Sustainability Ethics and Sustainability Research

Abstract

1. Introduction PART I: Sustainability and Ethics 2. The Meaning of Sustainability 3. The Inherent Ethical Dimension of Sustainability - Toward a Relational Ethical Perspective 4. Limits and Potential of Traditional Moral Philosophy and Current Ethics - Some Arguments For the Need For a New Type of Sustainability Ethics 4.1 The Limits of Utilitarianism and Deontology 4.2 Environmental Ethics and Sustainability Ethics 4.3 Virtue Ethics and Ethics of Care: The Ethical Relevance of Relationships 4.4 The Ethical Relevance of Social Structures and Institutions 5. The Challenges of Sustainability Ethics PART II: Meta-structures and Sustainability 6. Sustainability, Institutions, and Patterns of Thought and Action 7. Meta-structures 7.1 Science As a Meta-structure 7.2 Technology As a Meta-structure 7.3 The Economy As a Meta-structure 7.4 Interrelations Among Meta-structures 8. The Impact of the Web of Meta-structures on the Sustainability Relations PART III: Toward a New Sustainability Ethics 9. The Relational Dimension of Sustainability Ethics and the Role of Individual Morality 9.1 Ethics of the Human-Nature Relationship 9.2 Ethical Specifics of the Relationship With Future Generations 9.3 Sustainability and the Ethics of the Relationship Between Contemporaries 9.4 An Integrated Ethical Approach to All Sustainability Relations: The Sustainable Person 10. The Structural Dimension of Sustainability Ethics 10.1 An Ethical Critique of the Existing Web of Meta-structures 10.1.1 The Reduction of the Human-Nature Relation 10.1.2 The Reduction of the Relationship with Future Generations 10.1.3 The Reduction of the Relationship Between Contemporaries 10.1.4 Conclusion 10.2 Guidelines for a Redesign of the Meta-structures 10.3 Examples of Internal Structural Change: Biomimicry, Industrial Ecology, and Fair Trade 10.4 Excursus: Rationality, Human Self-identity, and Meta-structures PART IV: Toward an Encompassing Sustainability Research 11. The Need For a New Type of Sustainability Research 12. Inter- and Transdisciplinarity 12.1 Interdisciplinary Integration of Sciences and Sustainability Ethics 12.2 Transdisciplinary Integration of Research Into the Sustainability Relations 13. Capabilities and Personal Identity of the Researcher 14. The Role of Philosophy for Sustainability Research 15. Conclusion Index