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RECONNECTING THOUGHT, EMOTION, AND REVERENCE IN A WORLD ON THE BRINK

First Edition

Edited by David E. McClean

Rutgers University - Newark

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3970 Sorrento Valley Blvd., Ste. 500, San Diego, CA 92121 Contents

Introduction: It’s Now or Nether: On Integrative Approaches to Ethics ix

1 ‘Love Is the Answer’: Charity and Kiganda Ethics of Interdependence...... 1 Introduction to China Scherz...... 1

1.1 Love Is the Answer: Charity and Kiganda Ethics of Interdependence...... 4 By China Scherz

Questions to Consider...... 28

2 “Security Through Care” and “Rethinking Human Security”...... 29 Introduction to Fiona Robinson...... 29

2.1 Security through Care...... 32 By Fiona Robinson

2.2 Rethinking Human Security...... 36 By Fiona Robinson

Questions to Consider...... 53

3 “Climate Change from a Cosmopolitan and Enlightened Anthropocentric Point of View”...... 55 Introduction to David E. McClean...... 55 3.1 Climate Change from a Cosmopolitan and Enlightened Anthropocentric Point of View ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 57 By David E. McClean

Questions to Consider...... 83

4 “Should We Reverence Life? Reflections at the Intersection of Ecology, Religion, and Ethics”...... 85 Introduction to William Schweiker...... 85 vi | The Integrated Ethics Reader

4.1 Should We Reverence Life? Reflections at the Intersection of Ecology, Religion, and Ethics ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 87 By William Schweiker

Questions to Consider...... 104

5 “Cosmopolitanism, World Citizenship and Global Civil Society”...... 105 Introduction to Chris Brown...... 105

5.1 Cosmopolitanism, World Citizenship and Global Civil Society...... 107 By Chris Brown

Questions to Consider...... 122

6 Race in the Modern World: The Problem of the Color Line...... 123 Introduction to Kwame Anthony Appiah...... 123

6.1 Race in the Modern World: The Problem of the Color Line...... 125 By Kwame Anthony Appiah

Questions to Consider...... 131

7 Once More With Feeling: Integrating Emotion in Teaching Business Ethics...... 133 Introduction to Christopher P. Adkins...... 133 7.1 Once More with Feeling: Integrating Emotion in Teaching Business Ethics—Educational Implications From Cognitive Neuroscience and Social Psychology ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������135 By Christopher P. Adkins

Questions to Consider...... 151

8 Reverence for Life: On the Role of Albert Schweitzer’s Ethics in Contemporary Ethical Debates...... 153 Introduction to Ulrich H. J. Körtner...... 153 8.1 Reverence for Life: On the Role of Albert Schweitzer’s Ethics in Contemporary Ethical Debates ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������155 By Ulrich H. J. Körtner Translated by Ana Ilievska

Questions to Consider...... 175 Contents | vii

9 “The Notion of and Need for Environmental Ethics”...... 177 Introduction to J. Baird Callicott...... 177

9.1 The Notion of and Need for Environmental Ethics...... 179 By J. Baird Callicott

Questions to Consider...... 190

10 “Environmental Ethics as Civic Philosophy” and “Natural Piety, Environmental Ethics, and Sustainability”...... 191 Introduction to Ben A. Minteer...... 191

10.1 Environmental Ethics as Civic Philosophy...... 193 By Ben A. Minteer

10.2 Natural Piety, Environmental Ethics, and Sustainability...... 202 By Ben A. Minteer

Questions to Consider...... 218

11 Collective Wisdom and Civilization: Revitalizing Ancient Wisdom Traditions...... 219 Introduction to Thomas Kiefer...... 219 11.1 Collective Wisdom and Civilization: Revitalizing Ancient Wisdom Traditions ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������222 By Thomas Kiefer

Questions to Consider...... 243

12 “Prologue” and “Splitting of Sacred from Secular”...... 245 Introduction to Bruce Wilshire...... 245

