It is provocative, but not uncommon, to compare the work of art to a plant. Art is inseparable from the aim to pass on knowledge to future generations, just as plants strive to reproduce. This paper forwards the art-plant hypothesis that views works of art and plants not only as structurally similar, but teleologically united. We look to two models of art to test this hypothesis: earthworks of the land art movement, and the ancient Greek concept of craft or techne. (...) Plant grafting serves as an example artform that is instructive for crafting a more sustainable world. We approach plant grafting as a sustainable technology in an age of genetic monopolization, and as a powerful metaphor for our common roots and responsibility to create a better world. (shrink)

The social and ecological crises of the twenty-first century represent a failure of the techno-industrial way of living and knowing. It has become apparent that we need both a new mythos and a new science. In this essay, I draw attention to the important epistemological and cosmological implications of enactivism, a still emerging paradigm within the life sciences. Guided by the insights of the enactive paradigm, I offer a new story of human origins and destiny in an attempt to contribute (...) to a more livable future for our species and the rest of the community of life on Earth. (shrink)

Sustainable development is essentially about taking a view of future generations of people inhabiting the world. It is also about defining actions in the present time of achieving the desired goal of bequeathing a livable world for the future. The view has to revolve around how much importance we assign to the well being of future inhabitants. It is an ethical position that we collectively, as the generation living now, have to take. Making moral judgments about the distant future (...) is difficult for two reasons—there is a plurality of ethical positions and building a collective ethic may be impossible. Yet without a shared view we cannot have concerted action now.This article looks at some of the alternative positions and their practical implications for policy actions. The possibility of having a wider, shared ethic is also discussed. The real challenge lies in knowing nature better and making that knowledge part of culture. Then only there could be a convergence in concerns for the future, for Nature and for the yet unborn generations of human beings. (shrink)

“Poland 2050” Report is a publication of a distinctive sort. While the idea of producingthis report has a long history, it began to take shape about two years ago. It isbased on the two tenets. The first, raised at numerous conferences held in the past underthe auspices of the “Poland 2000 Plus” Committee, is the conviction that economicgrowth does not transpose automatically into societal (or more broadly “civilizational”)advancement. Indeed, the preliminary analysis has indicated that the two processes are,in fact, divergent. (...) While there have been convergent processes evident in Poland’s andthe EU’s economic domains, no such convergence is significantly evident in the case ofsocietal progress. This gave rise to the vision set forth in this Report, formulated as“minimizing Poland’s developmental gap with respect to the more advanced EU states.”The second tenet upon which this Report is based is even more important. Numerousanalyses carried out by the Committee indicate that quantitative changes cannot bepredicted four decades in advance with great likelihood. And so, we did not base ourReport on existing quantitative trends, but rather on analysis of the pathways that willmake it possible to minimize Poland’s developmental gap with respect to the advancedEU states. The Report also strives to highlight threats that exist in the social and “civilizational”sphere.The Report was based on the materials published in the three volumes of the publicationWizja przyszłości Polski – Studia i Analizy [A Vision of Poland’s Future—Studies and Analyses], vol. 1: Społeczeństwo i państwo [Society and State], vol. 2: Gospodarkai środowisko [Economy and Environment], and vol. 3: Ekspertyzy [ExpertStudies]. (shrink)

“Poland 2050” Report is a publication of a distinctive sort. While the idea of producingthis report has a long history, it began to take shape about two years ago. It isbased on the two tenets. The first, raised at numerous conferences held in the past underthe auspices of the “Poland 2000 Plus” Committee, is the conviction that economicgrowth does not transpose automatically into societal (or more broadly “civilizational”)advancement. Indeed, the preliminary analysis has indicated that the two processes are,in fact, divergent. (...) While there have been convergent processes evident in Poland’s andthe EU’s economic domains, no such convergence is significantly evident in the case ofsocietal progress. This gave rise to the vision set forth in this Report, formulated as“minimizing Poland’s developmental gap with respect to the more advanced EU states.”The second tenet upon which this Report is based is even more important. Numerousanalyses carried out by the Committee indicate that quantitative changes cannot bepredicted four decades in advance with great likelihood. And so, we did not base ourReport on existing quantitative trends, but rather on analysis of the pathways that willmake it possible to minimize Poland’s developmental gap with respect to the advancedEU states. The Report also strives to highlight threats that exist in the social and “civilizational”sphere.The Report was based on the materials published in the three volumes of the publicationWizja przyszłości Polski – Studia i Analizy [A Vision of Poland’s Future—Studies and Analyses], vol. 1: Społeczeństwo i państwo [Society and State], vol. 2: Gospodarkai środowisko [Economy and Environment], and vol. 3: Ekspertyzy [ExpertStudies]. (shrink)

