Ethics and politics in the Anthropocene

Abstract

The most fundamental challenge facing humans today is the imminent destruction of the life-generating and life-sustaining ecosystems that constitute the planet Earth. There is considerable evidence that the strongest contemporary ecological threat is anthropogenic climate change resulting from the increasing warming of the atmosphere, caused by cumulative CO2 and other emissions as a result of collective human activity over the past few 100 years. This process of climate change is reinforced by further ecological problems such as pollution of land, air and sea, depletion of resources, land degradation and the loss of biodiversity. The name gaining currency for this emerging epoch of instability in the Earth’s eco-systems is the Anthropocene. Anthropogenic climate change calls for a categorical shift in thinking about the place of humanity in these systems and requires fundamental rethinking of ethics and politics. What would an appropriate ethical frame for politics in the Anthropocene look like? In response to this question, I sketch a proposal for an ethically non-anthropocentric ethics. I draw on early Frankfurt School Critical Theorists, and on Habermas, but move beyond these theorists in key respects.