Environmental Philosophy

The debate on sufficiency has gained momentum in the last few years. Within political philosophy, a group of theories gathered under the label of sufficientarianism has established itself as a cont...

NIMBYism refers to locals objecting to an unwanted nearby development, especially when they are open to it proceeding elsewhere. The term is a morally disapproving one, implying NIMBYs are objectionably self-interested or hypocritical. Yet prior scholarship has shown that alleged NIMBYs can have legitimate concerns and pro-social motivations. This paper aims to delineate the specific ethical failing of Morally Objectionable NIMBYs (and different ways this failing can occur – including excusable naivete) and to distinguish them from Enlightened NIMBYs. Despite the (...) situation’s complexity, we derive clear practical responses to the ethical challenges posed by NIMBYism. (shrink)

There are calls to scale up prescribed burning to mitigate wildfires and promote ecosystem health. It might also produce less smoke pollution since prescribed fires tend to be smaller, burn at a lower intensity, and are planned to minimize emissions in populated areas. Little research has been done, however, on the impacts of prescribed fires on human health. Moreover, even if cumulative smoke pollution is less with prescribed fires than wildfires, particular communities could experience more smoke because of where burning (...) would occur and the ways in which wildfire smoke can travel. More evidence is needed to assess whether there are any disproportionate impacts from scaling up prescribed fires that would raise environmental justice concerns. Obtaining these evidence, however, faces three main challenges: conceptual, methodological, and institutional. We discuss each of these challenges, including some of the ethical value judgments and tradeoffs at stake in the decision-making needed to address them. Finally, we identify strategies that would contribute to our ability to assess the ethical impacts of prescribed burning. Addressing these problems will be important for ensuring that wildfire mitigation policies are fair, but also for facilitating trust and securing public support for prescribed fires. (shrink)

This article argues for a community garden as an “infrastructure of reciprocity.” It takes the place and practice of TOMAT, a community garden project organized by an educational institution, as a starting point and then offers a conceptual analysis of this project. Care and gardens supposedly fall on the pre-political, private side of the public-private divide. This article argues that TOMAT installs a practice of care embedded within a larger institution and thus challenges this divide. TOMAT materially and socially instantiates (...) an infrastructure that develops skills for living together with displaced humans and more-than-humans. Translating fieldwork into conceptual work, the article focuses on how TOMAT enacts the (eco)feminist concept of “interdependency” and challenges the dominant relation to land as property, replacing it through a relation of belonging. (shrink)

In this paper, I situate Alphonso Lingis’s work within eco-phenomenology by showing how his ontological realism locates ethical demands directly within sensibility through a critical expansion of Levinas’s ethic of the “face” to non-human entities. Through the concepts of the elemental, the sensory levels it gives rise to, as well as the imperative, I demonstrate how Lingis views moral responsibility as scalable from an individual bird to an entire ecosystem.

For ecophenomenology to have a positive relationship with “nature,” a more phenomenologically adequate concept of nature must be found. I argue that valuable resources for a phenomenological concept of nature are to be found in the thought of John Sallis. Sallis explores how nature appears as an “elemental” dimension of experience. Sallis develops his “elemental” notion of nature by making use of a unique phenomenological method which he calls “monstrology.” With this method, Sallis uncovers how elemental nature is not itself (...) an “innerworldly” object but is rather a structural feature of the horizon which makes all emergence possible. (shrink)

Logic is indispensable to human inquiry, yet it is not identical with reality. Every logical system operates within assumptions, concepts, and relations that determine the conclusions it can produce. Consequently, opposing positions may each possess internal coherence while remaining incompatible with one another. This paper argues that logic and rational inquiry are distinctive capacities of human consciousness, but they remain instruments of understanding rather than reality itself. Drawing upon a phenomenological orientation, it examines how conceptual structures—including logical systems—can become mistaken (...) for existence itself. It further argues that human rationality distinguishes the human mode of being without separating humanity from the ecological and existential unity of life. The deepest task of phenomenology is therefore not to replace one conceptual framework with another, but to disclose how concepts become reified into reality. Through direct awareness rather than conceptual attachment, human beings may encounter existence prior to inherited interpretation. (shrink)