12.1 Prologue...... 248 By Bruce W. Wilshire

12.2 Splitting of Sacred from Secular?...... 257 By Bruce W. Wilshire

Questions to Consider...... 274 Introduction It’s Now or Nether: On Integrative Approaches to Ethics

hilosophers approach teaching ethics in a variety of ways. From the syllabi I have surveyed, I note that many (in American and European universities, anyway), lead with the “classics” that inform and undergird the common approaches to ethics. There is Pnothing wrong with these “classics.” Indeed, they force us to think more deeply about how we make—or should make—ethical decisions. But I agree with the late Hans Jonas when he warned that a new age requires new approaches to ethics:

All previous ethics—whether in the form of issuing direct enjoinders to do and not to do certain things, or in the form of defining principles for such enjoinders, or in the form of establishing the ground of obligation for obeying such principles—had these interconnected tacit premises in common: that the human condition, determined by the nature of man and the nature of things, was given once for all; that the human good on that basis was readily determinable; and that the range of human action and therefore responsibility was narrowly circumscribed … [T]hese premises no longer hold. … More spe- cifically, [it is] my contention that with certain developments of our powers the nature of human action has changed, and, since ethics is concerned with action, it should follow that the changed nature of human action calls for a change in ethics as well: this not merely in the sense that new objects of action have added to the case material on which received rules of conduct are to be applied, but in the more radical sense that the qualitatively novel nature of certain of our actions has opened up a whole new dimension of ethical relevance for which there is no precedent in the standards and canons of traditional ethics.1 This anthology comes at many of the important ethical and political issues of our time (the early 21st century) with Jonas’s instruction in mind. Herein the alert reader will find many oblique references, references that can lead to further inquiry and deeper reflection. Herein are clashes of ideas that will quickly immerse the reader in the pressing ethical and political arguments of the hour (e.g., between political realists, on one hand, those who espouse a globalist ethics of care, on the other; between political cosmopolitans, on one hand, and those who argue for the preservation and strengthening of domestic political institutions, on the other; between ethical rationalists, on one hand, and those who argue for the need to inject back into our deliberations spirituality and affect, on the other; between

ix x | The Integrated Ethics Reader environmental anthropocentrists and nonanthropocentrists, on one hand (together!), and those who espouse a pragmatist approach to questions of sustainability, conservation, and preservation, on the other; and between those who subscribe to the notion that foreign aid to underdeveloped and developing countries is actually deleterious (perhaps even inherently so), on one hand, and those who caution against the current fashion and argue for the need to always see the value in charity, whether in matters of domestic economic development or global development, on the other). I already stated that this volume is for the alert reader. It is also for the reader who is willing to do the work necessary to think through the pressing issues of the time to consider how policy—both domestic and international—might be forged or improved. This volume does not begin at the shallow end of the pool, so to speak. The essays are intended to bring the reader into ongoing conversations and debates, and the reader who would gain the most from these essays will be the one willing to look up terms, consult referenced books, essays, and articles, and generally “put the time in.” Doing so, the reader will be rewarded beyond expectations, as I was when gathering and reading (and re-reading) the essays by the various contributors. That said, there is another way to use this anthology. For educators, students with some coursework in philosophy, political science, sociology, and ethics behind them, and for policy makers and public administrators, reading the volume from cover to cover will also yield up intellectual and actionable “gems” on a range of issues and stimulate deeper thought about the ethical and political challenges facing us. It will be a whirlwind tour of some of the most pressing issues of the moment, and before one’s breath is caught, one will be onto another topic. Yet none of the essays address an issue in isolation. There are linkages between, for example, Fiona Robinson’s exploration of the meaning of “security” and Chris Brown’s worries about the notion of “global civil society”; between William Schweiker’s critical exploration of the ethical imperative to “reverence life,” Ben Minteer’s exploration of environmentalism from a pragmatist point of view, and Bruce Wilshire’s insistence on Jamesian holism and exploration of Deweyan “natural piety.” There are these linkages and many more, and the reward will come through discovering them and then using them to challenge or support one’s own assumptions and/or conclusions. It is not at all difficult to see the authors of these essays around a table, in symposium mode, conversing, arguing, clarifying, and assenting to each other’s central points. I do not like alarmist language. It sounds cheap, like verbal kitsch. So I prefer to use the word “nether” rather than “never” in my title. I do not know for sure that humanity will soon face its final act on Earth’s stage, as some believe. But I think it is tenable to say that our condition can change for the worse, and radically so, as we struggle with environmental degradation, climate change, the still-pressing issue of global thermonuclear war, political instability around the globe, and various forms of religious and secular fundamentalism that impede dialogue and impel toward otherizing and objectifying those whose cultures and civilizations are organized around different core principles, root metaphors, and “revelations.” “Nether” seems apt and certainly less alarmist. Etymologically, “nether” concerns “going Introduction | xi lower,” what is “down,” “downward,” “below,” and “beneath.” Going lower is certainly a very real possibility. Lower means a world that is dirtier, hotter, less stable, and more dangerous. To avoid nether, we need to take our policy and moral deliberations out of their silos and place them in dialogue with one another. To avoid nether, we need to let go of our dualisms, such as the dualism that establishes a hard line between commerce and art, and between the needs of human beings and the needs of other species. By freeing our deliberations from these silos and by working to remold our dualisms into (mere) distinctions we will be able to avoid the nether—or perhaps most aptly put, a “nether world” in the not-too-distant future—a “nether world” called Earth. To quote from Thomas Kiefer’s essay in this volume, “Collective Wisdom and Civilization: Revitalizing Ancient Wisdom Traditions”:

