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Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics
Guest Editors:
Vincent Blok (Wageningen University)
Guido Ruivenkamp (Wageningen University)
Pieter Lemmens (Radboud University)
At the same time, earth sciences make increasingly clear that the earth systems
themselves are inherently instable and characterized by transformation, change and volatility.
Environmental scientists like Nigel Clark for instance argue: Whatever we do, ice cores
and other proxies of past climate profess to us, our planet is capable of taking us by surprise.
With or without the destabilizing surcharge of human activities, the conditions most of us take
for granted could be taken away, quite suddenly, and with very little warning (Clark, 2011:
xi). Deep geological time points at a fundamental asymmetry of the human relationship to
planet earth. Also contemporary philosophers like Question Meillassoux acknowledge the
earth as being and going beyond human agency (Meillassoux, 2008; Morton, 2013; Thacker,
2011). Or as Ray Brassier argues: We are surrounded by processes going on quite
independently of any relationship we may happen to have with them (Brassier, 2007: 59). In
fact, planet earth can be seen as the unstable condition for the emergence of human agency
(Blok, 2016). For some, this even implies that that planet earth is the condition for the
emergence of the environmental crisis we face today (Blok, 2015).
This asymmetry of the human relationship to planet earth challenges current
conceptualizations of human stewardship in general, and in agricultural and environmental
ethics in particular. How to think human stewardship of nature in order to ensure the
sustainability of earth as our life support system, if we have to acknowledge that the earth has
agency herself and that we are entirely dependent on her agency? At the same time, the
asymmetry of the human relationship to planet earth may also provide a fundamentally
different starting point for our conceptualization of human agency beyond stewardship, care
etc. Contemporary philosophers like Jean-Luc Nancy for instance acknowledge the
fundamental role of asymmetry which he calls a void or nothing as possibility for the
creation of the world (Nancy, 2007). The confrontation with asymmetry urges us to reconsider
and reinvent the human relationship to nature, to give up the idea of one ideal world and to
acknowledge a multiplicity of different worlds. Furthermore, it questions the dominancy of
reciprocity-based economic exchanges in the current conceptualizations of the human
relationship to nature, and may inspire a non-reciprocal concept of nature (cf. Bataille, 1991),
exchange (cf. Derrida, 1992; 1995), ethics (cf. Levinas, 1969) and politics (Hardt & Negri,
2004).
This special issue of Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics aims to explore
the question how agricultural and environmental ethics should respond to the asymmetry of
the human relationship to planet earth. We look for both fundamental reflections on the nature
of human agency and its ethos in relation to planet earth, and for contributions that discuss
these issues in the context of agricultural and environmental ethics. Possible questions to be
addressed may include:
-
How can, given the asymmetric human relationship to planet earth, ethics be
conceptualized in agricultural and environmental practices?
Contributions are invited to reflect on these and other issues from various perspectives (e.g.
empirical research, critical-theoretical approach, ontology, epistemology, ethics, applied
ethics) and in particular to ponder the question of what the asymmetry of the human relation
to planet earth means for agricultural and environmental ethics.
enquiries related to proposed topics. For this, please contact Vincent Blok
(vincent.blok@wur.nl).
Contact Email:
Corresponding Gues Editor: Vincent Blok, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
(vincent.blok@wur.nl)
References:
Blok, V. 2015 The human glanze, the experience of environmental distress and the
Affordance of nature: Toward a phenomenology of the ecological crisis, Journal
of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 28(5): 925-938 (DOI 10.1007/s10806015-9565-8).
Blok, V. 2016. Thinking the Earth: Critical Reflections on Meillassoux and Heideggers
concept of the Earth (working paper).
Clark, N. 2011. Inhuman Nature. Sociable Life on a Dynamic Planet. Los Angeles: Sage.
Derrida, J. 1991. The Gift of Death. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press)
Derrida, J. 1992. Given Time: i. Counterfeit Money. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press)
Federici, S. 2004. Caliban and the witch. New York, Autonomedia.
Hardt, M., Negri, A. 2004. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. London:
Penquin
Latour, B. 1993. We have never been modern. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
Levinas, E. 1969. Totality and Infinity. An Essay on Exteriority. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP
Meillassoux, Q. 2013. After Finitude. An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. London/New
Delhi/New York/Sydney: Bloomsbury
Morton, T. 2013. Hyperobjects. Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World.
Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press
Moore, J. 2015. Capitalism in the web of life. London: Verso
Nancy, J.L. 2007. The Creation of the World, or Globalization. New York: Suny Press
Plumwood, V. 2002. Environmental Culture: The ecological crisis of reason. New York:
Routledge
Thacker, E., 2011. In The Dust Of This Planet. Horror of Philosophy vol. 1, Washington:
Zero Books
Waddock, S. 2002. We are all stakeholders of gaia: A normative perspective on stakeholder
thinking, Organization & Environment 24(2): 192-212.