The question of population is commonly discussed through economics, politics, technology, or public policy. Population growth is treated as a demographic phenomenon requiring administrative solutions, while sustainability is often reduced to the efficient management of resources. Such approaches overlook a more fundamental issue: the structure of human consciousness. -/- This paper argues that the population question is primarily philosophical rather than merely demographic. Humanity has come to perceive itself as separate from the rest of existence through identities, ownership, inheritance, anthropocentrism, (...) and the psychological desire for continuity. These patterns of thought generate an expansionary civilization that seeks continuous growth—of economies, territories, institutions, wealth, and populations. -/- One significant expression of this expansionary movement is reproduction. Although reproduction is a biological process common to all life, within human society it has acquired a psychological meaning. It frequently becomes a means of preserving personal identity through bloodline, family, inheritance, and legacy rather than being understood as one aspect of life's ongoing movement. -/- The paper proposes that a sustainable and moderate human population cannot emerge through coercion, punishment, or external regulation alone. It arises through awareness—the direct perception of interconnection. When humanity understands itself as one expression within the larger community of life rather than the center of existence, moderation becomes a natural consequence of intelligence rather than an imposed moral obligation. -/- Ultimately, the population crisis reflects a crisis of perception. Solving it requires not merely changing policies but transforming the way human beings understand themselves and their relationship with the living world. (shrink)

This article explores how lived experience can be communicated through narrative to evoke embodied and affective understanding. Focusing on industrial tree planting in British Columbia, it combines self-observation and research-creation to examine how storytelling conveys experiential knowledge often overlooked in forest management. A vivid personal narrative highlights the sensory, emotional, and relational dimensions of planting work. Drawing on narratology, phenomenology, and affect theory, we analyze how narrative form can trigger embodied simulation in readers. We argue that such stories provide more (...) than anecdote; they offer situated, emotionally rich insights that foster empathy and challenge dominant assumptions in forest policy. Narrative, particularly in research-creation, complements scientific knowledge by attuning readers to the visceral dimensions of environmental labor. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between plant life, significance, and worldhood within the broader framework developed in previous investigations of consciousness, worldhood, meaning, and distinction. Rather than asking whether plants are conscious or intelligent in a human-like sense, the inquiry begins with a simpler observation: plants are alive. -/- A living plant continuously engages with its surroundings through growth, adaptation, communication, and response. Roots explore the soil, leaves orient toward light, and the organism continually negotiates changing environmental conditions. By examining (...) these processes, the paper investigates how distinctions become significant and how significance organizes the activity of a living system. -/- The analysis develops through the concepts of living boundaries, stakes, communication, and ecological participation. It argues that plant life reveals a world structured not by abstract representations but by distinctions that matter for the continued activity of the organism. Significance emerges wherever consequences arise for growth, survival, and flourishing. Through communication and ongoing interaction with its environment, the plant participates in a larger field of relationships extending beyond the individual organism. -/- The paper concludes that plants occupy a unique position near the threshold where worldhood becomes difficult to define. Although they possess neither language, reflective selfhood, nor nervous systems comparable to those of animals, they nevertheless exhibit forms of organization through which distinctions acquire significance and significance becomes structured into a coherent world. Plant life therefore provides a valuable perspective from which to investigate the emergence of worldhood and the minimum conditions under which a world becomes possible. (shrink)

Since the emergence of the Anthropocene in scientific and philosophical debates, a discussion has been going on about the nature of this new phenomenon. Earth system sciences consider the impact of climate change in terms of a new geological epoch, in which humans have become the most crucial factor determining the appearance of the Earth. According to geologist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen, the Anthropocene follows the Holocene (the warm period of the past 10–12 millennia) as an epoch in (...) which humans have profoundly changed the geological conditions and processes that determine the carrying capacity of planet Earth, for instance, by anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions. This entry adopts a philosophical perspective to examine the metaphysics of the Anthropocene as a particular constellation of the World in Earth history. The entry is composed of several earlier contributions in the area of philosophy of technology and the Anthropocene (Blok 2017), the dimensions of World and Earth as theoretical notions to concep tualize the metaphysical structure of the Anthropocene World as it is embedded in Earth history (Blok 2023a), that can inform an geoethics beyond the ideal of the enmeshment of human and nonhuman beings in the ecosystems of planet Earth, as is proposed by posthumanists (Blok 2021). (shrink)