What we would need to create is a social and environmental context that is as adaptive as possible given the physical and psychological limits of human nature, that is, one that cultivates the higher or more cooperative capacities and dispositions that we have and that channels the more basic, non- and anti-social capacities and dispositions that we all normally have in healthy ways. But this is exactly what the ancient wisdom traditions were attempting to do, though differing in the specifics, owing to the differences in environmental and cultural context. This in effect creates a new type of culture, one that applies to each human, which is not reducible to a particular religion, ethnicity, or nationality. What we need to acknowledge … is that we cannot fundamentally change what we are … but we can be honest about our situation, and design belief systems, conceptual frameworks, educational modules, and traditions that work with rather than against our human nature. Part of this requires acknowledging rather than denying human nature, for human nature is not intrinsically evil or fallen or in any way unnatural as such but only in certain contexts and if we let social settings degrade to that point morally.2

This anthology is set between Jonas’s and Kiefer’s insights. It is time for a new approach to ethics, and it is time to forge an ethical civilization that recalls the importance of wisdom. Indeed, we need wisdom (or sagacity) now more than ever, given what is at stake. For sure, we are running out of time to cultivate wisdom, we who are supposedly Homo sapiens. But we must do our best to try. As Strobe Talbot wrote,

[I]f we take the steps necessary to fend off specific, imminent, and potentially cataclysmic threats, we will be giving ourselves time and useful experience for lifting global governance in general to a higher level. By solving problems that are truly urgent, we can increase the chances that eventually … the world will be able to ameliorate or even solve other problems that are merely very important. Whether future generations make the most of such a world, and whether they think of it as a global nation or just a well-governed community of nations, is up to them. Whether they have the choice is up to us.3 xii | The Integrated Ethics Reader

Notes 1 Hans Jonas. The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 1. 2 Thomas Kiefer. “Collective Wisdom and Civilization: Revitalizing Ancient Wisdom Traditions.” Comparative Civilizations Review 72, no. 72 (2015): 95. 3 Strobe Talbot. The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States, and the Quest for a Global Nation (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 410. “Climate Change from a Cosmopolitan and Enlightened 3 Anthropocentric Point of View”

