Pathways to a New Environmental Ethic

£35.99

Pathways to a New Environmental Ethic

Decentering the Human Subject

Environmental science, engineering and technology

Author: Steven E. Alford

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Collection: Ethics and Culture

Language: English

Published by: McFarland

Published on: 25 July 2024

Format: LCP-protected ePub

Size: 210 pages

ISBN: 9781476653518


We live under the threat of humanity''s self-inflicted extinction. While technological approaches to climate mitigation are admirable, our ecological crisis results ultimately from an inherited, unexamined concept of selfhood and a misconceived view of nature. The received idea that our self exists inside our skull engenders an assumption that nature is "out there," with devastating results.

This book explores three new ways of thinking about the interrelation of ourselves and "nature": Merleau-Ponty''s notion of embodiment, the connection between enactivism and affordances, and object oriented ontology. These approaches to selfhood reorder our moral obligations: What are our responsibilities to ourselves, our children, and nature itself? An embodied ethic can transcend cultural biases and offer a new way of confronting climate change. To meet environmental challenges, we need to change our minds about our minds.

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