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Ethics for the Anthropocene?

Ethics for the Anthropocene?. Jonas, Elliott, Utilitarianism. How Ethical Reasoning Works. The elements of a methodology. Intuitions: our initial and then refined/defended moral feelings. Why intuitionism won’t work—but is relevant. Principles: a brief statement of criteria of choice..

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Ethics for the Anthropocene?

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  1. Ethics for the Anthropocene? Jonas, Elliott, Utilitarianism

  2. How Ethical Reasoning Works

  3. The elements of a methodology • Intuitions: our initial and then refined/defended moral feelings. Why intuitionism won’t work—but is relevant. • Principles: a brief statement of criteria of choice.. • Concepts/theoretical structure: that which supports the principles and refines/rejects the intuitions. • Feasibility: can it work? • 1-4 and the need for independence.

  4. Ethics and science: methodological similarities/evolution • Observations. • The theory of evolution: explaining the observations. • The constructs that support the theory. • How can evolution work? Reference to the fundamental laws of physics. Sunlight, DNA, etc. etc, and the entropy law.

  5. How do we judge and narrative(s) and components? • Goals of a narrative are emergent from it. • Authority. 10 commandments. • Responsiveness. UN/human rights. • Functional: Reproduction of genes; reproduction of memes. • Western emancipation narrative—successful? So far? Ever?

  6. How is the moral community to be bounded? Or is it? • Suffering • Being a member of our group. Race, gender, education, part of the story…. • Being an adversary: War. Enemy/enemy. • Extension • Holding a right. • The great chain of being? • Is the Universe the community?

  7. Ethics (Jonas) The Imperative of Responsibility

  8. Is Western Ethics Obsolete?

  9. The Altered Nature of Human Action

  10. Core Ethics of the Judeo-Christian Tradition • The ten commandments: 1) Love God; 2) Graven images forbidden; 3) Do not take the name of the Lord in vain; 4) Remember the Sabbath; 5) Honor your father and your mother; 6) Do not kill; 7) Do not commit adultery; 8) Do not steal; 9) Do not bear false witness; 10) Do not covet. • The two commandments: 1) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might; and 2) love your neighbor as yourself.

  11. The Lord’s Prayer

  12. The Perspective of Antiquity • The Human Impact is Small and Insignificant Seen in the Context of the Natural World • The city was the place where humans dwelt and it circumscribed the limits of the moral community

  13. Previous Ethics (mainstream) • Relationship to the natural world is ethically neutral. • All ethics is human to human. • Where we live and who we are is not the object of techne. • Proximity in time and space is assumed. • No special knowledge is required.

  14. New Dimensions of Responsibility • The vulnerability of Nature. • New knowledge requirements: complex and long term. • The new (in my view arrogant) question of whether nature herself has moral standing.

  15. Technology • The rise of the technological imperative—the human self becomes subordinate to this imperative. The human is the OBJECT of the technology: extension of life; behavior control; and genetics. • The universal city. • The imperative of responsibility for the continuation of humanity. • Representative governance and the appeal to interests.

  16. The ethical vacuum • The need to restore the sacred • New powers needed • And they must be scaled to the problems.

  17. Is Western Ethics Wrong?

  18. Elliott?

  19. Does EFW Fill the Bill? • Natural Selection and Morals (14-18) • The Environmental Principle (18-9) • Character of Western Ethics (24-26) • Assumptions of Western Ethics (26-7) • Equality (28-30) • Implications of moving from infinite and finite Worlds. (32-3)

  20. Justification • Rationalism: universal; empirical (38-51) • Perils of duty to assist: over reaching obligations, consequences. • Western ethics self-destructive. (60-1) • The naturalistic fallacy as a fallacy (71-2) • The shortcomings of personal ethics. Cannot apply under conditions of scarcity; irrelevant to institutions; disaster. (81-92)

  21. Further Problems with Western Ethical Narrative. • Human rights: • Exogenous rescue • Justice as a property of the Universe….

  22. Types of Ethical Theories Elliott’s Oversights • Types: 1) Deontological—Kantian—rights; 2) Apodictic 10 commandments; 3) Consequentalist-Bentham, JS Mill; 4) Communitarian—Aristotle, Michael Sandel.

  23. Is Pleasure the Measure? Can Utilitarianism Serve as a Foundation for Environmental Policy?

  24. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) www.island-of-freedom.com/MILL.HTM

  25. The need for one principle

  26. The Principle of Utility “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.”

  27. What is happiness? “By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.”

  28. How much happiness Greatest happiness for the greatest number.

  29. Happiness for whom?

  30. For all, presumably.

  31. Comparing Happiness

  32. The comparison of utilities Cardinal Www.challengeBP.com

  33. The comparison of utilities Ordinal Soft Hard http://www.tiemaster.com/

  34. Which Happiness?

  35. Higher/ lower pleasures http://www.greekciv.pdx.edu/philosophy/socrates/ander.htm http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/SWINE/

  36. Rembrandt, Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer (1653)

  37. Renoir, The Boating Party (1880-1)

  38. Proving Utilitarianism José Carlo González www.photo.net

  39. Motivations for Utilitarianism

  40. Keeping One Principle • 1. The boss is always right. • 2. The boss is sometimes wrong. • 3. When I doubt see rule #1.

  41. Justice: justice as satisfaction http://www.theelectricchair.com/rituals.htm

  42. Weighing Happiness

  43. All count equally.

  44. Utilitarian Schools • Classical (Bentham and Mill) • Free-market (Pacific Res. Inst, Fraser Inst, Coase) • Corrected-market (Neo-Cl econ) • Bureaucratic (Pinchot/US Can. For. Services) • Universal (Singer) • Cost/benefit analysis.(Kaldor-Hicks rule)

  45. Paradoxes/Problems with Utilitarianism • Why only humans? • One principle? Greatest happiness, greatest number, longest time? • Proof? • Pro-natalist? • Requires too little(econ )too much-Jesus? • Mechanical—fixed rule? • The paradox of the future? Discounting?

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