- University of Oregon
Philosophy Department
Susan Campbell Hall
Eugene, OR
Barbara Muraca
University of Oregon, Philosophy & Environmental Studies, Faculty Member
- Environmental Philosophy, DeGrowth, Environmental Ethics, Social Philosophy, Environmental Justice, Political Ecology, and 26 morePhilosophy, Process Philosophy, Sustainable Development, Politics of Recognition, Theories of recognition (Honneth) and issues of justice, Political Economy, Philosophy of nature (Whitehead, Merleau-Ponty), Anthropology, Ecology, Martin Heidegger, Social Justice, Bruno Latour, Ecosystem Services, Philosophy of Nature, Ecofeminism, Alfred North Whitehead, Teleology, Theory of the good life (Philosophy), Intergenerational justice, Critical natural capital, Georgescu-Roegen, Environmental Sustainability, Hartmut Rosa, Buen vivir, Maurizio Lazzarato, and Wendy Brownedit
- Associate Professor of Environmental Philosophy at University of Oregon, Eugene. Areas of research: human-nature rela... moreAssociate Professor of Environmental Philosophy at University of Oregon, Eugene. Areas of research: human-nature relationships, relational values, environmental justice, sustainability theory, degrowth, process philosophy, critical theory, feminist philosophyedit
London: Zer0 Books, 2020. Edited with Corinna Burkhart and Nina Treu Degrowth is an emerging social movement that overlaps with proposals for systemic change such as anti-globalization and climate justice, commons and transition towns,... more
London: Zer0 Books, 2020. Edited with Corinna Burkhart and Nina Treu
Degrowth is an emerging social movement that overlaps with proposals for systemic change such as anti-globalization and climate justice, commons and transition towns, basic income and Buen Vivir. Degrowth in Movement(s) reflects on the current situation of social movements aiming at overcoming capitalism, industrialism and domination. The essays ask: What is the key idea of the respective movement? Who is active? What is the relation with the degrowth movement? What can the degrowth movement learn from these other movements and the other way around? Which common proposals, but also which contradictions, oppositions and tensions exist? And what alliances could be possible for broader systemic transformations?
Degrowth is an emerging social movement that overlaps with proposals for systemic change such as anti-globalization and climate justice, commons and transition towns, basic income and Buen Vivir. Degrowth in Movement(s) reflects on the current situation of social movements aiming at overcoming capitalism, industrialism and domination. The essays ask: What is the key idea of the respective movement? Who is active? What is the relation with the degrowth movement? What can the degrowth movement learn from these other movements and the other way around? Which common proposals, but also which contradictions, oppositions and tensions exist? And what alliances could be possible for broader systemic transformations?
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Aus der Buchpräsentation des Verlags: "Das Mantra, dass die Wirtschaft immer weiter wachsen muss, formt unsere heutige Welt – auf Kosten von Lebensqualität,unter Ausbeutung der Natur und im immer schärferen Wettbewerb. Dass es so nicht... more
Aus der Buchpräsentation des Verlags:
"Das Mantra, dass die Wirtschaft immer weiter wachsen muss, formt unsere heutige Welt – auf Kosten von Lebensqualität,unter Ausbeutung der Natur und im immer schärferen Wettbewerb. Dass es so nicht weitergehen kann,wird überdeutlich. Kritiker des Wachstumskurses gibt es viele, aber nichtallen sollte man folgen . . .
Seit dem Club of Rome ist der Gedanke in der Welt. Mit der Forderung nach »Anti-Wachstum«, »Degrowth« oder »Decroissance« gehen seit etwa 15 Jahren die Menschen weltweit auf die Straße. Wissenschaftler und Aktivisten kämpfen für einen freiwilligen, gerechten und nachhaltigen Schrumpfungsprozess. Dabei schlägt manch einer aber auch gefährliche Irrwege ein, bis hin zu faschistoiden
Tendenzen reicht das Spektrum der fehlgeleiteten Kritik.
Richtig verstanden und umgesetzt ist dieses Projekt aber weit davon entfernt:
Eine solidarisch organisierte und gelebte Ökonomie unter gemeinschaftlichen Bedingungen ist mehr als eine schöne Utopie, Neben dem erfolgreichen Widerstand gegen allerlei unsinnige Großinvestitionen stehen unzählige Initiativen und Nischenprojekte mit Tauschbörsen, Gemeingütern, Selbstverwaltung, Reparaturwerkstätten und lokaler Lebensmittelproduktion. Sie leisten Pionierarbeit in der politischen Neuorientierung, vernetzen sich weltweit und sind in ihrer kreativen Vielfalt die Garantie dafür, dass ein gutes Leben für alle politisch wünschenswert und machbar ist."
"Das Mantra, dass die Wirtschaft immer weiter wachsen muss, formt unsere heutige Welt – auf Kosten von Lebensqualität,unter Ausbeutung der Natur und im immer schärferen Wettbewerb. Dass es so nicht weitergehen kann,wird überdeutlich. Kritiker des Wachstumskurses gibt es viele, aber nichtallen sollte man folgen . . .
Seit dem Club of Rome ist der Gedanke in der Welt. Mit der Forderung nach »Anti-Wachstum«, »Degrowth« oder »Decroissance« gehen seit etwa 15 Jahren die Menschen weltweit auf die Straße. Wissenschaftler und Aktivisten kämpfen für einen freiwilligen, gerechten und nachhaltigen Schrumpfungsprozess. Dabei schlägt manch einer aber auch gefährliche Irrwege ein, bis hin zu faschistoiden
Tendenzen reicht das Spektrum der fehlgeleiteten Kritik.
Richtig verstanden und umgesetzt ist dieses Projekt aber weit davon entfernt:
Eine solidarisch organisierte und gelebte Ökonomie unter gemeinschaftlichen Bedingungen ist mehr als eine schöne Utopie, Neben dem erfolgreichen Widerstand gegen allerlei unsinnige Großinvestitionen stehen unzählige Initiativen und Nischenprojekte mit Tauschbörsen, Gemeingütern, Selbstverwaltung, Reparaturwerkstätten und lokaler Lebensmittelproduktion. Sie leisten Pionierarbeit in der politischen Neuorientierung, vernetzen sich weltweit und sind in ihrer kreativen Vielfalt die Garantie dafür, dass ein gutes Leben für alle politisch wünschenswert und machbar ist."
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In this article, we present results from a literature review of intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values of nature conducted for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, as part of the... more
In this article, we present results from a literature review of intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values of nature conducted for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, as part of the Methodological Assessment of the Diverse Values and Valuations of Nature. We identify the most frequently recurring meanings in the heterogeneous use of different value types and their association with worldviews and other key concepts. From frequent uses, we determine a core meaning for each value type, which is sufficiently inclusive to serve as an umbrella over different understandings in the literature and specific enough to help highlight its difference from the other types of values. Finally, we discuss convergences, overlapping areas, and fuzzy boundaries between different value types to facilitate dialogue, reduce misunderstandings, and improve the methods for valuation of nature's contributions to people, including ecosystem services, to inform policy and direct future research.
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Conservation science often addresses highly complex issues; creative approaches can help develop new ways of doing so. We describe constraint-based brainstorming, a 10-minute creativity-inducing exercise inspired by design thinking.... more
Conservation science often addresses highly complex issues; creative approaches can help develop new ways of doing so. We describe constraint-based brainstorming, a 10-minute creativity-inducing exercise inspired by design thinking. Although we applied the method with the goal of developing creative environmental valuation methods, it is applicable to almost any complex, interdisciplinary environmental research problem. We tried the approach at two academic workshops, in Japan and in Germany. We generated, in each short activity, scores of unique ideas for the target question. We present this engaging activity as a way to simultaneously achieve multiple outcomes that can support innovative conservation science: quickly generate many seeds of ideas to address a challenge or goal, offer insight into nuances of and shared convictions related to the topic at hand, set a tone of creativity and breaking outside of established thought structures, and build community around a willingness to take risks and freely share ideas.
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Aiming at just and sustainable futures for biodiversity conservation requires clarity concerning how justice relates to the diverse values of nature. By drawing upon and expanding on the recent Values Assessment of Intergovernmental... more
Aiming at just and sustainable futures for biodiversity conservation requires clarity concerning how justice relates to the diverse values of nature. By drawing upon and expanding on the recent Values Assessment of Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, this article discusses the implications of the diverse values of nature for different dimensions of justice. It also addresses how achieving transformative change that protects biodiversity requires the inclusion of diverse values of nature into valuation and decision-making processes, and how this imperative is interconnected with different dimensions of justice.
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☆ Leveraging the multiple values of nature for transformative change: Insights from the IPBES Values Assessment.
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For full list of co-authors see link. Twenty-five years since foundational publications on valuing ecosystem services for human well-being addressing the global biodiversity crisis still implies confronting barriers to incorporating... more
For full list of co-authors see link. Twenty-five years since foundational publications on valuing ecosystem services for human well-being addressing the global biodiversity crisis still implies confronting barriers to incorporating nature’s diverse values into decision-making. These barriers include powerful interests supported by current norms and legal rules such as property rights, which determine whose values and which values of nature are acted on. A better understanding of how and why nature is (under)valued is more urgent than ever4. Notwithstanding agreements to incorporate nature’s values into actions, including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, predominant environmental and development policies still prioritize a subset of values, particularly those linked to markets, and ignore other ways people relate to and benefit from nature. Arguably, a ‘values crisis’ underpins the intertwined crises of biodiversity loss and climate change, pandemic emergence and socio-environmental injustices. On the basis of more than 50,000 scientific publications, policy documents and Indigenous and local knowledge sources, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) assessed knowledge on nature’s diverse values and valuation methods to gain insights into their role in policymaking and fuller integration into decisions. Applying this evidence, combinations of values-centred approaches are proposed to improve valuation and address barriers to uptake, ultimately leveraging transformative changes towards more just (that is, fair treatment of people and nature, including inter- and intragenerational equity) and sustainable futures.
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This paper expands the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) values framing about nature and its contributions to people by exploring the notion of ‘disvalues’, which pertains to aspects of nature that... more
This paper expands the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) values framing about nature and its contributions to people by exploring the notion of ‘disvalues’, which pertains to aspects of nature that reduce well being (instrumental disvalues), relationships that are detrimental to a dignified and flourishing life (relational disvalues), or the perception of badness in an absolute sense, regardless of the impact on people (intrinsic disvalues). Shedding light on how people express disvalues helps to better capture their preferences and subjective perspectives, as well as account for the socioenvironmental positions from which they speak. Considering the full spectrum of disvalues opens up new ways to better identify social–ecological trade-offs, a necessary step for seeking solutions and finding common ground on sustainability and justice.
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The planetary boundaries concept has profoundly changed the vocabulary and representation of global environmental issues. We bring a critical social science perspective to this framework through the notion of societal boundaries and aim... more
The planetary boundaries concept has profoundly changed the vocabulary and representation of global environmental issues. We bring a critical social science perspective to this framework through the notion of societal boundaries and aim to provide a more nuanced understanding of the social nature of thresholds. We start by highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of planetary boundaries from a social science perspective. We then focus on capitalist societies as a heuristic for discussing the expansionary dynamics, power relations, and lock-ins of modern societies that impel highly unsustainable societal relations with nature. While formulating societal boundaries implies a controversial processbased on normative judgments, ethical concerns, and socio-political strugglesit has the potential to offer guidelines for a just, social-ecological transformation. Collective autonomy and the politics of self-limitation are key elements of societal boundaries and are linked to important proposals and pluriverse experiences to integrate well-being and boundaries. The role of the state and propositions for radical alternative approaches to well-being have particular importance. We conclude with reflections on social freedom, defined as the right not to live at others' expense. Toward the aim of defining boundaries through transdisciplinary and democratic processes, we seek to open a dialogue on these issues.