Feral cat management in Australia highlights tensions between traditional conservation and compassionate conservation. Drawing on 19 interviews and ethnographic research with practitioners involved in feral cat management, we examine how ethical complexities are navigated in practice and explore the potential to bridge the gap between these approaches. The article demonstrates that protecting biodiversity is reinforced as the default goal through institutional norms and appeals to scientific objectivity, while ethical disagreements are shifted into technical debates. Although practitioners share concerns about limited (...) evidence and support less harmful measures, sustainable collaboration requires explicit normative deliberation about objectives, trade-offs, and acceptable harms. (shrink)

Kohei Saito is an eco-Marxist thinker who mobilizes the concept of metabolism to propose an alternative socio-economic trajectory for the Anthropocene. However, a systematic study of his conception of metabolism is lacking. To address this gap, I apply a framework of critical concept analysis to his major works. The analysis identifies three conceptual strata in Saito’s metabolism concept: criticism of the modern lifestyle, structural elaboration of the capitalist accumulation–alienation–externalization paradigm, and material description of the metabolic rift. These strata cohere with (...) the problems of overcoming the Anthropocene and recovering Marx, but the fundamental question traversing Saito’s metabolism is normative: How ought the non-capitalist society organize its metabolism and habits? Rejecting social constructivism and speculative philosophy, Saito posits an original unity between humanity and nature that degrowth communism must recover from capitalist deviation. I argue that the presupposition of natural law underpinning this normative position requires further critical reflection. (shrink)

This article develops a phenomenological account of environmental responsibility drawing on Jan Patočka’s late concept of shakenness. It argues that the ecological crisis constitutes not only a biophysical disruption but an existential rupture in worldhood, destabilizing ethical orientation, temporality, and subjectivity. Interpreted phenomenologically, environmental breakdown transforms the moral subject from an autonomous agent into a pathically affected, responsive self. By connecting Patočka’s philosophy of history, the movements of existence, and the notion of care for the soul with contemporary eco-phenomenology and (...) care ethics, the article proposes an ethics grounded in vulnerability, attentiveness, and endurance rather than control or normative certainty. (shrink)

This article examines Michel Serres’s The Natural Contract (TNC) as a source of inspiration for reconceptualizing the relationship between humanity, law, and Earth in the context of the current climate crisis. TNC challenges traditional social contract theories by emphasizing the interdependence of human bodies and objects of nature, framing law as a “way of thinking” that exposes an implicit contract with nature. Through a selective reading of the text, we argue that TNC offers a radical diagnostic tool for understanding the (...) symbiotic relationship between the global Earth and “tectonic plates of humanity.” Building on Serres’s engagement with politics, modern information theory, and ancient physical skills, this article explores how (physical) education and law can facilitate a reorientation toward long-term, planetary timescales. Ultimately, we contend that TNC provides a compelling framework for reimagining climate policy, ethics, and pedagogy in an era marked by ecological tipping points and human interconnectedness. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore an astrobiological genealogy of the concept of the Planetary vividly discussed in contemporary environmental humanities and social sciences, and to offer a framework for an articulation of political-economic models based on this concept. Following Bentley Allan, we propose to treat the Planetary as an example of scientific cosmology, thus emphasizing how astrobiology supports a much broader philosophical worldview that shines a new light on persistent problems related to organizing human inhabitation of the Earth. Starting with (...) the analysis and speculative elaboration on Allan’s theory of cosmological shifts in international orders during Western modernity, we associate the Anthropocene discourse as an inaugurating moment in the consolidation of the Planetary’s scientific cosmology, grounded in the astrobiology’s metabolic perspective on complex adaptive systems. The narrative of the paper offers a genealogy of this perspective, including the most recent research about information metabolisms and biosphere-technosphere coupling in astrobiology, which paves the way for the explanation of the economy itself as a metabolic entity. After the review of adjacent philosophical positions associated with ecological economics and the theory of complex adaptive systems, the paper concludes with remarks on the Planetary as a cornerstone of an international order that yields economic imperatives governed by a generic view of the Earth as a member of a potentially large and diverse category of habitable planets. (shrink)

