Environmental Politics and Philosophy

This work is Chapter 11 in the John M. Meyer and Jens M. Kersten edited volume "The Greening of Everyday Life" (Oxford University Press, 2016), pp.183-97. It builds in part upon my earlier work "Plumwood, Property, Selfhood and Sustainability" in trying to tease out the elements that are valuable in the Lockean tradition of property theory, which I identify with the idea of belonging, and distinguish these from and contrast them with the reductive and instrumentalizing aspects of that tradition, which I associate with notions of possession and the dynamics of self-validating reduction. I suggest that the predominance of the latter dynamics in modern Western lives creates what I call a "tragedy of the uncommon", in which healthy and fulfilling bonds of social belonging, experiential connection to the earth and to food production are steadily rendered distant and opaque. Against these tendencies, I set the transformative social potential of contemporary experiences of community gardens.

This is a final draft of the article published in Environmental Ethics 11 (Fall 1989): 243-258. This assessment of  the Promethean dimension of Marx's thought is accurate, but though it mentions Marx's more dialectical side and its potential implications, this aspect is seriously neglected in the article . A more balanced assessment is presented in "Marx's Natures," a draft version of which can be found on this site. This article should be read in connection with the latter one.

the most extensive overview of anarchist theory and practice yet to appear. His survey of the history of ecological thought is therefore quite welcome. Nature's Web is a valuable work for anyone concerned with ecological issues, and is essential reading for those interested in the relationship of ecology to anarchist and libertarian ideas. The study is noteworthy for the broad scope of its inquiry into the roots and development of ecological thought and values.

I think of this as one of my more significant reviews, not only due to its dealings with the underlying orientation of a major environmental philosopher but also because it is here that I say a few words about my own conception of philosophy's proper role and definition, which is similar but not identical to that of Callicott.

Contemporary societies in Africa (like the rest of the world) are increasingly facing drastic environmental problems which, in most cases, are a direct consequence of man's anthropocentric attitudes toward nature. Since the dawn of the twentieth Century, multidisciplinary efforts to articulate a universal praxis for the environment have become frantic. In Philosophy, arguments in support of a paradigm shift led to the emergence of nonanthropocentric thoughts like Paul Taylor's theory of Respect for Nature. He rejects anthropocentrism and advocates for equality and moral significance among different life forms irrespective of different interests. Thus his biocentrism is egalitarian, and essentially, an extension of inherent worth from humans to other life forms. He thinks this paradigm shift in the way man views and treats nature can solve the crises. The main objective of this paper was to ascertain the applicability of Taylor's theory. In this direction, a
pragmatic approach was adopted. This methodology was preferred for its tendency of evaluating everything based on practicability. It was found that there were links between Taylor's
thought and Kant's notion of respect for persons; and that biocentric egalitarianism marked a major shift from traditional ethics. Furthermore, the theory was found tenable in areas like strategic planning for attitudinal change, policy design, law, administration, environmental remediation, reparations and environmental justice; which are practical ways of quelling
environmental crises. However, there were some conceptual, exegetical, and existential weaknesses within Biocentric Egalitarianism. The study concluded that Biocentric Egalitarianism is, in several ways, tenable in tackling contemporary environmental problems.

[Keywords: Biocentrism, Egalitarianism, Environmental Ethics,
Paul W. Taylor, Pragmatism, Pollution, Nonanthropocentrism]

