Philosophical Arguments for Individuals, Memberships, and Collectives in States of Guilt or Shame

2021 ◽  
pp. 70-87
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Fredericks
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
Collective Agency ◽  
Collective Guilt ◽  
Karl Jaspers ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Living Resource ◽  
Larry May

While there is ample evidence that people experience collective guilt and shame, many philosophers and laypeople reject such experiences as unjustified either because they reject emotions as significant realms of experience or because they dismiss the possibility of collective agency and therefore find guilt or shame feelings about collective acts, like those leading to climate change, absurd. Chapter 4 addresses these concerns, building an account of collective agency, responsibility, and identity that demonstrates the importance of moral emotions including those of collectives. This argument draws on but extends the work of multiple philosophers and theologians including Karl Jaspers, Larry May, and Tracy Lynn Isaacs to argue that individuals, memberships, and collectives can be guilty and shameful and that collective and individual guilt and/or shame do not reduce to each other. Collectives have identity, agency, and a form of intent that is more than the sum of their constituent agents. Collectives include both well-defined collectives, such as corporations or nations, and diffuse collectives such as people living resource-intensive capitalist lives and/or supercollectives––those which are larger than but not reducible to collectives. They may contribute to climate change alongside individuals, membership groups, and well-defined collectives. The chapter also argues why in some cases it is not only possible but also appropriate to experience environmental guilt and shame about climate change as an individual or collective.

Adaptation to climate change in the mountain regions of Central Asia: Assessment of the current knowledge

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zarina Saidaliyeva ◽  
Veruska Muccione ◽  
Maria Shahgedanova ◽  
Sophie Bigler ◽  
Carolina Adler
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Aral Sea ◽  
European Alps ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Number Of Publications ◽  
Adaptation Options

<p>The mountains of Central Asia, extending over 7000 m a.s.l. and accommodating diverse and complex natural and managed systems, are very vulnerable to climate change. They support valuable environmental functions and provide key ecosystem goods and services to the arid downstream regions which strongly depend on the melting snowpack and glaciers for the provision of water by the transboundary rivers starting in the mountains. Strong climate change adaptation (CCA) action is required to increase resilience of the vulnerable, low-income communities in the region. Our knowledge of the CCA actions in the mountains of Central Asia is limited in comparison with other mountainous regions. The aim of this study is to assess the existing adaptation projects and publications and to identify gaps in adaptation efforts by conducting a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature published in English language. To be selected, the papers had to comply with the following criteria: (i) publication between 2013 and 2019; (ii) explicit focus on CCA in the mountain ranges of Central Asia; (iii) explanation of adaptation options; (vi) a clear methodology of deriving suitable adaptation options. Following the initial screening and subsequent reading of the publications, complying with the specified criteria, 33 peer-reviewed articles were selected for final analysis. This is considerably lower than the number of publications on the European Alps, Hindu-Kush – Himalayas, and the Andes. The number of publications on Central Asian mountains has declined since 2013.</p><p>The research is heavily focused on the problem of water resources, especially water availability at present and in the future 70 % of the analysed papers addressing these issues. These are followed by the papers considering adaptation in agriculture and in managing biodiversity. A critical finding is the lack of publications on adaptation to hazards and disasters including glacier outburst floods, mudflow, and landslides which are common and comparatively well-researched hazards in the Central Asian mountains, experiencing rapid deglaciation. About 50 % of the papers address the transboundary nature of the impacts of climate changes on water resources and land management reflecting the transboundary nature of the Central Asian catchments and the tensions which exist across the region but are especially prominent in the Aral Sea basin.</p><p>We conclude that while there is ample evidence of climate change and its impacts in the mountains of Central Asia and many publications mention the need for adaptation, a very limited number of publications explicitly focus on CCA and how it can be delivered.</p>

Responding to Critics of Emotions and Collectives

2021 ◽  
pp. 104-115
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Fredericks
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Moral Development ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
Climate Ethics ◽  
Rational Individual

