The Anthropocene, in which humankind has become a geological force, is a major scientific proposal; but it also means that the conceptions of the natural and social worlds on which sociology, political science, history, law, economics and philosophy rest are called into question. The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis captures some of the radical new thinking prompted by the arrival of the Anthropocene and opens up the social sciences and humanities to the profound meaning of the new geological epoch, (...) the 'Age of Humans'. Drawing on the expertise of world-recognised scholars and thought-provoking intellectuals, the book explores the challenges and difficult questions posed by the convergence of geological and human history to the foundational ideas of modern social science. If in the Anthropocene humans have become a force of nature, changing the functioning of the Earth system as volcanism and glacial cycles do, then it means the end of the idea of nature as no more than the inert backdrop to the drama of human affairs. It means the end of the 'social-only' understanding of human history and agency. These pillars of modernity are now destabilised. The scale and pace of the shifts occurring on Earth are beyond human experience and expose the anachronisms of 'Holocene thinking'. The book explores what kinds of narratives are emerging around the scientific idea of the new geological epoch, and what it means for the 'politics of unsustainability'. (shrink)

By reconsidering the theme of isolation in the philosophy of technology, and by drawing upon recent developments in social ontology, Lawson provides an account of technology that will be of interest and value to those working in a variety of different fields. Technology and Isolation includes chapters on the philosophy, history, sociology and economics of technology, and contributes to such diverse topics as the historical emergence of the term 'technology', the sociality of technology, the role of technology in social acceleration, (...) the relationship between Marx and Heidegger, and the relationship between technology and those with autism. The central contribution of the book is to provide a new ontology of technology. In so doing, Lawson argues that much of the distinct character of technology can be explained or understood in terms of the dynamic that emerges from technology's peculiar constitutional mix of isolatable and non-isolatable components. (shrink)

The journal Environmental Values is thirty years old. In this retrospective, as the retiring Editor-in-Chief, I provide a set of personal reflections on the changing landscape of scholarship in the field. This historical overview traces developments from the journal's origins in debates between philosophers, sociologists, and economists in the UK to the conflicts over policy on climate change, biodiversity/non-humans and sustainability. Along the way various negative influences are mentioned, relating to how the values of Nature are considered in policy, including (...) mainstream environmental economics, naïve environmental pragmatism, the strategic role of corporations, neoliberalism and eco-modernism/techno-optimism. At the same time core value debates around intrinsic value in Nature and instrumentalism remain relevant, along with how plural environmental values can be articulated and acted upon. Naturalness, human relations to non-humans, and Nature as other, remain central considerations. The broadening of issues covered by the journal (e.g. covering social psychology, sociology and political science), reflect the need to address both human behaviour and the structure of social and economic systems to confront ongoing social-ecological crises. (shrink)

This paper argues that the conditions of the Anthropocene render the four ontologies described by Philippe Descola obsolete, and begins the search for a fifth ontology that speaks to the meaning of...

Ontology tends to be held in deep suspicion by many currently engaged in the study of technology. The aim of this paper is to suggest an ontology of technology that will be both acceptable to ontology’s critics and useful for those engaged with technology. By drawing upon recent developments in social ontology and extending these into the technological realm it is possible to sustain a conception of technology that is not only irreducibly social but able to give due weight to (...) those features that distinguish technical objects from other artefacts. These distinctions, however, require talk of different kinds of causal powers and different types of activity aimed at harnessing such powers. Such discussions are largely absent in recent technological debates, but turn out to be significant both for ongoing technology research and for the recasting of some more traditional debates within the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

