Sciences, Politics & the ecological crisis Flashcards
I. Science, politics, and the ecological crisis
Bruno Latour
A. Bruno Latour: Great divide between ____ caused by the separation between nature and culture
1. There are some distinctions. Not sure what it is. This is a very important distinction brought by modernity
a) Today we can’t distinguish between nature and culture → it’s impossible to determine whether an object is natural or cultural → we have many objects that aren’t pure nature or pure culture (hybrids)
(1) Diseases are a perfect example of hybridity, climate change could be stretched to be viewed as not purely natural or purely cultural
b) Scientists should share the responsibility for _ with citizens and policymakers
2. The entire point of Latour’s work: scientists should share the burden of speaking about ecology with everyone else
Epistemodicy
B. Amplified by Catherine Larrère’s context of “epistemodicy” → we have a problem with science because science is responsible for the ecological crisis in a way
1. Science produced the tools and technologies that caused the crisis but we need science to solve it
C. The IPCC is the highest authority when it comes to the climate crisis → one of the most important institutions when it comes to addressing the climate crisis
1. There’s always been a suspicion about the power of scientists within our democracies however → even occurred in Ancient Greece
The role of science in environmental policy
A. Experts have become the drivers of environmental policies → with the development of the environmental crisis we have a risk of a technocracy → government of experts
B. In order to establish the connection between productivity and the environment, we need science → can’t quantify the effects of pollution on ecosystems without science
1. The Contamination of the Earth → we changed the paradigm → we’ve moved away from the concept of nature to the concept of the environment
a) Nature is outside of us, but human societies are inside of the environment → study the exteriority when you study nature; when you study the environment you study all the relationships you have with what’s around you and what surrounds you in the ecosystems
b) Way more complex to understand the impacts on the environment versus the impacts on nature
c) More difficult to understand our impact on what’s around us → created a need for science to quantify and understand this impact → every time there’s a new law created on the environment, there’s the creation of a new community that would work to quantify the impact of this policy
Prevention vs Precaution
C. Extremely important to distinguish between prevention and precaution
1. Precaution: risks that aren’t quantifiable so we apply the precautionary principle when we can’t quantify the risks of an activity
2. Prevention: scientists can quantify the risks and prevent the damage that will occur, by taking measures, ensuring those risks are contained, etc
D. If the guiding principles of environmental policy are prevention and precaution, we can’t get rid of scientists → they’re the ones that will tell us if risks are quantifiable and whether we should apply prevention or precaution
Habermas + Voluntarist model / Technocratic model
E. Habermas:
1. The voluntarist model of decision-making: the will of the politician guides the decision
2. Pragmatic model: knowledge is coconstructed between politicians and scientists
a) Works by a permanent back and forth between the government and the experts → Habermas believes that through this discussion, we reach a better decision; also allows for an appropriation of scientific questions by the citizens → citizens will witness dialogue and form their own opinions on the matter
b) A strong believer that the discussion between scientists and government shouldn’t be the only discussion in policy-making → citizens should also be active in this process → calls for forums in which experts, the government, and citizens will all talk to each other → provides rules for that discussion to be a good deliberation
(1) Rules of a good deliberation → must be public, should be framed to be as inclusive as possible (citizen participation must be made to feel equal to the experts and politicians → need to feel legitimate), the rationality of the arguments must be similar (how to ensure that???) (arguments must be able to be criticized by another on rational grounds
VS
3. Technocratic model: the scientist is above the politician in making decisions
Deliberative democracy
III. Toward a deliberative democracy: the liberal argument
A. Including citizens in the decision making process/ how does that happen? What are the merits of doing that?
B. Deliberative democracy allows us to move away from a form of paternalism
1. John Rawls → deliberation is about justice → goal of deliberation is the emergence of public reason, which is only possible with a debate where rational arguments are exchanged
a) Public reason comes from the fact that the decisions you make will be acceptable to other citizens → comes from rationality and acceptance of decisions
b) Deliberation is cooperation between individuals/free individuals → by cooperating, individuals reach a consensus (public reason)
c) Justice → you guarantee hte free expression of everyone’s opinion
d) You will reach public reason, which is a virtue because it avoids the tyranny of the minority → much more inclusive than other decision making processes → avoids paternalism because it avoids the alternative of having one authority telling you what ot do
2. Public reason: free expression of the opinions of the citizens to form a public judgement → against paternalism, against a tyranny of the minority of people
C. For environmental policies, this means that a cscientist or engineer could inform deliberation/could perfectly fit into deliberation, but should not overstep their duties and must include a vision of collective action
1. scientists/experts could contribute to public decisions as long as they share the burden of the decision with citizens
D. Other virtue of deliberation is pluralism: pluralism is important to liberal authors, allows for fair representation of citizens’ arguments in a given political community
1. The quality of deliberation depends on its capacity to reflect the moral reality of society → this is why deliberation should be as inclusice as possible to represent as many opinions/perspectives as possible
a) No quotas/preselection based on race/gender/social group
b) Strong dimension of pluralism in debate over environmental issues
2. Way to reach Paris Agreement objectives → tax carbon more (gas, oil) → impact on the citizens of the state
a) Haut Conseil pour le Climat vs Convetion Citoyenne pour la Climat
Towards a technological democracy
IV. Toward a technological democracy: the epistemic agreement
A. Can we justify deliberation on epistemic grounds? Expert bodies don’t always make the best decisions
B. Experts have issues anticipating the future. Experts and scientists are people → have cognitive and psychological biases. Judgements aren’t the reuslt of pure expertise, they’re more the result of cognitive and psychological biases.