Chapter 6 explore three questions: why other climate ethicists including Dale Jamieson, Stephen M. Gardiner, and Tracy Lynn Isaacs have not examined moral emotions or the negative emotions of guilt and shame; why their philosophical assumptions prevent them from doing so; and what the advantages are of taking guilt and shame seriously in environmental and climate ethics. Philosophical climate ethics generally prioritizes rational, individual analyses and direct linear causality. These commitments are challenged by the complex layers of agency causing climate change and lead scholars to overlook (1) the contributions of guilt and shame to moral development and (2) how such moral emotions can help agents recognize their as-yet unacknowledged moral commitments––particularly critical tasks in rapidly developing moral circumstances such as that of climate change. Additionally, philosophical commitments of most climate ethicists hinder their recognition of important ethical questions: What are the ethical ramifications of environmental guilt and shame? Should agents intentionally induce them? Regardless of how these emotions come to exist, how should agents respond to them? A more capacious vision of ethics as outlined in this project—which draws on insights of laypeople as well as academics in multiple disciplines; includes rationality, emotion, relationships; acknowledges the agency of individuals and collectives; and recognizes human limits—can address a broader scope of ethical questions including but not limited to those sparked by environmental guilt and shame.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Fredericks
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Psychology ◽  
United States ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
Moral Experience ◽  
Developed World

A vignette about environmentalist Colin Beavan’s experience of and reflection on environmental guilt and shame introduces the texture of these moral emotions experienced by many everyday environmentalists and sets the stage for the ensuing analysis. Taking this moral experience seriously reveals underexplored motivations and hindrances to environmental action, guilt, and shame. Reflection on these moral emotions challenges many modern ethical assumptions and forms the basis of the three main ethical arguments of the book: that collectives as well as individuals have guilt, shame, and responsibility; that some individuals and collectives should feel guilt and shame for environmental degradation including climate change; and that, given the consequences of guilt and shame, they should not be intentionally induced unless a number of conditions, which can be fostered through rituals, are met. These conditions are also necessary to respond to unintentionally elicited guilt and shame. To set the stage for these theoretical and practical arguments, the Introduction names the ethical values which influence the text and the disciplinary resources from social psychology; ethical pragmatism; virtue ethics; and religious studies, especially ritual theory, used in the project. It also delineates the scope of the book as the Western developed world, particularly the United States, and environmental guilt and shame, of which climate change is the main example.

A gender justice approach to eliminating Sudan’s Savannah belt’s vulnerability to climate change

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mey Eltayeb Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Social Forestry ◽  
Policy Document ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Vulnerability To Climate Change

Purpose Arguing that a gendered invisibility surrounding climate justice contributes to the overall vulnerability and burden placed upon the ability of women from disadvantaged communities, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of developing a participative gender framework for climate justice with the potential to address the policy and programme vulnerability gap within climate change and conflict in Sudan’s Savannah Belt. Design/methodology/approach In utilising gender responsive discourse analysis, along with setting out the history of gender engagement within social forestry, this paper examines both the method of Sudan’s reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) development and its content. Findings The paper’s findings demonstrate that the REDD+ programme in Sudan provides ample evidence of the importance of integrating climate justice and gender approaches to policy, programming and projects through ensuring women and local community participation at all levels and interaction within policy and programme development, along with its implementation. Research limitations/implications The paper is theoretical in nature but did draw upon case studies and consultations, and the author was involved in some of the research. Originality/value The paper provides a positive and arguably original example of social forestry within the Savannah Belt and its utilisation as a best practice that has fed into Sudan’s REDD+ Proposal/Policy Document so as to potentially drive and streamline similar such initiatives across Sudan.

The Third World and Global Environmental Negotiations: Interests, Institutions and Ideas

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 48-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Williams
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Third World ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Collective Agency ◽  
The Third ◽  
Environmental Negotiations ◽  
Global Environmental Politics ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Third World

Marian Miller provided an engaging and persuasive analysis of the role of Third World states in global environmental negotiations. While Miller focused on the strategies of individual states, this article examines the collective agency of the Third World in global environmental negotiations. The first part of the article explores the debates on the continuing relevance of the Third World as a concept, and contends that the Third World retains relevance in the context of global bargaining processes. The second part of the article highlights the role of ideas and institutions in the continued reproduction of the Third World as an actor in global environmental politics. The final part of the article explores the ways in which the negotiations on climate change have tended to reproduce a distinctive Southern perspective.

scholarly journals Autochthony Belief and Making Amends to Indigenous Peoples: The Role of Collective Moral Emotions

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Wybren Nooitgedagt ◽  
Borja Martinović ◽  
Maykel Verkuyten ◽  
Jolanda Jetten
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
Collective Guilt ◽  
General Belief ◽  
Topic Avoidance ◽  
Important Principle ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
Settler Societies ◽  
First Arrival