Concerted, timely action for mitigating climate change is of uttermost importance to keep global warming as close to 1.5°C as possible. Air traffic already plays a strong role in driving climate change and is projected to grow—with only limited technical potential for decarbonizing this means of transport. Therefore, it is desirable to minimize the expansion of air traffic or even facilitate a reduction in affluent countries. Effective policies and behavioral change, especially among frequent flyers, can help to lower greenhouse gas (...) emissions. For both, a positive evaluation and public support is indispensable. This study contributes to understanding air travel behavior and the perception of regulative policies. We examined the role of attitudes, perceived behavioral control, efficacy, global identity, and justice concerns for intentions to avoid flights and aviation-related environmental policy support. We conducted an online survey study with a quota sample of N = 2,530 participants in Germany. The strongest positive predictors of intentions to refrain from flying and policy support were perceived behavioral control to travel without flying, efficacy beliefs that avoiding air travel contributes to climate change mitigation, and intergenerational justice concerns; pro-travel attitude was a negative predictor. Moreover, we tested whether the provision of additional information on climate impact, global and intranational inequalities as well as subsidies affected the intention to avoid air travel and policy support. We found no effects of the different types of information. Nor did we find an interaction between the type of information provided and global or national identity. Our results highlight the need for a shift within the mobility sector that facilitates attractive and accessible transport alternatives in order to strengthen people’s behavioral control to choose other means than planes and their efficacy perceptions. Moreover, raising awareness of the impacts of climate change on future generations and developing strategies to promote people’s concern for intergenerational justice might motivate people to reduce air travel and thereby contribute to a livable future for new generations. (shrink)

The articles published in this issue of Ethical Perspectives all relate to the social and political consequences of phenomena such as uncertainty and anxiety. The biennial Multatuli Lecture, held in Leuven on May 12th, 2001, addressed this very theme. In her paper, “Anxiety and Uncertainty in Modern Society”, Mary Douglas, one of the keynote speakers at the conference, puts forward the view that certainty is only possible when uncertainty is held in check by some kind of institution. Citing examples from (...) her vast experience of various cultural systems, she argues that the loss of certainty in contemporary society, lamented by many, should hardly come as a surprise. Modern demography, technology and forms of labour have contributed to the decline of many traditional institutions, and increased the flexibility and open-endedness of our experience. Douglas realizes that a return to traditional forms of community, and hence greater certainty, is a chimera. She argues that we should rather examine our desire for greater certainty, and prepare ourselves to live with uncertainty, without regrets.In “Habit and History”, Robert Bellah recalls the distinction between elaborated and restricted speech codes — described by Mary Douglas in her book Natural Symbols — and employs it to interpret the contemporary tension between individual autonomy and social solidarity. For Bellah, the history of modernity is an account of the ever increasing dominance of personal freedom, elaborated speech codes and a critical spirit at the expense of ritual practices, loyalty to social institutions and the sense of community. He suggests that we will only succeed in building livable futures once we have given up the illusion of autonomy as something absolute. Instead of viewing elaborated code and restricted code as mutually exclusive, Bellah wishes to explore the possible complementarities between the two, while acknowledging that only the restricted code gives meaning to our lives.Any wish to eradicate the causes of anxiety takes it for granted that a society released from the throes of anxiety would be a desirable one. In his article, “Whistling in the Dark”, Rudi Visker questions this assumption, drawing on a tradition of thought that seeks to emphasize anxiety's revelatory function: anxiety, as Mary Douglas also pointed out, can teach us a valuable lesson about our situation, about the limitations human lives are subject to. Rather than a condition that is produced by identifiable causes, anxiety should be considered as something that is there from the start, and society's task would then be to give this ineradicable anxiety an acceptable outlet or structure.Many critics of modernity posit a close relationship between the decline of traditional meaning systems and the increasing discontent among certain groups within society. Recently, more empirical research is being carried out in order to ascertain whether such a relationship indeed exists. In their paper, “The Malaise of Limitlessness”, Mark Elchardus and Jessy Siongers present the results of an investigation into the influence of de-traditionalization on various indicators of social discontent and social well-being, among young people of secondary-school age in Belgium. Although the concept of a tradition, thus also `de-traditionalization', is notoriously difficult to pin down, Elchardus and Siongers find evidence to support the view that the modernization process, with its increased individual choice and greater self-reflection, has led to the loss of meaningful reference points, and that this, in turn, is associated with uncertainty and malaise. Interestingly, there is also evidence of a correlation between social malaise and various attitudes such as intolerance, authoritarianism and anti-democratic feelings.While the previous contributions hint at what might be called an ethical form of sublimation, where anxiety is contained and directed towards acceptable objectives, Duston Moore's article, “Revolutionary Eros”, raises the prospect of an explicitly political form of sublimation. In this wide-ranging commentary on Marcuse's masterwork, Eros and Civilization, Moore works out the far-reaching political and economic consequences of what at first sight would seem to be a matter for private individuals: desire and its repression by nature and culture . For Marcuse, the performance principle is only one among an entire field of alternate possibilities for directing surplus-repression. The full critical force of Marcuse's argument lies in the suggestion that there may be other ways, that surplus-repression might be transformed, thus leading to new kinds of social relations and new, as yet unimagined forms of labour. (shrink)