Contingent valuation of the environment has proven popular amongst environmental economists in recent years and has increased the role of monetary valuation in public policy. However, the underlying economic model of human psychology fails to explain why certain types of stated behaviour are observed. Thus, good scope exists for interdisciplinary research in the area of economics and psychology with regard to environmental valuation. A critical review is presented here of some recent research by social psychologists in the US attempting to (...) explain stated behaviour in contingent valuation. Attitudinal scales have been used to analyse the role of ecocentric, biocentric and altruistic motives for giving. However, the research is shown to draw some potentially misleading conclusions and be unrepresentative of contingent valuation. Two recent economic studies using contingent valuation are then reported and shown to have identified non-economic motives for WTP. The complexity of value formation and expression is found to go far beyond that generally accepted by economic models. Greater consideration of the role played by attitudes and ethical considerations then becomes relevant to the interpretation of results being used in standard cost-benefit analysis and environmental policy. (shrink)

In many ways, this is an exemplary publication, with detailed description and analysis of an important Byzantine fortification, based on twenty five years meticulous work. Using photogrammetry, the survey produced a plan at 1:50, reproduced here at half scale, in clearly readable foldouts (Tafel 31–46) that enable the phases of building and reconstruction to be easily distinguished. These plates also include detailed drawings of sections and of varying styles of masonry. There are in addition five useful sketch plans (pp.104–108) that (...) sort out the main stages of the fortifications, and abundant illustrations on 30 other plates. This might be enough for normal purposes, but the author has also produced a long and very detailed text that describes all the towers and walls, and sets them in the broader context of the history of the city, and of the development of the art of war. The different phases are presented chronologically, together with the urban and regional history and discussions of dating (pp.1–91), then usefully summarized (pp.93–103). The historical sections form a valuable complement to the material in K. Rheidt, Altertumer von Pergamon XV.2, die byzantinische Wohnstadt (Berlin 1991), which also includes a useful summary of the city's history (pp.241–253). K.'s meticulous analysis leads to several new interpretations and redatings of the walls. Some of these are open to serious question and will probably need revision, especially since K. operates in a curious ignorance or disregard for much modern literature on Byzantine fortifications, and makes poor use of available comparative material. (shrink)

This paper draws on ideas about policy innovation and adaptation to assess the extent to which ‘payments for ecosystem services’ (PES) can be seen as a challenge to traditionally more bureaucratic, state-centered ways of paying for the provisioning of environmental goods from agricultural landscapes through agri environmental policy (AEP). Focussing on recent experience in the United States and the UK, the paper documents the extent to which PES is now an established term of reference in AEP research and debate in (...) both countries and postulates that this may usher in a new discourse of environmental provisioning in agriculture. The PES landscape is, however, currently highly fragmented and largely experimental, with ‘PES-like’ approaches being piloted in the field through partnerships between state agencies and localized private and charitable interests. State-supported AEP programs remain substantially intact, and rather than any displacement of state action, there appears to be a more gradual insertion of PES approaches and metrics into standard AEP operating procedures. This institutional stickiness is partly due to the continuing difficulty of agreeing the metrics necessary for measuring outcomes but may also be due to the politically well defended nature of traditional AEP entitlements and associated policy networks. We conclude by suggesting a need for further research to better understand these specifically political constraints and sources of resistance to PES and the ambiguous consequences for institutions, policy networks, rural communities and environment. (shrink)

There has been a long history of idealism concerning the potential of economic and political developments in Africa, the latest iteration of which emerged around the time of the 2007–8 global financial crisis. Here, Clive Gabay takes a historical approach to questions concerning change and international order as these apply to Africa in Western imaginaries. Challenging traditional postcolonial accounts that see the West imagine itself as superior to Africa, he argues that the centrality of racial anxieties concerning white supremacy (...) make Africa appear, at moments of Western crisis, as the saviour of Western ideals, specifically democracy, bureaucracy, and neoclassical economic order. Uncommonly, this book turns its lens as much inwards as outwards, interrogating how changing attitudes to Africa over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries correspond to shifting anxieties concerning whiteness, and the growing hope that Africa will be the place where the historical genius of whiteness might be saved and perpetuated. (shrink)

