Jessica Imanaka

This article deals with the cosmology of Laudato Si’ and explains how it advances the institutional changes needed for sustainability by presenting a way through existing ideological impasses that mire institutions in ineffective action. It examines the diverging cosmological outlooks that orient the Catholic Church and secular institutions. The core difference between these institutions concerns competing views of the person as being in relation to God or in relation to him or herself as the arbiter and determiner of values regarding the Earth and nature. This article elaborates the frames of reference that orient the Catholic understanding of ecological issues and those of secular institutions. It shows how Pope Francis draws on Romano Guardini to critique the human-centered preoccupations of modernity and postmodernity that seek to sustain resources efficiently for egoistic use as justified by relativized values. This research clarifies the basic cosmological outlook on the Earth and humans’ relation to it in Laudato Si’ and elucidates the tensions between Catholic understandings of the cosmos as God-centered and the prevailing technocratic paradigm of extreme anthropocentrism. This article argues that a core innovation of Laudato Si’ is the model of “Integral Ecology”, which bridges theological and secular concerns, giving a broad set of institutions a way of seeing sustainability that enables them to integrate and connect mutual concerns. Ultimately, this article argues that this model, when facilitated by dialogue, allows for a pluralistic space in secular society by which competing cosmological outlooks can find common ground to protect our common home.

This article explores the meaning and potential of the normative concept of vulnerability for Catholic social teaching. In CST, vulnerability tends to be theorized and applied in the context of the consistent ethic of life, frequently referencing “the most vulnerable.” However, a divided polity disagrees on who counts as most vulnerable. This article addresses the conflict of abortion in the US by retheorizing vulnerability through the lens of integrality, a trajectory suggested by Pope Francis with the notion of integral ecology in Laudato si’ and his framing of justice issues in the language of vulnerability in Fratelli tutti. A framework of vulnerable integrality allows for a more integral development of the moral and political imagination to encompass all vulnerabilities. An engagement with the philosophical treatment of vulnerability expands the conception of vulnerability in CST, inviting its practitioners to cultivate an integral outlook on how vulnerabilities impact and implicate each other.

This article explores the shadow side of transhumanist aspirations to transform humanity using cognitive enhancement technologies (CET). The central problem concerns how the desired transhuman anthropogenesis alters the ethical capacities of the human person. Focusing on the intersection between autonomy and equity, the article posits that inequity enhances individual autonomy for some at the expense of others, hence degrading collective autonomy. This process is already unfolding under neoliberalism, as analyzed via Byung-Chul Han’s theory of psychopolitics. Han’s psychopolitics reveals how the imagined increases in autonomy brought by CET would not yield an authentic enhancement of autonomy, but rather result in further undesirable permutations of humanity. It would erode autonomy while increasing inequity, thus degrading empathy and solidarity. Franco Berardi’s critique of semiocapitalism nuances Han’s theory in support of collective autonomy and an anthropogenesis guided by contemplative empathy. Conjoined, they amplify the possibilities for alternative therapeutic forms of transformational CET.

This article explores the shadow side of transhumanist aspirations to transform humanity using cognitive enhancement technologies (CET). The central problem concerns how the desired transhuman anthropogenesis alters the ethical capacities of the human person. Focusing on the intersection between autonomy and equity, the article posits that inequity enhances individual autonomy for some at the expense of others, hence degrading collective autonomy. This process is already unfolding under neoliberalism, as analyzed via Byung-Chul Han’s theory of psychopolitics. Han’s psychopolitics reveals how the imagined increases in autonomy brought by CET would not yield an authentic enhancement of autonomy, but rather result in further undesirable permutations of humanity. It would erode autonomy while increasing inequity, thus degrading empathy and solidarity. Franco Berardi’s critique of semiocapitalism nuances Han’s theory in support of collective autonomy and an anthropogenesis guided by contemplative empathy. Conjoined, they amplify the possibilities for alternative therapeutic forms of transformational CET.

A substantial body of literature in the management discipline has evolved to make the case for and analyze the impacts of cross‐sector partnerships (CSPs). Yet, not all of these CSPs manifest the requisite collaborative propensities to achieve much more than superficial sustainability. Moreover, other disciplines like economics need to be brought to bear on analyses of such partnerships. In this article, we frame sustainable development challenges as collective action problems. We argue that over‐emphasizing the role of a single actor or institution will not yield genuine sustainability. Instead, we propose that a collaborative orientation is necessary for business managers as they deal with challenges as expansive and complex as those presented by goals of the sustainability of the natural environment. Cross‐sector collaborative partnerships (CSCPs) are needed to achieve collective responsibility, wherein dialogic CSCPs issue in a new paradigm of collaborative markets. Market‐based solutions that ignore or minimize the important contributions that may be made by government, academia, and civil society organizations must give way to new models of collaboration across sectors. We identity specific challenges and opportunities for cross‐sector collaboration and provide case examples. There are important limits to addressing environmental and ethics problems from a single sector focus, and we show how meaningful sustainability can be facilitated within a dialogic cross‐sector collaborative perspective.

This paper explores how Pope Francis’ critique of “the technocratic paradigm” in Laudato Si’ can contribute to an environmental ethics governed by asymmetries of power and agency. The technocratic paradigm is here theorized as linked to forms of anthropocentrism that together engender a dangerous alliance between the powers of technology and technologies of power. The meaning and import of this view become clearer when the background of these ideas gets excavated in the works of Romano Guardini. The contemporary manifestation of Guardini’s warnings appears in the form of myriad environmental injustices wrought by structures of power linked to technology. To counter such injustices, we must discern which types of technologies to develop and how to limit technocratic approaches for the sake of other values. The integral ecological outlook favored by Francis may be interpreted as a kind of eco-politics, or even, controversially, an eco-technology, with the cultivation of technologies of contemplation. Applying Peter Sloterdijk’s conceptions of anthropotechnics and monogeism to the Ignatian Exercises animating the Jesuit Francis’ work, we can see how such technologies hold potential for Catholicism to collaborate better with secular strategies in relating to Earth’s agency in a new eco-politics. Such an eco-politics could furnish an alternative to bio-politics, especially if governed by aspects of the Franciscan form-of-life identified by Giorgio Agamben. Such a project ultimately moves us beyond Laudato Si’ and the work of Romano Guardini, pointing up the limitations of Laudato Si’ in engaging the agency of the Earth.