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1. Humanity is on a deeply unsustainable trajectory. We are exceeding planetary boundaries and unlikely to meet many international sustainable development goals and global environmental targets. Until recently, there was no broadly... more
1. Humanity is on a deeply unsustainable trajectory. We are exceeding planetary boundaries and unlikely to meet many international sustainable development goals and global environmental targets. Until recently, there was no broadly accepted framework of interventions that could ignite the transformations needed to achieve these desired targets and goals.
2. As a component of the IPBES Global Assessment, we conducted an iterative expert deliberation process with an extensive review of scenarios and pathways to sustainability, including the broader literature on indirect drivers, social change and sustainability transformation. We asked, what are the most important elements of pathways to sustainability?
3. Applying a social–ecological systems lens, we identified eight priority points for intervention (leverage points) and five overarching strategic actions and priority interventions (levers), which appear to be key to societal transformation. The eight leverage points are: (1) Visions of a good life, (2) Total consumption and waste, (3) Latent values of responsibility, (4) Inequalities, (5) Justice and inclusion in conservation, (6) Externalities from trade and other telecouplings, (7) Responsible technology, innovation and investment, and (8) Education and knowledge generation and sharing. The five intertwined levers can be applied across the eight leverage points and more broadly. These include: (A) Incentives and capacity building, (B)
Coordination across sectors and jurisdictions, (C) Pre-emptive action, (D) Adaptive decision-making and (E) Environmental law and implementation. The levers and leverage points are all non-substitutable, and each enables others, likely leading to synergistic benefits.
4. Transformative change towards sustainable pathways requires more than a simple scaling-up of sustainability initiatives—it entails addressing these levers and leverage points to change the fabric of legal, political, economic and other social systems. These levers and leverage points build upon those approved within the Global Assessment's Summary for Policymakers, with the aim of enabling leaders in government, business, civil society and academia to spark transformative changes towards a more just and sustainable world.
2. As a component of the IPBES Global Assessment, we conducted an iterative expert deliberation process with an extensive review of scenarios and pathways to sustainability, including the broader literature on indirect drivers, social change and sustainability transformation. We asked, what are the most important elements of pathways to sustainability?
3. Applying a social–ecological systems lens, we identified eight priority points for intervention (leverage points) and five overarching strategic actions and priority interventions (levers), which appear to be key to societal transformation. The eight leverage points are: (1) Visions of a good life, (2) Total consumption and waste, (3) Latent values of responsibility, (4) Inequalities, (5) Justice and inclusion in conservation, (6) Externalities from trade and other telecouplings, (7) Responsible technology, innovation and investment, and (8) Education and knowledge generation and sharing. The five intertwined levers can be applied across the eight leverage points and more broadly. These include: (A) Incentives and capacity building, (B)
Coordination across sectors and jurisdictions, (C) Pre-emptive action, (D) Adaptive decision-making and (E) Environmental law and implementation. The levers and leverage points are all non-substitutable, and each enables others, likely leading to synergistic benefits.
4. Transformative change towards sustainable pathways requires more than a simple scaling-up of sustainability initiatives—it entails addressing these levers and leverage points to change the fabric of legal, political, economic and other social systems. These levers and leverage points build upon those approved within the Global Assessment's Summary for Policymakers, with the aim of enabling leaders in government, business, civil society and academia to spark transformative changes towards a more just and sustainable world.
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Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced... more
Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced resource and energy use. The degrowth hypothesis posits that such a trajectory of social transformation is necessary, desirable, and possible; the conditions of its realization require additional study. Research on degrowth has reinvigorated the limits to growth debate with critical examination of the historical, cultural, social, and political forces that have made economic growth a dominant objective. Here we review studies of economic stability in the absence of growth and of societies that have managed well without growth. We reflect on forms of technology and democracy compatible with degrowth and discuss plausible openings for a degrowth transition. This dynamic and productive research agenda asks inconvenient questions that sustainability sciences can no longer afford to ignore.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources Volume 43 is October 17, 2018. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources Volume 43 is October 17, 2018. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
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Cite this article: Jacobs S et al. (2020). Use your power for good: plural valuation of nature-the Oaxaca statement. Global Sustainability 3, e8, 1-7. https://doi. Non-technical abstractDecisions on the use of nature reflect the values... more
Cite this article: Jacobs S et al. (2020). Use your power for good: plural valuation of nature-the Oaxaca statement. Global Sustainability 3, e8, 1-7. https://doi.
Non-technical abstractDecisions on the use of nature reflect the values and rights of individuals, communities andsociety at large. The values of nature are expressed through cultural norms, rules and legisla-tion, and they can be elicited using a wide range of tools, including those of economics. Noneof the approaches to elicit peoples’values are neutral. Unequal power relations influence valu-ation and decision-making and are at the core of most environmental conflicts. As actors insustainability thinking, environmental scientists and practitioners are becoming more aware oftheir own posture, normative stance, responsibility and relative power in society. Based on atransdisciplinary workshop, our perspective paper provides a normative basis for this newcommunity of scientists and practitioners engaged in the plural valuation of nature
Technical abstractDuring a workshop held in Oaxaca, Mexico, a shared vision, mission and strategies to foster amore plural valuation of nature were developed. The participants represent a wide range ofbackgrounds and are active in science, policy and practitioner networks and activities Their common ground is the recognition of the need to change the prevailing culture of hownature is valued and subsequently managed as an essential step towards a more just and sus-tainable world. After an open plenary session in which the goal of the workshop was deter-mined and the diverse perspectives and backgrounds of the participants were heard, breakoutgroups developed the components of a shared vision, mission and strategies for plural valu-ation of nature. Consequently, these components were discussed back in plenary and conso-lidated into a consensus text, which was further debated and its main building blocks agreedupon. The compilation of our shared views converged into a normative call and perspective toshare with our peers. The information generated throughout the workshop was collaborativelysynthesized, amended, reviewed and validated by all workshop participants/co-authors. Ourmessage aims to contribute to advancing plural valuation approaches as a science-policyfield, as well as to raise personal awareness among researchers and practitioners on implicitinequality and power issues.
Non-technical abstractDecisions on the use of nature reflect the values and rights of individuals, communities andsociety at large. The values of nature are expressed through cultural norms, rules and legisla-tion, and they can be elicited using a wide range of tools, including those of economics. Noneof the approaches to elicit peoples’values are neutral. Unequal power relations influence valu-ation and decision-making and are at the core of most environmental conflicts. As actors insustainability thinking, environmental scientists and practitioners are becoming more aware oftheir own posture, normative stance, responsibility and relative power in society. Based on atransdisciplinary workshop, our perspective paper provides a normative basis for this newcommunity of scientists and practitioners engaged in the plural valuation of nature
Technical abstractDuring a workshop held in Oaxaca, Mexico, a shared vision, mission and strategies to foster amore plural valuation of nature were developed. The participants represent a wide range ofbackgrounds and are active in science, policy and practitioner networks and activities Their common ground is the recognition of the need to change the prevailing culture of hownature is valued and subsequently managed as an essential step towards a more just and sus-tainable world. After an open plenary session in which the goal of the workshop was deter-mined and the diverse perspectives and backgrounds of the participants were heard, breakoutgroups developed the components of a shared vision, mission and strategies for plural valu-ation of nature. Consequently, these components were discussed back in plenary and conso-lidated into a consensus text, which was further debated and its main building blocks agreedupon. The compilation of our shared views converged into a normative call and perspective toshare with our peers. The information generated throughout the workshop was collaborativelysynthesized, amended, reviewed and validated by all workshop participants/co-authors. Ourmessage aims to contribute to advancing plural valuation approaches as a science-policyfield, as well as to raise personal awareness among researchers and practitioners on implicitinequality and power issues.
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2018.10.009 Ecosystem services frameworks effectively assume that nature’s contributions to human well-being derive... more
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2018.10.009
Ecosystem services frameworks effectively assume that nature’s contributions to human well-being derive from people receiving benefits from nature. At the same time, efforts (money, time, or energy) for conservation, restoration or stewardship are often considered costs to be minimized. But what if caring for nature is itself an essential component of human well-being? Taking up and developing the concept of relational values, we explore the idea that well-being cannot be reduced to the reception of benefits, and that instead much derives from positive agency including caring for nature. In this paper, we ask specifically, first, how can ‘care’ be conceptualized with respect to nature, second, how does caring for nature matter both to protecting nature and to people’s well-being, and third, what are the implications for research and practice?
We describe the theoretical background, drawing especially from (eco)feminist philosophy, and explore its (mostly) implicit uses in the conservation literature. Based on this analysis we propose a preliminary framework of caring for nature and discuss its potential to enrich the spectrum of moral relations to/with nature. We explore both its consequences for environmental research and for the practice of conservation.
Ecosystem services frameworks effectively assume that nature’s contributions to human well-being derive from people receiving benefits from nature. At the same time, efforts (money, time, or energy) for conservation, restoration or stewardship are often considered costs to be minimized. But what if caring for nature is itself an essential component of human well-being? Taking up and developing the concept of relational values, we explore the idea that well-being cannot be reduced to the reception of benefits, and that instead much derives from positive agency including caring for nature. In this paper, we ask specifically, first, how can ‘care’ be conceptualized with respect to nature, second, how does caring for nature matter both to protecting nature and to people’s well-being, and third, what are the implications for research and practice?
We describe the theoretical background, drawing especially from (eco)feminist philosophy, and explore its (mostly) implicit uses in the conservation literature. Based on this analysis we propose a preliminary framework of caring for nature and discuss its potential to enrich the spectrum of moral relations to/with nature. We explore both its consequences for environmental research and for the practice of conservation.
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The ideas of relational values and social values are gaining prominence in sustainability science. Here, we ask: how well do these value conceptions resonate with one Indigenous worldview? The relational values concept broadens... more
The ideas of relational values and social values are gaining prominence in sustainability science. Here, we ask: how well do these value conceptions resonate with one Indigenous worldview? The relational values concept broadens conceptions of values beyond instrumental and intrinsic values to encompass preferences and principles about human relationships that involve more-than-humans. The social values concept, an umbrella idea, captures a plurality of values related to society and the common good. After a general description of these two concepts as expressed in the Western peer-reviewed literature, we adopt the lens of relational values to engage with decades of scholarly work and millennia of wisdom based on Indigenous Hawaiian worldviews. We describe five long-standing Hawaiian values that embody notions of appropriate relationships, including human–ecosystem relationships: pono (~ righteousness, balance); hoʻomana (~ creating spirituality); mālama (~ care); kuleana (~ right, responsibility); aloha (~ love, connection). We find that all five resonate deeply with, and help to enrich, relational value concepts. We then draw on these Hawaiian values to discuss differences between relational values and social values frameworks; though both concepts add useful elements to the discourse about values, the relational values concept may be particularly well positioned to represent elements often important to indigenous worldviews—elements such as reciprocity, balance, and extension of “society” beyond human beings. As global processes (e.g., IPBES) commit to better reflecting Indigenous and local knowledge and embrace diverse value concepts as (purported) avenues toward representing values held by diverse communities, our findings suggest that relational values offer special promise and a crucial contribution.
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Decroissance has established itself in Southern Europe as a significant and heterogeneous societal movement, which fosters a renaissance of traditional streams of thought in social and political philosophy while opening a field for new... more
Decroissance has established itself in Southern Europe as a significant and heterogeneous societal movement, which fosters a renaissance of traditional streams of thought in social and political philosophy while opening a field for new actualisations. While the term Decroissance can be traced back to an authorised translation of Georgescu-Roegen's 'declining state', the idea of Decroissance - as it is widely employed by social movements - encompasses more than the critique of GDP as a measure for well-being. It embodies a radical questioning of the way social reproduction is intended and frames a multifaceted vision for a post-growth society. The aim of this paper is the reconstruction and critical examination - from the point of view of social and political philosophy - of the main conceptual roots of Decroissance and its visions for a radical transformation of society.