— In 2008, Ecuador became the world's first country to include rights of Nature (RoN) in its constitution. The constitution presents RoN as a tool for building a new form of sustainable development based on the Andean Indigenous concept sumak kawsay (buen vivir in Spanish), which is rooted in the idea of living in harmony with Nature. While much is written on the ethical arguments regarding RoN (and buen vivir), few studies analyze how RoN might be implemented. We fill this gap by explaining why some efforts to apply Ecuador's RoN laws succeeded while others failed. We compare 13 RoN lawsuits using an original framework for analyzing the pathways and strategies RoN advocates (and their opponents) use to build (and counter) momentum behind judicial processes meant to buttress the enforcement of contested RoN norms. The case descriptions and analysis draw on primary documents and in-depth interviews conducted during 2014–15. Through process tracing, we identified key structural conditions and strategic decisions shaping the outcomes in each case. Our findings as of 2016 reveal unexpected pathways of influence involving a symbiotic process among civil society , state agencies, and the courts. Surprisingly, civil society pressure was the least successful pathway, as activists lost high-profile lawsuits. Nevertheless, they facilitated judicial momentum by working on less-politicized local cases and training lower-level judges. Instrumental use of RoN laws by the state produced unintended consequences, including establishing precedent and educating judges. Knowledgable judges are unilaterally applying RoN in their sentencing, even when neither claimants nor defendants allege RoN violations. Ecuador's cases demonstrate how ''weak " RoN laws can strengthen, providing important insight into the global contestation over sustainable development and the strategies and legal tools being used to advance a post-neoliberal development agenda rooted in harmony with nature.

The concept of “ecological democracy” has recently been the subject of an important French-language book by the political philosophers, Dominique Bourg and Kerry Whiteside. Bourg and Whiteside’s key argument is that representative democracy is the key obstacle currently preventing democracies from becoming ecological, in which case ecological democracy can only come about via various meta-representative paths, such as participative democracy or constitutional reform. In this paper, I draw on both historical and theoretical considerations to argue that Bourg and Whiteside do not adequately distinguish representative democracy from liberal democracy, and that it is in fact the latter that is currently preventing Western democracies from becoming ecological. This argument in turn opens the possibility that the transition to ecological democracy will also require change at the representative level of party politics and, more specifically, the emergence of a new political spectrum based on the three overlapping circles of sustainable development: economy, society, and ecology. Within this new framework, the party-political landscape will be dominated by three major parties: a centre-right party defending economic liberalism, a centre-left party defending social cohesion via the reduction of inequalities, and a new party, which I propose to call the “Ecological Democrats”, defending ecological interests and taking a centrist stance with respect to the traditional left-right political spectrum.

You would not find the boundaries of oikos, even by travelling along every path, so deep a logos does it have. 1 It has now been almost three decades since Bill Devall and George Sessions published Deep Ecology. 2 A decade before, Arne Naess had invented the term as a useful category for classifying the outlook of "a vast number of people in all countries" 3 who have a far-reaching ecological worldview. However, it was Devall and Sessions' book that did the most to transform deep ecology into a distinctive intellectual and activist movement with the aspiration of organizing these masses of ecologically conscious thinkers and activists and having a significant impact on society. At about the same time, The Trumpeter emerged as an important voice for deep ecology in the intellectual world, and Earth First!, which had been founded a few years before, quickly adopted the perspective of deep ecology and began to spread its influence in the environmental movement.

The discussion of issues in political ecology has expanded greatly in recent times, above all as the result of growing concern about far-reaching ecological problems that seem to require an effective political response in the near future. These problems include global warming, ozone depletion, species extinction, desertification, loss of topsoil, depletion of global fisheries, disposal of nuclear waste, global population growth, environmentally-related illness, acid rain, and decline in air and water quality. Concern about disruptions caused by global climate change and the massive global loss of biodiversity has been a major impetus to debates in political ecology.

This review is part of the backdrop to the debate that I had with Marcel Wissenburg in the pages of "Environmental Politics" in autumn 2001 (Vol. 10, No. 3) over his book "Green Liberalism", and is thus probably one of the more significant reviews I have done. If you are interested in these issues, I would urge you to read my extended critical paper "Green Liberalisms: Nature, Agency and the Good" and the shorter "The Green Only Blooms amid the Millian Flowers: A Reply to Marcel Wissenburg", both available here on Academia.edu, rather than simply skimming through this short book review; for some unknown reason, only Marcel's response in the debate and Robyn Eckersley's book review are given in the "related papers" section here. Somewhat embarrassingly, I now think that in my review I was a bit too generous to the account of value given in the book and various modifications were made to my stance in the later course of discussion with Marcel, but this is overall a fair indicator of what was to come.

