Download or read book Philosophy and Climate Change written by Mark Budolfson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-01 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change is poised to threaten, disrupt, and transform human life, and the social, economic, and political institutions that structure it. Philosophy and Climate Change argues that understanding climate change, and discussing how to address it, should be at the very center of our public conversation. It shows that philosophy can make an enormous contribution to that conversation, but only if both philosophers and non-philosophers understand what it can contribute. The sixteen original articles collected in this volume both illustrate the diverse ways that philosophy can contribute to this conversation, and ways in which thinking about climate change can help to illuminate a range of topics of independent interest to philosophers.
Download or read book Philosophy and Climate Science written by Eric Winsberg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-12 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive and accessible introduction, as well as an original contribution, to the main philosophical issues raised by climate science.
Download or read book Philosophy and the Climate Crisis written by Byron Williston and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-11 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how the history of philosophy can orient us to the new reality brought on by the climate crisis. If we understand the climate crisis as a deeply existential one, it can help to examine the way past philosophers responded to similar crises in their times. This book explores five past crises, each involving a unique form of collective trauma. These events—war, occupation, exile, scientific revolution and political revolution—inspired the philosophers to remake the whole world in thought, to construct a metaphysics. Williston distills a key intellectual innovation from each metaphysical system: • That political power must be constrained by knowledge of the climate system (Plato) • That ethical and political reasoning must be informed by care or love of the ecological whole (Augustine) • That we must enhance the design of the technosphere (Descartes) • That we must conceive the Earth as an internally complex system (Spinoza) • And that we must grant rights to anyone or anything—ultimately the Earth system itself—whose vital interests are threatened by the effects of climate change (Hegel). Philosophy and the Climate Crisis will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, environmental philosophy and ethics and the environmental humanities.
Download or read book Uncertainty and the Philosophy of Climate Change written by Martin Bunzl and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-25 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it comes to climate change, the greatest difficulty we face is that we do not know the likely degree of change or its cost, which means that environmental policy decisions have to be made under uncertainty. This book offers an accessible philosophical treatment of the broad range of ethical and policy challenges posed by climate change uncertainty. Drawing on both the philosophy of science and ethics, Martin Bunzl shows how tackling climate change revolves around weighing up our interests now against those of future generations, which requires that we examine our assumptions about the value of present costs versus future benefits. In an engaging, conversational style, Bunzl looks at questions such as our responsibility towards non-human life, the interests of the developing and developed worlds, and how the circumstances of poverty shape the perception of risk, ultimate developing and defending a view of humanity and its place in the world that makes sense of our duty to Nature without treating it as a rights bearer. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of environmental studies, philosophy, politics and sociology as well as policy makers.
Download or read book Philosophical Foundations of Climate Change Policy written by Joseph Heath and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Although the task of formulating an appropriate policy response to the problem of anthropogenic climate change is one that raises a number of very difficult normative issues, environmental ethicists have not played an influential role in government deliberations. This is primarily due to their rejection of many of the assumptions that structure the debates over policy. This book offers a philosophical defense of these assumptions, in order to overcome the major conceptual barriers to the participation of philosophers in these debates. There are five important barriers: First, the policy debate presupposes a stance of liberal neutrality, as a result of which it does not privilege any particular set of environmental values over other concerns. Second, it assumes ongoing economic growth, along with a commitment to what is sometimes called a weak sustainability framework when analyzing the value of the bequest being made to future generations. Third, it treats climate change as fundamentally a collective action problem, not an issue of distributive justice. Fourth, there is the acceptance of cost-benefit analysis, or more precisely, the view that a carbon pricing regime should be guided by our best estimate of the social cost of carbon. And finally, there is the view that when this calculation is undertaken, it is permissible to discount costs and benefits, depending on how far removed they are from the present. This book attempts to make explicit and defend these presuppositions, and in so doing offer philosophical foundations for the debate over climate change policy"--
Download or read book Religion Language and the Human Mind written by Paul Chilton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is religion? How does it work? Many natural abilities of the human mind are involved, and crucial among them is the ability to use language. This volume brings together research from linguistics, cognitive science and neuroscience, as well as from religious studies, to understand the phenomena of religion as a distinctly human enterprise. The book is divided into three parts, each part preceded by a full introductory chapter by the editors that discusses modern scientific approaches to religion and the application of modern linguistics, particularly cognitive linguistics and pragmatics. Part I surveys the development of modern studies of religious language and the diverse disciplinary strands that have emerged. Beginning with descriptive approaches to religious language and the problem of describing religious concepts across languages, chapters introduce the turn to cognition in linguistics and also in theology, and explore the brain's contrasting capacities, in particular its capacity for language and metaphor. Part II continues the discussion of metaphor - the natural ability by which humans draw on basic knowledge of the world in order to explore abstractions and intangibles. Specialists in particular religions apply conceptual metaphor theory in various ways, covering several major religious traditions-Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism. Part III seeks to open up new horizons for cognitive-linguistic research on religion, looking beyond written texts to the ways in which language is integrated with other modalities, including ritual, religious art, and religious electronic media. Chapters in Part III introduce readers to a range of technical instruments that have been developed within cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis in recent years. What unfolds ultimately is the idea that the embodied cognition of humans is the basis not only of their languages, but also of their religions.