Introduction to David E. McClean In the United States there has been lots of talk over the past several years concerning climate change, and the subject has, extraordinarily dangerously, become both a political and ideological football. While the science of climate change has been accepted by most people with some acquaintance with the subject (that is, most such people have little or no reason to harbor real doubt concerning the overwhelming scientific consensus), it has, nevertheless, been held in suspicion by many on the political right. There is no time for the arguments of deniers. The world’s peoples and governments must commence both personal and institutional changes that will allow humanity to mitigate the worst damage that climate change may cause, while avoiding the dangers of environmental romanticism that will only serve to delay progress toward that end. This essay treats climate change as moral and political challenges, not merely as challenges of risk management and to our technological capabilities. The moral challenges call for a total rethinking of the purposes of political community and politics. Ultimately, the world’s states need to institute, organize, empower, and fund a central authority (not another “committee” or “working group”) to which a requisite amount of sovereignty is ceded by each state in order to address climate change efficiently and effectively, now and for many decades to come. This notion of ceded sovereignty, often scoffed at as alien to the core dogmas of political realism, can no longer be scoffed at. Climate change, being a global threat, needs a coordinated response among all of the world’s states, not merely an agreement to independently and voluntarily meet targets for greenhouse gas reductions, to share the burdens of millions of climate refugees, to create new insurance innovations, and so on. This is even more clear now that we see, after Pres- ident Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement (Accords), what domestic politics can do to derail serious efforts at the individual state level. Indeed, political risk looms over all climate negotiations. But is a central authority possible in the short term, which is the only term we have left?

55 56 | The Integrated Ethics Reader

This essay might be read with reference to Chris Brown’s, Bruce A. Minteer’s, and Fiona Robinson’s essays in this volume. Brown addresses the tenability (and limits) of cosmopoli- tanism, Minteer addresses the problems of anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism, and Robinson tackles old ideas of “security.” All are relevant to the problems created by climate change, even if not directly. 3.1 Climate Change from a Cosmopolitan and Enlightened Anthropocentric Point of View | 57

