This article is constructed through a series of linked aphorisms that articulate the relations between autonomy, sense, the world, different people’s worlds, disagreement, and wonder. It advances anthroponomy—the organization of humankind to support autonomous life. In the context of the planetary, sociallycaused environmental changes of today such as global warming or the risk of a mass extinction cascade, a part of autonomous engagement with our planetary situation is developing an autonomous conception of it—a conception of our situation that makes sense (...) to us. This pluralistic idea has consequences for environmentalism, notably around coloniality, and the reduction of different autonomous worlds to a dominant world, which is currently part of the discourse of the Anthropocene. The aphorisms in this article develop a reflective path toward autonomous conceptions of our planetary situation given the reality of coloniality in how that situation is understood. One result of this path is to open up a way for people to become more autonomously engaged with our environmental situation, an engagement grounded in wonder and critical of the discourse of the “Anthropocene”. (shrink)

Either we are in an elevated extinction rate event or in a mass extinction. Scientists disagree, and the matter cannot be resolved empirically until it is too late. We are the cause of the elevated extinction rate. What does this say about us, we who are Homo sapiens—the wise hominid? Beginning with the Renaissance and spreading during the 18th century, the normative notion of humanity has arisen to stand for what expresses our dignity as humans—specifically our thoughtfulness, in the double (...) sense of our capacity for reasoned choice and our capacity to enter sympathetically into the lives of others considering their good outside of the egotistical orbit of our own. Concurrent with this tradition has been a counter-current of critical thought viewing humans as self-defeating or self-destructive beings. This view reached great heights in the 20th century. Our causing an elevated extinction rate is largely unintentional and goes against our humanity in form as well as in content. Accordingly, it shows us to .. (shrink)

Written as a series of lectures, The Ecological Life offers a humanistic perspective on environmental philosophy that challenges some of the dogmas of deep ecology and radical environmentalism while speaking for their best desires. The book argues that being human-centered leaves us open to ecological identifications, rather than the opposite. Bendik-Keymer draws on analytic and continental traditions of philosophy as well as literature and visual media. He argues for a sense of ecological justice consonant with human rights, and shows how (...) humanistic thinking is committed to deepening respect for life and our ecological orientation. In a clear, jargon-free and conversational tone, The Ecological Life presents a timely and important contribution to civic engagement in an ecological century. (shrink)

Two common claims in environmental moral philosophy are that nature is worthy of respect and that we respect ourselves in respecting nature. In this paper, I articulate two modes of practical reasoning that help make sense of these claims. The first is analogical extension, which understands the respect due human life as the source of a like respect for nature. The second is analogical implication, which involves nature in human life to show us what we are like. These forms of (...) reasoning are relevant to environmental virtue ethics in that both help us conceptualize how respect for nature can be part of our sense of humanity, and not opposed to our sense of humanity. (shrink)

Many cultures understand that being a flourishing human involves respectful relationships with the wider universe of life on Earth. Call this, “a sense of ecological humanity.” In this paper, I explore conceptual resources available for developing such a way of being. To this end, I explore two modes of practical reasoning. The first is analogical extension, which understands the respect due human life as the source of a like respect for non-human life. The second is analogical implication, which comes to (...) self-respect out of respect for nature. These modes excavate two sides of an ecological relationship possible within our already existing sense of humanity, allow us to know ourselves more profoundly, and limit our capacity for wantonness. Our capitalist culture would do well to mature through these forms of practical reasoning. (shrink)

Many people, often students, appear apathetic because they do not know how to support human rights. In this paper, I explore a question that is part of a larger project helping people think through moral life in the age of human rights. What are appropriate contexts for invoking human rights? I begin with two assumptions: (1) Our sense of common humanity is the source of human rights. (2) There are situations where it seems we should disregard human rights out of (...) common humanity. Reflecting on two examples, I argue there is a class of harms where one should disregard human rights because one intends to be humane. I call this class “harms that exceed right” (HER). I isolate two kinds of such harm: (1) harms against relationship and (2) harms against personhood. I conclude with a general point: human rights application should bear in mind an “adverbial consideration.” How we invoke human rights matters, and human rights should be invoked humanely. (shrink)

Many people, often students, appear apathetic because they do not know how to support human rights. In this paper, I explore a question that is part of a larger project helping people think through moral life in the age of human rights. What are appropriate contexts for invoking human rights? I begin with two assumptions: Our sense of common humanity is the source of human rights. There are situations where it seems we should disregard human rights out of common humanity. (...) Reflecting on two examples, I argue there is a class of harms where one should disregard human rights because one intends to be humane. I call this class “harms that exceed right”. I isolate two kinds of such harm: harms against relationship and harms against personhood. I conclude with a general point: human rights application should bear in mind an “adverbial consideration.” How we invoke human rights matters, and human rights should be invoked humanely. (shrink)

