Ecological Justice for the Anthropocene

Abstract

The liberal idea of justice has always been based on human exceptionalism and separation from the rest of the natural world. The belief that we are distinct — from each other, from nonhuman animals, from the processes that sustain our physical lives — is the normative background of, and grounding for, a wide variety of conceptions of the ethical construction of justice. Such an idea has always been a convenient fiction that ignores our integration within, and responsibility for, broader systems, communities and practices of humans and nonhumans alike; however, we have reached a point, with human impacts on such animals and systems, where such wilful ignorance is simply untenable. In a climate-changed and human-directed world brimming with vulnerabilities and threats to the functioning of individual humans, nonhuman animals and ecological systems alike, justice is fully entwined with the condition of nonhuman nature. This chapter will explore both a conceptualisation and practice of justice that includes the nonhuman realm.