in our new millennia mirrors (...) the Futurist movement that took off near the beginning of the last century. Despite the significant differences in the details of how academics have defended this twenty-first-century environmental outlook, they all represent the true flight from history; they too quickly jettison the ideas of historical environmentalists and so misunderstand the environmental values at the heart of preservation that are more salient than ever. (shrink)

In this article, rewilding’s orientation towards the past is discussed. A response is given to the criticisms that condemn rewilding for its retrospectivity, either as nostalgically clinging to the past or escaping history. Instead, it is shown how rewilding can embrace nostalgia as part of a critical, (counter-)cultural vision aimed at the transformation of modern culture. Its main goal can be seen as threefold: first, it is aimed at providing a more nuanced assessment of rewilding’s contested stance towards the past (...) (and thereby, the future) through the lens of nostalgia. Second, it is demonstrated how, seen through this lens, cultural and ecological aspects of rewilding appear inextricably intertwined. Third, the concepts of ‘cultural rewilding’ and ‘recovery’ are introduced as valuable notions within rewilding. In sum, an appeal is provided for rewilders to embrace the past by dedicating attention towards cultural heritage, history, memory, and tradition. (shrink)

This chapter addresses a general question: What is responsible risking? It explores the notion of "responsible risking" as a thick moral concept, and it argues that the notion can be given moral content that could be action-guiding and add an important tool to our moral toolbox. To impose risks responsibly, on this view, is to take on responsibility in a good way. A core part of responsible risking, this chapter argues, is some version of a Forethought Condition. Such a condition (...) requires us to not make decisions or plans such that we could not deliver on our responsibility obligations. This chapter argues that three moral obligations can be derived from descriptive notions of responsibility. They are (1) the control condition, (2) the responsibility to fix condition, and (3) the responsibility to explain condition. The idea is that in order to impose risks responsibly we ought not act in ways that undermine our ability to remain in control over the risks, undermine our ability to sort out negative outcomes by reparations or compensation, or undermine our prospects of providing an explanation for our actions that also makes sense in hindsight and to those affected. This idea is then tried out on the case of germline gene editing. It is argued that such a moral notion of responsibility is also action-guiding when we do not know for certain what is the morally right or obligatory action all-things-considered due to epistemic gaps. (shrink)

The cause of global environmental decline is clear: an immense and rapidly growing human economy. In response, environmentalists should advocate policies leading to fewer people, lower per capita consumption, and less harmful technologies. All three of these must be addressed, not just one instead of the others. That is our best remaining hope to create sustainable societies and preserve what global biodiversity remains. Sharing Earth justly with other species and protecting it for future human generations are achievable goals, but only (...) if we recognize limits to growth, show restraint in both consumption and procreation, replace maximizing thinking with sufficiency thinking, and cultivate gratitude for what we receive from nature. Efficiency cannot take the place of ethics. Cleverness cannot take the place of wisdom. Humanity must learn to recognize and appreciate ‘enough.’. (shrink)

Earthquakes are among the world’s deadliest natural phenomena. On an increasingly crowded Earth, earthquake risk management therefore should be taken seriously as a global policy problem. Thus, this chapter discusses some of the ethical dimensions of earthquakes as a phenomenon of planetary significance in the Anthropocene. I do not attempt an exhaustive survey, but consider one background ethical issue: the kinds of harms that occur when an earthquake impacts human habitation. We may distinguish three categories of human-related harms: personal harms, (...) which accrue to individual humans; social harms, which impact on social relationships between humans; and institutional harms, which compromise the ability of institutions to respond to the quake. This analysis will help us better appreciate the moral salience of earthquakes as a global policy imperative in the Anthropocene. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Schweitzer end up defending radically similar, yet critically opposed conclusions about the human animal and its place in nature, particularly with regard to the ethical awareness that does or does not follow from this situatedness. Arthur Schopenhauer’s notion of the will accounts for their similar foundational assumptions. But what accounts for the fact that their shared desire to affirm the will to life leads to fundamentally opposed ethical conclusions? What keeps Schweitzer’s ascetic ethic of reverence for (...) life from evolving into Nietzsche’s anti-ascetic vision of a second innocence beyond good and evil? We argue that situating the notion of reverence for life within an environmental virtue ethics, as one environmental virtue among many, aiming at ecological conversion, better articulates and motivates the disposition demanded by the ethics of reverence for life. (shrink)

What is a disaster? This paper explores the different hermeneutic levels that need to be taken into consideration when approaching this question through the case of Japan. Instead of a view of disasters as spatiotemporal events, we approach disasters from the perspective of the milieu. First, based on the Japanese «dictionaries of disasters», the Japanese vocabulary of disaster is described. Second, this paper reviews briefly the Japanese interdisciplinary disaster-management tradition. To highlight the human-made aspect of disasters, the idea of fūdo (...) 風土 is introduced. This concept allows us to see disasters as a phenomenon of the milieu, which emerges from the co-constitutive relations between individuals, communities, and the local environment. The final part debates the narratives by some national and international political actors that link «Japanese identity and culture» to disaster management and sometimes include nationalist claims rooted in the essentialization of the «Japanese exception». Given the cruciality of sociocultural and political representations of disasters tied to identity politics, and the increasing frequency and intensity of disasters, a long-term, local people-focused and culturally sensitive perspective on disasters might be better adapted to the climate change era. (shrink)

This booklet on Active Assisted Living (AAL) technologies has been created as part of the GoodBrother COST Action, which has run from 2020 to 2024. COST Actions are European research programs that promote collaboration across borders, uniting researchers, professionals, and institutions to address key societal challenges. GoodBrother focused on ethical and privacy concerns surrounding video and audio monitoring in care settings. The aim was to ensure that while AAL technologies help older adults and vulnerable individuals, their privacy and data protection (...) rights remain a top priority. This booklet is designed to guide you through the role that AAL technologies play in improving the quality of life for older adults, caregivers, and people with disabilities. AAL technologies offer tools for those facing cognitive or physical challenges. They can enhance independence, assist with daily routines, and promote a safer living environment. However, the rise of these technologies also brings important questions about data protection and user autonomy. (shrink)