Ecological and livable cities need an objective method to be judged. This paper is in search of a method to determine the level of livability, ecology, and energy efficiency, beginning with ecovillages, ecocities, ending with Tirana capital of Albania. Examples chosen for this methodology are: Ecovillages: 1. Auroville; India; 2. Sieben Linden, Europe; 3. Ecovillages at Ithaca, USA; 4. Ecoovila, Brazil; 5. Mbam and Faoune, Senegal. Ecocities: 1. DongTang, Shangai, China; 2. Masdar, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; 3. Arcosanti, (...) Arizona, USA; 4. Chang Chun, China; 5. Zira island, Baku Azerbaijan; 6. Globe Town, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. A special device is introduced for comprising analyze of this paper. Weighing and final score are evaluated in the conclusion. The livable city should be merged with the overall development, ecological progress, sustainable, passive, and bioclimatic design in order to withstand the test of time. Ecological and sustainable cities need to properly make up for the existence weakness of cities construction under fine ecological environment. The intention of this comparative study is an attempt to assess, even improve the lives of the citizens of Tirana, Albania. There are some attempts nowadays to environmentally render the city but due to the lack of a genuine ecological and renewable energy study in Tirana, the city suffers the consequences. The first settlements which consider the renewable energies are known as Ecovillages. They demonstrate their impact on the community and the energy consumption. Ecovillages have evolved into ecocities of the future, most of them not completed yet or in design phase. For both groups (ecovillages and ecocities) tables of matrixes are constructed in order to better understand their potential and functionality, and their special features and characteristics. This chapter is in search of analyzing the eco-potential and renewable energies for further development of future cities, considering ten case studies all over the world and ending with Tirana. The fossil fuel age is quickly coming to an end, so, the world must be prepared for the implementation strategies and utilization of renewable and alternative energies. (shrink)

A practical hermeneutics of time. The Possible Present unfolds from within a freely reinterpreted hermeneutic perspective and provides an original theoretical proposal on the topic of time. In dialogue especially with the philosophies of Husserl and Heidegger, but resorting also to suggestions coming from a theological background (Barth and Bonhoeffer), the work proposes a personal and original theory of time centered on a conception of the present that does not reduce temporality to a succession of mere instants. When one claims (...) that time is ungraspable, one refers neither to the past (which is rather irretrievable) nor to the future (which is rather uncertain) but to the present. The present in which we are is in fact what fades from our hands without break. The present is a decisive threshold for finite existence. It is the threshold where past and future meet and can give birth to a livable horizon of meaning. Dilating the present and giving it a meaningful chance to be is a task for philosophy. It is the attempt of giving time to time and also giving it shape, place, and space. To succeed at this task while rediscovering the sources of a narrative way of thinking that in truth it has never abandoned, philosophy must go back and turn time into the primary object of discourse, like in stories, which are precisely the attempt at disposing the temporal flow of events according to a meaning. Perone argues that in time, however, what passes is not simply decline, but rather something irreducible, an exteriority that must be said. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article draws on utopian and posthumanist theory in order to critically assess the contemporary resurgence of green utopianism in the form of contemporary radical environmental activists mobilizing against the socioecological perturbations of the Anthropocene. Featuring empirical data in the form of twenty-six semi-structured interviews with REAs from groups such as Earth First! and Sea Shepherd, the article critically examines the singular modality of ecotopianism exhibited by REAs, and explores the degree to which their post-anthropocentric worldviews—and crucially the widespread (...) annihilation of cherished Earth kin amidst the Anthropocene era of climate and ecological breakdown—influences their imaginative reconstitutions of human–animal–nature relations. REAs exhibit a distinctively earthbound or terrestrial ecotopianism that disavows future-oriented modalities of hope and closure around particular notions of the “good” in light of the intrusion of ecological decline into the present, instead emphasizing the need to disrupt the present and live better alternatives in the here and now. The article concludes with reflections on the value of some closure for necessary socioecological transformations, and on what REA ecotopianism suggests about the potential for posthuman utopian modalities that decenter the human in their projections of more livable worlds. (shrink)

