Please join us this Friday, April 22, at 3 pm in ENV 120 or Zoom for our last colloquium of the semester with Dr. Allen Thompson of Oregon State University.
A World They Don't Deserve: Moral Failure and Deep Adaptation
In the early 21st Century, multiple anthropogenic environmental crises present themselves as morally problematic. Views of intergenerational ethics typically attempt to give clear account of to whom we owe obligations, what we owe them, and how we should act to satisfy these obligations. The normative significance of these views is to identify what we morally should do to prevent bad consequences that will otherwise follow the status quo. In this essay, on the contrary, I address what it could mean and what we should do on the assumption that present generations are moral failures vis-a-vis the global environment and thus will deliver to future generations a significantly degraded world they don't deserve.
Because of our moral failure, the world of tomorrow may not resemble our own in any obvious ways, but one: short of extinction, human beings will aim to lead good lives. I consider and reject three initial answers concerning what morality requires of us, given our moral failure to prevent catastrophic climate change, before offering an alternative version of "deep adaptation" for the Anthropocene. My view includes a commitment to fostering social capital of trust, care, and community self-reliance, and learning to manage the natural capital of emerging novel ecosystems. I argue that radical hope today involves broad cultural adaptation of philosophical views best suited for difficult times. A philosophy of life that gives priority to the internal conditions of flourishing will serve future generations well, as they confront difficult conditions of a wrecked world.
Dr. Thompsom's primary areas of interest are environmental philosophy (including ethics, metaphysics, and aesthetics), philosophical ethics, social and political philosophy, and practical reason. Recent publications have focused on forward-looking conceptions of human natural goodness and re-visioning our moral responsibility for managing ecosystems under conditions of global climate change.
He will join us this Earth Day 2022 for his talk here at UNT.