Download or read book How to Think Seriously about the Planet written by Roger Scruton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-10 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roger Scruton here makes a plea to rescue environmental politics from the activist movements and to return them to the people. The book defends the legacy of home-building and practical reasoning with which ordinary human beings solve their environmental problems, and attacks the alarmism and hysteria that are being used to uproot these resources, while putting nothing coherent in their place.
Download or read book Debating Climate Ethics written by Stephen M. Gardiner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, Stephen M. Gardiner and David A. Weisbach present arguments for and against the relevance of ethics to global climate policy. Gardiner argues that climate change is fundamentally an ethical issue, since it is an early instance of a distinctive challenge to ethical action (the perfect moral storm), and ethical concerns (such as with justice, rights, political legitimacy, community and humanity's relationship to nature) are at the heart of many of the decisions that need to be made. Consequently, climate policy that ignores ethics is at risk of "solving" the wrong problem, perhaps even to the extreme of endorsing forms of climate extortion. This is especially true of policy based on narrow forms of economic self-interest. By contrast, Weisbach argues that existing ethical theories are not well suited to addressing climate change. As applied to climate change, existing ethical theories suffer from internal logical problems and suggest infeasible strategies. Rather than following failed theories or waiting indefinitely for new and better ones, Weisbach argues that central motivation for climate policy is straightforward: it is in their common interest for people and nations to agree to policies that dramatically reduce emissions to prevent terrible harms.
Download or read book Environmental Philosophy Politics and Policy written by John A. Duerk and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-03-17 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As an issue, the environment is complicated. First, it is layered. Secondly, it is multifaceted. As a result, political scientist John A. Duerk has assembled an interdisciplinary anthology composed of accessible studies to generate conversations that will yield greater understanding of the many environmental challenges that we face. The layers explored herein are philosophy, politics, and policy. Philosophy concerns the ideas that inform our values. Politics involves the conflicts that emerge amid the conditions we must navigate. Lastly, policy encompasses how public and private actors respond to everything from regulation of greenhouse gas emissions to changes in consumer attitudes. Regarding the different facets, this work is intended to be an entry point for anyone who would like to learn more about issues such as the land ethic, the environmental impact of clothing production, climate change, the placement of bike lanes in cities, water usage, and artist depictions of the wilderness. Let the conversations begin…
Download or read book Climate Justice written by S. M. Ravi Kanbur and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate justice requires sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and its resolution equitably and fairly. This book brings together economic and philosophical discourse on climate justice in order to support public policy dialogue on the topic.
Download or read book Climate Change and Justice written by Jeremy Moss and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-13 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection sheds new light on the key ethical issues of climate change justice.
Download or read book Ethics for a Broken World written by Tim Mulgan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-11 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagine living in the future in a world already damaged by humankind, a world where resources are insufficient to meet everyone's basic needs and where a chaotic climate makes life precarious. Then imagine looking back into the past, back to our own time and assessing the ethics of the early twenty-first century. "Ethics for a Broken World" imagines how the future might judge us and how living in a time of global environmental degradation might utterly reshape the politics and ethics of the future. This book is presented as a series of history of philosophy lectures given in the future, studying the classic texts from a past age of affluence, our own time. The central ethical questions of our time are shown to look very different from the perspective of a ruined world. The aim of "Ethics for a Broken" World is to look at our present with the benefit of hindsight - to reimagine contemporary philosophy in an historical context - and to highlight the contingency of our own moral and political ideals.