This paper argues that ascetic vegetarianism remains sacrificial toward animality—specifically, human animality—insofar as it constitutes a modality of what Jacques Derrida has named “zoophobia.” I begin by showing that a component of carnophallogocentrism is zoophobia, a concept that accounts for the human phobia (a hatred and a fear) of human animality since, within the Western tradition, humans have generally sought to define themselves as non-animal and, therefore, as closer to divinity than to animality. I then argue that ascetic vegetarianism is (...) a modality of zoophobia, since the arguments advanced by its proponents (such as Plutarch and Porphyry) prove unhelpful for rethinking the carnophallogocentric structure, precisely because they conceive vegetarianism as a means of purifying human life from its animal condition. Fundamentally, I argue that ascetic vegetarianism is symbolically sacrificial toward human animality, thus reinforcing the carnophallogocentric structure that justifies (real or literal) violence against non-human animals. (shrink)

This paper advances the proposition that existence is fundamentally one and that every form, process, event, structure, force, and consciousness is an expression of a single reality. Human beings commonly perceive the world through distinctions such as self and other, observer and observed, humanity and nature, mind and matter. These distinctions organize practical experience but do not constitute ultimate separations within existence itself. -/- Existence precedes every distinction. Before language, classification, identity, belief, science, philosophy, culture, or civilization, there is existence. (...) Every object, organism, thought, sensation, force, and event emerges within existence and remains inseparable from it. -/- Between the symbolic horizons of zero and infinity unfolds the totality of cosmic expression. Stars, galaxies, rivers, forests, life, consciousness, societies, technologies, scientific discoveries, and philosophical reflection all arise as different manifestations of one continuous reality. Human beings are not entities existing apart from the universe. Human beings are the universe manifesting as human beings. -/- Consciousness represents a mode through which existence becomes aware of itself. Observation becomes a process through which reality reveals its own structures. Science becomes a mode of cosmic self-disclosure. Philosophy becomes an inquiry into the unity underlying apparent multiplicity. -/- The paper argues that existence is not a collection of separate things but a continuous process expressing itself through innumerable forms. (shrink)

This paper examines J. Baird Callicott’s attempt to extend Leopold’s Land Ethic into a global ‘Earth Ethic’ capable of addressing climate change and other planetary-scale environmental problems. Callicott argues that the Earth Ethic supplements rather than replaces the Land Ethic, and he proposes a set of conflict-resolution principles intended to arbitrate between local and global obligations. I argue that these principles fail in cases of local – global scalar conflict, where what benefits global human civilization may harm local biotic communities. (...) Using the example of renewable energy development and its impacts on endangered species and ecosystems, I show that Callicott’s framework faces a dilemma: either the conflict-resolution principles provide no substantive normative guidance, or they systematically subordinate the Land Ethic to the Earth Ethic by prioritizing global human interests over local ecological integrity. In this way, the Earth Ethic risks functioning not as an accretion to the Land Ethic, but as its replacement. I conclude by suggesting several conditions for a future holistic environmental ethic capable of addressing global climate change without permitting the routine sacrifice of local human and biotic communities. (shrink)

The concept of biodiversity must function simultaneously as a scientific metric for biotic difference, a normative goal, and a political instrument. These differing aims have their origins in the very formation of the concept and pull any clarification of it in different, sometimes incompatible, directions. Scientific precision requires narrowing the concept in ways that reduce its ethical reach and political flexibility, while political usability requires a vagueness that undermines scientific rigour and ethical salience. This central tension in the concept explains (...) the division of the philosophical literature into realist, eliminativist, and deflationary camps, each prioritising one of these aims. Realists anchor biodiversity to causally significant features of the natural world; eliminativists argue that the concept distorts or displaces the full range of nature's value; deflationists derive biodiversity from the political procedures by which conservation is practised. This review surveys the philosophy of biodiversity literature through this tripartite lens and uses it to identify emerging challenges to the concept. (shrink)

Environmental conservation as a practice and philosophy has been implicitly and explicitly backward-looking: preserving, conserving, restoring, and maintaining the features of the biotic world we inherit. Increasingly, this bias has been confronted by anthropogenic environmental change. There has been a call to support the practice of creating novel ecological arrangements and to incorporate the value of engineered biotic novelty. I question what, in principle, could justify a bias in value towards preserving biodiversity over creating biodiversity. First, I will consider reasons (...) from axiology on why value conserved is better than value gained. Second, I present a reconsidered version of ‘authenticity’ as a justification for preserving biodiversity. (shrink)