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Annuual Review of Environment and Resources 2018. 43:4.1–4.26 Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a... more
Annuual Review of Environment and Resources 2018. 43:4.1–4.26
Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced resource and energy use. The degrowth hypothesis posits that such a trajectory of social transformation is necessary, desirable, and possible; the conditions of its realization require additional study. Research on degrowth has reinvigorated the limits to growth debate with critical examination of the historical, cultural, social, and political forces that have made economic growth a dominant objective. Here we review studies of economic stability in the absence of growth and of societies that have managed well without growth. We reflect on forms of technology and democracy compatible with degrowth and discuss plausible openings for a degrowth transition. This dynamic and productive research agenda asks inconvenient questions that sustainability sciences can no longer afford to ignore.
Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced resource and energy use. The degrowth hypothesis posits that such a trajectory of social transformation is necessary, desirable, and possible; the conditions of its realization require additional study. Research on degrowth has reinvigorated the limits to growth debate with critical examination of the historical, cultural, social, and political forces that have made economic growth a dominant objective. Here we review studies of economic stability in the absence of growth and of societies that have managed well without growth. We reflect on forms of technology and democracy compatible with degrowth and discuss plausible openings for a degrowth transition. This dynamic and productive research agenda asks inconvenient questions that sustainability sciences can no longer afford to ignore.
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1. Abstract In this paper I develop a framework for environmental philosophy on the ground of what I call a radical relationalism based on Whitehead's thought. Accordingly, relations are ontologically prior to and constitutive of... more
1. Abstract
In this paper I develop a framework for environmental philosophy on the ground of what I call a radical relationalism based on Whitehead's thought. Accordingly, relations are ontologically prior to and constitutive of entities rather than being conceived as external link(ing) between them. On this ground an alternative, relational axiology can be developed that challenges the current environmental ethics debate and its dichotomy between intrinsic and instrumental values. In the last section, I show how such an axiology can become an important ally for global environmental justice struggles and help support what the anthropologist Arturo Escobar calls a " decolonial view of nature. "
In this paper I develop a framework for environmental philosophy on the ground of what I call a radical relationalism based on Whitehead's thought. Accordingly, relations are ontologically prior to and constitutive of entities rather than being conceived as external link(ing) between them. On this ground an alternative, relational axiology can be developed that challenges the current environmental ethics debate and its dichotomy between intrinsic and instrumental values. In the last section, I show how such an axiology can become an important ally for global environmental justice struggles and help support what the anthropologist Arturo Escobar calls a " decolonial view of nature. "
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Faced with the urgency of climate change, Climate Engineering has been framed as a fast and feasible technological solution. At the same time, however, critique against it is getting increasingly louder. This paper articulates a critical... more
Faced with the urgency of climate change, Climate Engineering has been framed as a fast and feasible technological solution. At the same time, however, critique against it is getting increasingly louder. This paper articulates a critical analysis of Climate Engineering technologies from a point of view situated within the degrowth discourse. In the first part two approaches discussed within the degrowth debate are presented: the concept of viability based on a biophysical perspective and the concept of conviviality based on a socio-cultural approach. In a second step formalized arguments from the point of view of applied ethics are articulated and applied to three Climate Engineering Technologies: Sulfate Aerosol Injection, Bio-energy with Carbon Capture and Storage, and Afforestation. In a third step, an extended version of the trade-off argument about mitigation versus Climate Engineering solution is discussed from a degrowth perspective: accordingly, within the current dominant growth paradigm, climate engineering technologies might lead to reduced mitigation efforts. The paper follows the argumentative turn in applied ethics and displays a formalization of arguments that can help clarify decision-making and identify the different dimensions at stake. The paper articulates arguments against the deployment of CE technologies and advances a new version of the trade-off-argument based on a degrowth perspective. From the point of view of a degrowth-based critique of technology, the only type of Climate Engineering Technology ethically acceptable would be afforestation under specific conditions. Highlights: • Critique of technology based on degrowth is applied to Climate Engineering • Biophysical (viability) and socio-cultural (conviviality) criteria are presented • Via formalized arguments a critique of Climate Engineering Technologies is discussed • Sulfate Aerosol Inj., Bio-energy w. Carbon Capture & Storage, Afforestation analyzed Acknowledgments We would like to thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their very interesting comments that greatly helped improve this paper.
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A cornerstone of environmental policy is the debate over protecting nature for humans’ sake (instrumental values) or for nature’s (intrinsic values) (1). We propose that focusing only on instrumental or intrinsic values may fail to... more
A cornerstone of environmental policy is the debate over protecting nature for humans’ sake (instrumental values) or for nature’s (intrinsic values) (1). We propose that focusing only on instrumental or intrinsic values may fail to resonate with views on personal and col- lective well-being, or “what is right,” with regard to nature and the environment. Without complementary attention to other ways that value is expressed and realized by people, such a focus may inadvertently promote worldviews at odds with fair and desirable futures. It is time to engage seriously with a third class of values, one with diverse roots and current expres- sions: relational values. By doing so, we reframe the discussion about environmental protection, and open the door to new, potentially more productive policy approaches.
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A critical scrutiny is presented of the ethical assumptions of growth and degrowth theories with respect to distributive justice and the normative conditions for a ‘good human life’. An argument is made in favor of Sen's and Nussbaum's’... more
A critical scrutiny is presented of the ethical assumptions of growth and degrowth theories with respect to distributive justice and the normative conditions for a ‘good human life’. An argument is made in favor of Sen's and Nussbaum's’ capabilities approach’ as the most suitable theoretical framework for addressing these questions. Since industrialization economic growth has played a key-role as an attraction pole, around which issues of social justice, political stability, and welfare protection seemed to gravitate. Accordingly, it is considered as a necessary condition for both intragenerational and intragenerational justice. These assumptions have been subjected to substantial critique by degrowth-thinkers, according to which economic growth is rather a threat than a condition for intragenerational and intergenerational justice. However, a theoretical underpinning of these assumptions is missing so far. In the paper I analyze the ethical and moral assumptions in both approaches by focusing on the theories of justice that are implicitly laid down as a background for their arguments (welfarism, resourcism, and the capabilities-approach). In a detailed analysis of the main critical points formulated by degrowth advocates I take the capabilities approach perspective and show why it can offer a more adequate normative underpinning for the conceptualization of a degrowth society.
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One main issue within environmental ethics is the so-called Demarcation Problem, i.e. the question of which entities are members of the moral community and hold intrinsic value. I argue that the demarcation problem relies mainly on... more
One main issue within environmental ethics is the so-called Demarcation Problem, i.e. the question of which entities are members of the moral community and hold intrinsic value. I argue that the demarcation problem relies mainly on Kantian moral philosophy. While the Kantian framework offers a strong and immediately deontological argument for moral agents holding inherent moral values, it presents problems when stretched beyond its original scope and lacks an adequate ground for addressing relational complexity and the moral significance of collectives. In this paper I outline an alternative axiological framework (‘map of moral significance’) that relies on a relational ontology and encompasses intrinsic and relational values as the two equipollent axes of a matrix in which to embed the question posited by the Demarcation Problem.
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this is Chapter 2 of the Methodological Assessment Report on the Diverse Values and Valuation of Nature of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: https://ipbes.net/the-values-assessment
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Aim of the paper is to give a critical overview on how work and labour have been conceptualized within the heterogeneous degrowth discourse. While degrowth has articulated a sophisticated critique of capitalistic growth not only from an... more
Aim of the paper is to give a critical overview on how work and labour have been conceptualized within the heterogeneous degrowth discourse. While degrowth has articulated a sophisticated critique of capitalistic growth not only from an environmental perspective, but also with respect to the structural function of growth for Welfare democracies and to its crisis, (re)thinking and framing work/labour in an envisioned degrowth society remains one of the biggest challenges within the degrowth discourse. After a detailed overview of the different perspectives on work/labour in the degrowth discourse, the paper focuses on the specific contribution of materialist ecofeminism. It concludes by indicating possible cross-fertilizations and alliances between degrowth and materialist ecofeminism with respect to social-ecological reproduction.
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Possibilities for Degrowth: a radical alternative to the neoliberal restructuring of growth-societies. The neoliberal restructuring of society is presented in the paper as a renewed drive to enable the further expansion of the... more
Possibilities for Degrowth: a radical alternative to the neoliberal restructuring of growth-societies.
The neoliberal restructuring of society is presented in the paper as a renewed drive to enable the further expansion of the capitalistic mode of production threatened i.a. by the ecological crisis. Precisely because the warnings of the report to the Club of Rome ‘Limits to Growth’ sanctioning the end of the post-war dynamic stability rooted in economic growth and represented by Atlantic Fordism. was taken very seriously by the economic elite, forces joined towards a radical restructuring of societies in order to unleash new possibilities for growth and profit accumulation.
Neoliberal governmentality paradoxically embraces the challenge launched by Ecological Economists to focus on life as a productive and creative process and matures as a new mode of governing life that operate with and not against life’s power.
Against the neoliberal stealth revolution, degrowth embodies a radical alternative project, both with respect to the substantial goals and to the mode of operation of neoliberal governmentality. In its heterogeneity, degrowth opens spaces for radical imaginaries, practices, and experiences that challenge the neoliberal, pervasive logic of growth and self-optimization, while experimenting possibilities for alternative subjectivities and new modes of being.
Keywords: Degrowth, Neoliberal Governmentality, Subjectivation, Resistance, Life
The neoliberal restructuring of society is presented in the paper as a renewed drive to enable the further expansion of the capitalistic mode of production threatened i.a. by the ecological crisis. Precisely because the warnings of the report to the Club of Rome ‘Limits to Growth’ sanctioning the end of the post-war dynamic stability rooted in economic growth and represented by Atlantic Fordism. was taken very seriously by the economic elite, forces joined towards a radical restructuring of societies in order to unleash new possibilities for growth and profit accumulation.
Neoliberal governmentality paradoxically embraces the challenge launched by Ecological Economists to focus on life as a productive and creative process and matures as a new mode of governing life that operate with and not against life’s power.
Against the neoliberal stealth revolution, degrowth embodies a radical alternative project, both with respect to the substantial goals and to the mode of operation of neoliberal governmentality. In its heterogeneity, degrowth opens spaces for radical imaginaries, practices, and experiences that challenge the neoliberal, pervasive logic of growth and self-optimization, while experimenting possibilities for alternative subjectivities and new modes of being.
Keywords: Degrowth, Neoliberal Governmentality, Subjectivation, Resistance, Life
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By taking a militant-optimistic reading of Strong Sustainability, in the article sections we address the analysis of the concept of sustainability from the point of view of its normative potential as well as from the perspective of the... more
By taking a militant-optimistic reading of Strong Sustainability, in the article sections we address the analysis of the concept of sustainability from the point of view of its normative potential as well as from the perspective of the economic controversy between weak and strong sustainability. We show how the more recent degrowth discourse, which (re)emerged in new fashion in the late 1990s as an alternative narrative to the established path of a sustainable development stands not only for a reappropriation of the sustainability idea in terms of strong sustainability, but also for a repoliticization of the sustainability discourse altogether. It is a vision of sustainability that looks quite different from sustainable development.
