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1996
W. J. M. MacKenzie Prize winner for the best book in Political Science published in 1999 `Of the sixteen books submitted, some of high quality, this one was agreed to be in a class of its own…. The book breaks new ground in `green' political theory, and in an engaging manner, educates those anxious to be good citizens and challenges those responsible for public policy, in a highly topical and globally important discourse.… Barry's immanent critique, his insistence that we build on what there is, his resistance to the easy anti-statist line, his sane and balanced outlook, is intellectually brave in this often rather clamant territory. The analysis of ecological morality, individual stewardship, and collective responsibility provides an original and seminal treatise that advances the discipline as a whole' - Professor Andrew Dunsire
This thesis offers an immanent critique and reconstruction of green moral and political theory. In chapter 1, the critical-reconstructive approach and spirit of the thesis is outlined in terms of contributing to the process of developing a green political theory that is different from, ‘ecologism' or ideological accounts of green politics. In chapter 2, deep ecology is critically interrogated in terms of its metaphysical (2 .3) and psychological claims (2.4). Its view of the 'ecological crisis" as a 'crisis' of western culture is criticised, as is its a priori defence of environmental preservation versus the human productive use of nature. While its ecocentrism is rejected as the normative basis for green politics, its concern with virtue ethics is held to be an important contribution. In chapter 3, a self-reflexive version of anthropocentrism is developed as the most appropriate moral basis for green politics. Some naturalistic arguments are presented in order to support' speciesism, and defend it from claims of arbitrariness and as being akin to sexism or racism. Arguments centring on demonstrating the tenuous character of the differences between humans and nonhumans are argued to neglect the fundamental moral significance of the difference between 'human' and' nonhuman'. I argue that an ethic of use, understood as reflexive mode of interaction with the nonhuman world, is a defensible form of anthropocentrism for green political purposes. The basis of this reflexive anthropocentrism turns on the claim that while human interests are a necessary condition for justifying a particular human use of nature, it is not a satisfactory one. Issues pertaining to the 'seriousness' of the human interest which is fulfilled are held to be important in distinguishing ‘use' from 'abuse. In chapters 4 to 7, I outline a particular conception of green political theory. In chapter 4, the eco-anarchist position is examined by focusing on two versions: bioregionalism (4 .3) and social ecology (4.4). While rejecting the eco-anarchist position, I conclude that it be thought of as a constitutive rather than a regulative ideal of green politics, on the basis that the transformation rather than the abolition of the state is consistent with green values and principles. Chapter5 builds on the latter and presents an institutional version of green politics, which I call collective ecological management. This understanding of green politics, in which both the ‘nation' and the 'state' have key roles, is developed from a critique of ecological modernisation (5.5), and Leopold's 'land ethic' (5.8). In chapter 6, I outline a theory of green political economy. Criticising both neoclassical environmental economics and free market environmentalism I, present an alternative green political economy which sees the 're-embedding' of the economy in society as a necessary part of the process of harmonising the human and natural economics. Issues around the 'formal' and 'informal' economy, local and global markets, self-sufficiency and self-reliance arc discussed as well the relationship between consumption, production and ecological virtue. In chapter 7, the democratic dimensions of green political theory are examined. Here, green democratic theory and practice is held to centre on a view or democracy as a form of society in which 'green citizenship" as an integrative mode of action and identity is central to the cultivation of 'ecological stewardship’. Chapter 8 concludes with a discussion of 'progress', virtue and ecological stewardship.