En couverture : photo J. Guyaux © De Boeck et Larcier s.a. 1996 Département De Boek Université Paris, Bruxelles Toute reproduction d'un extrait quelconque de ce livre, par quelque procédé que ce soit, et notamment par photocopie ou microfilm, est strictement interdite

Refugia: The Survival of Urban Transspecies Communities encourages to us recognize the unexpected relations among species and to speculate about the possibility of their existence and development. It shows the need for care and support for multi-species urban communities by answering questions about the following: Which humans and non-humans may find refuge in the city? Under what conditions and to what extent? Are cities also becoming spaces of refuge for rare, endangered or endangered species and disappearing ecosystems? Can unwanted and underestimated life forms find refuge in the city, and how much compassion and hospitality do we have for them? Is it possible to be safe in the city without a place–home–shelter of one’s own?

The book is the result of transdisciplinary research, including knowledge-producing artistic projects, whose research and communication methodology enable us to go beyond specialist circles. The book consists of two parts, the first of which, Refugia: The Transdisciplinary Practice of Curiosity, includes scientific texts focusing on various cases of interspecies relationships created in cities by human and non-human animals, plants, fungi, soil, architecture, etc. The second part of the book includes artistic statements in the form of visual documentation of projects created for the exhibition Refugia: Keep (Out of) These Places. The art presented here makes it possible to construct perspectives different from those generated in the field of humanities or sciences, but remaining in close contact with these fields.

2021. In this paper, the author is countering, through ecosophical cum eco-ethical means, the short-sighted "technical quick-fixes" offered by green-capitalism in subsuming a portion of the global environmental movement by asserting market fundamentalism without heeding the environmental variables. The author emphasizes the eco-ethos of Permaculture and highlights the sustainability ideal of "eco-swaraj", following the Deep Ecologists' Ecotopia and the Gandhian "Gram Swaraj", as well as Rabindranath Thakur's eco-philosophical underpinnings. In doing so, the speaker highlights the role of Urban Agriculture in obliterating the parasitic status of the modern city in the post-industrial era.

In the spring of 1987, Donald Davis, an environmental sociologist at the University of Tennessee arranged a talk there by Murray Bookchin. At the time, I was working very closely with Bookchin, and I went there to meet with him and Davis, who had been a student and staff member at the Institute for Social Ecology. During the visit, Bookchin showed me the proofs for an article entitled "Thinking Ecologically: A Dialectical Approach," a large part of which was an attack on deep ecology, systems theory, Asian thought, and the radical environmental organization Earth First! I was disturbed by what I read. I found it to be seriously lacking in careful analysis or nuance, and often to be unfair to the objects of attack. I suggested that he rewrite it, making sure that he did not over-generalize or misrepresent any positions. He replied, rather unconvincingly, that it was too late to make any changes, and he did not respond in any way to the content of my suggestions. 1 What I did not know at the time was that he had recently written a much more extreme attack on deep ecology, in which he had parodied, and, indeed, The Trumpeter

index. £11.99 (paperback). This is an extremely ambitious work, ranging across the realms of history, cosmology, metaphysics and ecological ethics; central to the project is the acceptance of the view that ethics requires a metaphysical base, and to create such a foundation Mathews synthesises strands from Einsteinian geometrodynamics, systems theory and Spinozan metaphysics. This carefully

, polyvocality, and a combination of theory and practice to investigate narrative plots and present day struggles at the double origin and fiction of the self. As planetary positions become increasingly multifaceted and hardly disentangled from protocols of representation, PROSPECTIONS seeks to excavate the infrastructures that perform this apparent complexity. Each assembly problematizes trace-effects of modern discourses, inversions of thought, latent emergencies, and the not-yet manifest, convening

This text later appeared as Chapter 7 of the book The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism. It incorporates much of the material from the articles entitled "A Letter from New Orleans" and "Postscript to a Letter from New Orleans."

It's rare for anyone to be ambitious or imaginative enough to try to rethink ethics from first principles, and still more unusual for the result to be quite internally consistent and thought provoking. This is my review take on Warwick Fox's efforts in that direction.

