1st Edition

Environmental Political Philosophy

By Wojciech W. Gasparski Copyright 2012
    364 Pages
    by Routledge

    364 Pages
    by Routledge

    The need for solutions to environmental problems is urgent. Expanded environmental research and knowledge, along with interest in environmental issues, has focused attention on the social, political, and practical aspects of environmental problems. Environmental Political Philosophy searches for common environmental goals, values, and policies in society.

    An essential undercurrent in political theory about the environment is that such issues are not questions of efficiency or technology. They cannot simply be addressed through knowledge of processes and mechanics of nature, by boosting or targeting research, or by allocating of resources and development of technology. Neither can they be resolved solely by increasing civic understanding and mounting environmental campaigns or requiring endless eco-friendly actions.

    A crucial element of environmental political philosophy is highlighted through the studies in this volume, which address the question of what constitutes efficient action or effective decision making. Praxiology commences with empirical orientation, but does so by maintaining the important sense that in the evaluation of actions and policies, ethical considerations must be employed in conjunction with effectiveness and efficiency.

    1: Changing Concepts; Environmental Justice; Remarks on Ecological Radicalism; Perfectionist Liberalism, Natural Law Jurisprudence, and the Philosophical Foundations of Environmental Law; Environmental Sustainability in Political Liberalism; Public Participation and the Legitimacy of Climate Policies; 2: Changing Society; Between Democracy and Antagonistic Environmental Politics; A Designing Human Society: A Chance or a Utopia?; On the Role of Values in the World of Technology; On Green Economics; Tackling Environmental Degradation and Poverty; 3: Changing Human Beings; The Role of Moral Status in Practice 1; Romance, Reason, and Poetry in Ecological Philosophy; Sustainable Development as an Axiological and a Civilizational Challenge; Educating for Sustainability; The Creators of Global Warming; Notes about the Authors

    Biography

    Wojciech W. Gasparski