This is a book about how politics, government - and much else - needs to change in response to the transition from the Holocene to the Anthropocene, the emerging epoch of human-induced instability in the Earth system and its life-support capacities.

A range of developing countries and international advocacy organizations have argued that wealthy countries, as a result of their greater historical contribution to human-induced climate change, owe a ?climate debt? to poor countries. Critics of this argument have claimed that it is incoherent or morally objectionable. In this essay we clarify the concept of climate debt and assess its value for conceptualizing responsibilities associated with global climate change and for guiding international climate negotiations. We conclude that the idea of a (...) climate debt can be coherently formulated, and that while some understandings of the idea of climate debt could lead to morally objectionable conclusions, other accounts would not. However, we argue that climate debt nevertheless provides an unhelpful frame for advancing global justice through international climate negotiations ? the only existing means of resolving political conflict over the collective action problems posed by human-induced climate change ? due to its retrospective and potentially adversarial emphasis, and to problems of measurement. (shrink)

Galen Strawson accepts that the common experience of being a social self is of something that continues through time. However, he excludes this from what ‘the self’ means in a stricter ontological sense. Here I will argue that this experience of self as enduring can be taken to be ontologically real as well. I will suggest that selfhood arises from the assimilation of cultural signs by a semiotic process that is a fundamental aspect of nature. I will also consider how (...) the phenomenological encounter with ‘the self’ is conditioned by prior beliefs and their ethical entailments. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Sensorimotor Direct Realism: How We Enact Our World” by Michael Beaton. Upshot: Sensorimotor direct realism may describe how animals engage with their surroundings. But human beings are not typical animals. Their engagement can be metaphorical as well as direct, in which case the theory has less plausibility.

At the United Nations climate change conference in 2011, parties decided to launch the “Durban Platform” to work towards a new long-term climate agreement. The decision was notable for the absence of any reference to “equity”, a prominent principle in all previous major climate agreements. Wealthy countries resisted the inclusion of equity on the grounds that the term had become too closely yoked to developing countries’ favored conception of equity. This conception, according to wealthy countries, exempts developing countries from making (...) commitments that are stringent enough for the collective effort needed to avoid dangerous climate change. In circumstances where even mentioning the term equity has become problematic, a critical question is whether scope for a fair agreement is being squeezed out of negotiations. To address this question we set out a conceptual framework for normative theorizing about fairness in international negotiations, accompanied by a set of minimal standards of fairness and plausible feasibility constraints for sharing the global climate change mitigation effort. We argue that a fair and feasible agreement may be reached by (i) reforming the current binary approach to differentiating developed and developing country groups, in tandem with (ii) introducing a more principled approach to differentiating the mitigation commitments of individual countries. These two priorities may provide the basis for a principled bargain between developed and developing countries that safeguards the opportunity to avoid dangerous climate change without sacrificing widely acceptable conceptions of equity. (shrink)

Recovering from its obsession with the computer in the 1990's psychology realised that minds come with bodies, something that Whitehead had pointed out in the 1920's. However, the problem of how the mind and body are linked remained. Bisemiotics solves it.

The return of interest in panpsychism reflects a shift towards process metaphysics. To propose that qualia are present throughout nature is a radical break with the mechanistic worldview inherited from the nineteenth century. That break is much needed as it is becoming clear that the values implicit in that worldview have helped create a serious ecological crisis. Here, following Bohm and Peirce, an elaboration of process metaphysics is proposed based on a semiotic view of causation. This in turn, taken together (...) with insights from biosemiotics, is used to propose a worldview of unbroken wholeness in which consciousness is ubiquitous and exists at scales well beyond the range of human experience. It is suggested that this will help to recover some of the ecological sensitivies found in prescientific traditions, which are lost in a purely mechanistic worldview. (shrink)

Abstract Cognitivism, presently the major paradigm of psychology, presents a scientific account of mental life. Buddhism also presents an account of mental life, but one which is integral with its wider ethical and transcendental concerns. The postmodern appraisal of science provides a framework within which these two accounts may be compared without inheriting many of the assumed oppositions between science and religion. It is concluded that cognitivism and Buddhism will have complementary roles in the development of a more pluralist psychological (...) science. In this development it will be necessary to address what values are implicit in science. (shrink)

Finding true love is a journey of transformation obstructed by numerous psychological obstacles. _Being in Love_ expands the traditional field of psychoanalytic couple therapy, and explores therapeutic methods of working through the obstacles leading to true love. Becoming who we are is an inherently relational journey: we uncover our truest nature and become most authentically real through the difficult and fearful, yet transformative intersubjective crucibles of our intimate relationships. In this book, Judith Pickering draws comparisons between Bion's concept of becoming (...) in O, and being in love. She searches for pathways that lead away from relational confusion towards the discovery of genuine transformational relationships, and works towards finding better ways of relating to one another. This is achieved by encouraging couples to enjoy the actual presence, humanity, otherness and particularity of each other rather than expecting a partner to conform to our own expectations, projections, desires and presuppositions. Pickering draws on clinical material, contemporary psychoanalysis, cultural themes from the worlds of mythology and literature, and a wealth of therapeutic techniques in this fresh approach to couple therapy. _Being in Love_ will therefore interest students and practitioners of psychoanalysis, psychology, and couple therapy, as well as all of those seeking to be more authentic in their relationships. (shrink)

A meditation inspired by the conference, ‘Toward a Science of Consciousness: Fundamental Approaches’ held at the United Nations University, Tokyo, May 25-28, 1999.