This paper investigates the relationship between consciousness, existence, and the emergence of the self through a phenomenological approach. It argues that human beings ordinarily perceive reality through layers of recognition, memory, language, identity, and social conditioning rather than through direct observation. The concept of the isolated "I" functions as a central structure of separation, creating distinctions between self and world, observer and observed, humanity and universe. By examining consciousness not as a possession of individual organisms but as a manifestation of (...) existence itself, this paper proposes that human beings are expressions of the universe rather than entities standing apart from it. The analysis further explores how social institutions—including religion, nationhood, family structures, economic systems, and cultural traditions—both reveal human capacities and contribute to distortions that limit direct perception. The paper concludes that the fundamental challenge facing humanity is not a lack of technological capability but a lag in conscious understanding of itself. (shrink)

Pet-keeping is one of the most widespread human-animal relationships in the world. Despite its prevalence, this practice frequently results in animal welfare violations, including neglect, abuse, and abandonment. Pet-keepers often fail to adequately understand how to care for and interact with their pet. This article defends a novel proposal to regulate pet-keeping: a scheme of state licensing. On this proposal, prospective pet-keepers would be required to obtain a license by demonstrating competence in caring for a domesticated animal before acquiring one. (...) The article makes two significant contributions. First, it provides a robust theoretical defense of pet-keeping licenses. Second, it defends the feasibility of licensing, details the requirements it would impose, and suggests guidelines for plausible implementation. By extending regulation into the private sphere and setting enforceable standards for care, licensing can significantly reduce preventable harms to domesticated animals and better protect their interests. (shrink)

In ‘Offsetting and Risk Imposition,’ we argued that when carbon emissions are accompanied by offsetting, this can result in a set of actions that worsens no one’s prospect, and therefore imposes no risk. We argued that this is true for some forms of offsetting but not others. Here, we reply to the criticisms of that argument that Scott Hill makes in ‘No Special Morality for Carbon Emitting,’ and examine more closely the relationship between risk-imposition and the worsening of prospects.

The worsening climate crisis amid lagging action has renewed ethical debate over solar geoengineering. We argue that this debate, however substantive, insufficiently addresses the principle behind much of the opposition: consent. Critics consistently maintain that solar geoengineering must not proceed without consent from states and their citizens. In this note, we hold that consent is not absolute. It can be overridden when those withholding it are primary contributors to the emissions driving the crisis the intervention seeks to address.

This paper examines the phenomenological structure of psychological time, anthropocentric knowledge, and the fragmentation of direct existence through conceptual accumulation. Modern civilization increasingly interprets reality through systems of continuity, preservation, measurement, and self-centered cognition. Human consciousness, conditioned through memory, fear, economic structures, identity formation, and anthropocentric interpretation, gradually loses direct contact with the immediacy of existence. The paper argues that much of human knowledge remains rooted in anthropocentric assumptions that unconsciously position human cognition as the center and measure of reality. (...) Simultaneously, psychological time transforms direct living into continuity-based existence through memory, projection, accumulation, and self-preservation. As a result, humanity increasingly experiences life indirectly through conceptual structures rather than through direct awareness. Using a phenomenological approach, this inquiry explores the distinction between chronological time and psychological time, the transformation of natural acts into systems of mental continuity, the illusion of possession over the present moment, and the possibility of awareness without psychological identification. The paper further examines interconnectedness, non-anthropocentric consciousness, and the limits of measurement in understanding existence. The inquiry concludes that existence may not fundamentally operate according to human-centered conceptual systems. Rather, reality appears as an interconnected movement that can only be encountered directly in awareness, not fully captured through psychological continuity, anthropocentric interpretation, or conceptual measurement. (shrink)

Property remains one of the most central and yet most contested institutions of modern political and moral life. It structures access to land, housing, resources, and wealth; it underpins economic...