1. Two kinds of experts when it comes to the future: uses animals to categorize
a) Hedgehog: very centered on his specific area of disciple
b) Fox: masters a few elements of a lot of fields
2. Hedgehogs: less relevant than fox experts in anticipating the future because they have blinders due to their paradigms.
a) Most experts are hedgehogs; their vision is constrained by their scientific paradigms, which are dictated by the scientific community at that speicfic point in time
Inclusion and epistemic advantage of democracies
C. Need to include citizens → other argument by Robert Goodin argues that the more people you include in the decision, the better the decision will be.
1. The inclusion of a large number of outlooks will produce a better decision than that of only a few
2. Citizens become more able to produce knowledge when they are associated to the decision making process
D. Epistemic advantage of democracies: we have the ability to aggregate a lot of opinions when making decisions
1. Include citizens to include local knowledge that will be added ot the expert knowledge
2. Deliberation also educates citizens → provides education to the public
How deliberation improves policy
E. Improves policies in different ways
1. Deliberation provides coordination (the integration of many different perspectives in the decision making process)
2. Better consideration for the global ecological crisis
a) Deliberation raises the level of awareness among citizens about hte crisis
3. The priority given to public goods over private interests → deliberation encourages research for public good over private interest
4. You have the possibility to acknowledge the interests of future generations as you talk about hte future
5. THe development of an ecological citizenship → people aren’t just citizens or consumers anymore, they have obligations and duties
6. Reflexivity →
7. Deliberative mechanisms stimulate the creativity of individuals → indviduals are more creative and will therefore search for ecological alternatives that are sometimes not considered by the experts
Rethinking the social contract // a natural contract
I. Rethinking the social contract
A. Social contract = based on the will of the people and gives main directions to our political system
1. The will of humans is the driver of decisions → from the beginning we haven’t given nonhumans and future generations any kind of weight in the decision-making processes
2. Will should come from future generations and nonhumans as they are the ones who will suffer the consequences of our decisions
3. We need a new contract → not a social contract
B. The ecology of others → Natural Law
C. Natural Law is the background of all social contract theories
1. Private property, freedom, and order
D. Isogoria → the root of democracies, the ability to speak and express yourself in a rational way is critical
1. You exclude anyone who can’t speak that way
2. Why we built our democratic societies without any consideration of nature
E. Situation today: our democratic institutions fail to include nature
1. Michael Serres: We need a natural contract, not a social contract
a) A natural contract would help
b) A natural contract would recgonize the political and ____ rights of nature → they should have proper representation and there should be legal limits to the ways that we use nature
The ecological limits of representative democracies
II. The ecological limits of representative democracies
A. Spatial limits: representative democracies are national in the sense that they are based off of nation-states → morals and social conduct are conductive to that
1. Morals and principles are not
B. 4 principles: all representative democracies are based on elections; the distinction between representatives and people → representatives are able to vote without always having to ask constituents what they want —> once they’re elected they have a degree of independence; judgment: citizens are always free to judge and criticize what your representatives do; discussion → all decisions that are going to be made in a representative democracy need to be discussed by assemblies where things are considered and the best argument wins
C. Territorial trap: representative democracies are trapped in thinking about national terriroty and local context → cannot look out for transnational/global issues —> all political debates should be on the national level of national problems
1. Our represetnative democracies have this bias
2. D. Temporal limits:
1. Our democracies suffer from myopia when it comes to environmental issues → decision makers are elected for the short term → have difficulties looking and making decisions 10-20 years into the future
a) Politicians want to satisfy those who elected them and don’t wanna mess things up now for potential benefits in the future (economy)
2. Democracies are fucking SLOW → discussion is key, need to discuss everything
a) Authoritarian regimes have issues sure but at least they get shit done
b) Democracies need an emergency button → we need to take action now and stop speaking
(1) Frustration with the decision-making process of democracies
The reform of political representaiton
A. Should be expert institutions → collegial with around 10-15 people whose role would be to control the parliaments and recommend certainly policies → Pierre Rosanvallon’s idea of the academy of the future
1. Role of connecting the public and decision-makers
B. Issues: abuse of power and lobbyists → easier to influence 15 people than an entire parliament, no elections so no accountability
1. Risk of extra interests coming into the mix
Reform: practical ideas
C. Create a new upper house of parliaments: the house of the long term → in charge of looking out for long-term interests
1. Dominique Bourg and Kerry Whiteside advocate for this idea → say that representative governments are unable to respond to ecological crises for several reasons
a) Environmental issues are not accessible to our senses
b) The philosophical tradition that shaped political institutions → The social contract is very focused on people’s will
c) The type of freedom → freedom of modernity based on an individual approach to freedom (freedom of the individual) against the ancient approach to freedom which was more about community and your participation in the community
(1) The modern approach to freedom is very individualistic
d) Spacial-temporal needs → limited by spaciality and temporality as we previously discussed
D. Possibilities for reform? 2 types → reform of the senate/the upper house → get rid of it and change it to be in charge of representing the long-term issues
1. Representatives would be made up of politicians and members of civil society
2. Would be in charge of writing recommendations for the politicians in the lower house → could amend lower house decisions
E. Or just create a third house → more radical as if we build a third house it should be composed only of NGOs and civil society members → authors believed they would have more independence from lobbyists → just need to decide whether you wanna elect members to the chamber or draw names from a hat
1. If they aren’t elected, what’s their source of legitimacy though
F. Represnting the “Collective”: a new Parliament → Bruno Latour
1. Forget the distinction between nature and culture, traditionally what happens in representative democracies is that you have representatives of society or culture who are in the parliaments and representatives of nature (scientists) who are in charge of translating what nature says to us
2. Latour believes in having the “Collective” made up of humans and nonhumans and the parliaments that we build should give proper representation to this collective of humans and nonhumans
a) Wants to create two chambers → lower house of representatives and upper senate
