Abstract
This paper has two main parts. First, it overviews the topic of environmental grief and related emotions. Specifically, it stresses the need to think of emotions in at least partly cognitive terms (as forms of understanding) and to consider an existential rather than medical account of environmental emotions (despite using terms such as anxiety). The second part is a reflection on the currently endemic worries about having children. I will argue that it is misplaced to analyse this attitude universally as an argument-based decision. Rather, if it relates to environment grief, the emotion may be providing a reason for this attitude, or be expressed as the attitude. The misleading ‘argument’ framing and the near-condescending responses to it may be related to a specifically generational failure of understanding.
Funding source: Czech Science Foundation
Award Identifier / Grant number: 22-15446S
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Research funding: Work on this paper was supported by “ECEGADMAT”, grant no. 22-15446S of the Czech Science Foundation.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Environmental Ethics–Sats Special Issue
- The Appeal of Environmental Master Metrics
- Moomins and Complicity with Matter: Tove Jansson’s Moominpappa at Sea as an Intervention in Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things by Jane Bennett
- Weird Environmental Ethics: The Virtue of Wonder and the Rise of Eco-Anxiety
- Who Should Have Children? (Us?) When Should We Have Children? (Now?)
- Justificatory Moral Pluralism in Climate Change
- Concepts of Biodiversity, Pluralism, and Pragmatism: The Case of Walnut Forest Conservation in Central Asia
- Towards Anthropocentric Deep Ecology: Utilizing Esotericism within Ecophilosophy
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Environmental Ethics–Sats Special Issue
- The Appeal of Environmental Master Metrics
- Moomins and Complicity with Matter: Tove Jansson’s Moominpappa at Sea as an Intervention in Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things by Jane Bennett
- Weird Environmental Ethics: The Virtue of Wonder and the Rise of Eco-Anxiety
- Who Should Have Children? (Us?) When Should We Have Children? (Now?)
- Justificatory Moral Pluralism in Climate Change
- Concepts of Biodiversity, Pluralism, and Pragmatism: The Case of Walnut Forest Conservation in Central Asia
- Towards Anthropocentric Deep Ecology: Utilizing Esotericism within Ecophilosophy