Many people, often students, appear apathetic because they do not know how to support human rights. In this paper, I explore a question that is part of a larger project helping people think through moral life in the age of human rights. What are appropriate contexts for invoking human rights? I begin with two assumptions: (1) Our sense of common humanity is the source of human rights. (2) There are situations where it seems we should disregard human rights out of (...) common humanity. Reflecting on two examples, I argue there is a class of harms where one should disregard human rights because one intends to be humane. I call this class “harms that exceed right” (HER). I isolate two kinds of such harm: (1) harms against relationship and (2) harms against personhood. I conclude with a general point: human rights application should bear in mind an “adverbial consideration.” How we invoke human rights matters, and human rights should be invoked humanely. (shrink)

There's a moment about halfway through Avatar where Jake Sully wakes up disoriented from the link to his avatar. “Everything is backwards now,” he says, “like out there is the true world and in here is the dream.” Jake's life in the Resources Development Administration (RDA) mining colony seems unreal, while his avatar life seems real. There are shortsighted and enlightened versions of anthropocentrism. In Avatar, the RDA corporation offers an example of anthropocentric thinking. Rather than frame the issue in (...) terms of shortsighted versus enlightened anthropocentricism, however, it is more helpful to think about superficial versus deep humanity. Avatar suggests that a superficial sense of our humanity involves shortsighted anthropocentrism. Not only does the movie work with the novel category of deep humanity, but it also depicts “relational reason”, the logic that deepens our humanity. (shrink)

“Surfacing” is the process of rediscovering one’s sense of self-determination from within a context of enduring domination, including systems of enduring domination, such as racism, capitalism, and patriarchy. “Enduring domination” is the afterlife of domination that carries on into the conditions and mentality of anyone affected by domination, even indirectly. This article riggs together a concept from the Capability Approach to human development, a process from intersectional, epistemic justice work, and some broad possibilities within social practice art around norm play (...) and subversion to fill out a practice of wondering that helps its participants surface. It serves as a contribution to broadly decolonial work. (shrink)

In this paper, I do two things. First, I interpret a cultural shift in our understanding of what it is to be human. I focus on the self-understanding in three international documents: (1) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), (2) The Rio Charter on Sustainable Development (1992), and (3) The Earth Charter (2002). These documents are symptomatic: what it is to be human shifts from not considering environmental issues as central to our humanity to understanding respect for the environment (...) as exemplary of our humanity. Second, I open up a way of justification: I ask that we consider how the shift contributes to the human good, not how it is morally required. In so doing, we provide a richer justification of environmentalism. I conclude with brief remarks on how this method of justification isimportant for the future of environmental ethics. (shrink)

In this paper, I do two things. First, I interpret a cultural shift in our understanding of what it is to be human. I focus on the self-understanding in three international documents: (1) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), (2) The Rio Charter on Sustainable Development (1992), and (3) The Earth Charter (2002). These documents are symptomatic: what it is to be human shifts from not considering environmental issues as central to our humanity to understanding respect for the environment (...) as exemplary of our humanity. Second, I open up a way of justification: I ask that we consider how the shift contributes to the human good, not how it is morally required. In so doing, we provide a richer justification of environmentalism. I conclude with brief remarks on how this method of justification isimportant for the future of environmental ethics. (shrink)

This essay interprets Dipesh Chakrabarty’s The Climate of History in a Planetary Age in light of the European tradition of thought about the sublime. The first half of the essay stages Chakrabarty’s historiography within that tradition focusing on a critical understanding of Kant. Then, the essay considers how the trace of the sublime in Chakrabarty’s approach to planetary history is interpretable as a form of social alienation. That argument draws on the critical theory of Steven Vogel and decolonial critique. Finally, (...) the essay considers the moods of protest as non-alienated responses to the planetary bypassing the coloniality of the sublime. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a sample spiritual exercise—a contemporary form of the written practice that ancient philosophers used to shape their characters. The exercise, which develops the ancient practice of the examination of conscience, is on the sixth mass extinction and seeks to understand why the extinction appears as a moral wrong. It concludes by finding a vice in the moral character of the author and the author’s society. From a methodological standpoint, the purpose of spiritual exercises is to (...) create a habit of thoughtfulness in the writer, and by way of teaching, to suggest one to the reader. Such a habit is important, at least, because virtue is a habit. In other words, there can be no learning of virtue itself without habituation into it. Accordingly, I frame the sample spiritual exercise with a deliberately controversial objection to contemporary academic virtue ethics and with a justification for why the spiritual exercise is important for taking virtue ethically. And I end the paper with some further remarks explaining the form of the exercise and its relevance to doing philosophy. In this way, the paper makes and illustrates a methodological point about virtue ethics based on a meta-ethical assumption about virtue as a habit, and it does this by focusing on a pressing environmental problem in the twenty-first century. (shrink)