This paper discusses parallels between the Anthropocene discourse and the realism v moralism debate in political theory. Central to realism is the claim that political philosophy should not be viewed simply as a form of ‘applied ethics’. Different versions of realism vary in plausibility but the central insight seems correct: politics is not well-understood as simple conformity to a prior, independently defined moral standpoint. This is something of a strawman however. When put too strongly realism overstates the dichotomy between morality and politics and the extent to which ‘moralists’ define moral standpoints independently of politics, and obscures the way ethics and politics may be intertwined without reducing to each other. The Anthropocene discourse also emphasises something true: the degree of human impact on the earth makes it impossible to view nonhuman nature as fully independent of humanity. But this can involve a strawman too: not all ‘traditional’ environmental thought and practice has that view of nature. Analogously to strong forms of political realism very strong forms of Anthropocene advocacy obscure the intertwining of humanity and nonhumanity. Yet such Anthropocene advocacy is also vulnerable to ‘realist’ critique of the ideological ramifications of its homogenising framework and recourse to strawmen.
{"title":"Real Anthropocene politics","authors":"Simon Hailwood","doi":"10.4324/9780203731895-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203731895-9","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses parallels between the Anthropocene discourse and the realism v moralism debate in political theory. Central to realism is the claim that political philosophy should not be viewed simply as a form of ‘applied ethics’. Different versions of realism vary in plausibility but the central insight seems correct: politics is not well-understood as simple conformity to a prior, independently defined moral standpoint. This is something of a strawman however. When put too strongly realism overstates the dichotomy between morality and politics and the extent to which ‘moralists’ define moral standpoints independently of politics, and obscures the way ethics and politics may be intertwined without reducing to each other. The Anthropocene discourse also emphasises something true: the degree of human impact on the earth makes it impossible to view nonhuman nature as fully independent of humanity. But this can involve a strawman too: not all ‘traditional’ environmental thought and practice has that view of nature. Analogously to strong forms of political realism very strong forms of Anthropocene advocacy obscure the intertwining of humanity and nonhumanity. Yet such Anthropocene advocacy is also vulnerable to ‘realist’ critique of the ideological ramifications of its homogenising framework and recourse to strawmen.","PeriodicalId":393637,"journal":{"name":"Rethinking the Environment for the Anthropocene","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131403276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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