Climate Change from a Cosmopolitan and Enlightened Anthropocentric Point of View

BY DAVID E. McCLEAN

[I]f we take the steps necessary to fend off specific, imminent, and potentially BEYOND THE ROILING WATERS cataclysmic threats, we will be giving In the United States, there has been lots of ourselves time and useful experience talk, over the past several years, concerning for lifting global governance in general climate change, and the subject has, extraor- to a higher level. By solving problems dinarily dangerously, become both a political that are truly urgent, we can increase the and ideological football. While the science of chances that eventually … the world will climate change has been accepted by most be able to ameliorate or even solve other people with some acquaintance with the sub- problems that are merely very import- ject (that is, most such people have little or no ant. Whether future generations make reason to doubt the overwhelming scientific the most of such a world, and whether consensus), it has been held in suspicion by they think of it as a global nation or just many on the political right. Those who have a well-governed community of nations, denied and still deny the science have called is up to them. Whether they have the into question the data supporting the thesis choice is up to us. that the Earth’s climate is changing, or the methods used to measure global tempera- 1 —Strobe Talbot tures, or point to mini-scandals and doubts among a very small minority within the sci- Do not conform to the pattern of this entific community. Some suggest that God world, but be transformed by the renew- would not allow human beings to have such ing of your mind. a significant impact on natural systems, while —St. Paul2 others argue that the issue is fueled by envi- ronmental fanatics or “environmental leftists” The dominant discourses about the who are simply opposed to the petroleum nature of the climate threat are scientific industry and are more concerned about and economic. But the deepest challenge the fates of owls and fish than the ability of is ethical. What matters most is what human beings to earn a living and take care of we do to protect those vulnerable to our their families. In no other place in the world actions and unable to hold us account- is climate change denial so prominent a part able, especially the global poor, future of the public discourse. generations, and nonhuman nature. Republican Congressman Daryll Issa said that “[o]ne of the difficulties in exam- 3 —Stephen M. Gardiner ining the issue of the [sic] climate change 58 | The Integrated Ethics Reader and greenhouse gases is that there is a wide strong, just as the scientific consensus con- range of scientific opinion on this issue and cerning the effects of lead on the nervous the science community does not agree to the system is strong—and not worth debating extent of the problem or the critical threshold without good cause. Scientists always leave of when this problem is truly catastrophic.”4 open the possibility that their conclusions Republican Senator James Inhofe, perhaps the may be wrong. Science is a self-correcting leader in climate change denial, wrote, “I have and self-doubting enterprise. But when a very offered compelling evidence that catastrophic strong scientific consensus is formed, the global warming is a hoax. That conclusion public and policy makers have no reasonable is supported by the painstaking work of the choice but to act and plan based upon that nation’s top climate scientists.”5 Republican scientific consensus, rather than substitute Senator Ted Cruz said that “[t]here remains their untrained “wisdom” for that consen- considerable uncertainty about the effect of sus. That others are busy trying to convince the many factors that influence climate: the the skeptics and deniers is something that sun, the oceans, clouds, the behavior of water may have its marginal utility, of course. That’s vapor (the main greenhouse gas), volcanic what Philip Kitcher and Evelyn Fox Keller are activity, and human activity. Nonetheless, cli- attempting in their recent book The Seasons mate-change proponents based their models Alter: How to Save Our Planet in Six Acts. In on assumptions about those factors, and now that book, organized as a series of fictional we know that many of those assumptions dialogues between a climate change “believer” were wrong.”6 Congressman Bill Johnson and a skeptic, the science is discussed, as are of Ohio tells us that he is not “an alarmist many other variables, including political, that believes that greenhouse gas emissions ethical, and psychological ones. Theirs is an coming from the coal industry are causing interesting book and I commend the effort, major problems.”7 There are dozens more but we have no time left to coddle deniers. statements of denial and doubt that could Climate change is an urgent and unsettling be offered here, but they, as these, are all fact that must be addressed head on so that substantively wrong, as has been pointed out this present generation may do or further repeatedly by hundreds of serious climate and the work necessary to save the lives of mil- earth systems scientists.8 lions of people–perhaps billions of people–in We need to step out of the roiling waters the not-too-distant future, and save future that have been generated on the political right generations from climate-driven upheavals. in the United States and by self-serving ped- Such an uncompromising approach does not dlers of manufactured doubt about the reality mean, simply, insisting on acceptance of the of anthropogenic climate change (hereafter scientific consensus. It means much more. It “ACC,” sometimes referred to as “global means, as well, that each of us who accepts warming”). Despite the work already done the science has an obligation to help ensure to address skeptics and deniers, some are that the proper steps will be taken by policy still attempting to convince the skeptics and makers. That said, I leave others to their dif- deniers with new work.9 I am not. Regarding fering approaches for handling skeptics and climate change, the