Values, psychology, and human existence -- Disobedience as a psychological and moral problem -- The application of humanist psychoanalysis to Marx's theory -- Prophets and priests -- Let man prevail -- Humanist socialism -- The psychological aspects of guaranteed income -- The case for unilateral disarmamament -- The psychological problems of aging.

Very few moral philosophers have written on climate change.1 This is puzzling, for several reasons. First, many politicians and policy makers claim that climate change is not only the most serious environmental problem currently facing the world, but also one of the most important international problems per se.2 Second, many of those working in other disciplines describe climate change as fundamentally an ethical issue.3.

Ecosystems services are provisions that humans derive from nature. Ecologists trying to value ecosystems have proposed five categories of these services: preserving, supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural. While this ecosystem services framework attributes 'material' value to nature, sacred natural sites are areas of 'non-material' spiritual significance to people. Can we reconcile the material and non-material values? Ancient classical traditions recognise five elements of nature: earth, water, air, fire and ether. This commentary demonstrates that the perceived properties of these elements correspond (...) with the ecosystem services framework. Whilst the two can be reconciled, the 'elements of nature' framework is argued to be more suitable to make a case for conservation of sacred natural sites because it can be attractive to traditional societies whilst being acceptable to Western science. (shrink)

Equally important, he offers much insight into why our own environmental policies have failed and what we can do to better manage our resources.

In this new book, David Harvey seeks to determine what is meant by the term in its different contexts and to identify how accurate and useful it is as a description of contemporary experience.

This long-awaited book sets out the implications of Habermas's theory of communicative action for moral theory. "Discourse ethics" attempts to reconstruct a moral point of view from which normative claims can be impartially judged. The theory of justice it develops replaces Kant's categorical imperative with a procedure of justification based on reasoned agreement among participants in practical discourse.Habermas connects communicative ethics to the theory of social action via an examination of research in the social psychology of moral and interpersonal development. (...) He aims to show that our basic moral intuitions spring from something deeper and more universal than contingent features of our tradition, namely from normative presuppositions of social interaction that belong to the repertoire of competent agents in any society. Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. (shrink)

This book argues that an attentive encounter with nature is of key importance for the development of an environmentally appropriate culture. The fundamental idea is that the environmental degradation that we are increasingly experiencing is best conceived as the consequence of a cultural mismatch: our cultures seem not to be appropriate to the natural environment in which we move and on which we depend in thoroughgoing ways. In addressing this problem, Thomas Heyd weaves together a rich tapestry of perspectives on (...) human interactions with the natural world, ranging from traditional modes of managing human communities, which include the natural environment, in Latin America, to the consideration of poetic travelogues, ecological restoration and botanic gardens. (shrink)