The suburban urbanistic model provides a way of understanding why and how the promotion of private property is a political tool that allows the neoliberal state to establish and legitimize itself. Understood as a lever for growth, middle-class home ownership constitutes the effective social pact on which European political systems are based. This article looks at the French case to explore the ways in which German ordoliberal thinkers grounded their conception of neoliberal democracy in the claim that every household should (...) acquire ownership of its own home, regardless of the environmental consequences of this policy. (shrink)

This article argues that climate justice should be discussed from a limitarian perspective and that limitarianism should be extended from wealth limitarianism to ecological limitarianism. It shows how egalitarian and sufficientarian considerations on climate change mitigation can be combined with an ecological limitarian approach to climate justice. This approach is built on a distinction between an institutional level composed of carbon markets and sufficiency policies and an individual level composed of ecological citizenship and a sustainable carbon footprint. To develop individual (...) limitarianism, the article draws on virtue ethics and frames carbon sobriety as a key green virtue of ecological citizens. (shrink)

There are approximately 10 quintillion (10x1018) insects on earth and Jeff Sebo talks about all of them in his new book, The Moral Circle, in just over 180 pages. Moreover, we should care about the...

‘There seems to be a large gap between the daily interactions that I have with the mice and the larger political, economic, cultural, and social structures in which animals are exploited’, animal p...

The modern concept of property rests on a monetarized, productivist economy, that allowed a growing part of the world’s population to put forward claims for inclusion in ever growing wealth. In this paper, I argue that it is the entanglement with an open future that lies at the heart of our property regimes and that rests on an inherent abstraction from nature. I will discuss the role of early extractivist economies and Enlightenment theory, and examine the proposals of Pierre Charbonnier (...) and Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval to address the link between a political account of property and wealth. (shrink)

Stephen Gardiner has claimed that the current state of ethical theory is inadequate for addressing climate change, arguing that our ethical theory is inept when it comes to dealing with basic issues of climate change, making moral corruption likely. This paper defends two points. First, theoretical inadequacy is unlikely to lead to moral corruption. Second, ethical theory is good enough to offer clear and plausible recommendations regarding some fundamental issues in climate ethics.

I defend the need for a sustained and substantive ethical treatment of the global middle class’s non-luxury, non-subsistence emissions. I call these ‘middle emissions’. Although middle emissions should not be afforded the moral priority of the poor’s subsistence emissions, they are more morally important than luxury emissions. I argue that there is no blanket permission for middle-emitting, but I identify conditions that might permit middle-emitting. I then consider whether imposing mitigation burdens on middle emitters is fair. In doing so, I (...) identify burden-sharing principles that are sensitive to the circumstances of those in the middle of the global income distribution. (shrink)

I never met Mark Sagoff. So what I have to say to remember him only concerns what he wrote – in fact, just one paper, ‘Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Bad Marriage, Quick Divorce’ which...

This paper illustrates a theoretical gap that arises in the relationship between theorizing global justice and local biodiversity conservation practices: the ‘global duties – local burdens problem’. This problem arises if one’s account of just-burden sharing (who is attributed the responsibility to carry the burdens of biodiversity protection) and the geographic realities (who would be burdened by conservation measures in practice) do not match up. That involves two difficulties: (1) a conceptual problem arising from the incongruity between the currency of (...) justice in the global-abstract and the local-particular; and (2) a moral concern about the cultural costs at stake. (shrink)

We contribute to the scientific debate by studying the storylines, discourses and related normative judgments in parliamentary motions by private members of the Swedish parliament from the time period 2010–2019. The paper makes use of an ecofeminist theoretical framework to problematize these storylines, discourses and normative judgments. We conclude that the focus in the material is on economic and technical issues, while issues of justice play a marginal role. None of the important dimensions of energy justice are adequately considered and (...) many of the dominant storylines and discourses are based on the implicit assumption that issues of justice are insignificant. (shrink)

The Environmental Container Model (ECM) proposes that many difficulties with task initiation and participation are not problems of motivation or discipline, but mismatches between a nervous system and the environments it is expected to operate within. This paper establishes that for individuals with Volitional Dysregulation with Cognitive Preservation (VDCP) (Pines, 2026b), the primary barrier to action is Open Loop Overwhelm (OLO) (Pines, 2026a). A "Container" is a constructed set of conditions that reduces ambiguity, clarifies roles, and lowers the "activation cost" (...) required for participation. ECM reframes executive dysfunction as an environmental accessibility problem. (shrink)