"Arguing that a principled standpoint is a condition for any person or movement seeking to effect real social change, this book foregrounds social and environmental justice as against economic imperatives based on accumulation, profit and endless growth. If the world's resources are to be saved for future generations, the world's citizens will have to assume a standpoint based on a set of ethical considerations and principles which are directly opposed to the overarching imperatives of the global economy. But these principles will also have to be in favour of something, confronting the world with a positive vision of change in order to inspire and motivate effort. This book argues that the reality of environmental crisis and the prospect of future social transformation challenges our science and our values. Whilst it is plain that change is normal in the history of the planet and that human beings, as change agents, are very adept at responding to change, the nature of the contemporary environmental crisis is the uncertainty with respect to the levels, character and timings of changes. And the evidence is that the rates of change may well be increasing, with a whole number of practical implications. The book examines the key questions within the many-sided predicament concerning the factors influencing environmental change and how to respond to that change: How is nature conceived and how should nature be conceived? What should human beings do and how should human beings act? What are the objects and what principles should action be guided by? In putting these questions the paper is concerned to relate Green politics not only to the scientific analysis of the environmental crisis but above all to moral, cultural and psychological states and attitudes. This implies that ecologists need to discover and advance answers to the moral, social and political questions that are of most concern to individuals. This comes with the corollary that ecologists in politics should leave most of their scientific capital behind and address individuals on the level of the issues that most concern them. What kind of world do people want to live in? What kind of social and natural landscape fits this world? What contribution can people make and what can people do to move that part of the world in which they live and work in this direction, whether as individuals alone or as part of a collective project? Of course, the life support systems of planet earth is a universal cause which gives some substance to notions of the common good. Humankind as a whole has a common interest in protecting life on this planet. Ecology as politics can therefore envisage the inclusive politics that has been pursued by the great religions and the grand narratives of politics, but which has continued to prove elusive. The elusive character of the general interest and the universal ethic should warn anyone thinking that building consensus is easy. In pursuing the common good, human beings are approaching the universal from very uncommon ground. So the goal of an inclusive environmentalism involves a re-thinking of ethics, one capable of integrating a diversity of social movements in a common moral cause. The goal is to act and make a contribution so as to create a liveable and sustainable world for all, humans and nonhumans alike. The main challenge is not technical and institutional but moral and psychological, the way that the human personality has been moulded to fit the system. For the best part of a century, a long succession of thinkers, politicians and advertisers have urged individuals to throw off moral, psychic and communal restraint to act on impulse, yield to desire, and abandon measure in self-gratification. The result is an inability to think for the long term common good. These observations are shown to point to the need to embed a cognitive praxis within the institutional framework of government and politics so that actions and outcomes are more closely connected, greater cooperation and coordination is achieved between actors, greater clarity is expressed with regard to decision making results, and insight into long term ends comes to inform short term choices. Rather than concentrate on achieving predictability within existing modes of thought, action and organisation, the argument of this book is that the emphasis should be upon increasing adaptability through the innovation of new modes on the basis of immanent lines of development. This makes the affirmation of ecological and social capacity building as at least a much a part of Green politics as campaigns for votes and office. The position emphasises human beings as makers, as doers, as change agents capable of assuming ethical and political control of a world which is in large part self-made. This argument is developed in terms of concepts and values, mentalities and modalities, which allow for a plurality of meanings, institutions and practices which are adaptable in face of new developments and unforeseen events — and which also facilitate positive and coherent responses to change. This commitment to praxis as the means by which human agents reclaim the ethical content of a self-made world is considered worthy in its own right, as well as being an integral part of dealing with the challenges presented by climatic change."
This paper identifies the key questions within the many-sided predicament concerning the factors influencing environmental change and how to respond to that change: How is nature conceived and how should nature be conceived? What should human beings do and how should human beings act? What are the objects and what principles should action be guided by? In putting these questions the paper is concerned to relate Green politics not only to the scientific analysis of the environmental crisis but above all to moral, cultural and psychological states and attitudes.
"Part of The Coming Ecological Revolution Pt 4 Political Philosophy and Ethics by Dr Peter Critchley This paper examines the Green claim that society - indeed, civilisation as we know it - cannot survive on the current basis and that a sustainable society must now be built on ecological principles. For O’Riordan, greens offer a ‘simple binary choice’ between two opposing 'world-views' (O'Riordan 1981: 300). Except that there is no real choice between survival or self-administered destruction. The argument contrasts the 'Life Necessities Society (LNS) to 'the 'Industrial Growth Society (IGS)' (Kvaloy 1990) in terms of competing 'Bioregional’ and 'Industrial-Scientific' paradigms (Sale 1985: 50). These are not choices but alternatives, with green values or principles as imperatives demanding a fundamental reconstruction of political society. For Ophuls, 'liberal democracy as we know it ... is doomed by ecological scarcity; we need a completely new political philosophy and set of institutions' (Ophuls 1977a: 3). This means that incremental reform and a piecemeal gradualism within existing political institutions is merely part of the general crisis of the existing techno-industrial system and not a coherent response to it. The paper argues that the Green failure to develop a new political philosophy and a new institutional framework derives from on an internal fracture within Green politics, split between an authoritarian vision based on fundamental green values and ecological imperatives on the one hand, and a democratic vision which, within an unchanged parliamentary and electoral politics, is based on people’s own opinions. Without a transformation of political institutions, green politics is extremely vulnerable, having to dilute its principles in order to widen electoral appeal, thus risking accommodation and absorption within the existing system, or even coming to supply the rationale justifying authoritarian government when the impact of ecological crisis starts to be felt. To accept the horizons of the existing political system is to limit aims to incremental tinkering within the system, with green politics reduced to little more than the attempt to manage and administer a mounting ecological crisis and disaster. The alternative to Green politics as a rescue squad is ecological praxis bringing about the ecological society, the idea that the practical transformation which brings about the ecological society is at the same time a political transformation in which the individuals composing the demos come to be capable of participating within communitarian direct democracy, thus uniting means and ends, form and content. As a goal abstracted from the constitutive praxis that brings it about, the ecological society is a utopia, incapable of realisation and lacking in electoral appeal. The same applies to all other ecological values. The notion of ecological praxis identifies the individual members of the demos as change agents bringing about the future sustainable society."
