Categories
2023 Abstracts Stage 2

If there is a necessity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then whose duty is it?

In this project, I will assess the extent of the necessity to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions on a practical level. Our duty is our moral or legal responsibility to do something. In this case, our duty is to reduce the emissions of GHGs that are contributing to the global warming effect. This effect is causing climate change, which has negative global impacts. I will provide philosophical claims from a number of philosophers namely Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. I will also offer my own insights in conjunction with this.

The object I will be discussing is the reduction of GHG emissions. I will consider this from a wide perspective from international and national authorities to businesses as well as on an individual level. My territory is questioning the extent and type of duty that these different groups have in order to combat the impacts of increasing GHG emissions. I hope this project will provide a unique angle for philosophically assessing how the approach to sustainability and climate change prevention varies on a wide scope. There is an expanding need for lawful duty to reduce GHGs due to ongoing inaction, although this is difficult to implement internationally without being vague due to the varying social and economic conditions of countries across the globe. I will conclude that we have a collective moral duty to reduce our GHG emissions.

Categories
2022 Abstracts Stage 2

The Ethics of Ambiguity and climate change: the role our freedom plays when dealing with anthropogenic changing global climates.

Climate change has, and will continue to have, a huge effect on all of our lives. It is an inescapable fact that we will all have to live with the effects of ever changing global climates and so the way in which we decide to react to this is extremely important. Simone De Beauvoir’s existentialist thought in her book, the Ethics of Ambiguity, outlines the importance of willing the freedom of others in order to be truly free ourselves. Therefore, her book provided the perfect stepping stone for exploring the role individual and collective freedom plays in helping to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Categories
2022 Abstracts Stage 3

In What Way is Humanity Ethically and Politically Responsible for Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Emissions?

This essay explores the way in which humanity is ethically and politically responsible for anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. After concluding that traditional ethics is no longer sufficient for dealing with environmental and technological ethical issues, Hans Jonas’ proposes a new ethics for this technological age is in his book The Imperative of Responsibility. He argues that the most important ethical rule humanity must follow is to act so that the effects of our actions are compatible with the permanence of life in order to ensure the future of mankind. I use Jonas’ ethics to argue that humanity’s climate responsibility is inescapable; once this responsibility is established I use Giddens’ book The Politics of Climate Change to suggest that harnessing the power of politics and policy is vital for sufficiently meeting the demands that this climate responsibility places on individuals. This essay concludes that, while individuals are the primary drivers of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, a top-down approach whereby the largest organisations and emitters are targeted through policy to reduce emissions may be the most efficient and impactful way of mitigating climate change and ensuring the future of mankind.

Categories
2021 Abstracts Stage 3

Is Rewilding Compatible with Veganism?

Is rewilding compatible with veganism? Rewilding is a conservation effort which can contribute to the efforts of solving climate change. Due to the use of animals in rewilding, it raises questions for ethical vegans and so my territory is animal ethics. Through axiological critique, I intend to consider veganism from a deontological, consequentialist and virtue ethicist point of view and determine which is the best approach for practical matters, using rewilding as my object.

Categories
2021 Abstracts Stage 3

How can we reverse the effects of climate change? A revised global philosophy or self-preservation? A philosophical investigation into the role plant-based lifestyles can play in altering the climate crisis.

The purpose of this investigation is to determine the extent of which our climate crisis can be aided by plant-based diets. I will assess different opinions on animal sentience and moral philosophy in order to determine how and why a plant-based diet could play a part in combatting the crisis. By Harry Feachen

Categories
2021 Abstracts Stage 3

Climate catastrophe, Political Imagination and Attitudes towards the future

In my project I investigate the problem of modern politics, especially the absence of viable alternatives to our contemporary political system. I use climate change as an example of an issue that is limit testing the stability of the status quo. I use Marcuse’s concept of one-dimensional thought and Badiou’s ethical theory as examples of radical critique of stale political arrangement, and also thinkers inspired by them like Mark Fisher and his concept of Capitalist Realism.

Categories
2017 Abstracts Stage 2

An Investigation into the Meat Industry and its Impact on the Environment

Territory: Environmental Ethics
Object: The impact of the Meat Industry on the Environment

Philosophers/Key Thinkers:
James Lovelock; Mary Midgley; Arne Naess; Anthony Weston; Jonathan Safran Foer

The aim of this project is to discover the impact the meat industry has on the environment and to question whether vegetarianism could help minimise Global Warming. To do this, the Hermeneutic and historical approaches will be used.

Throughout this project two main questions will be explored: What is the main contributor to our carbon footprint? and Is environmentalism justified?

Categories
2007 Abstracts Stage 3

Climate Change or Attitude Change? An exploration of man’s fragile relation to nature, past, present and future

Climate change has become the issue that defines our age. It makes man’s detrimental relationship with his environment undeniable. The planet is warming up and is becoming uninhabitable for large parts of its population, and assuming that the science is correct, our activities are to blame. Territory: Climate change. Thinkers: Kant, Heidegger, Adorno. Aim: The aim of my project was to try and understand the development of man’s relation to nature, from mystical nature through to instrumental nature, in the hope of figuring out where we might have gone wrong, and what we can do about it.