Responsibility in the Anthropocene by Dr Paul Alberts, UWS.
26 October · 14:30 - 16:00
Building 3, Room 3.G.54, UWS Bankstown
This paper looks at the recent emergence of the Anthropocene as a particular new physical state. What does this suggest for normative thought? One direction for inquiry must be to include the question of responsibility for life. Hans Jonas influentially argued in the 1970s that a new responsibility for human technological impact was necessary. Critically reading his diagnosis against the recent evidence for the Anthropocene, this paper assesses his position as now requiring further analysis of the conditions for responsibilities towards species life in general, and advances some revisions of Foucault's histories of biopower. A new responsibility towards life only makes sense in a framework of understanding the emergence of globally dominant urban life arranging and using species in a particular political configuration
