Why Posterity Matters

The first comprehensive philosophical examination of our duties to future generations, Dr de-Shalit argues that they are a matter of justice, not charity or supererogation.

This 1999 book examines the way in which the Romantic period's culture of posterity inaugurates a tradition of writing which demands that the poet should write for an audience of the future: the true poet, a figure of neglected genius, can be properly appreciated only after death. Andrew Bennett argues that this involves a radical shift in the conceptualization of the poet and poetic reception, with wide-ranging implications for the poetry and poetics of the Romantic period. He surveys the contexts for this transformation of the relationship between poet and audience, engaging with issues such as the commercialization of poetry, the gendering of the canon, and the construction of poetic identity. Bennett goes on to discuss the strangely compelling effects which this reception theory produces in the work of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley and Byron, who have come to embody, for posterity, the figure of the Romantic poet.

Our relationship to future generations raises fundamental issues for ethical thought, to which a Christian theological response is both possible and significant. A relationship to future generations is implicitly central to many of today's most public controversies - over environmental protection, genetic research, and the purpose of education, to name but a few; but it has received little explicit or extended consideration. In Living for the Future Rachel Muers argues and seeks to demonstrate that to consider future generations as ethically significant is not simply to extend an existing ethical framework, but to rethink how ethics is done. Doing intergenerationally responsible theology and ethics means paying attention to how people are formed as theological and ethical reasoners (reasoners about the good), how social practices of deliberation about the good are maintained and developed, and how all of this relates to an understanding of the world as the sphere of God's transforming action. In other words, an intergenerationally responsible theological ethics will pay attention to the ethics, and the spirituality, of "ethics" itself. Her account of the ethical relation to future generations centres on three key concepts: "choosing life" (see Deut 30:19); "keeping the sources open"; and "sustaining fruitful contexts". These concepts are developed theologically and in engagement with extra-theological conversations on intergenerational responsibility. She shows how they take up and move beyond concerns expressed in those conversations - for "survival", for the right distribution of resources, and for the maintenance of human values.

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online.

Climate change is a pressing international political issue, for which a practical but principled solution is urgently required. Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World aims to make normative theorising on climate justice more relevant and applicable to political realities and public policy. The motivation behind this edited collection is that normative theorising has something to offer even in an imperfect world mired by partial compliance and unfavourable circumstances. In the last years, a lively debate has sprung up in political philosophy about non-ideal theory and there has also been an upsurge of interest in the various normative issues raised by climate change such as intergenerational justice, transnational harm, collective action, or risk assessment. However, there has been little systematic discussion of the links between climate justice and non-ideal theory even though the former would seem like a paradigm example of the relevance of the latter. The aim of this edited volume is to address this. In doing so, the volume presents original work from leading experts on climate ethics, including several who have participated in climate policy. The first part of the book discusses those facets of the debate on climate justice that become relevant due to the shortcomings of current global action on climate change. The second part makes specific suggestions for adjusting current policies and negotiating procedures in ways that are feasible in the relatively short term while still decreasing the distance between current climate policy and the ideal. The chapters in the third and final part reflect upon how philosophical work can be brought to bear on the debates in climate science, communication, and politics.

The links between education and sustainable development are deepening, although subject to much controversy and debate. The success of the sustainability discourse depends both on the pedagogic and research functions of higher education. Similarly, for higher education itself to remain relevant and engaged it faces pressure not only to integrate the insights and lessons drawn from the perspective of sustainable development, but also to be responsive to scrutiny of its own practices in relation to sustainability. Among professionals in higher education, sustainable development has its supporters and detractors. It is embraced by some individuals and departments while being perceived by others as a threat to the coherence of particular disciplines. Although it is not currently an academic discipline in its own right, increasing public and professional familiarity with the term, and the increasing urgency of global calls for the implementation of sustainable development mean that this is rapidly changing. This volume analyses the impact of the concepts and practices of sustainability and sustainable development on various academic disciplines, institutional practices, fields of study and methods of enquiry. The contributors, drawn from a wide-range of disciplines, perspectives, educational levels and institutional contexts, examine the purpose of the modern university and the nature of sustainable education, which includes exploring links to social movements for sustainability projects, curriculum change, culture and biodiversity, values relating to gender equality and global responsibility, and case studies on the transformation, or otherwise, of some specific disciplines.

The Spirit of the Soil challenges environmentalists to think more deeply and creatively about agriculture. Paul B. Thompson identifies four `worldviews' which tackle agricultural ethics according to different philosophical priorities; productionism, stewardship, economics and holism. He examines current issues such as the use of pesticides and biotechnology from these ethical perspectives. This book achieves an open-ended account of sustainability designed to minimise hubris and help us to recapture the spirit of the soil.