Catastrophe Ethics
About This Book
Travis Rieder starts from what he calls the Puzzle: how can ordinary daily choices be squared with what the planet urgently needs? Climate change is his main example. Should you drink from a plastic bottle? Should you buy a Tesla, or is that just what Elon Musk and other corporations want you to believe? The question is how anyone decides what is right when the problem is enormous and shared by everyone. Rieder argues that the Puzzle is not limited to climate. The same difficulty shows up in many other areas of modern life, and the moral problems we face now have few precedents in the history of philosophy. The book takes a lively tour of traditional moral reasoning, drawing on thinkers such as Plato, Hegel, and Kant, and then explains why those approaches fall short here. Classic exercises like trolley problems, where one person is sacrificed for a larger group, cannot capture the scale and complexity of today's global crises. The tools most people reach for when trying to do the right thing also fail when the issue is individual responsibility for collective harms. The author's answer is to widen our set of ethical concepts. He sets out how to change the way we think, covering everyday matters like bottled water as well as life-changing decisions such as whether to have children. Written as a warm, personal guide, the book helps readers build their own catastrophe ethics and live a morally decent life in a frightening and complicated world.
ISBN: 9780593471975
You might also like
Unlock Exclusive Content
Experience the hidden layers of 'Catastrophe Ethics'. Scan the book cover with the Appilog mobile app to see behind-the-scenes videos, author reviews, and interactive digital stories.
Available on iOS & Android
