Climate Change and Natural Beauty: Kant’s Aesthetic Moderate Ecocentrism
Abstract
People often perceive the green transition as over-demanding. Some find the associated economic burdens both very high and unfairly shared. Some find unacceptable the use of coercion to prohibit certain unsustainable lifestyles. Using a familiar Rawlsian terminology, this paper articulates the problem into two main questions, one about justice and one about stability. These are, respectively, 1) when do people have sound reasons to say that their scope of freedom is being illegitimately restricted for the sake of green goals, and 2) what reasons do we have to believe that citizens will have a positive attitude towards green values, at least as a default position? In the first two sections, the paper analyzes and assesses some trends of Kant scholarship devoted to these questions. It then suggests (§§ 3 and 4) to look at Kantian themes so far insufficiently mobilized. It concludes by rejecting the common view according to which Kant is helplessly bound to an anthropocentric view of value and by construing his position as a form of moderate ecocentrism (of a special kind). This is achieved through the exploitation of Kant’s account of natural beauty, properly reinterpreted as revealing a universal sense of closeness to nature and “being at home” in it. While probably insufficient to answer fully the question of stability, this form of moderate aesthetic ecocentrism is likely to be the best one can find in Kant.
Abstract
People often perceive the green transition as over-demanding. Some find the associated economic burdens both very high and unfairly shared. Some find unacceptable the use of coercion to prohibit certain unsustainable lifestyles. Using a familiar Rawlsian terminology, this paper articulates the problem into two main questions, one about justice and one about stability. These are, respectively, 1) when do people have sound reasons to say that their scope of freedom is being illegitimately restricted for the sake of green goals, and 2) what reasons do we have to believe that citizens will have a positive attitude towards green values, at least as a default position? In the first two sections, the paper analyzes and assesses some trends of Kant scholarship devoted to these questions. It then suggests (§§ 3 and 4) to look at Kantian themes so far insufficiently mobilized. It concludes by rejecting the common view according to which Kant is helplessly bound to an anthropocentric view of value and by construing his position as a form of moderate ecocentrism (of a special kind). This is achieved through the exploitation of Kant’s account of natural beauty, properly reinterpreted as revealing a universal sense of closeness to nature and “being at home” in it. While probably insufficient to answer fully the question of stability, this form of moderate aesthetic ecocentrism is likely to be the best one can find in Kant.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface 5
- Contents IX
- Abbreviations of Kant’s Works 11
-
Section I: Feelings and Action:Moral and Political Perspectives
- Kant on the Difference between Right and Ethics: Are We Capable of Acting (Solely) from Duty? 3
- Courage vs. Laziness: The Kantian Perspective between Education and Politics 19
- Kant’s Concept of Unsocial Sociability 33
-
Section II: Feelings and Judgements:Scientific and Aesthetical Approaches
- Kant’s Concept of Intensive Magnitude: Anticipating Scientific Experience 49
- Kant’s Hypotyposis as Rhetorical and Poetical Presentation 61
- The Aesthetic Representation of the Supersensible: Reassessing the Space of the Sublime 77
- On the Conceptual Restriction of Aesthetic Judgments 97
- The Heroic, the Pathic, the Barbaric: Kant’s Critique of Judgment and the Sight of War 111
-
Section III: Feelings and Environment Today:From a Kantian Perspective
- Kant and Environmental Ethics, Starting from the Doctrine of Virtue 135
- Shared Commitments and Ethical Values in the UN Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development Goals: A Kantian Approach towards a Collectively Desirable State of the World 151
- Climate Change and Natural Beauty: Kant’s Aesthetic Moderate Ecocentrism 175
-
Section IV: Feelings and Kant’s Heritage
- “Das Gefühl ist factisch das erste ursprüngliche”: Remarks on the Role of Feeling in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre Nova Methodo 195
- The Problem of the Aesthetic Idea in Kant and Hegel: The Relationship between Beauty and Morality 207
- The Regulatory Use of the Ideas of Reason in Kant and Husserl 221
- Feeling and System: The Developments of Kant’s Concept of the Feeling of Pleasure and Displeasure in Hermann Cohen’s Aesthetics 235
- Index of persons
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface 5
- Contents IX
- Abbreviations of Kant’s Works 11
-
Section I: Feelings and Action:Moral and Political Perspectives
- Kant on the Difference between Right and Ethics: Are We Capable of Acting (Solely) from Duty? 3
- Courage vs. Laziness: The Kantian Perspective between Education and Politics 19
- Kant’s Concept of Unsocial Sociability 33
-
Section II: Feelings and Judgements:Scientific and Aesthetical Approaches
- Kant’s Concept of Intensive Magnitude: Anticipating Scientific Experience 49
- Kant’s Hypotyposis as Rhetorical and Poetical Presentation 61
- The Aesthetic Representation of the Supersensible: Reassessing the Space of the Sublime 77
- On the Conceptual Restriction of Aesthetic Judgments 97
- The Heroic, the Pathic, the Barbaric: Kant’s Critique of Judgment and the Sight of War 111
-
Section III: Feelings and Environment Today:From a Kantian Perspective
- Kant and Environmental Ethics, Starting from the Doctrine of Virtue 135
- Shared Commitments and Ethical Values in the UN Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development Goals: A Kantian Approach towards a Collectively Desirable State of the World 151
- Climate Change and Natural Beauty: Kant’s Aesthetic Moderate Ecocentrism 175
-
Section IV: Feelings and Kant’s Heritage
- “Das Gefühl ist factisch das erste ursprüngliche”: Remarks on the Role of Feeling in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre Nova Methodo 195
- The Problem of the Aesthetic Idea in Kant and Hegel: The Relationship between Beauty and Morality 207
- The Regulatory Use of the Ideas of Reason in Kant and Husserl 221
- Feeling and System: The Developments of Kant’s Concept of the Feeling of Pleasure and Displeasure in Hermann Cohen’s Aesthetics 235
- Index of persons