scientific consensus is deniers. (For the most part, the “skeptics” to 3.1 Climate Change from a Cosmopolitan and Enlightened Anthropocentric Point of View | 59 which I refer are actually deniers, people for ever issued. Earth’s current climate whom it seems that no amount of evidence is is beginning to look a lot like the way convincing. True skeptics, as pointed out by it did during the Eemian interglacial, Haydn Washington and John Cook in their a warm period from about 130,000 to book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the 115,000 years ago. Then, when tem- Sand, actually seek the truth, while deniers perature was less than 1°C warmer (for various reasons) are determined to than today, “there is evidence of ice reject it.)10 melt, sea-level rise to 5-9 meters, and extreme storms.” It gets worse. IT MAY BE WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT Further evidence of rapid sea-level As reported in a recent book, Warning: Find- rise in the late Eemian, “[suggests] ing Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes, authored the possibility that a critical stability by Richard A. Clarke, a veteran national secu- threshold was crossed that caused rity expert, and R.P. Eddy, former director at polar ice sheet collapse.” … the White House National Security Coun- Hansen thinks we will likely see cil, the climate scientist James Hansen (who a meter of sea-level rise much faster first brought the issue of climate change to than the IPCC predicts. And once a worldwide audience in testimony to Con- we hit a meter, it’s not as though we gress in 1988) suggests to the authors that the just stop there and adapt to that given Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s level. It will only accelerate, and it will (IPCC) more optimistic conclusions on sea accelerate quickly. Hansen warns, level rise were based on some questionable “Humanity faces near certainty of assumptions, the principle one being that ice eventual sea-level rise of at least sheet collapse will follow linearly the increase Eemian proportions, 5-9 meters, if in temperature: fossil fuel emissions continue on a business-as-usual course.”11 Hansen believes we already have a “strong indication that ice sheets Hansen, like myself, reads the Paris Agree- will, and are already beginning ment as woefully inadequate to the imperative to, respond in a nonlinear fashion of substantially reducing greenhouse gases to global warming.” Moreover, he (“GHGs”). The time lines for “compliance” warned, “In a case such as ice sheet and reporting are too generous, and the agree- instability and sea-level rise, there is a ment has no teeth that would force countries danger in excessive caution. We may to perform as promised. That is relevant to rue reticence, if it serves to lock in Hansen’s worries, because his prediction that future disasters.” In other words, if sea-level rise would be worse than the IPCC we wait until we have an irrefutable indicated is based on substantial inaction. It consensus, it will likely be too late to is the case that many of the worst GHG pro- do anything about the problem. ducers in the world are taking at least some Hansen believes his latest warn- action to reduce emissions, and it would be ing is the most important he has wrong to say otherwise. Yet, “something” may 60 | The Integrated Ethics Reader not be sufficient to avoid the worst, if Hansen margin for error must be built into plans and his coauthors turn out to be right. for mitigation and adaptation. To be fair, I am a philosopher, not an earth systems many policy makers and planners already scientist, so I am not qualified to adjudicate know this. Yet, when someone like James the very technical dispute between Hansen Hansen (and his coauthors) starts to sound and the IPCC regarding sea-level rise. But I the alarm about a far too optimistic view of do know that Hansen has been ridiculed and sea-level rise, policy makers have a moral ignored in the past, only to be proved right, obligation to listen and, in their planning, and that is why he is included in Clarke’s to err somewhere on the side of caution. That and Eddy’s book, which deals with the var- is, to the extent feasible, they have an obliga- ious “Cassandras” that should be (or should tion to use their own best judgment. For once have been) listened to. I do know that several the money is spent on new sea walls, new critical predictions about the rate of impact coastal drainage systems, and other projects of GHG accumulation in our atmosphere of mitigation and adaptation, there will be and oceans have proved too optimistic (from no second chance to get things right (given glacial melt to the dislodging of species from that financial and other resources are lim- their normal habitats). There is something ited). Of course, this is maddening from the else I know: The greater the potential harm, point of view of policy makers and polit- the more aggressive the action required to ical leaders who need to work from good prevent and/or mitigate that harm (this is data and reasonable assumptions. But we rooted in “the precautionary principle,” a are where we are. What’s at stake may very general principle of risk management). I well be civilization itself, and the future of realize, of course, that the world’s coastal all of our children—not to mention many, cities can’t take a farcical approach to the many other species. Even if Hansen and his problem and build 10-meter-high sea walls. colleagues are only half right, and we are That would certainly be an aggressive way looking at sea-level rise of 2.5 meters by the to address the potential threats, but there end of the century rather than the 5 to 9 simply are not the resources to undertake meters suggested based on a look-back to the such extreme, prophylactic projects (and Eemian interglacial, we are facing disasters doing so would, very likely, have other neg- that are orders of magnitude worse than the ative impacts). IPCC predicts with a high degree of confi- And yet, it is imperative that we consider dence—and the IPCC predictions are bad the magnitude of the threat. Policy makers enough. The