Elaborating decolonial and intersectional methods, aesthetics has developed rich tools for tackling power differences. A philosophical question arises about the nature of gendered embodied experience and materiality: How to comprehend the cultural field if it is at once a site of heinous expropriation and violence and one of vital social and political possibility? This essay explores this question through a reading of Claudia Llosa's film The Milk of Sorrow ( La teta asustada ) (2009). The film, we show, reworks racial, (...) gendered, and colonial logics and supplants a model of transculturation, magical realism, and syncretism and its attendant figuration of resistance by a cultural vision of a web of multivalent, pluri-directional aesthetic promises and threats. Thus it presents a young Indigenous woman as a contemporary decolonial actor who, in encounter with popular culture and the global marketplace, renders memory livable and opens up unforeseen futures for her young town and country. We signal the implications for the positioning of the decolonial feminist spectator or culture maker and for a decolonial aesthetics. Aesthetic existence at the intersection of oppression and liberation, although impure and troubled, functions as a bountiful font of feminist energy and sustenance and a site of communal caring and imagination. (shrink)

We are currently experiencing a planetary crisis that will lead, if worst comes to worst, to the end of the entire world as we know it. Several feminist scholars have suggested that if the Earth is to stay livable for humans and nonhumans alike, the ways in which many human beings – particularly in the wealthy parts of the world, infested with Eurocentrism, colonialism, neoliberalism, and capitalism – inhabit this planet requires radical, ethical, and political transformation. In this article, (...) we propose that feminist theory, particularly feminist posthumanities, and Black feminist and decolonial thought, together with creative practices such as writing, have much to contribute to transformative planetary activism that imagines different and other kinds of worlds and futures based on an ethical consideration of nonhuman others and collective caring for the planet. (shrink)

The present analysis revisits the economics of inattention and the resulting commoditization and creation of privileged goods. These act as a significant force that pushes human history toward a future that will be less livable and sustainable. The analysis traces the roots of these developments to the reorganization of human knowing and doing by putting them on a discipline-based footing. It is part of a larger analysis that shows the need to create a different kind of scientific and technical (...) specialization that rebalances breadth with depth, and the accompanying university reforms that will be required. (shrink)

This essay contributes to research on, and develops a critique of, the later Heidegger’s conception of the relationship between modernity and a future beyond or after the modern age. It is argued that Heidegger does not engage in a reactionary rejection of modernity, since he is methodologically opposed to pure negation. Rather, as the example of his reading of Van Gogh demonstrates, Heidegger uses suggestive poetic hints from modern culture to transcend modernity from within into a “postmodern” and ontologically pluralistic (...) future. The author argues, however, that a more livable, plausible, and politically hopeful response to, and reformation of, the modern age is found in Gadamer’s work. Gadamerian hermeneutics permits a rehabilitation of modern culture and thought (for example, the tradition of human- ism) by charitably and sensitively disclosing overlooked insights and resources that enable us to continue living within, without moving beyond, the modern age. (shrink)

This essay deals with the following issues: (1) whether corporations can have moral responsibilities; (2) whether, granting that corporations can have moral responsibilities, nature can be an object of these responsibilities; and (3) what moral theory can appropriately justify why corporations ought to contribute to the cause of environmental protection. It is here argued that while it can be shown that corporations can have moral responsibilities, such responsibilities are limited towards humans and other corporations. The main reason is that the (...) morally relevant functional capacities which corporations can be shown as possessing are limited to those functional capacities that give moral status to humans. As such, natural nonhumans are beyond the scope of these responsibilities. But this does not mean that it becomes justifiable for corporations to disregard environmental concerns. For part of the moral responsibilities of corporations towards humans is to respect the right of humans to a livable natural environment. In addition, because of their enduring existence and long-term goals, corporations can act as a bridge between humans of the present generation and those of future generations. This bridge makes it meaningful to speak of the moral responsibilities of humans of the present generation towards those of future generations. (shrink)

What is the likelihood of controlling technology by means of the law? In traditional societies, the law was deeply embedded in, and dependent on, culture (the totality of human creations for making sense of and living in the world). Industrialization required a complete restructuring of both technology and society, thus engulfing all traditions in a flood of new situations for which there were no precedents. This necessitated a growing reliance on reason at the expense of culture, thereby creating a rational (...) and technical order that evolved with less and less reference to sense (i.e. experience and culture). It is within this context that recent legal transformations must be understood as participating in an order of non-sense. This bodes ill for protecting and helping to ensure a livable, sustainable human future. (shrink)

I argue that livability is both instrumentally valuable and of ultimate value for those whose embodied existence and relationships are mediated by the state system. The obligation to acknowledge people’s claim to the right to a livable locality thus includes addressing the instability associated with migration as well as facilitating in situ adaptation.

