Tag: moral philosophy

Benevolent Anthropocentrism and the Problem of Selfishness

This paper investigates William Grey’s claim that a moderate conception of anthropocentrism is not only inevitable, but also conducive to the promotion of a thriving biosphere. It considers the underlying motivational externalist basis of Grey’s anthropocentrism and highlights a risked incoherence between Grey’s two premises: anthropocentric inevitability and prescribed benevolent action. Illuminating this tension, this paper questions the legitimacy of motivation as an appropriate yardstick for measuring the efficacy of a normative framework. It concludes that beyond mere arbitrary distinction, anthropocentrism fails as a compelling alternative to aspirational rationalist frameworks of environmental ethics.

Congratulations, You’re Included! Now, You’re Under Arrest: Arendt and Colonial Forms of Rightlessness

This paper offers a critique of Hannah Arendt’s account of the “right to have rights” in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). While accepting Arendt’s claim that rights depend upon political belonging rather than humanity alone, it argues that her framework fails to capture rightlessness produced through coercive legal inclusion. The argument draws on Irene Watson and Sharon Venne’s critique of state-administered Indigenous rights, using the criminalisation and over-incarceration of Indigenous Australians to demonstrate that recognition by law does not necessarily restore political standing. Instead, colonial law can render Indigenous peoples visible primarily as subjects of policing and punishment while denying their authority as self-determining peoples. The paper concludes that Arendt’s account, including her analysis of assimilation, is sensitive to exclusion and defective belonging. Yet, settler-colonial rightlessness reveals a limitation: having rights requires not merely belonging to a political community but belonging as a people capable of self-determination.

Environment: Wilderness, Home, Commodity

By taking a reflective approach to her relationship with the environment, Mira Gibson intersects William Cronon’s article ‘The Trouble of Wilderness’ (1996) with Steven Vogel’s paper ‘Marx and Alienation from Nature’ (1988) to explore her relationship with the environment. Through this reflection, she investigates what she means by ‘environment’ and the implications of this on her ethical life. Then, she situates the possibility for environmental change within the social networks of labour.

Capital Punishment as a Categorical Contradiction of our Duty to Respect Other Humans

In this paper I argue that Immanuel Kant’s positions on the death penalty as a justified form of punishment and on universally owed respect are incompatible, both in practice during Kant’s lifetime, and conceptually. This contradiction is identified between concepts presented in two parts of Kant’s The Metaphysics of Morals, and while both sections have different focus areas within the broader field of ethics, their respective subject matter is intended to occur within the same universal system of philosophy. As such, identifying this incongruency in Kant’s system suggests that his concepts of either punishment or respect may not be adequately justified.