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13Why Democrats Should Be Committed to Future GenerationsDialogue 62 (3): 459-474. 2023.In response to the claim that democracies are inherently short-termist, this article argues for a new way to understand them as being committed to future generations. If taking turns among rulers and ruled is a normative idea inherent to the concept of democracy, then such turn-taking commits democrats to a fair turn with future generations.
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12Democracy and "Globalization"The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 2 137-144. 2006.One of the major political problems the world faces at the moment of its so-called globalization concerns the possibilities of maintaining, transforming, and expanding democracy. Globalization, as the extension of neo-liberal markets, the formation of multi-national, non-democratic economic powers, and the ubiquitous use of teletechnologies, threatens the modus vivendi of older democracies in ways that call for the reinvention of an old idea. Inasmuch as teletechnical globalization transforms sp…Read more
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12Carnophallogocentrism and Eco-DeconstructionOxford Literary Review 45 (1): 21-42. 2023.Whether deconstruction is relevant to environmental philosophy, and if so, in what ways and with what transformations, has been subject to considerable debate in recent years. I will begin by discussing some reservations regarding deconstruction’s relevance to environmental thought, and argue that they stem from an older misreading of Derrida’s work in particular as hostile to the natural sciences, and as a cultural textualism of relevance only to the interiority of a traditional canon, but unab…Read more
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7IntroductionIn Matthias Fritsch, Philippe Lynes & David Wood (eds.), Eco-Deconstruction: Derrida and Environmental Philosophy, Fordham University Press. pp. 1-26. 2018.
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5Europe’s Constitution for the UnbornIn Agnes Czajka & Bora Isyar (eds.), Europe After Derrida: Crisis and Potentiality, Edinburgh University Press. pp. 80-94. 2013.This paper draws out what Derrida’s work—in particular as concerns law, democracy, and intergenerational justice in the context of the European heritage—can contribute to constitutionalism and the legal relation to future people, at the national level and the supranational one of the European Union. The first section outlines some of Derrida’s contributions to legal scholarship and European identity, and then, in the following two sections, argue for two main points. First, Derrida can help us u…Read more
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Democratic Representation, Environmental Justice, and Future PeopleIn Sally Lamalle & Peter Stoett (eds.), Representations and Rights of the Environment, Cambridge Up. pp. 310-333. 2023.In the context of current environmental crises, which threaten to seriously harm living conditions for future generations, liberal-capitalist democracies have been accused of inherent short-termism, that is, of favouring the currently living at the expense of mid- to long-term sustainability. I will review some of the reasons for this short-termism as well as proposals as to how best to represent future people in today’s democratic decision-making. I will then present some ideas of my own as to …Read more
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The notions of sustainability that are most widely accepted, domestically and internationally, are underwritten not only by duties to contemporaries, but also, and crucially, by responsibilities to non-overlapping generations. The point of this chapter is to argue that intergenerational dependence suggests that such responsibility is grounded in a form of reciprocity that is often called indirect: A gives to B but B gives ‘back’ to C. On this view, a current generation takes responsibility for t…Read more
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Indigene Klimapolitik und GenerationengerechtigkeitPolylog. Zeitschrift Für Interkulturelles Philosophieren 49 57-72. 2023.This paper proposes a concept of justice for future people that is mindful of Indigenous critiques of the so-called »Anthropocene«. I first review these critiques, which suggest that motivating pro-futural care by dreading an impending climate crisis tends to betray a privileged, often settler-colonial perspective. The beneficiaries of colonialism now have the »luxury« of viewing the environmental crisis as one that lies mostly in the future, while many Indigenous communities have been living wi…Read more
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Heidegger's Dao and the sources of critiqueIn Hiroshi Abe, Matthias Fritsch & Mario Wenning (eds.), Environmental Philosophy and East Asia: Nature, Time, Responsibility, Routledge. 2022.This chapter looks at Daoism from Heidegger’s perspective, seeing what use he makes of “way” and “dao” in reference to the critical understanding of what he calls technology. As I am not a scholar of Daoism, my goal is not to contribute to our understanding of Daoism; nor am I doing what I think is standard work in “comparative philosophy.” My goal is more focused: I am interested in the conceptual work carried out for Heidegger by the notion of dao, of way in the sense of the non-enduring “mot…Read more
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Future Design: Incorporating Preferences of Future Generations for Sustainability (edited book)Springer. 2020.
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Editors' introductionIn Hiroshi Abe, Matthias Fritsch & Mario Wenning (eds.), Environmental Philosophy and East Asia: Nature, Time, Responsibility, Routledge. 2022.
Montréal, Quebec, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
Continental Philosophy |
European Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Environmental Philosophy |
Environmental Ethics |
Critical Theory |