The question of what makes a life livable is linked with the question, what makes for an inhabitable world. This last was not Scheler’s question, but it follows from the world that he describes, the world that he claims is exhibited through the tragic. When the world is an object immersed in sorrow, how is it possible to inhabit such a world? What about the persistence of uninhabitable sorrow? The answer lies less in individual conduct or practice than in (...) the forms of solidarity that emerge, across whatever distance, to produce the conditions for inhabiting the world. (shrink)

The unlivable is the most extreme point of human suffering and injustice. But what is it exactly? How do we define the unlivable? And what can we do to prevent and repair it? These are the intriguing questions Judith Butler and Frédéric Worms discuss in a captivating dialogue situated at the crossroads of contemporary life and politics. Here, Judith Butler criticizes the norms that make life precarious and unlivable, while Frédéric Worms appeals to a "critical vitalism" as a way of (...) allowing the hardship of the unlivable to reveal what is vital for us. For both Butler and Worms, the difference between the livable and the unlivable forms the critical foundation for a contemporary practice of care. Care and support, in all their aspects, make human life livable, that is, "more than living." To understand it, we must draw on the concrete practices of humans who are confronted with the unlivable: the refugees of today and the witnesses and survivors of past violations and genocide. They teach us what is intolerable but also undeniable about the unlivable, and what we can do to resist it. Crafted with critical rigor, mutual respect, and lively humor, the compelling dialogue transcribed and translated in this book took place at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) on April 11, 2018, at a time when close to two thousand migrants were living in nearby makeshift camps in northern Paris. The Livable and the Unlivable showcases this 2018 dialogue in the context of Butler's and Worms's ongoing work and the evolution of their thought, as presented by Laure Barillas and Arto Charpentier in their equally engaging introduction. It concludes with a new afterword that addresses the crises unfolding in our world and the ways a philosophically rigorous account of life must confront them. While this book will be of keen interest to readers of philosophy and cultural criticism, and those interested in vitalism, new materialism, and critical theory, it is a far from merely academic text. In the conversation between Butler and Worms, we encounter questions we all grapple with in confronting the distress and precarity of our times, marked as it is by types of survival that are unlivable, from concentration camps to prisons to environmental toxicity, to forcible displacement, to the Covid pandemic. The Livable and the Unlivable at once considers longstanding philosophical questions around why and how we live, while working to retrieve a philosophy of life for today's Left. (shrink)

This book documents Szilard's energetic attempts to influence public policy on arms control and disarmament issues, both through open political processes and statements and through behindthe-scenes contacts with Washington power sources and a remarkable exercise in personal diplomacy with Nikita Khrushchev. Leo Szilard conceived of the possibility of nuclear fission sustained by a chain reaction years before it was achieved in the laboratory. He was also one of the initiators of the atomic bomb project in the United States. Yet he (...) dedicated his final years to the causes of understanding and sustaining life. The eminent physicist became a biologist and a vital force calling, for the control of nuclear and other weapons. This book documents Szilard's energetic attempts to influence public policy on arms control and disarmament issues, both through open political processes and statements and through behindthe-scenes contacts with Washington power sources and a remarkable exercise in personal diplomacy with Nikita Khrushchev. Many of the issues Szilard deals with in this valuable record of the years 1947-1963 are still crucial today. His opposition to antiballistic missile systems, his proposal for a Washington-Moscow "hot line," his work on the Pugwash conferences that brought together scientists from the East and the West, his pivotal role in the creation of the Council for a Livable World, his advocacy of a nuclear policy of no-first-use and restricted retaliation, and his support of "minimum deterrence" in place of an overwhelming counterforce capability - all these matters are as important in the 1980s as they were in the 1950s and 1960s. (shrink)

A 121-nation study of societal collectivism and a 174-nation study of political autocracy show that parasitic stress does not account for any variation in these components of culture once the interactive impacts of climatic demands and income resources have been accounted for. Climato-economic livability is a viable rival explanation for the reported effects of parasitic stress on culture.

