Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 17 (3):350-367 (2013)
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Abstract |
In response to the Royal Society report’s claim that “the acceptability of geoengineering will be determined as much by social, legal, and political issues as by scientific and technical factors” , a number of authors have suggested the key to this challenge is to engage the public in geoengineering decision-making. In effect, some have argued that inclusion of the public in geoengineering decision-making is necessary for any geoengineering project to be morally permissible. Yet, while public engagement on geoengineering comes in various forms, the discussion in geoengineering governance and the ethics of geoengineering have too often conceptualized it exclusively in terms of public participation in decision-making, and supported it by various liberal democratic values. However, if the predominant understanding of public engagement on—or, the role of the public in—geoengineering decision-making is indeed only grounded on liberal democratic values, then its normative relevance could be challenged by and in other ethical-political traditions that do not share those values. In this paper, I shall explore these questions from a Confucian perspective. I argue that the liberal democratic values invoked in support of the normative importance of public participation are, at least, foreign to Confucian political philosophy. This presents a prima facie challenge to view public participation in geoengineering decision-making as a universal moral requirement, and invites us to reconsider the normative significance of this form of public engagement in Confucian societies. Yet, I contend that the role of the public remains normatively significant in geoengineering governance and the ethics of geoengineering from a Confucian perspective. Drawing from recent work on Confucian political philosophy, I illustrate the potential normative foundation for public engagement on geoengineering decision-making
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Keywords | Geoengineering Confucian Political Philosophy Public Participation |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
ISBN(s) | 1091-8264 |
DOI | 10.5840/techne201421110 |
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References found in this work BETA
Recent Approaches to Confucian Filial Morality.Hagop Sarkissian - 2010 - Philosophy Compass 5 (9):725-734.
Citations of this work BETA
Confucian Environmental Ethics, Climate Engineering, and the “Playing God” Argument.Pak-Hang Wong - 2015 - Zygon 50 (1):28-41.
Responsible Innovation for Decent Nonliberal Peoples: A Dilemma?Pak-Hang Wong - 2016 - Journal of Responsible Innovation 3 (2):154-168.
Geoengineering Governance, the Linear Model of Innovation, and the Accompanying Geoengineering Approach.Pak-Hang Wong & Nils Markusson - 2015 - The Climate Geoengineering Governance Working Papers.
The Ethics of Geoengineering: A Literature Review.Augustine Pamplany, Bert Gordijn & Patrick Brereton - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (6):3069-3119.
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