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Today it is widely recognized that we face urgent and serious environmental problems and we know much about them, yet we do very little. What explains this lack of motivation and change? Why is it so hard to change our lives? This book addresses this question by means of a philosophical inquiry into the conditions of possibility for environmental change. It discusses how we can become more motivated to do environmental good and what kind of knowledge we need for this, and explores the relations between motivation, knowledge, and modernity. After reviewing a broad range of possible philosophical and psychological responses to environmental apathy and inertia, the author argues for moving away from a modern focus on either detached reason and control (Stoicism and Enlightenment reason) or the natural, the sentiments, and the authentic (Romanticism), both of which make possible disengaging and alienating modes of relating to our environment. Instead he develops the notion of environmental skill: a concept that bridges the gap between knowledge and action, re-interprets environmental virtue, and suggests an environmental ethics centered on experience, know-how and skillful engagement with our environment. The author then explores the implications of this ethics for our lives: it changes the way we think about , and deal with, health, food, animals, energy, climate change, politics, and technology.
List of contents
1. Introduction Part I: Environmental Motivation and Knowledge: Ancient and Modern Lessons from Philosophy and Psychology 2. The Moral Psychology of Environmental "Sin" 3. Lessons from Contemporary Psychology Part II: The Janus Face of Modern Environmentalism: Enlightenment and Romanticism 4. Enlightenment Reason and Liberation Politics 5. Romantic Feeling for Nature Part III: Beyond, Nature, beyond Modernity, beyond Thinking: A Non-Romantic, Non-Modern Approach 6. Beyond "Nature" and Modernity: Towards Non-Dualistic Thinking 7. Beyond Environmental Thinking (1): Skilled Engagement 8. Beyond Environmental Thinking (2): Exercising Virtue and Moral Sentiment Part IV: Implications for Environmental Ethics and Philosophy of Technology 9. Implications for Environmental Ethics (1): Beyond Walking in "Nature" 10. Implications for Environmental Ethics (2): Exploring the Possibility of Non-Modern and Non-Romantic Environmental Living 11. The Art of Environmental Practice as an Ethics of Skill: Revisiting the Problem of Technology and its Relation to Alienation 12. Conclusion: The Possibility of a New Environmental Ethics
About the author
Mark Coeckelbergh is Professor of Technology and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University, UK. Previously he was Managing Director of the 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology and affiliated to the Philosophy Department of the University of Twente. His publications include
Growing Moral Relations (2012),
Human Being @ Risk (2013), and numerous publications in the area of ethics and technology, in particular ethics of robotics and ICTs. His research interests include philosophy of technology, environmental philosophy and moral philosophy.