AbstractIntergroup relations in settler societies have been defined by historical conflict over territorial ownership between indigenous peoples and settler majorities. However, the indigenous groups were there first, and first arrival is an important principle for assigning ownership to a group. In two studies among Australians of Anglo-Celtic origin (N = 322 and N = 475), we argued and found that the general belief in entitlements for first comers (i.e. autochthony) is related to more support for reparations in terms of apology and instrumental compensation for Aborigines, as well as to less topic avoidance. We further proposed that the group-based emotions of collective guilt, moral shame and image shame account for these associations. We found that majority members who endorsed autochthony belief experienced more guilt (Study 1 and 2), moral shame (Study2) and image shame (Study 2). In turn, guilt and moral shame were related to more support for reparations and less topic avoidance, whereas image shame was related to more topic avoidance, thereby partially suppressing the negative association between autochthony belief and topic avoidance. Our research points at the importance of considering autochthony belief and different types of moral emotions in research on past transgressions and current attempts to restore social justice for indigenous peoples.

Environmental Guilt and Shame

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Fredericks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Collective Guilt ◽  
States Government ◽  
Waste Food ◽  
Existential Issues

Bloggers confessing that they waste food, nongovernmental organizations naming corporations selling unsustainably harvested seafood, and veterans apologizing to Native Americans at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation for environmental and social devastation caused by the United States government all signal the existence of action-oriented guilt and identity-oriented shame about participation in environmental degradation. Environmental Guilt and Shame demonstrates that these moral emotions are common among environmentally friendly segments of the United States but have received little attention from environmental ethicists though they can catalyze or hinder environmental action. Concern about environmental guilt and shame among “everyday environmentalists” reveals the practical, emotional, ethical, and existential issues raised by environmental guilt and shame and ethical insights about guilt, shame, responsibility, agency, and identity. A typology of guilt and shame enables the development and evaluation of these ethical insights. Environmental Guilt and Shame makes three major claims: First, individuals and collectives, including the diffuse collectives that cause climate change, can have identity, agency, and responsibility and thus guilt and shame. Second, some agents, including collectives, should feel guilt and/or shame for environmental degradation if they hold environmental values and think that their actions shape and reveal their identity. Third, a number of conditions are required to conceptually, existentially, and practically deal with guilt and shame’s effects on agents. These conditions can be developed and maintained through rituals. Existing rituals need more development to fully deal with individual and collective guilt and shame as well as the anthropogenic environmental degradation that may spark them.

Of Guilt and Archetypes

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Fischer-Lichte
Keyword(s):  
Collective Guilt ◽  
Karl Jaspers ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Economic Miracle ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Post War

Chapter 6, ‘Of Guilt and Archetypes: Post-War productions of Greek Tragedies in the 1940s and 1950s’, discusses three topics. The first centres on productions of Oedipus the King during the first post-war years, which did not elaborate a new aesthetics but were received as contributions to the issue of being ‘guiltlessly guilty’ (Hegel) and of ‘collective guilt’ (Karl Jaspers). The next two productions each developed a new aesthetics: Brecht’s Antigone in Chur, Switzerland, in 1948 elaborated a model for a philosophical theatre, which at the time went almost unnoticed. Gustav Rudolf Sellner’s productions of Greek tragedies in Darmstadt in the 1950s, in contrast, marked a quest for the ‘universal human’. The productions negated any relationship to the social and political situation. Instead, they took refuge in ‘archetypes’. While aesthetically innovative, the productions served a restorative tendency that was widespread during this period of the economic miracle, particularly among the Bildungsbürgertum.

Collective Guilt, Collective Responsibility and the Serbs

2008 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 668-692 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janine Natalya Clark
Keyword(s):  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
Collective Guilt ◽  
Karl Jaspers ◽  
Entire Nation ◽  
Levels Of Support

Can an entire nation be collectively guilty for crimes committed in its name? Focusing on the case of Serbia, this article argues that collective guilt is a morally flawed and untenable concept that should be rejected. It presents various moral and practical objections to both the generic notion of collective guilt and the more specific idea of Serbian collective guilt and contends that the latter is a fundamental impediment to peace-building and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. On what basis might it be argued that the Serbs are collectively guilty? To claim that they are collectively guilty for having supported Milošević both exaggerates levels of support for the former Serbian leader and does a major injustice to those individuals who bravely fought against the Milošević regime. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers, the article concludes by suggesting that perhaps we can speak of Serbian collective responsibility.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document