In the first edition of Radical Ecology --the now classic examination major philosophical, ethical, scientific, and economic roots of environmental problems--Carolyn Merchant responded to the profound awareness of environmental crisis which prevailed in the closing decade of the twentieth century. In this provocative and readable study, Merchant examined the ways that radical ecologists can transform science and society in order to sustain life on this planet. Now in this second edition, Merchant continues to emphasize how laws, regulations and scientific research (...) alone cannot reverse the spread of pollution or restore our dwindling resources. Merchant argues that in order to maintain a livable world, we must formulate new social, economic, scientific, and spiritual approaches that will fundamentally transform human relationships with nature. She analyzes the revolutionary ideas of visionary ecologists for a new economy, society, science, and religion, and examines their efforts to bring environmental problems to the attention of the public. This new edition features a new Introduction from the author, a thorough updating of chapters, and two entirely new chapters on recent global movements and globalization and the environment. It is a timely update that will give students everything they need to know on the most recent philosophical positions and social movements that characterize the radical ecology spectrum. (shrink)

For the last thirty years or so, there has been a search underway for a theory that can accommodate our intuitions in regard to moral duties to future generations. The object of this search has proved surprisingly elusive. The classical moral theories in the literature all have perplexing implications in this area. Classical Utilitarianism, for instance, implies that it could be better to expand a population even if everyone in the resulting population would be much worse off than in the (...) original. The main problem has been to find an adequate population theory, that is, a theory about the moral value of states of affairs where the number of people, the quality of their lives, and their identities may vary. Since, arguably, any reasonable moral theory has to take these aspects of possible states of affairs into account when determining the normative status of actions, the study of population theory is of general import for moral theory. A number of theories have been proposed in the literature that purport to avoid counterintuitive implications such as the one mentioned above. The suggestions are diverse: introducing novel ways of aggregating welfare into a measure of value, revising the notion of a life worth living, questioning the way we can compare and measure welfare, counting people’s welfare differently depending on the temporal location or the modal features of their lives, and challenging the logic of axiological and normative concepts. We investigate the concepts and assumptions involved in these theories as well as their implications for population theory. In our discussion, we propose a number of intuitively appealing and logically weak adequacy conditions for an acceptable population theory. Finally, we consider whether it is possible to find a theory that satisfies all of these conditions. We prove that no such theory exists. (shrink)

Future-bias is the preference, all else being equal, for positive states of affairs to be located in the future not the past, and for negative states of affairs to be located in the past not the future. Three explanations for future-bias have been posited: the temporal metaphysics explanation, the practical irrelevance explanation, and the three mechanisms explanation. Understanding what explains future-bias is important not only for better understanding the phenomenon itself, but also because many philosophers think that which explanation is (...) the correct one has implications for our evaluation of the normative status of future-bias. In this paper we focus on the connection between future-bias and the temporal value asymmetry. The latter refers to the fact that people tend to assign more value to a state of affairs when it is located in the future, as opposed to being equidistant in the past. All three candidate explanations offered for future-bias proceed by explaining the temporal value asymmetry, and then supposing that future-bias is simply a manifestation of that asymmetry. Recently, however, it has been argued that the conditions under which people display the temporal value asymmetry and future-bias are different, and that this is reason to doubt that the latter is a manifestation of the former. In this paper we empirically test one response to this argument against the manifestation thesis—the simulation response—according to which once we control for the degree to which people can simulate the object of their preference, we find that people display future-bias and the temporal value asymmetry in the same conditions. We find no evidence in favour of the simulation response. Moreover, our results support some previous research that suggests that the temporal value asymmetry is less robust than previously thought, and this in itself casts doubt on the idea that future bias is just a manifestation of this asymmetry. (shrink)

Since moving to Canada in 1969, Jane Jacobs, who recently passed away, has inspired and continues to inspire debate within Canada, as well as elsewhere, on the potential for and promise of the urban experience. Jacobs was not only a critic of unrestricted growth and the destruction of neighborhoods but, frequently, of the efforts of urban planners. The exchanges between Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), and the American planner and cultural critic Lewis Mumford, (...) author of The Culture of Cities (1938) and The City in History (1961), raised some important issues that are still debated. In spite of their differences, however, the two also shared many values, even if each had reservations about the likely efficacy of the other's policy prescriptions. This paper compares and contrasts the views of the two authors who shared a concern about the hazards of unfettered growth but who often differed not only on what the response to growth should be, but also on the proper approach to understanding how cities either work or do not work. (shrink)

The Future of Man is a magnificent introduction to the thoughts and writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, one of the few figures in the history of the Catholic Church to achieve renown as both a scientist and a theologian. Trained as a paleontologist and ordained as a Jesuit priest, Teilhard de Chardin devoted himself to establishing the intimate, interdependent connection between science—particularly the theory of evolution—and the basic tenets of the Christian faith. At the center of his philosophy was (...) the belief that the human species is evolving spiritually, progressing from a simple faith to higher and higher forms of consciousness, including a consciousness of God, and culminating in the ultimate understanding of humankind’s place and purpose in the universe. The Church, which would not condone his philosophical writings, refused to allow their publication during his lifetime. Written over a period of thirty years and presented here in chronological order, the essays cover the wide-ranging interests and inquiries that engaged Teilhard de Chardin throughout his life: intellectual and social evolution; the coming of ultra-humanity; the integral place of faith in God in the advancement of science; and the impact of scientific discoveries on traditional religious dogma. Less formal than The Phenomenon of Man and The Divine Milieu, Teilhard de Chardin’s most renowned works, The Future of Man offers a complete, fully accessible look at the genesis of ideas that continue to reverberate in both the scientific and the religious communities. (shrink)

How can we talk meaningfully about the past if it does not exist to be talked about? What gives time its direction? Is time travel possible? This defence of presentism - the view that only the present exists - makes an original contribution to a fast growing and exciting debate.