Download or read book Climate Ethics written by Stephen Gardiner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-30 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection gathers a set of seminal papers from the emerging area of ethics and climate change. Topics covered include human rights, international justice, intergenerational ethics, individual responsibility, climate economics, and the ethics of geoengineering. Climate Ethics is intended to serve as a source book for general reference, and for university courses that include a focus on the human dimensions of climate change. It should be of broad interest to all those concerned with global justice, environmental science and policy, and the future of humanity.
Download or read book Reason in a Dark Time written by Dale Jamieson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. Yet greenhouse gas emissions increased, atmospheric concentrations grew, and global warming became an observable fact of life. In this book, philosopher Dale Jamieson explains what climate change is, why we have failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do. Centered in philosophy, the volume also treats the scientific, historical, economic, and political dimensions of climate change. Our failure to prevent or even to respond significantly to climate change, Jamieson argues, reflects the impoverishment of our systems of practical reason, the paralysis of our politics, and the limits of our cognitive and affective capacities. The climate change that is underway is remaking the world in such a way that familiar comforts, places, and ways of life will disappear in years or decades rather than centuries. Climate change also threatens our sense of meaning, since it is difficult to believe that our individual actions matter. The challenges that climate change presents go beyond the resources of common sense morality -- it can be hard to view such everyday acts as driving and flying as presenting moral problems. Yet there is much that we can do to slow climate change, to adapt to it and restore a sense of agency while living meaningful lives in a changing world.
Download or read book Climate Matters Ethics in a Warming World Norton Global Ethics Series written by John Broome and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-07-23 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vital new moral perspective on the climate change debate. Esteemed philosopher John Broome avoids the familiar ideological stances on climate change policy and examines the issue through an invigorating new lens. As he considers the moral dimensions of climate change, he reasons clearly through what universal standards of goodness and justice require of us, both as citizens and as governments. His conclusions—some as demanding as they are logical—will challenge and enlighten. Eco-conscious readers may be surprised to hear they have a duty to offset all their carbon emissions, while policy makers will grapple with Broome’s analysis of what if anything is owed to future generations. From the science of greenhouse gases to the intricate logic of cap and trade, Broome reveals how the principles that underlie everyday decision making also provide simple and effective ideas for confronting climate change. Climate Matters is an essential contribution to one of the paramount issues of our time.
Download or read book Climate Change and Environmental Ethics written by Ved P. Nanda and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a broad consensus that climate change presents the international community with a formidable challenge. Yet progress on all fronts-prevention, mitigation, and adaptation-has been slow. Ved P. Nanda finds an explanation for this disparity in the sharp divide between the developed and developing countries. Developing countries demand that major industrialized nations provide the necessary resources and technology to address climate change, while many developed countries seek firm commitments and timetables on action from the developing countries. The result is a stalemate. Climate Change and Environmental Ethics contains first-rate research and thinking from scholars from multiple disciplines-ethics, ecology, philosophy, economics, political science, history, and international law. What distinguishes this volume from recent work on climate change are two of its special features. One is the multi-disciplinary backgrounds of the scholars, their stellar experiences, and the wisdom with which they express not simply their philosophy and theory but also their suggestions for concrete, specific action in practical terms. The second is the special niche this volume fills in its overarching theme of the need for a renewed environmental ethic that can bring together these disparate but interconnected views. This volume explores alternative ways of conceiving our relation to the natural world. A spirit of international cooperation and collaboration is needed to meet the challenge. The reader is complelled to think anew about our understanding of the scientific and technical issues, as well as our values and ethical responsibilities regarding climate change.
Download or read book Environmental Philosophy written by Simon P. James and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-06-03 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change, habitat loss, rising extinction rates - such problems call for more than just new policies and practices. They raise fundamental questions about the world and our place in it. What, for instance, is the natural world? Do we humans belong to it? Which parts of it are we morally obliged to protect? Drawing on an exceptionally wide range of sources, from virtue ethics to Buddhism, leading environmental philosopher Simon P. James sets out to answer these vitally important questions. The book begins with a discussion of animal minds, before moving on to explore our moral relations with non-human organisms, ecosystems and the earth as a whole. James then considers environmental aesthetics, humanity's place in the natural world and the question of what it means to be wild. In the concluding chapter, he applies his findings to the topic of global climate change, building a strong moral case for urgent action. This accessible, entertainingly written book will be essential reading for students of the environment across the humanities and social sciences. It will, moreover, be an ideal guide for anyone keen to deepen their understanding of environmental issues.