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Muraca, Barbara, and Matthias Schmelzer. “Sustainable Degrowth: Historical Roots of the Search for Alternatives to Growth in Three Regions.” In History of the Future of Economic Growth. Historical Roots of Current Debates on Sustainable... more
Muraca, Barbara, and Matthias Schmelzer. “Sustainable Degrowth: Historical Roots of the Search for Alternatives to Growth in Three Regions.” In History of the Future of Economic Growth. Historical Roots of Current Debates on Sustainable Degrowth, edited by Iris Borowy and Matthias Schmelzer, 174–97. London and New York: Routledge, 2017.
In September 2014, more than 3,000 people from all around the world gathered at the University of Leipzig for the 4th International Conference for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity. Bringing together academics spanning multiple disciplines – mostly from the social sciences, economics, and humanities, but also engineers and natural scientists – as well as practitioners working on bottom-up alternative economies and social activists involved in struggles around ecology, social justice, or globalization, this conference represented the provisional climax of the international degrowth debate. The Leipzig conference marked a significant step for what is increasingly called the inter- national degrowth movement: it brought into dialogue different streams and traditions of growth critique and laid the ground for a stronger international network and for alliances with other movements (Brand 2014; Eversberg and Schmelzer 2016). Yet, how did the degrowth movement emerge and what historical roots and inspirations does it invoke?
In September 2014, more than 3,000 people from all around the world gathered at the University of Leipzig for the 4th International Conference for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity. Bringing together academics spanning multiple disciplines – mostly from the social sciences, economics, and humanities, but also engineers and natural scientists – as well as practitioners working on bottom-up alternative economies and social activists involved in struggles around ecology, social justice, or globalization, this conference represented the provisional climax of the international degrowth debate. The Leipzig conference marked a significant step for what is increasingly called the inter- national degrowth movement: it brought into dialogue different streams and traditions of growth critique and laid the ground for a stronger international network and for alliances with other movements (Brand 2014; Eversberg and Schmelzer 2016). Yet, how did the degrowth movement emerge and what historical roots and inspirations does it invoke?
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The ecosystem services (ES) concept has become a powerful tool in an increasing number of policy and research contexts, ranging from ecosystem functioning research to biodiversity protection through ecosystem accounting and sustainability... more
The ecosystem services (ES) concept has become a powerful tool in an increasing number of policy and research contexts, ranging from ecosystem functioning research to biodiversity protection through ecosystem accounting and sustainability policies (Jax et al. 2013). Since its appearance it gained both enthusiastic attention and a sharp critique from different environmentalist groups. Critics claim that it reduces 'nature' to a merely instrumental consideration and opens the floodgates to its ongoing commodification. While I agree that the ES concept is being dangerously used to pave the way to the commodification of 'nature', I claim that it also bears a unique chance for reframing our very understanding of the relation to what we call nature in a new and refreshing way. The ES concept can help questioning and reframing the modern ontology of 'nature' and the concept of the 'subject' as opposite and separated from it. However, the paradigm shift the ES concept might help implementing needs a radical process of re-signification and re-appropriation of its meaning against the mainstream interpretation supported by neoclassical economics and functional to the capitalistic mode of overexploitation. Thus conceived, the ES concept might become an ally to the struggles of indigenous people who are fighting for the preservation of their proyecto de vida, their collective vision for a self-determined and sustainable life in the community.
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"Against the background of the current discussion about self-organization theories and complexity theories and their application within biology and ecology, the question of teleology gains a new significance. Some scholars insist on the... more
"Against the background of the current discussion about self-organization theories and complexity theories and their application within biology and ecology, the question of teleology gains a new significance. Some scholars insist on the total elimination of any reference to teleology from the realm of the natural sciences. However, it seems especially hard to eradicate teleological expressions from scientific language when the issue of understanding living beings is at stake. For this reason, other scholars opt for a middle path that allows for some teleological language. Yet, it is an open question whether teleological expressions are to be considered as playing a merely metaphorical or a necessary heuristic role in the sciences. Moreover, the ontological presuppositions, which underpin different positions in the debate, need to be depicted and analyzed.
This paper aims at addressing the question of teleology within the life sciences by taking into account both Kant’s critical philosophy and Whitehead’s ontology. My analysis starts with Georg Toepfer’s distinction among different concepts of teleology and then focuses on the role of “internal purposiveness” (innere Zweckmäßigkeit) for biology today. I show how purposiveness (Zweckmäßigkeit; hereafter: ZM) corresponds to a very complex form of reciprocal causation (Wechselwirkung) rather than to any model of final causation. Drawing on Kant’s analysis of “natural purposes” in the Critique of Judgment as well as self-organization theory, I claim that reciprocal causation – however complex it might well be – is not sufficient to describe living beings adequately. However, since the natural sciences are still caught up in the presuppositions of modern scientistic and materialistic ontology, a step beyond mere efficient causation seems to be impossible within their methodological framework. And yet, as I will show, a genuine teleology of nature implies the idea of anticipation of totality. This kind of teleological consideration is presented at first in its role as a regulative concept in Kantian terms.
Finally, I follow the path of Whitehead’s ‘philosophy of organism’ and claim for natural teleology the state of a necessary ontological presupposition. Whitehead’s ontology offers an ontological underpinning for teleological issues that, by avoiding any recourse to supernatural forces, invites life and natural sciences to a fruitful dialogue at the limit of their methodological boundaries, pressing them beyond their unreflected presuppositions."
This paper aims at addressing the question of teleology within the life sciences by taking into account both Kant’s critical philosophy and Whitehead’s ontology. My analysis starts with Georg Toepfer’s distinction among different concepts of teleology and then focuses on the role of “internal purposiveness” (innere Zweckmäßigkeit) for biology today. I show how purposiveness (Zweckmäßigkeit; hereafter: ZM) corresponds to a very complex form of reciprocal causation (Wechselwirkung) rather than to any model of final causation. Drawing on Kant’s analysis of “natural purposes” in the Critique of Judgment as well as self-organization theory, I claim that reciprocal causation – however complex it might well be – is not sufficient to describe living beings adequately. However, since the natural sciences are still caught up in the presuppositions of modern scientistic and materialistic ontology, a step beyond mere efficient causation seems to be impossible within their methodological framework. And yet, as I will show, a genuine teleology of nature implies the idea of anticipation of totality. This kind of teleological consideration is presented at first in its role as a regulative concept in Kantian terms.
Finally, I follow the path of Whitehead’s ‘philosophy of organism’ and claim for natural teleology the state of a necessary ontological presupposition. Whitehead’s ontology offers an ontological underpinning for teleological issues that, by avoiding any recourse to supernatural forces, invites life and natural sciences to a fruitful dialogue at the limit of their methodological boundaries, pressing them beyond their unreflected presuppositions."
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In his works Whitehead never directly addressed the topic of ecology, so we must first explain the fundamental relevance of this term for process thought as well as the essential contribution of Whitehead’s philosophy of organism for an... more
In his works Whitehead never directly addressed the topic of ecology, so we must first explain the fundamental relevance of this term for process thought as well as the essential contribution of Whitehead’s philosophy of organism for an ecological approach. It is no overstatement to assert that Whitehead’s metaphysic can provide a coherent and adequate theoretical support for a hard-core ecological worldview1. Whitehead offers both a challenging framework for ecology as one among the sciences and a systematic scheme of thought for ecology as an ethical and spiritual vision. In the following sections, after a brief presentation of both these aspects of ecology, I will sketch the most relevant elements of Whitehead’s philosophy of organism and finally offer a short outline of the main developments offered by process scholarship.
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Strade, piazze, università, spazi sociali, culturali e di economia sociale: a Budapest la quinta Conferenza internazionale sulla decrescita ha mostrato non solo che quello della decrescita è un movimento sociale e accademico che non... more
Strade, piazze, università, spazi sociali, culturali e di economia sociale: a Budapest la quinta Conferenza internazionale sulla decrescita ha mostrato non solo che quello della decrescita è un movimento sociale e accademico che non smette di crescere, ma che esistono già tanti modi diversi di vivere che rifiutano il dominio del profitto. Si è discusso di energia e di cibo, di genere e di conflitti ambientali, di rapporti tra il nord e il sud del mondo e di urbanistica, ma anche di migrazioni, di reddito di cittadinanza e di movimenti sociali. Per questo politica e media che pensano alla decrescita ancora come recessione sembrano sempre più ridicoli
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The Greifswalder approach was developed over many years in the co-operation of environmental philosophers and ecological economists. The theory combines normative arguments on our responsibilities for current and future generations... more
The Greifswalder approach was developed over many years in the co-operation of environmental philosophers and ecological economists. The theory combines normative arguments on our responsibilities for current and future generations (intra- and intergenerational justice), the conceptual debate on weak vs. strong sustainability, a new concept for natural capital with practical applications in three sectors: fisheries, agriculture and climate change policy. It was developed as an answer to the increasingly vague understanding of the sustainability concept in the political arena, which gives politicians the possibility of subsuming under it all sorts of different programs and strategies. A sharper definition of the concept is needed that offers a non-arbitrary orientation ground for action to end the further loss of essential parts of natural capital without becoming too rigid and exclusive of differences.In this paper we give firstly a short overview about the philosophical background of the theory and about the conceptual debate on weak and strong sustainability. Secondly, we depict our concept of Natural Capital, which draws on Georgescu-Roegen’s systematic framework of fund, stock, services, and flows and focuses on a central characteristic of nature: its (re)productivity. Accordingly, natural capital consists of living funds, non-living funds, and stocks. This differentiation offers a helpful ground for identifying specific preservation goals for the different parts of natural capital and can be successfully employed in the advice for policy makers (as it has been the case with the German Advisory Council for the Environment over a decade). Moreover, the outlined theory of funds avoids the main problems related to the standard definition of ‘capital’ according to capital and growth theory,which implies a homogenizing view and the necessity of monetary valuation.In the final part we will then show how the Greifswalder approach can help to identify ways for a long term sustainable use of renewable resources for fisheries management in the European Union.
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The paper examines Nancy Fraser’s Polanyian reading of the current capitalist crisis and her expansion of Polanyi’s notion of the ‘double movement’ – social forces struggling for marketization and social protection – into a ‘triple... more
The paper examines Nancy Fraser’s Polanyian reading of the current capitalist crisis and her expansion of Polanyi’s notion of the ‘double movement’ – social forces struggling for marketization and social protection – into a ‘triple movement’ by adding the struggle for emancipation as a third factor. In its first part, the paper reviews Fraser’s central arguments with a special focus on her reading of Polanyi’s idea of the “fictitious commodities” land, labor, and money. Second, the authors examine Fraser’s conceptualization of social forces, domination and emancipation drawing on Environmental Philosophy, Political Ecology, Marxism,
Feminism, Social Philosophy as well as Polanyi himself. In the end, the paper argues that Fraser’s conception of capitalism and emancipation are in need of improvement if critical theory wants to adequately grasp the current crisis of capitalism.
Feminism, Social Philosophy as well as Polanyi himself. In the end, the paper argues that Fraser’s conception of capitalism and emancipation are in need of improvement if critical theory wants to adequately grasp the current crisis of capitalism.
