Studying philosophy – as for many other purely academic disciplines – can feel very abstract and disconnected from practical actions. I know that as a graduate teaching assistant leading seminars I’ve often had students ask ‘What is the point of thinking about this?’, ‘Does it really matter?’ or ‘How is thinking about this going to change anything?’. Although philosophy often shapes society on grand scales its hard to see its everyday impact or feel like these discussions are actively producing tangible changes. These are questions I also asked when I was considering whether to pursue a PhD in academic philosophy. But over the course of that PhD, which I am just coming to the end of now, I have had the opportunity to engage with so many different areas of philosophy which are actively working on making change and influencing our current response to the climate crisis. I want to point out some the ways that philosophy is making an impact, drawing from my own experiences.
Philosophy in Policy
My first chance to really see this was when I undertook a policy internship with Natural England, the government body responsible for protecting and improving our natural environment, as part of a scheme run by the UK Research Institute. I was asked to help with research about using the Natural Capital approach that was adopted by the UK in 2011; the idea behind it is to recognise properly all the services nature provides, and take into account all of its value that has historically been left out of cost-benefit analyses. My specific task, drawing from my background in philosophy, was to consider what benefits reintroducing locally extinct species could have from a cultural perspective. In other words, what impact it would have on our cultural heritage, and what intangible value do we see in these projects.
This approach is certainly not perfect but it’s a sign of the fundamental shift that is occurring in how we design our legal and political systems. Human ethics, even if there are huge debates over the details, is taken for granted and enshrined in these systems. Our obligations to the planet and to other animals, however, has been given much less attention up until recently. But policies like the Natural Capital approach have taken the first steps to changing that (even if there is a long way to go) and started to put environmental philosophy into practice. Although this approach still centres around what services nature provides to us, I was happy to find when I was researching what the benefits are for reintroducing a species that a prominent reason was just that we should. That we feel ethically obliged to do so and recognise the intrinsic value these projects have. This was often mentioned in public surveys.
Prior to the Natural Capital framework our decision-making strategies were exclusively focused on economical calculations and the only ethical questions that had any weight were ones with direct human effects. That our obligations to the planet now stand alongside this even in a minor way represents a slow but appreciable shift in how we think about policy.
Policies like this come about for many reasons, but a significant one is thinking critically about what we value and how our legal and political systems represent that. These conversations challenge concepts we have taken for granted and make space for us to choose better ones. Given the current discussions going on we can hope that this is just the start of even more radical changes. Some examples include the black veganism movement, coming from activist sisters Aph and Syl Ko, which challenges the distinction between animals and humans and draws out the colonial history behind it. There is also the rights for nature debate which champions recognising the intrinsic rights of the environment. (These topics are part of the KEATS Climate & Sustainability Module if you want to learn more about it!) An important question going forwards would be what exactly policy would look like if we rethought these issues and the role they plays in our laws.
Philosophy in Science
A less obvious place where philosophy has an impact is in science. Philosophy of science is often not what comes to mind when picturing philosophy, but it is a thriving subdiscipline and the one that my own research engages with. I work primarily on thinking about how observations and predictions are made through scientific theories and how this shapes our ideas about reality. Through this I have learnt about some of the philosophical debates that are taking place regarding issues in climate science.
Climate science uses a huge array of different models to make its predictions, and each one is vastly complex. It is full of probabilities and uncertainties which have to be understood and quantified. Sorting through all the science and extracting messages for policy makers is a huge task. Philosophy is playing a role in this. In some places it is identifying new sources of uncertainties in the models which could have implications for what type of models we should trust. In other areas it is looking at how we assess different types of probabilities in the models and how they can be used in confirmation of our theories. Overall there is significant debate going on about how to interpret models and ensure that the knowledge we gain from climate science is as reliable as possible. This is essential to effective policy making; for example these discussions contribute to shaping the methodology of the IPCC reports.
What can we take from this?
My own experiences have shown me the value in philosophical thinking for making change. These are just a few areas and there is, of course, much more work being done. It is important to take a step back occasionally and recognise what comes out of these sorts of discussions. Real changes are being made, even if slowly, which indicate the success that many of these debates are having. Many of the examples I’ve used have come from academic philosophy, however philosophical discussion takes place everywhere and often isn’t labelled as philosophy at all. The sort of debates found in activist movements and everyday conversations about the climate movement all contribute to new ideas being developed and put into practice. At a small scale this can feel frustrating and ineffectual. But slowly but surely, our legal, political, and scientific systems are making use of them.
Links:
Natural Capital Approach: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/methodologies/uknaturalcapitalinterimreviewandrevised2020roadmap
Black Veganism: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/APHRO_ISM.html?id=kLcrDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y
Rights for Nature: https://www.wildlaw.net/
New Sources of Uncertainty: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13194-022-00459-9
Theory confirmation: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1355219814000240?casa_token=wJYIIZoyHT8AAAAA:cuNbgKmUajqHFG6-Iz9ith4ItmNY1y2mrV_l_-Si_Qb6cBQofxj2tXieLgc6XYBxjXw1pJ8qfA
Methodology: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Discerning_Experts/5eaEDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
IPCC Reports:
https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/