Humanity is Nature becoming self-conscious." -Elisée Reclus In its deepest and most authentic sense, a social ecology is the awakening earth community reflecting on itself, uncovering its history, exploring its present predicament, and contemplating its future.

My review of one of Paul Thompson's key early works on agricultural environmental ethics. At the time of writing I little knew, as biographers say, that Paul would become a valued friend, colleague and fellow pragmatist a decade later across the water at Michigan State.

I connect nature experience to human liberty in a four part argument. Firstly, I discuss two pre-modern traditions of thought, agrarianism and sylvan liberty, in which nature experience was associated with the stimulation, construction and defense of human liberty, each tradition connecting to different concepts of human freedom and flourishing. Secondly I link these traditions to Bryan Norton’s work on sustainability and preserving options for human developmental growth, arguing that the transformative possibilities of nature experience may help defend the nonhuman world, thus connecting the continued existence and experience of nonhuman nature to a particular conception of human liberty. Thirdly, I then argue for an ontology of nature that avoids man/nature dualisms on one side and pure naturalism or social constructionism on the other, regarding naturalness as present in relative terms on a tripartite spectrum, defined according to the extent that an item or area has not been transformed in accordance with certain historically specific, objectifying and anti-naturalistic types of human instrumental rationality. Finally, I maintain that combining the liberty and ontology arguments shows the worth of some ontological conceptions of nonhuman nature in the Anthropocene, and reaffirms linkage between nature experience and human liberty.

In a discussion of the "rules of Gandhian nonviolence" Arne Naess proposes a number of hypotheses and norms that are highly relevant to recent debates in ecophilosophy. For example, he suggests that the "character of the means used in a group struggle determines the character of the results," and that one should "choose that personal action or attitude which most probably reduces the tendency towards violence of all parties in a struggle." One should not, he says, "act as a mere functionary, a representative of an institution or an underling, but always as an autonomous, fully responsible person." Mistrust, he suggests, "stems from misjudgement, especially of the disposition of [one's] opponent to answer trust with trust, mistrust with mistrust." One should "fight antagonisms, not antagonists" and "formulate the essential interests which [one] and [one's] opponent share and try to cooperate upon this basis." Furthermore, one should not "humiliate or provoke [an] opponent" or "judge [an] opponent harder than [one]self."

This chapter argues that attention to environmental action forces us to revise conventional democratic theory. Democratic theory depends upon suppositions exploded by environmental issues: on a discrete identifiable citizenry making decisions for itself, for example, or on the revisability of policy decisions. Democracy constrains environmental action while environmental challenges constrain democracy itself. The answer, however, is not less democracy, as there is no alternative to democracy if we seek justice in a plural world. Simple democratic assumptions are the best candidates for general adjudication of differences. Rather than turn away from democratic theory, we must return to its majoritarian essence.  Thus the chapter sketches a democratic approach that enables rather than constrains environmental possibilities by refocusing democratic theory on protecting majority interests and reframing environmental issues in terms of protecting majority interest in sustainability from minority interests in extraction.  In environmental political theory only the literature on environmental justice has understood that we must attend to real conflicts of interest among groups of human beings; building on work in environmental justice we can revise democratic theory to reflect people's interests in justice.

Hugh McDonald has been a highly productive scholar and his work seems to me not to have attracted all the recognition that it deserves. As I discuss in this review, this book of McDonald's is valuable in clearing away several myths and misunderstandings about pragmatism and intrinsic value, and it really deserves to have more impact accordingly.

COP21 was widely hailed by environmentalists, politicians, and much of the media as “a landmark” and “turning point” in the struggle against global climate change. Yet, there was no binding agreement on emissions reductions, financing of programs, or penalties for non-compliance. Instead, there was a celebration of the rapidly-growing “ambition” on the part of the parties to the agreement. One must suspect that this event was a continuation of the politics of the gesture that was exhibited in previous spectacular events such as the last year’s “People’s Climate March.” Published on the "It Is What It Isn't" Blog, Changing Suns Press, Dec. 18, 2015.