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check availability hire: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.14361/zkkw-2023-090207/html
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Wir befinden uns im Anthropozän. Daran scheint es keinen Zweifel zu geben. Die Erde ist in ein neues Zeitalter eingetreten, in dem der wichtigste Wirkfaktor der anthropos ist, der Mensch. Auch wenn die geologischen Diskussionen... more
Wir befinden uns im Anthropozän. Daran scheint es keinen Zweifel zu geben. Die Erde ist in ein neues Zeitalter eingetreten, in dem der wichtigste Wirkfaktor der anthropos ist, der Mensch. Auch wenn die geologischen Diskussionen diesbezüglich noch nicht abgeschlossen sind, wird der Begriff des Anthropozäns längst in den Medien und in wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten zelebriert, kritisiert-oder auch gänzlich abgelehnt. Das Anthropozän führt zu einer radikalen Infragestellung der für die westliche Moderne grundlegenden Trennung zwischen Natur und Gesellschaft und kann zur Entschleierung ihrer kolonialen und kapitalistischen Funktionsweise beitragen. Zugleich kristallisiert es sich aber als neues koloniales grand récit heraus, welches das Erdsystem einerseits und die Menschheit andererseits als Totalitätsbegriffe konstituiert, als ein Metanarrativ also, in dem Naturwissenschaftler gleichzeitig als Erzähler und Helden fungieren. Man könnte sagen, dass das Anthropozän ein Doppelleben führt: »a scientific life involving measurements and debates among qualified scientists, and a more popular life as a moral-political issue« (Chakrabarty 2018: 9). Es existiert zwischen der erdhistorischen Zeit der geologischen und biologischen Wirkkräfte, zu denen auch Lebewesen, darunter wir Menschen, gehören, und der welthistorischen Zeit rein menschlicher Handlungen und Strukturen-und verbindet zugleich beide Zeitdimensionen. Der Streit um Periodisierung, Indikatorenwahl und Terminologie, den verschiedene Narrative innerhalb des vielschichtigen Anthropozändiskurses untereinander austragen, ist ebenfalls in dem hybriden Feld dieser zwei Zeit-und Handlungsdimensionen zu verorten, und zwar sowohl in der naturwissenschaftlichen wie auch in der geistes-und sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung: Je nach Narrativ werden unterschiedliche Ursachen und Treiber des Anthropozäns sowie
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Innerhalb des extrem heterogenen Feldes wachstumskritischer Diskurse steht Degrowth fur ein spezifisches Spektrum von Debatten und Bewegungen, deren Forderungen sich im Kern auf das Ziel globaler okologisch-sozialer Gerechtigkeit richten.... more
Innerhalb des extrem heterogenen Feldes wachstumskritischer Diskurse steht Degrowth fur ein spezifisches Spektrum von Debatten und Bewegungen, deren Forderungen sich im Kern auf das Ziel globaler okologisch-sozialer Gerechtigkeit richten. Der Verengung auf das quantitative „Mehr“ oder „Weniger“ an wirtschaftlicher Tatigkeit werden Fragen nach der Moglichkeit einer qualitativ anderen Vergesellschaftungsform entgegengesetzt, in der okologische Probleme nicht getrennt von Bemuhungen um globale soziale Gerechtigkeit und Fragen des guten Lebens, sondern gerade in deren Sinne gelost wurden. Der Aufsatz umreist die Kernanliegen dieser „Degrowth-Bewegungen“ und fragt danach, welchen Beitrag sie zu einer sozial-okologischen Transformation leisten konnten, aber auch danach, wie sie sich durch ihre soziale Zusammensetzung und ihre inneren Dynamiken dabei womoglich selbst limitieren.
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Die Postwachstumsdebatte ist geprägt von sehr unterschiedlichen Sichtweisen auf die Rolle und den Umgang mit Technik. Einerseits halten ein Teil der Befürworter des Postwachstums das technowissenschaftliche Paradigma für einen Teil des... more
Die Postwachstumsdebatte ist geprägt von sehr unterschiedlichen Sichtweisen auf die Rolle und den Umgang mit Technik. Einerseits halten ein Teil der Befürworter des Postwachstums das technowissenschaftliche Paradigma für einen Teil des Problems und stellten sich eine künftige Postwachstumsgesellschaft jenseits der Technik vor, während sie gleichzeitig den weltweit zu beobachtenden Enthusiasmus für technische Lösungen ablehnen, da diese Entwicklungen in ihrer instrumentellen Rationalität eine Vorherrschaft über die Natur impliziert. Andere Postwachstumsvertreter finden diese einseitige Sichtweise zu simpel und sehen technische Lösungen – sofern sie neu betrachtet und kritisch reflektiert werden – als Verbündete für die Entwicklung hin zu einer Postwachstumsgesellschaft. In diesem Artikel werden v. a. zwei theoretische Zugänge betrachtet, die grundlegend für viele Auseinandersetzungen um Technik im Feld des Postwachstumsdiskurses sind: Eine biophysikalische, die sich auf Nicholas Geor...
Die Axiologie oder Wertlehre ist eines der wesentlichen Gebiete jeder ethischen Theorie, und sie spielt auch eine zentrale Rolle in der Umweltethik. Zentrale axiologische Fragen in der Umweltethik betreffen zum einen, wie Werte entstehen,... more
Die Axiologie oder Wertlehre ist eines der wesentlichen Gebiete jeder ethischen Theorie, und sie spielt auch eine zentrale Rolle in der Umweltethik. Zentrale axiologische Fragen in der Umweltethik betreffen zum einen, wie Werte entstehen, zum anderen welche (nicht menschliche) Entitaten welchen Wert besitzen.
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Wer von der Transformation zur Postwachstumsgesellschaft spricht, der sollte von der Demokratie nicht schweigen. Und zwar in einem zweifachen, aufeinander verweisenden Sinn: Einerseits bietet sich an, das tentative Ziel, die angestrebte... more
Wer von der Transformation zur Postwachstumsgesellschaft spricht, der sollte von der Demokratie nicht schweigen. Und zwar in einem zweifachen, aufeinander verweisenden Sinn: Einerseits bietet sich an, das tentative Ziel, die angestrebte andere Gesellschaft in mehr als nur nebensächlicher Hin-sicht als demokratisch zu zeichnen und andererseits dann auch den Weg dorthin, die treibende Kraft als demokratisch zu beschreiben. Nun wird so-wohl in der anwachsenden Menge der Literatur und der anwachsenden Be-wegung nicht von Demokratie geschwiegen – allzu viel dazu gesagt wird je-doch ebenfalls nicht. Gerade in ebenjener Literatur fällt schnell ins Auge, dass der Terminus ›Demokratie‹ als desideratum gekennzeichnet wird, und zwar als ein besonders relevantes. Die eigentümliche Mischung aus zuge-schriebener Bedeutung, Nichtbearbeitung und Unterbestimmtheit lässt sich auch und gerade daran ablesen, dass die Frage der Demokratie signifikant als Ausblick an das Ende von Texten gesetzt wird, mithin als dasjenige, was zwar noch nötig oder wünschenswert wäre, zu dem sich derweil aber kaum mehr Näheres sagen lässt. Insofern verwundert es kaum, wenn das Verhältnis von Demokratie und Postwachstum – tatsächlich in dieser Pauschalität – noch als weitgehend unerschlossenes Neuland gelten darf.
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Utopie, wie das Wort selbst sagt, ist in ihrem ursprünglichen historischen Sinne eine Art Perspektive aus dem Nirgendwo, die einen scharfen und kriti-schen Blick auf die geltenden Verhältnisse der Gesellschaft ermöglicht (vgl. der erste... more
Utopie, wie das Wort selbst sagt, ist in ihrem ursprünglichen historischen Sinne eine Art Perspektive aus dem Nirgendwo, die einen scharfen und kriti-schen Blick auf die geltenden Verhältnisse der Gesellschaft ermöglicht (vgl. der erste große Utopiedenker Thomas Morus). So verstanden ist eine Utopie zunächst weder eine Zukunftsvision noch ein politisches Programm, sondern ein Nichtort intellektuellen Widerstands, in dem alternative Interpretationen der Gegebenheiten entwickelt werden. Erst später, unter Einfluss der christli-chen Tradition der Apokalypse, verlagerte sich das Nirgendwo des utopischen Blickes in die Zeit, sodass aus dem Nirgendwo ein »noch nicht«, eine in die Zukunft gerichtete Vision wurde, in der die Widersprüche und Konflikte der Gegenwart aufgelöst werden. Deswegen ist die Utopie auch wegen ihrer tota-litären Gefahr kritisiert worden: Demnach stellt sie sich als die alleinige per-fekte alternative Welt dar, in der keine weitere Kritik oder andere Optionen toleriert werden. Was ihre Form angeht, sind Utopien traditionell Erzählungen einer alterna-tiven idealen Gesellschaft, die an einem anderen Ort existieren soll, oder sich in einer anderen Zeit manifestieren wird. Inhaltlich beschreiben sie oft eine gute, bessere Welt und unterscheiden sich somit von den so genannten Dysto-pien, die düstere und negative Entwicklungen ausmalen. Utopien können unterschiedliche Funktionen haben: Zum einen liefern Utopien gemeinsam mit den Dystopien eine radikale Kritik der geltenden Ver-hältnisse einer Gesellschaft. Durch den Blick aus dem räumlichen oder zeitli-chen Nirgendwo können alterprobte Interpretationen der Realität und Selbst-verständlichkeiten suspendiert und hinterfragt werden. Darüber hinaus kann Utopie auch die einfache Funktion des Trostspenders haben – durch ihre alternative Vision dient sie als Kompensation für gegenwärtige Leiden, Ausbeu-tung und Unterdrückung. Insbesondere in ihrer religiös gefärbten Variante macht es das Narrativ der Erlösung möglich, unerträgliche Verhältnisse auszu-halten. Gerade diese Funktion der Utopie ist stark in die Kritik geraten, denn so kann Utopie im Widerspruch zur Veränderung gesellschaftlicher Unterdrü-ckungszustände stehen, wenn sie durch Trost die Widerstandskräfte entschärft
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"Wachstum gilt als fundamentaler Faktor für die dynamische Stabilisierung moderner Gesellschaften und als Grundlage für sozialen Frieden und gesellschaftliche Reproduktion. Wir stehen allerdings sowohl vor funktionalen Einschränkungen... more
"Wachstum gilt als fundamentaler Faktor für die dynamische Stabilisierung moderner Gesellschaften und als Grundlage für sozialen Frieden und gesellschaftliche Reproduktion. Wir stehen allerdings sowohl vor funktionalen Einschränkungen
eines fortwährenden Wachstums als auch vor einer Unvereinbarkeit von Wachstum mit wesentlichen Forderungen von Gerechtigkeit gegenüber heute lebenden und zukünftigen Generationen. Insbesondere in Südeuropa zeigen Wachstums-
kritikerInnen, dass gerade das Wachstumsdiktat soziale Ungerechtigkeit hervorbringt. Bisher ist allerdings eine ethische Auseinandersetzung mit der Wachstumsfrage auffällig unterrepräsentiert. Dieser Beitrag analysiert den wachstumskritischen Diskurs aus einer ethischen Perspektive, anhand folgender Fragen:
1. Ist Wachstum unter den biophysischen Bedingungen des Planeten möglich, können wir (noch) wachsen?
2. Ist Wachstum inter- und intragenerationell moralisch zu rechtfertigen – dürfen wir wachsen?
3. Ist Wachstum als ökonomische und gesellschaftliche Zielsetzung noch sinnvoll und ethisch akzeptabel? Steht es im Einklang mit unseren Vorstellungen eines "guten Lebens"; wollen wir noch wachsen?
