This is philosophy bytes with me, David.
Edmonds, and me, Nigel Warburton.
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We face new environmental challenges, unprecedented challenges.
Climate change being the standout example.
That, says Dale Jamieson of New York University, raises new questions about how we should live, and it requires the cultivation of new virtues.
Green virtues.
Dale Jameson, welcome to philosophy bites.
It's a pleasure to be here.
The topic we're going to focus on is green virtues.
What are green virtues, and why should we be concerned with them?
Well, I think we need green virtues because we've really entered a different phase of the world, a different era, in which human relationships have changed, in which human relationships with nature have changed.
The traditional virtues that we have from the christian tradition, from the pagan tradition, really developed in a world which was not very dense in terms of human population, when resources were essentially unlimited.
And we now live in a world in which the causal reach of humanity is very, very great.
And that should lead us to think differently about ourselves and our relations to each other and to nature.
When you say the causal reach of human beings on nature is very great, could you give an example of what you mean?
So when I drive a car, I emit carbon, which goes into the atmosphere, which then goes through a set of incredibly complicated transformations, plays with other carbon molecules and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and may actually result in harms being felt by distant people in the further future.
This is not really a capacity that our ancestors had.
So you're saying that we need special virtues because of the changing factual situation?