Environmental crisis roots are epistemological, ethical, and political, a crisis of ideas

Evidence

We are facing a global environmental crisis, but its root causes are epistemological, ethical, and po liti cal in nature: epistemological in the sense that, since the Enlightenment, our institutionalized search for knowledge has been largely reductionist and empirical in orientation, yet now we are confronted by challenges whose full magnitude is only perceptible— let alone resolvable— through integrative and imaginative thinking; ethical in the sense that our dominant models of human behavior at present fi xate on interest maximization in an effort merely to describe and predict, yet our models and their expressions have begun endogenously to limit our understanding of ourselves and our relations; and po liti cal in the sense that, also since the Enlightenment, we have inhabited conceptions of or ga ni za tion that are primarily individualistic and insular in form, yet now we require conceptions that admit smoothly into their purview statistical victims, foreign citizens, future generations, nonhuman lifeforms, and other seemingly absent interest holders. The global environmental crisis is therefore in no small mea sure a crisis of ideas. — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, 654

Categorization

• XREF: Frames the polyad: this is the bridge claim tying Legal Systems’ institution critique to Eco-Justice and Soundscape’s listening-observation method — the idea that reductionist empiricism itself causes harm. — connects to: Enlightenment thinking sought the indubitable and lost sight of the undeniable — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 657; Tradeoffs, though inevitable, need not be accepted unregretted or beyond reform — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 666; Technical sophistication of policy has discouraged public engagement with values in assessment — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 664 (+7 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: Synthesizes the whole book’s thesis in one paragraph: that descriptive models of behavior have begun to limit our self-understanding (the endogeneity thesis), individualistic political forms exclude statistical/absent interest holders — dense enough to sit with.

Broader Connections

• The ecological crisis is fundamentally a crisis in learned patterns of thought #corroborates (0.92) — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 227
• Modernity’s core crisis is epistemological, not merely material or environmental #corroborates (0.85)
• Eco-ethical consciousness requires analyzing cultural roots of ecological harm #corroborates (0.82) — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 228
• Ecological crisis is systemic to modernity, not contingent #expands (0.80)
• Economic crises are also conceptual and intellectual catastrophes #exemplifies (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 45
• Modernity’s exclusion of nature from justice created its sustainability crisis #expands (0.78) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 473
• The crisis exposed an epistemological contradiction festering inside orthodox economics #exemplifies (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 619