4. Wer ist wir? Wer ist mit Wirkungsmacht an dem Diskurs beteiligt?
Nicht zuletzt ist aus ethischer Perspektive Kritik zu formulieren an den überall modisch gewordenen Glücksindikatoren, die das BIP ergänzen oder gar ersetzen sollen."
eines fortwährenden Wachstums als auch vor einer Unvereinbarkeit von Wachstum mit wesentlichen Forderungen von Gerechtigkeit gegenüber heute lebenden und zukünftigen Generationen. Insbesondere in Südeuropa zeigen Wachstums-
kritikerInnen, dass gerade das Wachstumsdiktat soziale Ungerechtigkeit hervorbringt. Bisher ist allerdings eine ethische Auseinandersetzung mit der Wachstumsfrage auffällig unterrepräsentiert. Dieser Beitrag analysiert den wachstumskritischen Diskurs aus einer ethischen Perspektive, anhand folgender Fragen:
1. Ist Wachstum unter den biophysischen Bedingungen des Planeten möglich, können wir (noch) wachsen?
2. Ist Wachstum inter- und intragenerationell moralisch zu rechtfertigen – dürfen wir wachsen?
3. Ist Wachstum als ökonomische und gesellschaftliche Zielsetzung noch sinnvoll und ethisch akzeptabel? Steht es im Einklang mit unseren Vorstellungen eines "guten Lebens"; wollen wir noch wachsen?
4. Wer ist wir? Wer ist mit Wirkungsmacht an dem Diskurs beteiligt?
Nicht zuletzt ist aus ethischer Perspektive Kritik zu formulieren an den überall modisch gewordenen Glücksindikatoren, die das BIP ergänzen oder gar ersetzen sollen."
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Im folgenden Beitrag wird Whiteheads „Philosophie des Organismus“ als wichtige Grundlage für die umwelt- und nachhaltigkeitsethische Debatte vorgestellt. Obwohl sich Whitehead zeit seines Lebens nie mit umweltethischen oder ökologischen... more
Im folgenden Beitrag wird Whiteheads „Philosophie des Organismus“ als wichtige Grundlage für die umwelt- und nachhaltigkeitsethische Debatte vorgestellt. Obwohl sich Whitehead zeit seines Lebens nie mit umweltethischen oder ökologischen Fragen befasste, leistet seine Philosophie einen unverzichtbaren und originellen Beitrag zum heutigen Diskurs. Sowohl seine Epistemologie (Kritik des Naturbegriffs der neuzeitlichen Naturwissenschaften) als auch seine Naturphilosophie (prozessuales Verständnis der Natur, Gleichursprünglichkeit von Relationalität und Freiheit, sowie Koimplikation zwischen Wirk- und Finalursächlichkeit, ein die Chaos- und Selbstorganisationstheorien antizipierenden Lebensbegriff) und Axiologie (Wertrelationalismus als dritte Option jenseits der Alternative zwischen Wertobjektivismus und -subjektivismus; Verständnis von intrinsischen Werten als auf Selbsttätigkeit zurückgehende intrinsische Realität von Entitäten) haben zahlreiche PhilosophInnen, TheologInnen und ÖkonomInnen inspiriert. Im ersten Teil des Beitrages wird Whiteheads Philosophie des Organismus zusammengefasst. Im zweiten Teil werden einige von Whitehead inspirierte umweltethische Perspektiven und Positionen in groben Linien rekonstruiert.
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The Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen is considered the father of ecological economics and one of the most outspoken critics of mainstream economics. According to him, neoclassical economics ignores ‘time’ as a cumulative and... more
The Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen is considered the father of ecological economics and one of the most outspoken critics of mainstream economics. According to him, neoclassical economics ignores ‘time’ as a cumulative and irrevocable process and is based on a mechanistic and atomistic understanding of nature that cannot adequately portray the process of human creativity. This Georgescu-Roegen counters with his theory of bioeconomics. Starting from his bioeconomic analysis he develops a critique of the growth paradigm and points out the necessity of a declining state of the economy. Such a declining state (or ,décroissance‘) might come upon
us as a catastrophe or it could be used as a chance to redevelop the economy in such a way that it will serve human beings in their quest for a ‘good life’. Georgescu-Roegen’s works of the 1970s are an important inspiration for today’s degrowth movements which have become increasingly important for practices of social resistance especially in Southern Europe.
us as a catastrophe or it could be used as a chance to redevelop the economy in such a way that it will serve human beings in their quest for a ‘good life’. Georgescu-Roegen’s works of the 1970s are an important inspiration for today’s degrowth movements which have become increasingly important for practices of social resistance especially in Southern Europe.
Einleitung Wachstumskritik ist nicht neu: Spätestens seit der Veröffentlichung des Berichtes an den Club of Rome im Jahr 1972 wissen wir, dass Wachstum nicht mehr automatisch mit dem Versprechen einer stetigen Verbesserung von Wohlstand... more
Einleitung
Wachstumskritik ist nicht neu: Spätestens seit der Veröffentlichung des Berichtes an den Club of Rome im Jahr 1972 wissen wir, dass Wachstum nicht mehr automatisch mit dem Versprechen einer stetigen Verbesserung von Wohlstand und Lebensqualität einhergeht und die ökologischen Lebensgrundlagen auf irreversible Weise beeinträchtigt. Wir stehen heute zudem vor den funktionalen Einschränkungen eines fortwährenden Wachstums, wie wir es kennen (aufgrund der immanenten Widersprüche der kapitalistischen Wirtschaftsweise, sowie der sie umfassenden ökologischen Grenzen). Das Ende des Wachstums bedeutet für eine auf Wachstum ausgerichtete Gesellschaft Krise, Stagnation und Rezession. Sehr lange galt Wachstum als ein, wenn nicht sogar als der fundamentale Faktor für die dynamische Stabilisierung moderner (kapitalistischer) Gesellschaften und daher auch als die Grundlage für den sozialen Frieden und die gesellschaftliche Reproduktion. Der Versuch, Wachstum um jeden Preis als politisches Ziel zu retten, und die Suche nach alternativen Wachstumspfaden führen zu einer Verschärfung der Krise und der Umweltkonflikte weltweit und beruhen auf einer Verlagerung der ökologischen Folgen auf andere Weltregionen oder in die Zukunft.
Moderne Gesellschaften haben nicht bloß eine Wachstumsökonomie, sondern sind Wachstumsgesellschaften: Der Abschied von Wachstum als ein business-as-usual-Pfad führt zu steigender Ungleichheit und zur Krise der Demokratie. Der Weg in eine gerechte, zukunftsfähige und emanzipatorische Postwachstumsgesellschaft kann nur durch eine maßgebliche Umgestaltung der Gesellschaftsstruktur gelingen.
Gerade in der aktuellen Krise sieht die wachstumskritische Bewegung, die unter dem Namen Décroissance vor etwa zehn Jahren in Frankreich entstand, eine einmalige Chance für eine radikale Transformation der Gesellschaft, die sie endlich von dem Wachstumsdiktat befreit. War für die Kritik der 70er Jahren vorwiegend ein steigendes Bewusstsein für die ökologischen Krise von Bedeutung, spielen für die Décroissance-Bewegung neben ökologischen auch soziale und kulturelle Gründe eine wesentliche Rolle.
Das Wort Décroissance geht eigentlich auf die autorisierte Übersetzung eines 1979 veröffentlichten Buches von dem Vater der ökologischen Ökonomik, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, zurück und bezeichnet einen schrumpfenden Zustand der Wirtschaft. Die Leitidee der Décroissance – wie sie heute in den verschiedenen sozialen Bewegungen Verwendung findet – umfasst aber auch eine radikale Kritik an der Art und Weise der gesellschaftlichen Reproduktion und inspiriert verschiedene Entwürfe für einen Wandel hin zu einer Postwachstumsgesellschaft. Das Projekt der Décroissance kommt Ernst Blochs Verständnis einer konkreten Utopie sehr nah: wie der spiritus rector der französischen Décroissance, Serge Latouche, mit Bezugnahme auf Bloch und Morris betont, ist die Utopie der Décroissance keine bloße träumerische Vision einer nicht existierenden Welt, sondern verkörpert vielmehr ein Leitbild, das uns ermöglichen kann, die Zwänge des Gegebenen zu brechen und Räume für kreative Vorstellungen und gewagte Experimente für eine künftige, von der Wachstumslogik unabhängige, Gesellschaft zu öffnen.
In diesem Beitrag rekonstruiere ich einige der Hauptinspirationsquellen der Décroissance aus der Perspektive der Sozialphilosophie. Ich werde detailliert einige der sozio-politischen Wurzeln der Postwachstumsbewegung darlegen, indem ich auf folgende Punkte eingehe: 1. Umweltbewegung, 2. Anthropologische Kulturkritik, 3. Postdevelopment, 4. und 5. Politische Ökologie in den spezifischen Varianten von Gorz beziehungsweise Castoriadis. In Anlehnung an Duverger möchte ich auf diesem Weg zeigen, dass die Décroissance ein antisystemisches Potenzial für eine radikale gesellschaftliche Transformation birgt. Eine solche Transformation umfasst nicht nur die ökonomische Sphäre, sondern auch die Basisinstitutionen der Gesellschaft, sowie auch das gesellschaftliche Imaginäre, das diese legitimiert und stützt.
Wachstumskritik ist nicht neu: Spätestens seit der Veröffentlichung des Berichtes an den Club of Rome im Jahr 1972 wissen wir, dass Wachstum nicht mehr automatisch mit dem Versprechen einer stetigen Verbesserung von Wohlstand und Lebensqualität einhergeht und die ökologischen Lebensgrundlagen auf irreversible Weise beeinträchtigt. Wir stehen heute zudem vor den funktionalen Einschränkungen eines fortwährenden Wachstums, wie wir es kennen (aufgrund der immanenten Widersprüche der kapitalistischen Wirtschaftsweise, sowie der sie umfassenden ökologischen Grenzen). Das Ende des Wachstums bedeutet für eine auf Wachstum ausgerichtete Gesellschaft Krise, Stagnation und Rezession. Sehr lange galt Wachstum als ein, wenn nicht sogar als der fundamentale Faktor für die dynamische Stabilisierung moderner (kapitalistischer) Gesellschaften und daher auch als die Grundlage für den sozialen Frieden und die gesellschaftliche Reproduktion. Der Versuch, Wachstum um jeden Preis als politisches Ziel zu retten, und die Suche nach alternativen Wachstumspfaden führen zu einer Verschärfung der Krise und der Umweltkonflikte weltweit und beruhen auf einer Verlagerung der ökologischen Folgen auf andere Weltregionen oder in die Zukunft.
Moderne Gesellschaften haben nicht bloß eine Wachstumsökonomie, sondern sind Wachstumsgesellschaften: Der Abschied von Wachstum als ein business-as-usual-Pfad führt zu steigender Ungleichheit und zur Krise der Demokratie. Der Weg in eine gerechte, zukunftsfähige und emanzipatorische Postwachstumsgesellschaft kann nur durch eine maßgebliche Umgestaltung der Gesellschaftsstruktur gelingen.
Gerade in der aktuellen Krise sieht die wachstumskritische Bewegung, die unter dem Namen Décroissance vor etwa zehn Jahren in Frankreich entstand, eine einmalige Chance für eine radikale Transformation der Gesellschaft, die sie endlich von dem Wachstumsdiktat befreit. War für die Kritik der 70er Jahren vorwiegend ein steigendes Bewusstsein für die ökologischen Krise von Bedeutung, spielen für die Décroissance-Bewegung neben ökologischen auch soziale und kulturelle Gründe eine wesentliche Rolle.
Das Wort Décroissance geht eigentlich auf die autorisierte Übersetzung eines 1979 veröffentlichten Buches von dem Vater der ökologischen Ökonomik, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, zurück und bezeichnet einen schrumpfenden Zustand der Wirtschaft. Die Leitidee der Décroissance – wie sie heute in den verschiedenen sozialen Bewegungen Verwendung findet – umfasst aber auch eine radikale Kritik an der Art und Weise der gesellschaftlichen Reproduktion und inspiriert verschiedene Entwürfe für einen Wandel hin zu einer Postwachstumsgesellschaft. Das Projekt der Décroissance kommt Ernst Blochs Verständnis einer konkreten Utopie sehr nah: wie der spiritus rector der französischen Décroissance, Serge Latouche, mit Bezugnahme auf Bloch und Morris betont, ist die Utopie der Décroissance keine bloße träumerische Vision einer nicht existierenden Welt, sondern verkörpert vielmehr ein Leitbild, das uns ermöglichen kann, die Zwänge des Gegebenen zu brechen und Räume für kreative Vorstellungen und gewagte Experimente für eine künftige, von der Wachstumslogik unabhängige, Gesellschaft zu öffnen.