moral and political urgency is and planners can’t simply assume that the raised substantially indeed. IPCC is right and undertake to protect coastal In his book, Half Earth: Our Planet’s Fight cities under the assumption of one meter of for Life, E.O. Wilson tells us about the threat sea-level rise by the end of the century. The we humans pose to the biosphere: IPCC has been facing very powerful political forces. Some of those forces include pressure Having risen above all the biosphere, from petroleum-producing states and cor- set to alter everything everywhere, porations. Pragmatism requires that some the wrathful demon of climate change 3.1 Climate Change from a Cosmopolitan and Enlightened Anthropocentric Point of View | 61 is our child that we left unrestrained Thefuture consequences of climate change for too long. By using the atmosphere demand not only technological innovations in as the carbon dump of the Industrial the way we generate energy, they also demand Revolution, and pressing on with- unprecedented global political action and out caution, humanity has raised coordination, serious citizen engagement, the concentration of greenhouse and an unprecedented degree of moral mat- gases, primarily carbon dioxide and uration. Even if some of the worst climate methane, to a dangerous level. Most scenarios don’t play out by the end of this experts agree on the following dire century, human beings will continue to suffer prediction. The rise in the annual very significant disruptions and tragedies mean surface temperature caused by all around the globe. The same fate awaits the pollution should not be allowed our nonhuman cousins–a fact that too often to exceed 2°C, or 3.6°F, above that gets short shrift (and, indeed, many species prior to the birth of the Industrial of plants and animals have already paid the Revolution–roughly, the mid-eigh- ultimate price, as a great many have become teenth century. The rise has already extinct, while others are on their way to reached nearly half of the “2C” extinction). Morality requires a coordinated threshold. When global atmospheric and vigorously implemented plan of action warming pushes past the 2C-increase by and among the world’s national govern- level, Earth’s weather will be destabi- ments. There is an urgent need for (1) active lized. Heat records now considered and ongoing planning; (2) the commitment historic will become routine. Severe of substantial monetary and other resources; storms and weather anomalies will be and (3) a stunning level of moral growth and the new normal. The melting of the moral magnanimity (as, together, a critical Greenland and Antarctic ice shields adaptation) such as has never been seen or now under way will accelerate, bring- expected in all of human history. The first two ing landmasses a new climate and of these have been in the works for some time a new geography. The sea level, as (we see them referenced in the Paris Agree- measured by both satellite and tidal ment and in the blizzard of IPCC reports gauge data, is already rising three leading up to it), but the last of these (i.e., the millimeters a year. Pushed up both need for a stunning level of moral growth and by the addition of meltwater and by moral magnanimity) is rarely discussed. All expansion of the ocean volume due to of these require shifts in our way of thinking heating of the whole of marine water about our relationships with other people and itself, the sea level [rise] will even- with the flora and fauna of our planet on an tually exceed nine meters. Can such order that is unprecedented. Elsewhere, I use catastrophic change really come to the Greek word metanoia when calling for pass? It has already begun. The aver- the great shift in thinking required by certain age annual surface temperature of the business people in order for them to conduct planet has increased steadily since their affairs within moral parameters.13 I will 1980, with no sign of moderating.12 use the word metanoia here, too, as regards 62 | The Integrated Ethics Reader the kind of shift in thinking demanded to because of powerful opposition but address the consequences of climate change, also because of a more general lack for the word (like the Hebrew word translit- of interest. Obstructionist attitudes … erated as teshuvah) suggests not merely an can range from denial of the problem intellectual resolve to change course but a to indifference, nonchalant resigna- very radical change in one’s thinking, in the tion or blind confidence in technical inclination of the heart, the kind of change solutions.14 that follows and indicates conversion. The climate change discussion had for Just at the moment in which the world’s too long been confined to the scientific peoples are facing a global threat that cares community and to a rather small circle of not a jot for political borders, maps, or tribal non-scientists who grasped its implications. fervor, many countries seem to be considering It has been only relatively recently, perhaps a retreat from robust international engage- since Rio’s Earth Summit (June 1992) or not ment. But more than ever the peoples of the much earlier, that the discussion has (slowly) world need to see themselves as world citi- broken out into more popular fora. This is a zens, though embedded in particular political good thing, because the larger consequences communities and cultures, and the world’s of climate change will not be felt by scientists governments must begin to move more rap- alone, but rather by everyone—and some, idly—and deliberately—toward a true global such as the global poor, far more than others. solution to the problems that attend climate It is important that everyone—or at least a change, including (potentially) hundreds of critical mass of people—become familiar millions of new climate migrants and climate with the science and repercussions of climate refugees, tens of millions of people who are change in order to prepare for what’s dead newly indigent and have massive losses of ahead, in just a few generations. As Francis, financial wealth and global economic dis- the current Pope of the Catholic