Virtues For The Anthropocene

Virtues for the Anthropocene
Author(s): MARCELLO DI PAOLA

Source: Environmental Values, Vol. 24, No. 2 (April 2015), pp. 183-207
Published by: White Horse Press
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Virtues for the Anthropocene
MARCELLO DI PAOLA
Center for Ethics and Global Politics

Department of Political Science
LUISS ' Guido Carli '
Viale Romania 32, 00197, Rome, Italy
Email: marcellodipaola80@gmail com
ABSTRACT
The paper discusses some difficulties that life in Anthropocene poses to o

ethical thinking. It describes the sort of ethical task that individuals find them
selves confronting when dealing with the planetary environmental quandar
that characterise the new epoch. It then asks what, given the situation, wo
count as environmentally virtuous ways of looking at and going about ou
lives, and how relevant virtues can be developed. It is argued that the prac
of gardening is distinctively conducive to that objective. Finally, some gar
virtues that will be of special importance in the Anthropocene, but have so
been largely neglected by environmental ethicists, are listed and described
KEYWORDS
Anthropocene, virtues, gardens
According to current classifications, we live in the Holocene. This ep

part of the Quaternary Period of the Cenozoic Era, began almost 12,000 y
ago, following the big Ice Age melt-off. The Cenozoic is often informal
dubbed the 'Age of Mammals', as during this era extinctions of other gr
allowed mammals to proliferate and greatly diversify. Its latest taxonom
incarnation, the Holocene, has been characterised by relatively stable ec
tem conditions, particularly as regards to climate. This has proven espec
congenial to the development and organisation of the life of one particu
mammal - Homo sapiens. Recorded human life - from the beginning of w
ten history to the first cultivated fields, from unconnected settlements t
megacities and satellite-based monitoring of global air traffic - has unf
during the Holocene.
Environmental Values 24(2015): 183-207.
© 2015 The White Horse Press, doi: 10.3197/096327114X13947900181310
Submitted 10 March 2013; accepted 9 September 2013
184
MARCELLO DI PAOLA
The adventures of Homo sapiens on Earth have been so extensive, intens

and impressive that some scholars are ready to abandon the Holocene and p
claim the advent of a new epoch - the Anthropocene (Crutzen and Stoerm
2000; Crutzen, 2002; Zalasiewicz et al., 2010; Steffen et al., 201 1). They su
gest that humanity has come to exert such a pervasive influence on Eart
ecology as to have effectively become the main driver of its geological a
biological evolution. They present Homo sapiens as a significant geologica
force - something no other species has ever been.
Formally speaking, the proposed classificatory switch is highly controv
sial. In geological terms, 12,000 years is the blink of an eye. The Holocen
has barely begun: the preceding epoch, the Pleistocene, lasted more than t
million years. Geologists are used to very long temporal spans and base t
work on significant fossil records. But nothing major or peculiar seems to h
accumulated below the surface of the Earth during this last 12,000-year bl
Such lack of fossil evidence also fuels disagreement among proponents of t
Anthropocene as to when exactly it should be thought to have begun - a
a concomitant (and sometimes creative) race for suitable stratigraphie su
port (see Zalasiewicz et al., 201 1 for a discussion of available data). Some
the beginnings of the Anthropocene coincide with the wave of extinctions
the Pleistocene megafauna (Martin and Klein, 1984); others with the adve
of agriculture (Smith and Zeder, 2013); others still with mining for flint
metals (Zalasiewicz, Waters and Williams, 2014). Most scholars, howev
simply point to the industrial utilisation of fossil energy sources that bega
the nineteenth century. It is also often noted that the biological and geolo
cal changes most salient to the Anthropocene have recently been subject
'Great Acceleration' which began around 1950 and is still ongoing (Hibbar
et al., 2006).
Be that as it may, the geological community needs more robust and mu
less controversial evidence before launching into revisions of temporal t
onomies. At present, stratigraphie evidence does not conclusively support
proposed switch from Holocene to Anthropocene. There might, however
a formally good case for calling some epoch the Anthropocene in the futu
There is indeed widespread agreement in the scientific community at lar
that a vast range of major, ongoing anthropogenic processes may indeed le
durable marks (i.e., lasting millions of years) on the planet. These proces
include ubiquitous habitat disruption and thus massive and faster-than-u
species extinction (the stuff of fossil records, which geologists work with
extinct biota - so again, the formal case for the classificatory switch migh
stronger in the future); water acidification and thus alterations of ocean ch
istry; a significant increase in sedimentation rates and soil erosion on lan
and an unusually high concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosph
The latter phenomenon triggers climate change. Because the geological an
biological fabric of our planet is to a large extent a function of its clima
Environmental Values 24.2
185
VIRTUES FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE
climate change in particular can be expected to cause large, faster-than-usu