In diesem Beitrag rekonstruiere ich einige der Hauptinspirationsquellen der Décroissance aus der Perspektive der Sozialphilosophie. Ich werde detailliert einige der sozio-politischen Wurzeln der Postwachstumsbewegung darlegen, indem ich auf folgende Punkte eingehe: 1. Umweltbewegung, 2. Anthropologische Kulturkritik, 3. Postdevelopment, 4. und 5. Politische Ökologie in den spezifischen Varianten von Gorz beziehungsweise Castoriadis. In Anlehnung an Duverger möchte ich auf diesem Weg zeigen, dass die Décroissance ein antisystemisches Potenzial für eine radikale gesellschaftliche Transformation birgt. Eine solche Transformation umfasst nicht nur die ökonomische Sphäre, sondern auch die Basisinstitutionen der Gesellschaft, sowie auch das gesellschaftliche Imaginäre, das diese legitimiert und stützt.
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The degrowth movement that originated in Europe at the end of the 90s under the headline of 'degrowth for ecological sustainability and social equity' has been increasingly influential as a platform for fruitful alliances between... more
The degrowth movement that originated in Europe at the end of the 90s under the headline of 'degrowth for ecological sustainability and social equity' has been increasingly influential as a platform for fruitful alliances between different social and environmental movements worldwide. As I claim in the paper, it can play the role of a 'concrete utopia' that radically challenges the social imaginary of modern growth-societies while drawing on some of its increasingly unhonored promises, such as securing well-being, social justice, and democracy. Following Bloch and more recent works in utopian studies, we can say that concrete utopias envision and anticipate the real-possible, which is already slumbering in the meanders of the actual world, and enhance it with a militant optimism. Accordingly, concrete utopias have both a prefigurative and a performative power: they envision alternative imaginaries, by opening spaces for subversive, collective practices that are already hidden in the contradiction of the present. In the paper I will present how in the degrowth movement space, time, and relations are re-imagined and re-enacted in a radical, alternative way. Social experiments create spaces in which alternative ways of conceiving needs, desires, and their satisfaction, are not only envisioned, but also experienced. By provisionally suspending the pervasive impact of dominant societal imaginaries, social experiments can crack open the established understanding of what is considered to be real and give room to alternative imaginaries, practices, and experiments of common living.
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Keynote Speech at the 5th International Conference on Degrowth for Social Equity and Environmental Sustainability
YouTube video of the speech
YouTube video of the speech
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Wirtschaftliches Wachstum bildet die Basis der heutigen Gesellschaft. Die Ausbeutung von Ressourcen (Öl, Kohle) bilden die natürlichen Grenzen des Wachstums. Das Problem dabei ist jedoch, dass diese Grenzen in manchen Regionen der Welt... more
Wirtschaftliches Wachstum bildet die Basis der heutigen Gesellschaft. Die Ausbeutung von Ressourcen (Öl, Kohle) bilden die natürlichen Grenzen des Wachstums. Das Problem dabei ist jedoch, dass diese Grenzen in manchen Regionen der Welt verschoben werden, auf Kosten derer, die die Überstrapazierung der Ökosysteme als erste schmerzhaft spüren. So treffen beispielsweise die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels besonders jene Menschen am stärksten, die in Armut leben und am wenigsten zu seiner Entstehung beigetragen haben. Die Frage der Klimagerechtigkeit ist deshalb eng mit der Degrowth-Idee verbunden. Sie beinhaltet: a) Die Forderung nach einer Reduzierung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Leistung – eine Reduzierung der Energie- und Rohstoffnutzung b) Kritik an der Idee der Wachstumslogik, die gekoppelt ist mit dem westlichen Entwicklungsmodells.
Die Gesellschaft soll sich mit dem Ziel weiterentwickeln, ihre Abhängigkeit von Beschleunigung und Wachstum zu lösen.
Die Gesellschaft soll sich mit dem Ziel weiterentwickeln, ihre Abhängigkeit von Beschleunigung und Wachstum zu lösen.
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Growth has turned from a means for securing employment and social stability into a goal of its own. Yet, growth at any cost increases the pressure on the environment, undermines economic development, and erodes the very basis of... more
Growth has turned from a means for securing employment and social stability into a goal of its own. Yet, growth at any cost increases the pressure on the environment, undermines economic development, and erodes the very basis of democracy. Whereas growth-based economic societies that stop growing are destabilized by a recession path and eventually doomed to collapse, the degrowth proposal envisions a radical transformation of society, in which growth-addiction looses its grip and real democracy, autonomy, and solidarity are strengthened. Can degrowth be a concrete utopia that indicates a way out of the crisis?
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This reflection follows three lines of thought to discuss further what it means that nature is/might become an axis of resonance. The first line of thought refers to the aesthetic experience of nature (in the wider sense of the term) as... more
This reflection follows three lines of thought to discuss further what it means that nature is/might become an axis of resonance. The first line of thought refers to the aesthetic experience of nature (in the wider sense of the term) as 'Befindlichkeit' - which comes very close to Hartmut's concept of resonance in the sphere of nature, yet avoiding the pitfalls of a narrow phenomenology of a merely bourgeois aesthetics. The second line of thought moves along the frame and conditions for nature being an axis of resonance and addresses the relation between immediate experience and sociocultural mediation. The third step finally questions 'nature' as axis of resonance and offers a critique from a non-western perspective, while rehabilitating autonomy as a collective category.
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Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced... more
Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced resource and energy use. The degrowth hypothesis posits that such a trajectory of social transformation is necessary, desirable, and possible; the conditions of its realization require additional study. Research on degrowth has reinvigorated the limits to growth debate with critical examination of the historical, cultural, social, and political forces that have made economic growth a dominant objective. Here we review studies of economic stability in the absence of growth and of societies that have managed well without growth. We reflect on forms of technology and democracy com-patible with degrowth and discuss plausible openings for a degrowth transition. This dynamic and productive research agenda asks inconvenient questions that sustainability scie...
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Possibilities for Degrowth: a radical alternative to the neoliberal restructuring of growth-societies. The neoliberal restructuring of society is presented in the paper as a renewed drive to enable the further expansion of the... more
Possibilities for Degrowth: a radical alternative to the neoliberal restructuring of growth-societies. The neoliberal restructuring of society is presented in the paper as a renewed drive to enable the further expansion of the capitalistic mode of production threatened i.a. by the ecological crisis. Precisely because the warnings of the report to the Club of Rome ‘Limits to Growth’ sanctioning the end of the post-war dynamic stability rooted in economic growth and represented by Atlantic Fordism. was taken very seriously by the economic elite, forces joined towards a radical restructuring of societies in order to unleash new possibilities for growth and profit accumulation. Neoliberal governmentality paradoxically embraces the challenge launched by Ecological Economists to focus on life as a productive and creative process and matures as a new mode of governing life that operate with and not against life’s power. Against the neoliberal stealth revolution, degrowth embodies a radical alternative project, both with respect to the substantial goals and to the mode of operation of neoliberal governmentality. In its heterogeneity, degrowth opens spaces for radical imaginaries, practices, and experiences that challenge the neoliberal, pervasive logic of growth and self-optimization, while experimenting possibilities for alternative subjectivities and new modes of being. Keywords: Degrowth, Neoliberal Governmentality, Subjectivation, Resistance, Life
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This paper expands the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) values framing about nature and its contributions to people by exploring the notion of ‘disvalues’, which pertains to aspects of nature that... more
This paper expands the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) values framing about nature and its contributions to people by exploring the notion of ‘disvalues’, which pertains to aspects of nature that reduce well being (instrumental disvalues), relationships that are detrimental to a dignified and flourishing life (relational disvalues), or the perception of badness in an absolute sense, regardless of the impact on people (intrinsic disvalues). Shedding light on how people express disvalues helps to better capture their preferences and subjective perspectives, as well as account for the socioenvironmental positions from which they speak. Considering the full spectrum of disvalues opens up new ways to better identify social–ecological trade-offs, a necessary step for seeking solutions and finding common ground on sustainability and justice.
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Non-technical abstract Decisions on the use of nature reflect the values and rights of individuals, communities and society at large. The values of nature are expressed through cultural norms, rules and legislation, and they can be... more
Non-technical abstract Decisions on the use of nature reflect the values and rights of individuals, communities and society at large. The values of nature are expressed through cultural norms, rules and legislation, and they can be elicited using a wide range of tools, including those of economics. None of the approaches to elicit peoples’ values are neutral. Unequal power relations influence valuation and decision-making and are at the core of most environmental conflicts. As actors in sustainability thinking, environmental scientists and practitioners are becoming more aware of their own posture, normative stance, responsibility and relative power in society. Based on a transdisciplinary workshop, our perspective paper provides a normative basis for this new community of scientists and practitioners engaged in the plural valuation of nature.
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Research Interests: Ecosystem Services, Conservation Biology, Environmental Studies, Environmental Management, Care Ethics, and 9 moreEnvironmental Sustainability, Human Dimensions of environmental issues, Ecological restoration, Multidisciplinary, Happiness and Well Being, Eudaimonia, Environmental Values, Elsevier, and Relational Values
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"Against the background of the current discussion about self-organization theories and complexity theories and their application within biology and ecology, the question of teleology gains a new significance. Some scholars insist... more
"Against the background of the current discussion about self-organization theories and complexity theories and their application within biology and ecology, the question of teleology gains a new significance. Some scholars insist on the total elimination of any reference to teleology from the realm of the natural sciences. However, it seems especially hard to eradicate teleological expressions from scientific language when the issue of understanding living beings is at stake. For this reason, other scholars opt for a middle path that allows for some teleological language. Yet, it is an open question whether teleological expressions are to be considered as playing a merely metaphorical or a necessary heuristic role in the sciences. Moreover, the ontological presuppositions, which underpin different positions in the debate, need to be depicted and analyzed. This paper aims at addressing the question of teleology within the life sciences by taking into account both Kant’s critical philosophy and Whitehead’s ontology. My analysis starts with Georg Toepfer’s distinction among different concepts of teleology and then focuses on the role of “internal purposiveness” (innere Zweckmäßigkeit) for biology today. I show how purposiveness (Zweckmäßigkeit; hereafter: ZM) corresponds to a very complex form of reciprocal causation (Wechselwirkung) rather than to any model of final causation. Drawing on Kant’s analysis of “natural purposes” in the Critique of Judgment as well as self-organization theory, I claim that reciprocal causation – however complex it might well be – is not sufficient to describe living beings adequately. However, since the natural sciences are still caught up in the presuppositions of modern scientistic and materialistic ontology, a step beyond mere efficient causation seems to be impossible within their methodological framework. And yet, as I will show, a genuine teleology of nature implies the idea of anticipation of totality. This kind of teleological consideration is presented at first in its role as a regulative concept in Kantian terms. Finally, I follow the path of Whitehead’s ‘philosophy of organism’ and claim for natural teleology the state of a necessary ontological presupposition. Whitehead’s ontology offers an ontological underpinning for teleological issues that, by avoiding any recourse to supernatural forces, invites life and natural sciences to a fruitful dialogue at the limit of their methodological boundaries, pressing them beyond their unreflected presuppositions."