The Future of Man is a magnificent introduction to the thoughts and writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, one of the few figures in the history of the Catholic Church to achieve renown as both a scientist and a theologian. Trained as a paleontologist and ordained as a Jesuit priest, Teilhard de Chardin devoted himself to establishing the intimate, interdependent connection between science—particularly the theory of evolution—and the basic tenets of the Christian faith. At the center of his philosophy was (...) the belief that the human species is evolving spiritually, progressing from a simple faith to higher and higher forms of consciousness, including a consciousness of God, and culminating in the ultimate understanding of humankind’s place and purpose in the universe. The Church, which would not condone his philosophical writings, refused to allow their publication during his lifetime. Written over a period of thirty years and presented here in chronological order, the essays cover the wide-ranging interests and inquiries that engaged Teilhard de Chardin throughout his life: intellectual and social evolution; the coming of ultra-humanity; the integral place of faith in God in the advancement of science; and the impact of scientific discoveries on traditional religious dogma. Less formal than The Phenomenon of Man and The Divine Milieu , Teilhard de Chardin’s most renowned works, The Future of Man offers a complete, fully accessible look at the genesis of ideas that continue to reverberate in both the scientific and the religious communities. (shrink)

Future-biased agents care not only about what experiences they have, but also when they have them. Many believe that A-theories of time justify future bias. Although presentism is an A-theory of time, some argue that it nevertheless negates the justification for future bias. Here, I claim that the alleged discrepancy between presentism and future bias is a special case of the cross-time relations problem. To resolve the discrepancy, I propose an account of future bias as a preference for certain tensed (...) truths properly relativized to the present. (shrink)

Democracy is prone to what may be called presentism – a bias in the laws in favor of present over future generations. I identify the characteristics of democracies that lead to presentism, and examine the reasons that make it a serious problem. Then I consider why conventional theories are not adequate to deal with it, and develop a more satisfactory alternative approach, which I call democratic trusteeship. Present generations can represent future generations by acting as trustees of the democratic process. (...) The general principle is that present generations should act to protect the democratic process itself over time. They should try to make sure that future citizens continue to have competent control over their collective decision‐making. (shrink)

Possibility semantics offers an elegant framework for a semantic analysis of modal logic that does not recruit fully determinate entities such as possible worlds. The present papers considers the application of possibility semantics to the modeling of the indeterminacy of the future. Interesting theoretical problems arise in connection to the addition of object-language determinacy operator. We argue that adding a two-dimensional layer to possibility semantics can help solve these problems. The resulting system assigns to the two-dimensional determinacy operator a well-known (...) logic (coinciding with the logic of universal modalities under global consequence). The paper concludes with some preliminary inroads into the question of how to distinguish two-dimensional possibility semantics from the more established branching framework. (shrink)

The democratic age -- A brief history of human liberty -- The twisted path -- Illiberal democracy -- The Islamic exception -- Too much of a good thing -- The death of authority -- The way out -- The 51st state.

Introduction : the future taken seriously -- The future of democratic societies : a theory of intergenerational justice -- The temporal landscape of contemporary society : a theory of acceleration -- How do we know the future? : a theory of future studies -- How is the future decided? : a theory of decision -- Who is in charge of the future? : a theory of responsibility -- Chronopolitics : a theory of social rhythm -- Politics in a post-heroic society (...) : a theory of political contingency -- The political construction of collective hope. (shrink)

Territory loss and uninhabitability characterize the current environmental background conditions of the international state system. Such conditions present pressing moral questions about our obligations to protect those who are displaced by anthropogenic climate change. By virtue of our participation in the territorial state system, understood as a social practice, we have principled grounds to address some of the consequences of the uninhabitability conditions brought on by climate change. By assuming territorial instability and employing a practice-based method of justification we can (...) identify a fundamental, basic right protected under the state system – the right to a livable locality – which grounds a moral obligation to protect against climate change-induced displacement. Assuming territorial instability and uninhabitability compels us to recognize that the causes generating climate-displacement are not merely natural but rather deeply political and that displacement is a foreseeable failure that results because of the state system’s organizational structure. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that bioethics is in crisis and that it will not have a future unless it begins to embrace a more Socratic approach to its leading assumptions. The absence of a critical and sceptical spirit has resulted in little more than a dominant ideology. I focus on three key issues. First, that too often bioethics collapses into medical ethics. Second, that medical ethics itself is beset by a lack of self-reflection that I characterize here as a (...) commitment to three dogmas. Third, I offer a more positive perspective by suggesting how bioethics may benefit from looking towards public health ethics as a new source of inspiration and direction. (shrink)