Environmental commodification, trading and offsetting are business as usual approaches to environmental policy. There is also consensus across political divides about the need for economic growth. Many environmental NGOs have become apologists for corporate self-regulation, market mechanisms, carbon pricing/trading and biodiversity offsetting/banking, while themselves commercialising species 'protection' as eco-tourism. In this issue of Environmental Values the state and direction of the environmental movement are at the fore. D'Amato et al. contrast pragmatism with the need for revolutionary change and consider which (...) will achieve social ecological transformation. Parry raises the issue of how animal activists should operate within an idealised deliberative democracy and what they could then legitimately justify doing to further their cause. Quist and Rinne are concerned with the challenges that disenfranchised groups face in building shared agendas and expressing themselves in their struggles to protect the environment and their ways of life. How natural resource extraction issues are framed by the media is the concern of Davies et al. Issues of power, inclusion and representation in the environmental movement are also raised in the paper by Fenney, which addresses the challenges specifically faced by disabled people. Societal change is an inherently value laden and political issue. Environmental policy is no more a win-win than any other policy; this journal issue shows how different polices change winners and losers. (shrink)

Neither environmental economics nor environmental philosophy have adequately examined the moral implications of imposing environmental degradation and ecosystem instability upon our descendants. A neglected aspect of these problems is the supposed extent of the burden that the current generation is placing on future generations. The standard economic position on discounting implies an ethicaljudgment concerning future generations. If intergenerational obligations exist, then two types of intergenerational transfer must be considered: basic distributional transfers and compensatory transfers. Basic transfers have been the central (...) intergenerational concern of both environmental economics and philosophy, but compensatory transfers emphasize obligations of a kind often disregarded. (shrink)

Ecosystems are increasingly characterised as goods and services to allow their valuation in monetary terms. This follows an orthodox economic approach to environmental values, but is also being undertaken by ecologists and conservation biologists. There then appears a lack of clarity and debate as to the model of human behaviour, specific values and decision process being adopted. Arguments for ecosystems service valuation are critically appraised and the case for a model leading to value pluralism is presented. The outcome is to (...) identify the need for value articulating processes which involve open deliberative judgment rather than instantaneously stated preferences, concealed expert opinion and global cost-benefit analysis. (shrink)

This book will be of great interest to students and researchers alike across the social sciences and particularly in philosophy, economics and sociology.

Translation often proceeds as if languages already existed, as if the task of the translator were to make an appropriate selection from available resources. Clive Scott challenges this tacit assumption. If the translator is to do justice to himself/herself as a reader, if the translator is to become the creative writer of his/her reading, then the language of translation must be equal to the translators perceptual experience of, and bodily responses to, source texts. Each renewal of perceptual and physiological (...) contact with a text involves a renewal of the ways we think language and use our expressive faculties (listening, speaking, writing). Phenomenology and particularly the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty underpins this new approach to translation. The task of the translator is tirelessly to develop new translational languages, ever to move beyond the bilingual into the multilingual, and always to remember that language is as much an active instrument of perception as an object of perception. Clive Scott is Professor Emeritus of European Literature at the University of East Anglia, and a Fellow of the British Academy. (shrink)

This longitudinal case study reports on a charity in the UK which gained a new CEO who was reported by two middle managers who worked in the charity, to embody all or most of the ten characteristics within a measure of corporate psychopathy. The leadership of this CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score was reported to be so poor that the organisation was described as being one without leadership and as a lost organisation with no direction. This paper outlines (...) the resultant characteristics of the ensuing aimlessness and lack of drive of the organisation involved. Comparisons are made to a previous CEO in the same organisation, who was reportedly an authentic, effective and transformational leader. Outcomes under the CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score were related to bullying, staff withdrawal and turnover as effective employees stayed away from and/or left the organisation. Outcomes also included a marked organisational decline in terms of revenue, employee commitment, creativity and organisational innovativeness. The paper makes a contribution to both leadership and to corporate psychopathy research as it appears to be the first reported study of a CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score. (shrink)

A critique of conventional economic thought, with chapters on the Coronation Hill dispute, the worthlessness of money, a symbolic worldview, environmentalism and mysticism, and a vision for ecology, ethics and economics. With index. Author is an academic economist, author, and international environment adviser.

