A Philosophical Case for Ecological Pessimism [Hardcover]

Introduction? 1. Ecological Risks? 2. Understanding Pessimism? 3. Evil in Environmental Affairs? 4. Objections to Ecological Pessimism? 5. Environmental Philosophy as a Way of Life? 6. A Case for Meliorism? 7. Why Not Optimism?

Our current ecological crisisfeaturing climate change, ocean acidification, and mass extinctionraises moral issues, including a high probability of injustice and massive harm. This book defends a position called ecological pessimism, whose core feature is the belief that ecological catastrophe is likely to occur in the future.

Toby Svoboda teaches philosophy and environmental studies at Colgate University. His previous book is A Philosophical Defense of Misanthropy (Routledge, 2022).

Our current ecological crisisfeaturing problems such as climate change, ocean acidification, and mass extinctionraises various moral issues, including a high probability of injustice and massive harm. This book defends a position called ecological pessimism, an attitude whose core feature is the belief that ecological catastrophe is likely to occur in the future.

The authors defense of ecological pessimism has two components. First, he makes the case that the relevant ecological facts about our world make ecological pessimism a reasonable, and indeed plausible, expectation. Second, he argues that ecological pessimism is morally and practically appropriate. Ecological pessimism is a distinctively moral kind of pessimism because the failure to avert ecological catastrophe leads to great ills for human beings and non-human nature. The authors account responds to likely objections to ecological pessimism and makes the case against ecological optimism. Despite this, the author makes clear that being pessimistic about our ecological prospects is compatible with the melioristic project of improving our bad condition. He argues tlc‰