The urgent need to address climate change poses a range of complex moral and practical concerns, not least because rising to the challenge will require cooperation among countries that differ greatly in their wealth, the extent of their contributions to the problem, and their vulnerability to environmental and economic shocks. This thesis by publication in the field of climate ethics aims to characterise a range of national responsibilities associated with acting on climate change (Part I), and to identify proposals for (...) fulfilling those responsibilities through fair and feasible institutional arrangements (Part II). I aim not only to address substantive gaps in scholarly understanding of those responsibilities, but also to strengthen the ability of climate ethics to engage meaningfully with climate policy. Chapter 2 addresses the question of whether wealthy countries owe a “climate debt” to poor countries. It finds that even if climate debt (suitably interpreted) may provide a coherent and morally plausible concept, its political value as a discursive frame that can provide a basis for cooperation is limited. Chapter 3 investigates the role that equity may play in negotiations on a long-term climate change agreement. It argues that developed and developing countries may reach a “principled bargain” if both converge on a way of differentiating their responsibilities that places less emphasis on a rigid dichotomy between the two groups and more emphasis on objective criteria relating to their contribution to the problem and capacity to address it. Chapter 4 explores a question largely overlooked in climate ethics, namely whether wealthy countries owe compensation to those who are adversely affected by the climate policies which they enact. I find that enacting countries have responsibilities to compensate both domestic and foreign citizens who would suffer disproportionate losses from the effects of policies. Chapter 5 assesses whether wealthy countries may legitimately adopt unilateral (or “fragmented”) rather than multilaterally coordinated approaches to raising climate finance for developing countries. It finds that coordinated target-setting, effort sharing and oversight arrangements are essential, but that a mix of unilateral and coordinated approaches to raising funds will be necessary for securing legitimacy. In Chapter 6, through addressing the broader question of what should count as official aid, I consider whether wealthy countries may draw on aid budgets to support developing countries’ efforts to address climate change. I find that the current definition of official aid should be retained but supplemented by specified exclusions from eligibility in order to preserve the aid regime’s integrity. Nevertheless, some climate finance may justifiably be counted as aid provided that concerns relating to the diversion of aid funding are addressed. In addressing these research questions, the thesis seeks not only to make original theoretical contributions to climate ethics but also to strengthen broader scholarly understanding of the ways in which ethics and international public policy may inform one another, particularly by highlighting the role of framing considerations (Chapter 2), feasibility considerations (Chapter 3), and the ways in which principles of fairness and legitimacy map onto institutional functions (Chapters 4, 5 and 6). (shrink)

There is good neuropsychological evidence for an amodal, relational basis for perception and action. Using this idea, it may be possible to define more accurately what is meant by specificity, in the Gibsonian sense of the term. However, for complex organisms, and most especially for creative, open-ended perceivers and actors such as human beings, specification may not be relevant.

This note provides an introduction to a special section of this issue of Ethics and International Affairs on the topic of 'Safeguarding fairness in global climate governance'.

To be plausible, biorobots will need to build themselves. Such autopoietic systems will be autonomous, active learners whose functional architecture is a joint product of factors supplied by the designer and factors learned from encountering an environment. Creating such biorobots will require appropriate theories of cognition, learning, and evolution, all of which are available.

Natural mimicry is ubiquitous. Plants mimic animals, animals mimic plants, animals mimic each other and animals may even mimic counterfactual states that deceive or distract other animals. Almost all natural mimicry is based on iconicity which hence anchors it in real world resemblances. The vast majority of natural mimicry is done unconsciously but when humans mimic, they know what they are doing. As Merlin Donald suggest, mimicry may in fact have played a crucial role in the emergence of the human (...) condition, allowing new forms of cognition to emerge. Here it is suggested that the role played by mimicry may have involved the evolution of a capacity for metaphorical perception, where an object may not only be seen ‘as is’ but also ‘as if’ it was a functional mimic of something else. This new form of mimicry made possible new forms of communication, co-operation and creative engagement with the environment. Once these developed to the point where they produced symbolic systems and other cultural tools, the nature of human mimicry expanded radically. No longer anchored in resemblance, it became detached and qualitatively distinct from natural forms. The consequences of this detachment are now becoming clear. (shrink)

Recent developments in both evolutionary theory and in our ideas about development suggest that genetic assimilation of environmental regularities may occur on shorter timescales than those considered by Shepard. The nervous system is more plastic and for longer periods than previously thought. Hence, the internal basis of cognitive-perceptual skills is likely to blend ontogenetic and phylogenetic learning. This blend is made more rich and interactive by the special cultural scaffolding that surrounds human development. This being so, the regularities of the (...) environment which have been genetically assimilated during the emergence of modern human beings may themselves be the products of human action. [Shepard]. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Consciousness as Self-Description in Differences” by Diana Gasparyan. Upshot: The first part of Gasparyan’s article usefully shows how problems must arise if consciousness is approached as if it were a phenomenon separate from the observer. The second part suggests a change of approach from first- to second-order cybernetics will solve these problems. While this, too, is helpful, it is, in essence, an epistemological device that requires something else in order to engage with the fundamental (...) aspect of consciousness, namely, qualia. This is an ontological shift towards panpsychicism, as found in Whitehead, Peirce and Eastern traditions. (shrink)

A report on the meeting on consciousness at King's College London, April 24-25th, 1999.

[opening paragraph]: There is a story of a surgeon who experienced a disturbance when working on hands. It seemed that seeing both the hands of his patient and his own at the same time acted as a fundamental and unwelcome reminder that he and his patients were the same thing. This disturbed his usual attitude which, for understandable professional reasons, was to see his patients as meat.