I write as a non-Jew about the brief correspondence sent to my father, shortly after the Second World War, from a gifted, young Jewish violinist, and briefly outline the background story-arc of her family’s aliyah, from the Pale a couple of generations earlier to her settlement in the new state of Israel. Her story is not bound up with the Holocaust, nor did she experience antisemitism: but this essay attempts to highlight the majesty and sparkle of a moment in the (...) mundane life of a Jewish woman, and its brief impact on a gentile. The focus is on her musical remarks about some of the leading performers of the day. I also outline some of the ways I secured source materials for this primarily biographical sketch, but this article is presented more as a ‘memoire’ than an academic study. It is offered in honour and memory of a Jewish lady whom, alas, I was a little too late to meet myself, and to celebrate my father’s hundredth birthday in May 2021. (shrink)

There has always been a sub-group of established economists trying to convey an environmental critique of the mainstream. This paper traces their thinking into the late 20th century via the development of associations and journals in the USA and Europe. There is clearly a divergence between the conformity to neo-classical economics favoured by resource and environmental economists and the acceptance of more radical critiques apparent in ecological economics. Thus, the progressive elements of ecological economics are increasingly incompatible with those practising (...) neo-classical environmental economics who try to reduce all concepts to fit within the confines of their models. A group of people can be identified who teach that ecological economics is nothing more than a name for the link between mainstream economics and ecology. A new movement and paradigm are unnecessary for such ends. This viewpoint is argued to be inconsistent with the roots and ideas of the ecological economics movement. Ecological economics is seen here to be synthesising various types of economics and moving back to explicit inclusion of ethical issues in the mode of classical political economy. This inevitably means rediscovering neglected past works and exploring new ways of thinking about socio- economics and the environment. (shrink)

In this paper I consider various shifts in my research and understanding stimulated by seeking how to combat social ecological crises connected to modern economies. The discussion and critical reflections are structured around five papers that were submitted to Environmental Values in an open call to address my work. A common aspect is the move away from neoclassical environmental economics, and its reductionist monetary valuation, to a more realist theory and multiple methods. This relates to my work on environmental ethics, (...) plural values, stated preference validity and deliberative monetary valuation. Expanding beyond the narrow confines of mainstream orthodoxy has involved exploring a range of other disciplines (e.g. applied philosophy, social psychology, human geography, political science, social anthropology, history of thought and philosophy of science) and learning from this literature to rethink economics and develop social ecological economics. A broad range of subjects are covered here, including: personal responsibility, social practice, psychology of the individual, participatory processes, value (intrinsic, instrumental and relational), Nature–society relationships and interdependencies, critical realism and the conduct of unifying interdisciplinary science. I end with a series of comments concerning the failings of orthodox economics and the conduct of scientific research for social ecological transformation. (shrink)

People who speak up about the unpleasant realities of environmental degradation, capitalist exploitation and the growth economy are likely to be criticised for 'negative framing' - while corporations undermine truths by casting them as social constructs with no objective validity. Environmentalists increasingly conform to the idea of telling nice stories using abstract metaphors rather than seeking to identify, specify and name systemic problems and their causes. Psychological pressures faced by scientists and activists, and personal strategies for coming to terms with (...) and combating harsh realities, are themes that run through this issue of Environmental Values. This reveals the necessity of radical activism and the expression of a more general concern over ethics and justice as counters to the stiflingly narrow hegemonic economic discourse that prevails in official circles. (shrink)

Examines the thematic development of absurdity, despair, and man's quest for meaning in Russian literature.