Suchergebnisse

The fable of the colonial ethicists -- The very idea of dissent -- Skepticism about political ethics -- Assumptions about moral superiority -- Gaining concepts : appeals to Ahimsa -- Political grief and the removal of statues -- Between politics and love.

"A broadly liberal politics requires political compassion; not simply in the sense of compassion for the victims of injustice, but also for opponents confronted through political protest and (more broadly) dissent. There are times when, out of a sense of compassion, a just cause should not be pressed. There are times when we need to accommodate the dreadfulness of loss for opponents, even when the cause for which they fight is unjust. We may also have to come to terms with the irreversibility of historic injustice and reconcile. Political compassion of this sort carries risks. Pushed too far, it may weaken our commitment to justice through too great a sympathy for those on the other side. It would be convenient if such compassion could be constrained by a clear set of political principles. But principles run the quite different risk of promoting an 'ossified dissent', unable to respond to change. In this book, Tony Milligan argues that principles are only a limited guide to dissent in unique, contingent circumstances. They will not tell us how to deal with the truly difficult cases such as the following: Should the Lakota celebrate Thanksgiving? When is the crossing of a picket-line justified? What kind of toleration must animal rights advocates cultivate to make progress within a broadly liberal political domain? And how should we respond to the entangling of aspiration towards social justice with anger and prejudice (such as the 'anti-Zionist' discourse)? We may be tempted to answer these questions by presupposing that alignment (the business of choosing sides) is ultimately more important than compassion, but sometimes political compassion trumps alignment. Sometimes, being on the right side is not the most important thing"--

Space exploration and off-world commercial activity engage the attention of skeptics as well as enthusiasts. What does seem clear, however, is that such activity has increased and is set to expand further--and dramatically so--during the present century. This book explores some of the ethical issues of the emerging space frontier and evaluates the prospects for the medium-range future: Can terraforming of other worlds succeed? Would it be defensible? Should there be limits to mining in space? Do lifeless planets have an integrity that ought to be respected? Could indigenous microbacteria have

Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- Chapter 1: The Depth of Meat-Eating -- Arguments and background pictures -- Meat-eating and well-being -- Eating well and living well -- Chapter 2: An Unwritten Contract? -- Reciprocation -- The interests of farmed animals -- The opportunity of life argument -- Which animals benefit and when? -- Chapter 3: Vegetarianism and Puritanism -- Food without history -- Are animal products bad for us? -- Vegetarianism without puritanism -- What can vegetarians reasonably hope for? -- Chapter 4: Diet and Sustainability -- Does local trump vegetarian? -- Why meat production tends to be energy hungry -- Eco-friendly diets -- Chapter 5: The Impossible Scenario -- Universal vegetarianism -- Does meat-eating make vegetarianism practical? -- The ecological problems of universal vegetarianism -- Available defences for universal vegetarianism -- Universal veganism -- Chapter 6: Love for Pets -- Animals and the human community -- Sharing our lives -- Pets and non-pets -- Love for pets -- Chapter 7: Experimentation in Context -- Can meat-eaters oppose experimentation? -- What experimentation assumes -- The argument from marginal cases -- The importance of concern for humans -- Cruelty and moral authority -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W

AbstractThis review essay contrasts two of the most notable recent contributions to literature on space and society: Daniel Deudney's Dark Skies (2020) and Brian Patrick Green's Space Ethics (2022). The Green volume is a course textbook, geared to giving students an overview of some of the key ethical issues concerning space and how the arguments on these matters are shaping up. Its aim is to provide an overview rather than a specific line of argument. Deudney's text, by contrast, is an example of a book proposing space skepticism. It argues that we should relinquish many of our current ambitions for space expansion on the grounds that they will increase the already significant degree of extinction-level risk that we face. The essay marks the distinction between these texts by contrasting normal- and special-domain approaches. Normal-domain approaches seek to extend familiar ethico-political issues into the discussion about space expansion without regarding space expansion as the road to utopia or extinction. Special-domain approaches hold to some such optimistic or pessimistic view. The essay goes on to highlight the way in which Green's text would benefit from more social critique, along the lines of Deudney. Ultimately, the normal-domain approach presupposed by Green and rejected by Deudney is upheld.

Abstract
Novels and thought experiments can be pathways to different kinds of knowledge. We may, however, be hard pressed to say exactly what can be learned from novels but not from thought experiments. Headway on this matter can be made by spelling out their respective conditions for epistemic failure. Thought experiments fail in their epistemic role when they neither yield propositional knowledge nor contribute to an argument. They are largely in the business of 'knowing that'. Novels, on the other hand can be an epistemic success by yielding 'knowledge how'. They can help us to improve our competences.

The introduction sets out a standard concern that space ethics may be unduly constrain- ing upon state and private sector activities in space. As a counter-picture, Section 2 sets up a distinction between 'standard space ethics' and 'special space ethics' which will allow us to explore ways in which space ethics enables as well as constrains. A case is then made in Section 3 for pragmatic constraints upon space ethics itself. Space eth- ics should be either 'policy apt' (able to directly shape space policy within a liberal democratic social context) or 'precursor apt' (able to contribute productively to broader, precursor discussions which may feed into policy apt deliberations). What makes any ethic satisfy either of these conditions will depend upon a range of factors. The ethic should have stability (dealt with in Section 3.1). It should not merely track transitory voting trends or the ebbs and lows of electoral politics. Secondly, it should have a high degree of political realizability (dealt with in Section 3.2). Finally, the ethic should be psychologically available. Section 4 then shows the usefulness of these basic constraints upon space ethics through a contrast between the emerging US and European agendas in astrobiology.

The introduction sets out a standard concern that space ethics may be unduly constraining upon state and private sector activities in space. As a counter-picture, Section 2 sets up a distinction between 'standard space ethics' and 'special space ethics' which will allow us to explore ways in which space ethics enables as well as constrains. A case is then made in Section 3 for pragmatic constraints upon space ethics itself. Space ethics should be either 'policy apt' (able to directly shape space policy within a liberal democratic social context) or 'precursor apt' (able to contribute productively to broader, precursor discussions which may feed into policy apt deliberations). What makes any ethic satisfy either of these conditions will depend upon a range of factors. The ethic should have stability (dealt with in Section 3.1). It should not merely track transitory voting trends or the ebbs and flows of electoral politics. Secondly, it should have a high degree of political realizability (dealt with in Section 3.2). Finally, the ethic should be psychologically available. Section 4 then shows the usefulness of these basic constraints upon space ethics through a contrast between the emerging US and European agendas in astrobiology.

Gandhi presents a discourse of politicized love which draws heavily from a Christian conception of agape but which does not reduce to the latter. Such love is politicized through a requirement that the best kind of dissenting agents, satyagrahees (the agents called upon to engage in civil disobedience and noncooperation) are also called upon to love their enemies or, if they have none of the latter, at least their opponents. In his most famous political tract, Hind Swaraj (1909), Gandhi equates their struggle, satyagraha, with a politicized 'love-force', although this is not quite a definition, given that he also equates satyagraha with many other things. Moreover, there is also an occasional doubling of Gandhi's account of political agency. Alongside the requirement for love, a requirement which is simultaneously political and spiritual, there is (again occasionally) a more minimal conception of civility from which, I will suggest, a plausible contemporary approach to civil disobedience may be constructed. The contemporary relevance of such a civility based account will then be shown through its application to the phenomenon of self-immolation, which Gandhi did not comment upon in detail but which his attitude towards civility can help us to understand. The point of this inclusion is to show that Gandhi's approach towards civility extends effectively into new contexts.