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Investment without return: on futures that will never be ours

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posted on 2023-06-09, 14:06 authored by Paul Davies
This chapter reflects on what it means to have obligations to futures that necessarily will never be ours. It focuses on the non-empirical or transcendental operation of an ‘it is not too late’. It notes how the Kantian account of obligation seems unable to handle the significant urgency of climate change. It considers how Heidegger’s way of thinking about the catastrophic implications of technology succeeds in acknowledging such a significance. However, Heidegger seems to have to leave neither room nor time for a recognisable obligation. It argues that if there is a meaningfully distinct duty to a distant future then that future and its sense must be construed as ethical from the outset. It tries to meet the nihilist-realist’s challenge to this idea.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Publisher

Palgrave Macmillan

Page range

221-245

Book title

Climate change and the humanities: historical, philosophical and interdisciplinary approaches to the contemporary environmental crisis

Place of publication

London, UK

ISBN

9781137551238

Department affiliated with

  • Philosophy Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Editors

James William Storrs Cullis, Vinita Damodaran, Alexander Elliott

Legacy Posted Date

2018-07-09

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