and durable global ecological alterations. Most of these alterations may ha
undesirable effects for Homo sapiens , which will become more vulnerab
- exposed to frequent and more extreme weather events, the spread of tro
cal epidemics, food and water shortages, and vast and diverse second- and
third-order problems whose details will vary in different places, times,
socio-political circumstances.
Climate change ushers us into the Anthropocene. If not formally, it d
so substantively, for climate change tracks the very form of the life that Hom
sapiens has come to live - a resource- intens i ve, globalised, production-
consumption-driven form of life. A complex, stratified, dynamic topograp
of political, financial, social and cultural infrastructures is in place to enab
protect and promote such a form of life. Most people like what it has to of
whether they already enjoy the benefits or aspire to do so.
Somewhat more precisely, the adventures of Homo sapiens on Earth ar
nowadays characterised in reference to the following set of macro-circum
stances: global interconnectedness; significant and fast-paced technologic
progress; unprecedented numbers of humans; unprecedented aggregate lev
of human well-being; rampant urbanisation; massive exploitation of limit
natural capital and consequent ecological degradation. What is happening
the Earth's climate, and ecology in general, is but one of the circumstance
the Anthropocene. Each of these circumstances (and their various combin
tions) have ethical dimensions and contribute to the configuration of nov
operating spaces for our ethical systems. If then one asks how the ensemble
such circumstances may influence our thinking and acting, the Anthropoc
becomes something other than a (candidate for a) geological time period
becomes a framework for reflection.
In what follows, I will treat the Anthropocene as a framework for spe-
cifically ethical reflection, and focus on environmental ethics in particular.
In section 1, I discuss some distinctive and problematic dimensions of life in
the Anthropocene and describe, in broad strokes, the sort of ethical task that
individuals will find themselves confronting when trying to live in a better
integrated relationship with the dynamic systems that govern our changing
planet.
In section 2, I ask what, given the new situation, would count as envi-
ronmentally virtuous ways of looking at and going about one's life, and how
relevant virtues can be developed. I argue that the practice of gardening is
distinctively conducive to that objective. I then discuss two garden virtues that
will be of special relevance in the Anthropocene: mindfulness1 and what I shall
call cheerfulness. I do not claim that these are the only virtues that can be de-
veloped by gardening, or that one can develop them only through gardening;
nor do I claim that they are the only virtues of relevance in the Anthropocene.
1 . On mindfulness as an environmental virtue see Jamieson, 2007: 23.
186
MARCELLO DI PAOLA
However, I do claim them to be pivotal virtues, and gardening to be most

tinctively conducive to developing them.2
Before proceeding, it should be noted that the past few years have seen
surge of theoretical interest for the Anthropocene outside the natural scien
Insightful work has been done on its social, political and economic impli
tions. Some have connected sophisticated diagnoses of the ecological featu
and economic geography of the Anthropocene to radical proposals for in
tutional and more generally cultural and social change (see, among other
Gibson-Graham and Roelvink, 2010; Gibson, Fincher and Rose, 2010). Oth
have coupled this with conceptual investigations of the changing notions
'nature' and 'conservation' (Lorimer, 2012). Others still, after proclaiming
'The Death of Environmentalism' (Schellenberger and Nordhaus, 2004), ha
gone on to reformulate its new, Anthropocenic mission and strategies (see
essays in Schellenberger and Nordhaus, 2011). Others still have questione
the very notion of the Anthropocene, pointing to the risks of embracing w
may ultimately serve as a legitimising and normalising discourse in suppor
a managerial and technocratic approach to nature and society, which would
turn recapitulate and reinforce existing structures of power - thus hinder
intellectual and social change (Crist, 2013).
My interests here are more circumscribed. I will not provide a theory
social change or expose premises and implications of the Anthopocene dis
course, and much less sketch a vision for the future of human society. I
rather concerned with individual ethics in the Anthropocene. I am concern
with the new station that we, as individuals, have come to occupy in the w
workings of things; with a number of ethically challenging features of su
novelty; and with how we may attempt to respond to these, in our behavio
and attitudes, in ways that might also open and allow for the exploration
important sources of value and meaning in and for our lives - now that th
take place in a globalised, highly interconnected, rapidly changing, ecolo
cally deteriorating planet.3
1. CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE ANTHROPOCENE
Here are some ethically problematic features of life in the Anthropocene.
2. I have discussed a larger number of garden virtues in Di Paola, 2012: chapter 4. On this top
see also Pollan, 1991 ; Brady, 2002; Cooper, 2006; Harrison, 2009, Brook, 2010. On environ
mental virtue more generally see the essays in Sandler and Cafaro, 2005; Jamieson, 20
Sandler, 2007; and the essays in Bendik-Keymer and Thompson, 2012.
3. For another contribution to this line of inquiry see Krakoff, 201 1 .
187
i) Geo-power
Our (technologically mediated) ability to impact and alter (intentionally or not)