Church, has ruptions that will make the Great Depression written, and I could not agree more, of the 1930s and the more recent financial crisis of 2007/2008 seem like minor incon- We need a conversation which veniences. We are at a moment of apocalypse includes everyone, since the environ- (i.e., of grand disclosures about the tolerances mental challenges we are undergoing, of our planet and about our roles as members and [their] human roots, concern of the biotic community). The choices that and affect us all. The worldwide we make now will lead either to radical new ecological movement has already beginnings for our species, or to unprece- made considerable progress and led dented catastrophe. More than at any other to the establishment of numerous time in human history the world needs cos- organizations committed to raising mopolitan thinking and the moral virtue of awareness of these challenges. Regret- magnanimity that will maintain it through tably, many efforts to seek concrete periods of incredible political and psycho- solutions to the environmental crisis logical stress. Yet, while much attention has have proved ineffective, not only been paid to metrics, the science of climate 3.1 Climate Change from a Cosmopolitan and Enlightened Anthropocentric Point of View | 63 change, alternative energy, and technical new understanding of the nature and com- intervention possibilities (such as carbon plexity of our obligations. Our morality and capture and sequestration (CCS) and various politics must become magnanimous. So far, in ways to increase the global albedo), very little our evolutionary journey and throughout our attention has been paid to the cultivation of recorded history, magnanimity seems to have characters and a new politics that will allow us appeared in isolated eruptions, and has been to meet the coming challenges without turn- less common than ordinary altruism, which ing on one another viciously, or turning on is quite common. That can no longer be the the other forms of life that inhabit the planet case if we are going to survive the new natu- with us. Pope Francis’s phrase, “blind confi- ral and social realities that climate change is dence in technical solutions,” is apt. Technical introducing. To survive, magnanimity (which solutions do have a role to play to stave off can no longer be seen as supererogatory, but wholesale social breakdown and the bloody rather as at the center of the needed adapta- belligerence that can be counted on to follow tion) must become quotidian, commonplace. it (just think of a failed state, such as Somalia), Yet we are far from making any such demand but morality—our conscious determination to on ourselves, just as we have been far from regard the good of others as critical—must get making the demands on ourselves to be us the rest of the way. Indeed, it is morality, charitable and to move charity to the core of to no small degree, that will make available our sense of self. For thousands of years we many of the technical solutions, since they have hoped that the seeds of magnanimity can only come into being through the expen- preached by the likes of Jesus of Nazareth ditures of resources, private and public, and and Siddhartha Gautama would spread into the expenditure of resources is, in part, the human hearts and human institutions, but result of moral priorities, moral decisions, and such has not come to pass. How will we then moral imagination. But I wish to emphasize get to an ubiquitous magnanimity? I think the morality simpliciter, not morality as a driver exigency of the moment will shove us in its for technological innovations. I do not wish direction, for just as there is climate forcing, to make morality another instrument placed there is moral forcing. If we resist that moral in the service of technology, commerce, or forcing, and so delay the inner transforma- innovation; I wish to focus on its centrality to tions that will be required in human minds what it means to be a human being, as rooted and hearts all across the globe, our fates will in care for others, for life, and for the habitats be sealed. I suppose it can be summed up this in which life is extant. way: Love or die; expand our moral horizons We human beings need to change, to adapt substantially, or watch catastrophe unfold to a new reality, in our morality and in our before our eyes and before the eyes of our politics. We need to become different kinds children and grandchildren. of beings if we are going to survive and thrive. I can already hear the critical voices: “You Our penchants for self-interest and self-ser- don’t understand human nature, apparently”; vice must be conditioned more significantly “You’re hopelessly naïve.” I have several by a desire to serve the welfare of the planet answers to these criticisms. First, fear—not and its inhabitants, and so we must forge a just greed or selfishness—is a great motivator, 64 | The Integrated Ethics Reader so long as that fear is not paralyzing (a critical “[A]sk not what your country can do for proviso, for we know that, generally, fear does you–ask what you can do for your country.” not motivate toward sustained action), and In that spirit I proffer this: We can no longer whether most know it yet or not, they should ask what the Earth can give to us; we must be very afraid indeed. When enough people learn to ask in all seriousness, and without do realize it, the ground will be prepared for any further delay, what it is we can give to the needed personal and communal trans- the Earth. The magnanimity of which I speak formations. Second, I follow Aristotle and would require a lot from us. It would require other philosophers in their view that human us to train for lives of personal “ministry” beings are malleable and can be reshaped and sacrifice. This is a tall order in an age through training and re-habituation, and can of me-ism and consumerism, and it may be even be brought to mental conversion. This is too tall an order for a species still guided, even more true when the circumstances are all too often, by its amygdalae rather than optimal for that re-habituation to take place. by its