Η διάχυτη τάση της καταστροφολογίας γύρω από την Τεχνητή Νοημοσύνη (ΤΝ) αποτελεί σημαντικό εμπόδιο για την ορθολογική αξιοποίησή της, ιδίως στον ευαίσθητο τομέα της Δημόσιας Διοίκησης. Το παρόν άρθρο διερευνά το φαινόμενο αυτό, αναλύοντας πώς η δυσανάλογη έμφαση στους πιθανούς κινδύνους καλλιεργεί αδικαιολόγητο φόβο και δυσπιστία, επισκιάζοντας τα δυνητικά οφέλη. Εξετάζονται οι ψυχολογικοί, κοινωνικοί και επικοινωνιακοί παράγοντες που τροφοδοτούν την καταστροφολογία, συμπεριλαμβανομένου του ρόλου των ΜΜΕ και της έλλειψης "γραμματισμού στην ΤΝ" (AI Literacy). Επισημαίνονται οι αρνητικές επιπτώσεις, όπως η διάβρωση (...) της εμπιστοσύνης τόσο στην τεχνολογία όσο και στους θεσμούς διακυβέρνησης, η παρεμπόδιση της καινοτομίας και η αντίσταση στην υιοθέτηση τεχνολογιών που θα μπορούσαν να βελτιώσουν τις δημόσιες υπηρεσίες. Το άρθρο υπογραμμίζει την ανάγκη για μια ισορροπημένη προσέγγιση, προτείνοντας στρατηγικές για την άμβλυνση των φόβων. Αυτές περιλαμβάνουν την ενίσχυση της διαφάνειας, την προώθηση της εκπαίδευσης (AI Literacy), τη διεξαγωγή εμπειρικής έρευνας για την τεκμηρίωση των πραγματικών επιπτώσεων και την ανάπτυξη ισχυρών ηθικών και ρυθμιστικών πλαισίων. Τονίζεται η σημασία της μετάβασης από τον αβάσιμο φόβο στην "ενημερωμένη αισιοδοξία", προκειμένου να διασφαλιστεί η υπεύθυνη, ηθική και επωφελής ενσωμάτωση της ΤΝ στην Δημόσια Διοίκηση. (shrink)

Killing and preserving nonhuman animals is indispensable for addressing many scientific questions. This scientific collecting is heavily regulated, with precise limits on species and numbers of individuals to be collected. I review scientific collecting with reference to ethics of individual animals and collectives such as species, the philosophical problem of incomparability, and concerns of stakeholders for animal suffering and species extinction. I conclude that, in spite of the best intentions of individuals at regulatory bodies such as university animal care committees (...) and government permitting agencies, regulations that restrict scientific collecting have little basis in ethics, ecological theory, or empirical evidence. (shrink)

Abstract: Inheritance theory is broadening by emphasizing two kinds of diversity, both justified by recent empirical advances: the material substrates of inheritance beyond genes, and the directions of inheritance relationships beyond vertical, parent-to-offspring transmission. There are different inheritance materials—genetic, epigenetic, parental, cultural—and inheritance directions—vertical, oblique, horizontal. This shift is accompanied by theoretical reconceptualizations associated with developmental and organismal views of inheritance, which understand inheritance as the transgenerational reconstruction of traits that explain trait persistence across a lineage. Within this framework, this (...) article draws attention to inverted inheritance: inheritance relationships that run from a younger generation to an older one. Although this idea may initially seem at odds with how inheritance is generally understood and studied, this article argues that inverted inheritance is compatible with—and indeed illuminated by—the current expansion of inheritance theory. While it highlights relationships that invite empirical investigation, it also sheds light on our conceptualization of what inheritance is. (shrink)

This article contributes to literatures on local governments and just transitions by presenting a human rights–grounded framework for just transition and applying it to local governments. The framework holds that individuals have justified claims to protection of their most essential interests when those interests are threatened by climate policies, and it identifies four core responsibilities for local governments in ensuring a just transition: (1) identify transitional injustices, (2) critically scrutinize their moral grounds, (3) take suitable remedial actions when human rights (...) are at risk, and (4) press for external political reforms when necessary powers lie beyond their authority. (shrink)

