Etik i klimatförändringens tid - en jämförelse mellan den antika dygdeetiken och vår samtida ekofilosofiska diskurs

Abstract

Climate changes is a real threat against a prosperous planet. According to reports from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is it now urgent to change direction concerning carbon dioxide emissions, overconsumption and overexploitation of nature. The results of this reports is a frame of my paper, but the paper itself focus on individual choices in relation to climate changes by examine three concepts from the eco-philosopic discurse: Lawrence Buells voluntary simplicity, Kate Sopers alternative hedonism and Anahin Nersessians utopian minimalism as well as the thoughts of representants from the virtue ethics in ancient time; Aristoteles and the stoic philosophers. As I see it, the thoughts expressed for more than 2 000 years ago are still relevant for contemporary, ethical choices of lifestyles. They are still actual as models for new lifestyle strategies and correspond in many ways with the eco-philosophic concepts from our time - especially according to a less material way of living. Even if the complex question of how to meet climate changes in many ways is a question for policymakers to deal with, human beings in the Western world have the possibility to choose an individual, ethically defensible lifestyle. The ancient virtue as well as the three eco-philosopic concepts ethic provides interesting models for this choices.