Extinction in the anthropocene and moving toward an ethic of responsibility

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article addresses extinction and the need for ethical change within our legal system. The article evaluates this issue in the context of law that mediates humanity's use and management of land and by extension the more-than-human species that we share the land with. Humanity frames its relationship with land through property. Whilst land, and the different species, ecosystems and formations that inhabit it represents a physical and material state of being, property exists in a dephysicalised state. Dephysicalisation does not allow humanity to recognise the ontological vulnerability that it is experiencing in concert with the more-than-human species that share the planet and is blinding our legal regimes to the reality of the extinction crisis that is upon us. This is an ethical challenge. I argue that decelerating the extinction crisis in the Anthropocene requires that the exercise of rights is tempered by responsibility. I explain the relationship between dephysical property rights, responsibility and extinction on the backdrop of the Anthropocene using the related concepts of space and place. In contrast to rights that have an abstract and disembodied quality, an ethic of responsibility necessitates that humanity adopt a position where place is mutually constructed by humanity and more-than-human species.