Democracy and green political thought: sustainability, …
Sustainability, political judgement and citizenship1996 •
This chapter starts from the observation that empirically there seems to be a positive relationship between democratic institutions and ecological protection. On the one hand, the more democratic a society is, the more likely it is that ecological sustainability will be enhanced, or could be enhanced. In some respects this is related to the way in which democracy as ‘responsive rule’ (Saward 1993:65– 6), or a communicative process (Dryzek 1990), is more effective in ensuring the relatively quick adjustment of economic-ecological processes in the face of ecological disruptions than authoritarian, non-democratic systems. On the other hand in their practical political activity environmental groups have been at the forefront of efforts to ‘democratise’ state institutions, particularly in relation to access to information, scientific data, public inquiries and more open forms of public policy making (Paehlke 1988). In a sense then although there may be a question as to the strict theoretical relationship between green political theory and democracy, in practice this tension seems more apparent than real. There is thus a sound basis upon which to establish the theoretical counterpart to this empirical connection. It is the ‘primacy of the political’ that serves to underwrite the non-contingent place of democracy within ecologism. It is only if ecological sustainability is reduced to a technical injunction that other theories can claim to be ‘green’ or ‘ecological’, or that green politics and democracy become disconnected: such technical/economic interpretations ground environmental rather than ecological positions (Dobson 1990:3). Following from this we can claim that a minimal position is to assert the compatibility of environmentalism with democracy, either in the sense of environmentalists being seen as another interest group whose aims can be included within the framework of traditional pluralist accommodation, or the ‘environmental crisis’ as an external factor to which existing democracies can easily adjust. However, what I want to establish in this chapter is a non-contingent relationship between green politics and democracy by arguing that from the green perspective enhanced democratic structures and practices are not merely desirable but in fact fundamentally necessary. That is, it is not just the case that democracy is weakly compatible with green politics, in little danger of being undermined (since greens are so democratic in practice), but, rather, that the achievement of sustainability makes democracy a core, non-negotiable, value of green political theory.
Political Philosophy and Ethics This part examines the emancipatory potentialities of reason and freedom to constitute the good life for human beings. The argument considers politics as creative human self-realisation to possess an ineliminable normative dimension concerning the appropriate regiment for the good. Green political theory is analysed in the context of a philosophical concept of ‘rational freedom’ drawn from the work of Aristotle, Plato, Rousseau, Kant and Hegel.
Sustainable development is rooted in the history of two divergent movements – for the preservation of nature, and for the conservation of natural resources – and of their relationship with the natural sciences. Ecology has played a central role in this history. As a societal paradigm that is at once ecological, political, and economic, sustainable development is supposed to embody ideal policy for all societies, and to overcome the opposition between these two diverging views of man‑nature relationships. An analysis of international texts devoted to sustainable development emphasizes certain fundamental, interdependent principles: true democracy, social sustainability, and respect for the resilience of ecological systems. Despite formal concessions to preservationists with the recognition of the intrinsic value of biodiversity, the sustainable development concept is clearly anthropocentric, and is in direct line of descent from conservationism. As its fundamental principles are not implemented in an integrated way, its ritual evocation fail to hide strong ethical and political contradictions, rendering it merely an impotent utopia.
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