If Savulescu and Kahane’s Principle of Procreative Beneficence were implemented regarding cognitive enhancement, the result would be highly impoverishing for future children. For, apart from being inadequate to rationality itself, advocates’ accounts of cognitive enhancement sever reason from the input to judgments and decision-making that other faculties provide. When handling desire, supporters of cognitive enhancement frame conflicts between reason and the nonrational in terms of self-governance or akratic failure, depending on which one triumphs. Further, so-called negative emotions are treated as (...) simply deleterious and hostile to the rational. Alliances of the nonrational with reason toward shared ends are hence unthinkable. Having critiqued advocates’ views directly, I amplify my assessment through engagement with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Per Savulescu and Kahane, to know how to direct enhancement endeavors, “we need to form reasonable opinions on difficult questions about the nature of well-being and the good life.” Thus far, however, enhancement supporters have been largely silent on this crucial matter. Because the debate over enhancement is ultimately over what values our views of flourishing embody, it should be recast so that this crux is squarely at the fore. What is more, for our own and our children’s sakes, as we embark on this reframing, we would do well to bear in mind Aristotle’s insights about the nonrational in relation to reason and his unwavering focus on the human “that for the sake of which” (hou heneka) all that we do is, perforce, undertaken. (shrink)

There is a familiar debate between Russell and Strawson concerning bivalence and ‘the present King of France’. According to the Strawsonian view, ‘The present King of France is bald’ is neither true nor false, whereas, on the Russellian view, that proposition is simply false. In this paper, I develop what I take to be a crucial connection between this debate and a different domain where bivalence has been at stake: future contingents. On the familiar ‘Aristotelian’ view, future contingent propositions are (...) neither true nor false. However, I argue that, just as there is a Russellian alternative to the Strawsonian view concerning ‘the present King of France’, according to which the relevant class of propositions all turn out false, so there is a Russellian alternative to the Aristotelian view, according to which future contingents all turn out false, not neither true nor false. The result: contrary to millennia of philosophical tradition, we can be open futurists without denying bivalence. (shrink)

Why should some essential properties of geometry (i.e., infinity, symmetry, and dimensionality) be both necessary and desirable in the way that they have been constructed albeit with different modifications over time since time immemorial? Contrary to the conventional wisdom in all history hitherto existing, the essential properties of geometry do not have to be both necessary and desirable. This is not to suggest, of course, that one has nothing to learn from geometry. On the contrary, geometry has contributed to the (...) advancement of knowledge in many ways since its inception as a field of knowledge some millennia ago. The point in this book, however, is to show an alternative (better) way to understand the nature of geometry, which goes beyond human conception, intuition, and imagination, together with worldly experience of course, as its foundation, while learning from them all with theoretical implications for time travel, hyperspace, and other important issues. If true, this seminal view will fundamentally change the way that the nature of abstraction in the thinking process is to be understood, with its enormous implications for the future advancement of knowledge, in a small sense, and what I originally called its "post-human" fate, in a large one. (shrink)

Acknowledging that he cannot speak about the future of Theory without taking stock of its past, Rabaté starts by sketching its genealogy, particularly its ...

How can we talk meaningfully about the past if it does not exist to be talked about? What gives time its direction? Is time travel possible? This defence of presentism - the view that only the present exists - makes an original contribution to a fast growing and exciting debate.

It is plausible that current generations owe something to future generations. One possibility is that we have a duty to not harm them. Another possibility is that we have a duty to protect them. In either case, however, to satisfy the duties to future generations from environmental or political degradation, we need to engage in widespread collective action. But, as we are, we have a limited ability to do so, in part because we lack the self-discipline necessary for successful collective (...) action. Given that having an obligation hinges on being able to satisfy it, the apparent duty to future generations is at odds with our apparent inability to satisfy it. Thus, we either need to rethink our duties to future generations or rethink the nature of our abilities. I argue in this chapter that we should rethink the nature of our abilities. Specifically, we should enhance our self-discipline, which is distinct from enhancements of motivation, judgment, or emotion. Even the most intelligent, motivated, and empathetic actor is likely to slip up, which encourages others to withdraw their cooperation. Without the necessary self-discipline to sustain our public cooperative behavior, collective action is likely to fail, leaving us with one alternative: to abandon our duties to future generations. (shrink)