Twenty-First-Century Virtue

2021 ◽  
pp. 77-96
Author(s):  
Shannon Vallor
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Contemporary Problem ◽  
Emerging Technologies ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
First Century ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Ethical Decisions ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Classical Traditions

This chapter identifies the growing difficulty of making ethical decisions—choices that aim at the “good life”—in our present human condition, one in which the unpredictable, complex, and destabilizing effects of emerging technologies on a global scale make the shape of the human future increasingly opaque and hard to fathom. The chapter suggests that this twenty-first-century challenge for ethics, which we can identify as a state of acute technosocial opacity, is best addressed from a particular philosophical tradition: virtue ethics. It argues that the classical traditions of Aristotelian, Confucian, and Buddhist virtue ethics offer us more resources for managing this contemporary problem than do other, more modern moral theories. The chapter concludes that only the cultivation of distinctly technomoral virtues will preserve humanity’s chances to live well with emerging technologies, and flourish in an increasingly opaque future.

The Precautionary Principle in the Twenty-First Century: A Case Study of Noise Pollution in the Ocean

2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Gillespie
Keyword(s):  
Precautionary Principle ◽  
Contemporary Problem ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Noise Pollution ◽  
First Century ◽  
International Environmental Law ◽  
The Precautionary Principle ◽  
Current State ◽  
Twenty First Century

AbstractThe precautionary principle is one of the most discussed ideas in international environmental law. However, despite over 20 years of dialogue, both its status and its aplication remains uncertain. This article attempts to rectify part of this difficulty by displaying the current state of play on the principle, and how it may be applied to a specific contemporary problem. The selected problem is noise pollution

Impacts and responses to sea-level rise: a global analysis of the SRES scenarios over the twenty-first century

2006 ◽  
Vol 364 (1841) ◽  
pp. 1073-1095 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J Nicholls ◽  
Richard S.J Tol
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Global Analysis ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Atmospheric Temperature ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
First Century ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Sres Scenarios ◽  
The Impact

Taking the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) climate and socio-economic scenarios (A1FI, A2, B1 and B2 ‘future worlds’), the potential impacts of sea-level rise through the twenty-first century are explored using complementary impact and economic analysis methods at the global scale. These methods have never been explored together previously. In all scenarios, the exposure and hence the impact potential due to increased flooding by sea-level rise increases significantly compared to the base year (1990). While mitigation reduces impacts, due to the lagged response of sea-level rise to atmospheric temperature rise, impacts cannot be avoided during the twenty-first century by this response alone. Cost–benefit analyses suggest that widespread protection will be an economically rational response to land loss due to sea-level rise in the four SRES futures that are considered. The most vulnerable future worlds to sea-level rise appear to be the A2 and B2 scenarios, which primarily reflects differences in the socio-economic situation (coastal population, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP/capita), rather than the magnitude of sea-level rise. Small islands and deltaic settings stand out as being more vulnerable as shown in many earlier analyses. Collectively, these results suggest that human societies will have more choice in how they respond to sea-level rise than is often assumed. However, this conclusion needs to be tempered by recognition that we still do not understand these choices and significant impacts remain possible. Future worlds which experience larger rises in sea-level than considered here (above 35 cm), more extreme events, a reactive rather than proactive approach to adaptation, and where GDP growth is slower or more unequal than in the SRES futures remain a concern. There is considerable scope for further research to better understand these diverse issues.

Jazz Resurgent

2021 ◽  
pp. 507-524
Author(s):  
Ted Gioia
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Emerging Technologies ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
First Century ◽  
Opposite Trend ◽  
Green Book ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Lady Gaga ◽  
Musical Excellence

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, many pundits announced the “death of jazz,” yet recent years have shown the exact opposite trend. Jazz has returned to popular culture, whether one looks to rising stars such as Kamasi Washington and Shabaka Hutchings, or to popular artists (Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar) who draw heavily on jazz influences. At the same time, jazz started showing up in hit movies such as La La Land, Green Book, and Whiplash, where it was mythologized as a touchstone of musical excellence and artistry. All these trends served to reinvigorate a jazz tradition that many had written off as moribund, creating a powerful convergence of historic styles and new commercial styles. This chapter also explores the jazz vocal scene of recent decades, and its contribution to this broadening of the genre’s appeal. Other artists discussed include Robert Glasper, Esperanza Spalding, and Bobby McFerrin. The chapter concludes with an assessment of jazz’s relationship with the emerging technologies of the digital age.

Some Kinds of Home: Home, Transnationality and Belonging in Noviolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-95
Author(s):  
Oliver Nyambi ◽  
Rodwell Makombe ◽  
Nonki Motahane
Keyword(s):  
Human Condition ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Transnational Identity ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Human Condition ◽  
At Home

Abstract Over the years, the notion of home has permeated disciplinary, inter- and cross-disciplinary enquiries into the human condition. In recent years, ideas, constructions and perceptions of ‘homes’ have been further complicated by constant shifts in conceptions and practices of transnational mobilities that have informed and disrupted ways of seeing, making and re-making homes at home and away from ‘home’. In this article, we draw from Sara Ahmed’s idea of home as ‘a space within us’ to read the novel We Need New Names (2013) by the transnational Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo as a text that interrogates the intertwined and complicated relationship between home, transnational identity and belonging. Focusing on the protagonist’s experiences in both Zimbabwe and America, this article examines the idea of home as it refracts uniquely twenty-first-century experiences, perceptions and notions of transnational spaces, and shapes certain notions of identity, transnationality and belonging in We Need New Names.

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