Environmental Guilt and Shame

2021 ◽  
pp. 88-103
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Fredericks
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
Collective Guilt ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Naming And Shaming

With a typology of guilt and shame and philosophical justification for both individual and collectives experiencing environmental guilt and shame in hand, Chapter 5 returns to and expands upon the evidence of environmental guilt and shame to explore how well the theories align with the evidence. It demonstrates that that all of the elements of the typology, including collective guilt and shame, are found in accounts of environmental guilt and shame. As collective guilt and shame are likely to be most controversial to readers and have the least evidence in the previously examined data, Chapter 5 supplements the sources examined in Chapter 2, with additional popular and academic literature about collective guilt and shame, particularly claims about the human species in Anthropocene literature and the existence of naming and shaming campaigns which target governments and corporations judged to contribute to environmental degradation. The presence of so many forms of environmental guilt and shame in popular culture indicate that a multifaceted response to these moral emotions and the actions and conditions that give rise to them is necessary.

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.

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.

scholarly journals Does Type of Violence Matter for Interventions to Mitigate Mass Atrocities?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P Broache ◽  
Kate Cronin-Furman
Keyword(s):  
International Security ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
Intervention Strategies ◽  
Military Interventions ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Heterogeneous Effects ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Naming And Shaming ◽  
Critical Challenge

Abstract Preventing and mitigating mass atrocities is a critical challenge in international security. But international interventions to stop mass atrocities have met with mixed success, and the academic literature offers limited guidance on how to improve this record. We argue that more attention must be paid to the nature of violence, specifically whether violence targets identity groups as such or political opponents of the perpetrator more broadly. Using Krain's (2017) data on interventions and mass atrocities, we test for heterogeneous effects of interventions by violence type. We find that while antiperpetrator military interventions can reduce the severity of identity-based violence, nonmilitary actions have negligible effects. By contrast, in cases of politicide, “naming and shaming” is effective, while military intervention is not; neutral and properpetrator military interventions and economic sanctions are ineffective regardless of violence type. We conclude that intervention strategies should be more narrowly tailored on the basis of violence type.

scholarly journals Looking for Black Religions in 20th Century Comics, 1931–1993

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 400
Author(s):  
Yvonne Chireau
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
African Diaspora ◽  
Black Religion ◽  
American Christianity ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Folk Traditions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Race And Religion

Relationships between religion and comics are generally unexplored in the academic literature. This article provides a brief history of Black religions in comic books, cartoons, animation, and newspaper strips, looking at African American Christianity, Islam, Africana (African diaspora) religions, and folk traditions such as Hoodoo and Conjure in the 20th century. Even though the treatment of Black religions in the comics was informed by stereotypical depictions of race and religion in United States (US) popular culture, African American comics creators contested these by offering alternatives in their treatment of Black religion themes.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Kende
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Executive Summary ◽  
Actual Performance ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Specific Focus ◽  
International Trading ◽  
The Government ◽  
Naming And Shaming

The Introduction contains an executive summary of the book. It also encompasses some background highlighting the rationale for the book, detailing the still persistent lack of comprehensive academic literature on the TPRM and the need for further research with regard to the TPRM, both as an ‘understudied’ WTO entity and as a prime example of a mechanism for peer review, and an explanation with regard to the methodology, which aims to assess the TPRM’s historic and actual performance as the WTO’s system for peer review through a specific focus (1) on the implementation of the TPRM’s objectives (transparency and naming and shaming); (2) its evolving structures, thereby focusing on individual TPRs and on the yearly Overviews of Developments in the International Trading Environment; and (3) its participants, the government under review and its peers, the WTO Secretariat, and the discussant(s)).

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.

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.

Victorian Lyric in the Anthropocene

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 753-783
Author(s):  
Devin M. Garofalo
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Reasonable Doubt ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Real Possibility ◽  
Charles Lyell ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Principles Of Geology

When Charles Lyell chronicles humankind's rise to geologic power in thePrinciples of Geology, he talks out of both sides of his mouth. Detailing the human species’ seemingly unmatched force as a terrestrial “levelling agent,” he ruminates on an unsettling possibility that haunts the present: “it admits of reasonable doubt whether, upon the whole, we fertilize or impoverish the lands we occupy.” Already at the time of Lyell's writing, the human species had “displaced” or altogether extinguished “a number of beasts of prey, birds, and animals of every class” (2:148) through deforestation, hunting, and the “progress of colonization” (2:150–51). But elsewhere in thePrinciples, Lyell puts into question what this history of environmental degradation otherwise seems to assert: that to be human is to possess a singular capacity for mastery. Thus, Lyell declares, “we ought always, before we decide that any part of the influence of man is novel and anomalous, carefully to consider all the powers of other animate agents which may be limited or superseded by him” (2:206). Tracing how swarms of insects gave dramatic and lasting shape to the German arboreal landscape in ways that humans could never replicate, he concludes: “[I]t does not follow that this kind of innovation”—human innovation—“is unprecedented” (2:206). Even as Lyell imagines humankind as “superior” in its capacity to act as “a single species,” he persistently lingers with the very real possibility that humans donotpossess a “novel and anomalous” hold over the world (2:207, emphasis original). Instead, thePrinciplestraces how the world is shaped by “physical causes” and nonhuman agencies that elude control and unmask the relative “insignifican[ce]” of humankind's “aggregate force” (2:207). Inasmuch as humans comprise only one part of an agential assemblage whose shifting interactions elude anthropogenic mastery, thePrinciplesimagines humankind as interpenetrated by and profoundly susceptible to nonhuman life-forms and forces. According to Lyell, then, deep history speaks not only of the human species’ seemingly privileged capacity for action but also its nonintentionality, noninstrumentality, and vulnerability. That thePrinciplestells a story about the porous interfaces between human and nonhuman geologic agents is perhaps surprising, given that it emerged and participated in a moment which, for many, marks the zenith of imperial and anthropogenic power.

Ultimate Answers to Proximate Questions: The Evolutionary Motivations behind Tattoos and Body Piercings in Popular Culture

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael A. Carmen ◽  
Amanda E. Guitar ◽  
Haley M. Dillon
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
The Body ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Population Densities ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Past Event ◽  
Symbolic Thought

Numerous studies have found that piercing and tattooing the body is an increasingly prevalent trend in modern popular culture; however, this is not only a modern practice. Evidence of various forms of body ornamentation has been found in human societies dating back thousands of years. Although prior research has focused on the potential relationships between various personality traits and the likelihood of piercing or tattooing the body, few have approached this topic from an evolutionary perspective. For instance, the general motivations for getting tattoos and piercings have tended to fall into the same three categories for hundreds of years: (a) a symbol of an important past event, love, or friendship, (b) group membership, and/or (c) a marker of individuality. We argue that these motivations are simply proximate behaviors for an ultimate evolutionary reason: the perpetuation of one's genes. In this article, we propose two new theories about the origins of body ornamentation. First, in our “human canvas” hypothesis, we propose a link between body ornamentation and the human species' historical use of symbolic thought. Second, in our “upping the ante” hypothesis, we suggest that the steady rise in popularity of tattooing and piercing in Western culture has come about due to larger population densities and advancements in healthcare, which has led individuals to seek new and unique displays of fitness (i.e., body ornamentation). We then conclude with proximate examples in popular culture to display the proposed ultimate evolutionary reasoning behind body ornamentation.

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