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Research Interests: Economics, Capability Approach, Justice, Multidisciplinary, DeGrowth, and 3 moreGrowth, Futures, and Good life
Decroissance has established itself in Southern Europe as a significant and heterogeneous societal movement, which fosters a renaissance of traditional streams of thought in social and political philosophy while opening a field for new... more
Decroissance has established itself in Southern Europe as a significant and heterogeneous societal movement, which fosters a renaissance of traditional streams of thought in social and political philosophy while opening a field for new actualisations. While the term Decroissance can be traced back to an authorised translation of Georgescu-Roegen's 'declining state', the idea of Decroissance - as it is widely employed by social movements - encompasses more than the critique of GDP as a measure for well-being. It embodies a radical questioning of the way social reproduction is intended and frames a multifaceted vision for a post-growth society. The aim of this paper is the reconstruction and critical examination - from the point of view of social and political philosophy - of the main conceptual roots of Decroissance and its visions for a radical transformation of society.
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One main issue within environmental ethics is the so-called Demarcation Problem, i.e. the question of which entities are members of the moral community and hold intrinsic value. I argue that the demarcation problem relies mainly on... more
One main issue within environmental ethics is the so-called Demarcation Problem, i.e. the question of which entities are members of the moral community and hold intrinsic value. I argue that the demarcation problem relies mainly on Kantian moral philosophy. While the Kantian framework offers a strong and immediately deontological argument for moral agents holding inherent moral values, it presents problems when stretched beyond its original scope and lacks an adequate ground for addressing relational complexity and the moral significance of collectives. In this paper I outline an alternative axiological framework ('map of moral significance') that relies on a relational ontology and encompasses intrinsic and relational values as the two equipollent axes of a matrix in which to embed the question posited by the Demarcation Problem.
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... Von Tanja von Egan-Krieger & Barbara Muraca, Greifswald Einleitung ... Clarendon Press, Oxford. Tanja von Egan-Krieger Doktorandin an der Universität Greifswald Tel.: +49 (0)3834 864 120 E-Mail: tanja.egan at uni-greifswald.de... more
... Von Tanja von Egan-Krieger & Barbara Muraca, Greifswald Einleitung ... Clarendon Press, Oxford. Tanja von Egan-Krieger Doktorandin an der Universität Greifswald Tel.: +49 (0)3834 864 120 E-Mail: tanja.egan at uni-greifswald.de ...
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Aim of the paper is to give a critical overview on how work and labour have been conceptualized within the heterogeneous degrowth discourse. While degrowth has articulated a sophisticated critique of capitalistic growth not only from an... more
Aim of the paper is to give a critical overview on how work and labour have been conceptualized within the heterogeneous degrowth discourse. While degrowth has articulated a sophisticated critique of capitalistic growth not only from an environmental perspective, but also with respect to the structural function of growth for Welfare democracies and to its crisis, (re)thinking and framing work/labour in an envisioned degrowth society remains one of the biggest challenges within the degrowth discourse. After a detailed overview of the different perspectives on work/labour in the degrowth discourse, the paper focuses on the specific contribution of materialist ecofeminism. It concludes by indicating possible cross-fertilizations and alliances between degrowth and materialist ecofeminism with respect to social-ecological reproduction.
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The crisis we face as a global community must be understood not only as a public health crisis, or as an economic crisis of the capitalist mode of production, but also, fundamentally, as a crisis of the reproduction of life. In this... more
The crisis we face as a global community must be understood not only as a public health crisis, or as an economic crisis of the capitalist mode of production, but also, fundamentally, as a crisis of the reproduction of life. In this sense, it is a crisis of care: the work of caring for humans, non-humans, and the shared biosphere.This piece is collaboratively written by roughly 40 scholars and activists affiliated with the Feminisms and Degrowth Alliance (FaDA), a network that aims at making feminist reasoning an integral part of degrowth.
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The Greifswald approach was developed over many yea rs in the co-operation of environmental philosophers and ecological economist s. The theory combines normative arguments on our responsibilities for current and f uture generations... more
The Greifswald approach was developed over many yea rs in the co-operation of environmental philosophers and ecological economist s. The theory combines normative arguments on our responsibilities for current and f uture generations (intraand intergenerational justice), the conceptual debate o n weak vs. strong sustainability, a new concept for natural capital with practical applicat ons in three sectors: fisheries, agriculture and climate change policy. It was developed as an a nswer to the increasingly vague understanding of the sustainability concept in the political arena, which gives politicians the possibility of subsuming under it all sorts of diff erent programs and strategies. A sharper definition of the concept is needed that offers a n on-arbitrary orientation ground for action to end the further loss of essential parts of natural capital without becoming too rigid and exclusive of differences. In this paper we give firstly a short overview abou t the philosophical backgr...
Both the new materialists and some process theologians share a conception of matter as having feelings, a form of panpsychism. Process theology in the style of Whitehead comes to this conclusion utilizing analogical reasoning from human... more
Both the new materialists and some process theologians share a conception of matter as having feelings, a form of panpsychism. Process theology in the style of Whitehead comes to this conclusion utilizing analogical reasoning from human experience to other entities (animals, plants, cells, rocks, atoms, and elementary particles). At best, reasoning from analogy yields a hypothesis. M. B. Hess has developed a method of analysis to evaluate the validity of such analogies. A careful analysis of the meta-ethical foundations of the environmental ethic found in Charles Birch and John Cobb Jr’s The Liberation of Life allows us to use Hess’s methodology to evaluate the strength of Birch and Cobb’s analogy. Their analogy is found to be weak. This does not mean that the analogy is false, but rather that it is not proven.
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In einem gemeinsamen Artikel regen die Autorinnen und Autoren die Diskussion eines neuen Vertrages zwischen Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Gesellschaft an. Sie diskutieren die Chancen, Moglichkeiten und die Verantwortung transformativer... more
In einem gemeinsamen Artikel regen die Autorinnen und Autoren die Diskussion eines neuen Vertrages zwischen Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Gesellschaft an. Sie diskutieren die Chancen, Moglichkeiten und die Verantwortung transformativer Wirtschaftswissenschaft (in besonderem Hinblick auf Nachhaltigkeit) und betten diese in den wissenschaftlichen Diskurs ein. Transparenz, Reflexivitat, Werbebezug, Partizipation und Umgestaltung von Forschung und Lehre - das sind nach Ansicht der Autor(inn)en die funf Bedingungen, welche eine transformative Wirtschaftswissenschaft genugen muss. Der Artikel dient als Denk- und Diskussionsanstos innerhalb der Wirtschaftswissenschaften sowie auch zwischen Wirtschaftswissenschaft und jenen ausenwissenschaftlichen Akteuren, die in gesellschaftlicher und okonomischer Transformation in Richtung Nachhaltigkeit engagiert sind. Die Spiekerrooger Klimagesprache 2016 werden darauf aufbauen.
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The paper examines Nancy Fraser’s Polanyian reading of the current capitalist crisis and her expansion of Polanyi’s notion of the ‘double movement’–social forces struggling for marketization and social protection– into a ‘triple movement’... more
The paper examines Nancy Fraser’s Polanyian reading of the current capitalist crisis and her expansion of Polanyi’s notion of the ‘double movement’–social forces struggling for marketization and social protection– into a ‘triple movement’ by adding the struggle for emancipation as a third factor. In its first part, the paper reviews Fraser’s central arguments with a special focus on her reading of Polanyi’s idea of the “fictitious commodities” land, labor, and money. Second, the authors examine Fraser’s conceptualization of social forces, domination and emancipation drawing on Environmental Philosophy, Political Ecology, Marxism, Feminism, Social Philosophy as well as Polanyi himself. In the end, the paper argues that Fraser’s conception of capitalism and emancipation are in need of improvement if critical theory wants to adequately grasp the current crisis of capitalism.
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Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced... more
Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced resource and energy use. The degrowth hypothesis posits that such a trajectory of social transformation is necessary, desirable, and possible ; the conditions of its realization require additional study. Research on degrowth has reinvigorated the limits to growth debate with critical examination of the historical, cultural, social, and political forces that have made economic growth a dominant objective. Here we review studies of economic stability in the absence of growth and of societies that have managed well without growth. We reflect on forms of technology and democracy compatible with degrowth and discuss plausible openings for a degrowth transition. This dynamic and productive research agenda asks inconvenient questions that sustainability sciences can no longer afford to ignore.
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Aus der Buchpräsentation des Verlags: "Das Mantra, dass die Wirtschaft immer weiter wachsen muss, formt unsere heutige Welt – auf Kosten von Lebensqualität,unter Ausbeutung der Natur und im immer schärferen Wettbewerb. Dass es so... more
Aus der Buchpräsentation des Verlags: "Das Mantra, dass die Wirtschaft immer weiter wachsen muss, formt unsere heutige Welt – auf Kosten von Lebensqualität,unter Ausbeutung der Natur und im immer schärferen Wettbewerb. Dass es so nicht weitergehen kann,wird überdeutlich. Kritiker des Wachstumskurses gibt es viele, aber nichtallen sollte man folgen . . . Seit dem Club of Rome ist der Gedanke in der Welt. Mit der Forderung nach »Anti-Wachstum«, »Degrowth« oder »Decroissance« gehen seit etwa 15 Jahren die Menschen weltweit auf die Straße. Wissenschaftler und Aktivisten kämpfen für einen freiwilligen, gerechten und nachhaltigen Schrumpfungsprozess. Dabei schlägt manch einer aber auch gefährliche Irrwege ein, bis hin zu faschistoiden Tendenzen reicht das Spektrum der fehlgeleiteten Kritik. Richtig verstanden und umgesetzt ist dieses Projekt aber weit davon entfernt: Eine solidarisch organisierte und gelebte Ökonomie unter gemeinschaftlichen Bedingungen ist mehr als eine schöne Utopie, Neben dem erfolgreichen Widerstand gegen allerlei unsinnige Großinvestitionen stehen unzählige Initiativen und Nischenprojekte mit Tauschbörsen, Gemeingütern, Selbstverwaltung, Reparaturwerkstätten und lokaler Lebensmittelproduktion. Sie leisten Pionierarbeit in der politischen Neuorientierung, vernetzen sich weltweit und sind in ihrer kreativen Vielfalt die Garantie dafür, dass ein gutes Leben für alle politisch wünschenswert und machbar ist."
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... Von Tanja von Egan-Krieger & Barbara Muraca, Greifswald Einleitung ... Clarendon Press, Oxford. Tanja von Egan-Krieger Doktorandin an der Universität Greifswald Tel.: +49 (0)3834 864 120 E-Mail: tanja.egan at uni-greifswald.de... more
... Von Tanja von Egan-Krieger & Barbara Muraca, Greifswald Einleitung ... Clarendon Press, Oxford. Tanja von Egan-Krieger Doktorandin an der Universität Greifswald Tel.: +49 (0)3834 864 120 E-Mail: tanja.egan at uni-greifswald.de ...
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The crisis we face as a global community must be understood not only as a public health crisis, or as an economic crisis of the capitalist mode of production, but also, fundamentally, as a crisis of the reproduction of life. In this... more
The crisis we face as a global community must be understood not only as a public health crisis, or as an economic crisis of the capitalist mode of production, but also, fundamentally, as a crisis of the reproduction of life. In this sense, it is a crisis of care: the work of caring for humans, non-humans, and the shared biosphere. As a group of activists and scholars from the Feminisms and Degrowth Alliance, we take this opportunity to reflect on how we can, from our diverse positions, face this moment, organize, and collectively imagine radical alternative modes of living: those with more time for community, relationship building, and care for each other as well as the non-human world.