TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
Need for Posthuman Ethics in the Anthropocene Era
Abstract
Ethics, which constitutes principles that guide human conduct, deserves particular attention in this era of the Anthropocene, when human actions greatly influence ecology. Renaissance humans have hegemonised humanistic ethics of living and interacting with the world since the Enlightenment. While exalting human exceptionalism, humanism has relegated all other forms of existence to a subservient taxonomy, categorising them as raw material for human empowerment. The self-exalted autonomous subject, homo sapiens, faces the threat of extinction in the wake of unprecedented and violent ecological reactions. The exponential growth of the agency of intelligent machines also calls to question the autonomous human agency propagated by humanism. A paradigm shift is the moment’s need; this paper suggests posthuman ethics as an alternative. The new worldview, post-humanism, places the homo sapiens in relation to the rest of the universe. Philosophical post-humanism, proposed by Francesca Ferrando, foregrounds posthuman ethics that are post-humanistic, post-anthropocentric, and post-dualistic. They form a roadmap towards a sustainable future.
References
Badmington, Neil. “Theorizing Post-humanism.” Cultural Critique. Winter, No. 53, 2003: 10–27.
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. New Delhi: Viva Books, 2015.
Bolter, Jay David. “Post-humanism.” The International Encyclopaedia of Communication Theory and Philosophy. <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/9781118766804.wbiect220> 03 March 2016.
Boulter, Jonathan. “Postmodernism.” After the Human: Culture, Theory and Criticism in the 21st Century. Ed. Sherryl Vint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020: 44-57.
Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013.
Braidotti, Rosi. Posthuman Knowledge. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2019.
Braidotti, Rosi. “Four Thesis on Posthuman Feminism.” Anthropocene Feminism. Ed. Richard Grusin. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017: 21-48.
Brandon, Peter S., and Patrizia Lombardi. Evaluating Sustainable Development in the Built Environment. Oxford: Blackwell Science Ltd, 2010.
Brown, Donald A., “The Role of Ethics in Sustainable Development and Environmental Protection Decision-making.” Sustainable Development: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy. Ed. John Lemons and Donald A. Brown. Dordrecht: Springer-Science + Business Media, 1995: 39-51.
Copson, Andrew. “What Is Humanism?” The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Humanism. Ed. Andrew Copson and A. C. Grayling. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2015. 1-33.
Davies, Tony. Humanism. London: Routledge, 1997.
Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefancic, editors. Critical race theory: An introduction. New York: New York University Press, 2001.
Ferrando, Francesca. Philosophical Post-humanism. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.
Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences. London: Routledge, 1989.
Haraway, Donna. Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge, 1991.
Hassan, Ihab. “Prometheus as Performer: Toward a Posthumanist Culture?” The Georgia Review. Vol. 31, No. 4, 1977: 830-50.
Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Herbrechter, Stefan. Post-humanism: A critical analysis. New Delhi: Bloomsbury, 2018.
Herbrechter, Stefan. “Poststructuralism and the End(s) of Humanism.” After the Human: Culture, Theory and Criticism in the 21st Century. Ed. Sherryl Vint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020: 31-43.
Lamont, Corliss. The Philosophy of Humanism. New York: Humanist Press, 1997.
Nayar, Pramod K. Posthumanism. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014.
Probyn-Rapsey, Fiona. “Anthropocentrism.” Critical Terms for Animal Studies. Ed. Lori Gruen. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 201: 47-63.
Rogers, Peter P., et al. An Introduction to Sustainable Development. London: Glen Educational Foundation, Inc., 2008.
Umadevi, S. “Humanism in Indian Philosophy-Contributions of Swami Vivekananda and Deendayal Upadhyaya-an Analysis.” Indian Political Science Association. Vol. 76, No. 3, 2015: 271-76.
Copyright (c) 2023 Journal of Dharma

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.