Ecological grief is a widely experienced response to the world’s rapidly intensifying environmental crises and motivates people to take environmental action. Experiences of ecological grief vary, however, depending on the wider values and attitudes of the groups experiencing it. This paper describes, for the first time, the experiences of ecological grief amongst environmental activist Christians. The paper draws on findings from a survey (n=319) and recent qualitative interviews (n=62) with Christian environmental activists from six organisations in the UK. Research with (...) these environmental activists shows that they understood ecological grief in relation to four main theological themes: (1) damaging creation, (2) wrecking a gift, (3) failing to steward well, and (4) harming divinity. This paper argues that these four areas can be gathered under the single theme of breaches in relationship with God and with extrahuman life. That is, ecological grief, for these environmental activists, involves a sense of rupture in relationship to God and other non-human lifeforms. This argument is developed and framed through theological and philosophical literature concerning gift-giving, environmental stewardship, creation theology, and divine immanence. The resulting account is a unique and relationally-focused description of the experience of ecological grief. (shrink)

Distributive energy justice is considered a tool of equality. However, there is a need to analyze the meaning, elements, goals, and intentions of this so-called justice. The overwhelming literature on distributive justice in respect of energy tends to draw on Western individualist and anthropocentric principles, which begs the question of what alternative, under-considered views might offer. In this conceptual paper, I show what it would look like if Ubuntu, which roughly means humanness, were to serve as a notion of African (...) distributive energy justice. I pay particular attention to its focus on the principles of humanness, relationships, and interconnectedness. Beyond conventional understandings of distributive energy justice, I show how an Ubuntu-informed perspective can reshape energy policy evaluation and advance environmental protection for its own sake. I do not conclusively show that Ubuntu-informed distributive justice is more justified than Western-interpreted views of energy justice, but I defend the claim that it is an alternative to them that should be taken seriously. (shrink)

This paper examines the philosophical and ethical boundary between invention and interference in the relationship between science and nature. While science originated as a method of understanding natural laws, contemporary practice increasingly reflects a shift toward manipulation, control, and alteration of natural systems. The paper argues that this shift is driven not by science itself, but by the unconscious use of it—where human intention overrides natural balance. It further explores the illusion of control as a central mistake of humanity and (...) critiques the emerging desire for species-level immortality. The study concludes that this unconscious pursuit of control is not preserving life, but actively driving its destruction, including the very species that seeks to dominate. (shrink)

Climate change is widely recognized as a paradigmatic case of structural injustice. Yet, the role of the polluter elite – wealthy individuals embedded in carbon-intensive industries – is rarely discussed. Critically building on Iris Marion Young’s theory, this article argues that such individuals are not merely politically responsible, but liable and blameworthy for reproducing unjust structures through their investments, career choices and lifestyles. To ground this liability, the article introduces the concept of super-privilege, denoting a uniquely advantageous position that enables (...) agents to easily minimize their reproductions. It offers a normative framework useful for those theorizing about and pursuing structural transformation. (shrink)

Negative effects of anthropogenic climate change are accelerating. The threat climate change poses has prompted research into radical technological responses, including forms of solar radiation management (SRM). While there has been some consideration of the ethical challenges SRM technologies present, to date, these have almost exclusively concerned humans. Here, we take one leading form of SRM, stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), and examine the ethical questions its deployment might present for wild animals. We map this terrain by investigating two overarching ethical (...) questions: a) whether deploying stratospheric aerosol injection should be seen as in-principle wrong from animal ethics perspectives, and b) if not, or where it is not, what ethicists need to consider to morally evaluate SAI in the context of wild animals. To address the second question, we explore existing research gaps regarding empirical information on the effects of SAI on animals, the possible impacts of SAI on animal welfare, and its potential implications for justice issues when animals are included in theories of justice. (shrink)

This paper explores relational environmental ethics, focusing on interdependence as a basis for moral duty. Interdependence is here understood as causal interactions, and I argue that it is not a necessary condition for environmental moral duty. I demonstrate this through a ‘dwarven world’ thought experiment, showing that ethical duties can persist even when human-nature interdependence is minimal. I further propose a spectatorial-sentimentalist framework for relational moral duty of care. This framework, grounded in impartial spectator approval, reconciles universal moral demands with (...) subjective sentiments. This analysis provides a more robust and adaptable theoretical foundation for relational environmental ethics. (shrink)