basic ecological systems.
Michel Foucault introduced the term 'bio-power' to indicate 'an explosion
of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies
and the control of populations' (Foucault, 1998 [1976]: 140). There are a few
differences worth emphasising between bio- and geo-power, and doing so will
help elucidate the latter notion.4
First, geo-power is not constituted by a set of techniques but is rather the
upshot of the progress of technology , which enlarges the causal reverberations
of human activity far beyond the here and now. Residents of the Holocene
could interfere with their local environments at most; thanks to technology,
residents of the Anthropocene concur instead to the alteration of Earth's basic
ecological systems. Building a well somewhere and collecting water in it is not
causally significant on a global scale; flipping a light switch is. In the first case,
only proximate resources are used, while in the second a whole infrastructure
of provision (that presides over the global procurement and distribution of en-
ergy) is activated (see Southerton, Chappells and Van Vliet, 2004; Van Vliet,
Chappells and Shove, 2005 ).5 The workings of such infrastructure require the
exploitation of limited resources, cause habitat disruptions of various magni-
tudes, pump greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, and so forth. They do so in
various corners of the planet, under different political jurisdictions, and by the
hands of various agents pursuing different goals.
Earth is an integrated system of interconnected elements in which local
events may have spatiotemporal ly distant causal premises and implications.
Technology magnifies this feature: by flipping a light switch I indirectly tap
into some distant oil source and activate, reinforce and further promote the
production of greenhouse gases that will remain in the atmosphere for thou-
sands of years, travelling across continents. The accumulation of such trivial,
localised acts will alter basic ecological systems, and this will have non-trivial,
mostly pernicious global implications, which will in turn be actualised locally
4. To my knowledge, the term 'geo-power' has to date only previously been used by Timothy
Luke in a paper called 'On environmental ity: Geo-power and eco-knowledge in the dis-
courses of contemporary environmental ism' (Luke, 1995). Luke's line of research was very
different from mine, and so are the two notions of geo-power involved. For one thing, Luke's
geo-power is explicitly intended to be an extension of Foucault's bio-power, while mine will
be defined in contrast to it.
5. So, interestingly, as my geo-power expands, my liberty comes to be limited in unexpected

ways. While I am fairly (though not absolutely) free to build my well and collect water in
it, if I flip a switch I am forced into a global network of eco-altering financial and economic
interests, political agreements and avenues of cultural reinforcement whose ever-changing
configuration is largely unknown to me, but which I am at no liberty to sidestep and I rather
suddenly find myself sponsoring. This is indeed a Foucaultian note: the ways in which geo-
power empowers and emancipates me are already all set up for me.
188
MARCELLO DI PAOLA
- somewhere, in the (not necessarily far) future, harming and burdening

mans and other species (Gardiner, 2011: 19^5).
A second difference is that Foucaultian bio-power is exercised mos
by states, and in a systematic, highly coordinated, and finalised manner.
exercise of geo-power, on the other hand, is causally and spatiotemporal
fragmented: it is carried out by a plethora of actors (individuals, busine
governments, global institutions) pursuing widely different goals in a m
ner uncoordinated and non-finalised. Every actor impacts ecosystems to so
extent, just by operating wherever and whichever way it does. Of course,
most other forms of power, geo-power is unequally distributed - on wh
more below.
A third difference between bio- and geo-power is that each state has ample
control not just over the exercise of the former, but also over the effects of
such exercise. Hospitals and prisons (stereotypical bio-power devices) are
operated by states, and states have vast control over their effects on bodies
and populations. On the other hand, states have only limited control over the
exercise of geo-power (given its fragmented nature: geo-power is exercised
by all actors anywhere anytime, albeit to differential extents); limited con-
trol over its ecologically pernicious local effects; and practically no control
over its ecologically pernicious, cumulative global effects - which will in turn,
eventually, be actualised locally. In the Anthropocene, the global spills onto
the domestic: global climate change, for instance, may have pernicious local
impacts on the territory and population of any given state. Now, each state can
do something to alleviate the domestic, and even the global pernicious ecologi-
cal implications of the increased geo-power exercised by its own population
- through laws, education and other means. But a state can do nothing against
the domestic and global implications of the increased geo-power exercised
by populations other than its own - and these really are, from the perspec-
tive of each state, the populations that exercise most geo-power. In the global
geo-power struggle, each state is thus inescapably antagonised by all others
together , irrespective of whatever military alliances, political agreements or
commercial ties may otherwise be in place. To complicate matters further, it
may be in the interest of each state that (selected) other states come to exercise
increasingly more geo-power. The reason is obvious. Globalised economic
growth has brought about great increases in human well-being (particularly
material components thereof, a minimum threshold of which is essential for
a good life). Each state wants more domestic economic growth for itself, but
in a globally interconnected world that is often predicated upon the growth of
other states. Such growth is in turn predicated upon, or at least coincident with,
increases in the geo-power exercised by actors from those other states. Thus,
as things stand, local increases in human well-being are generally if not always
predicated upon, or at least coincide with, local as well as global increases in
189
geo-power. These, unfortunately, breed threats to the long-term sustainabili

of the very well-being they enable.
One disquieting implication of this geo-power/well-being transactio
concerns matters of justice (see Jamieson and Di Paola, 2014). Many of the
most influential theories of global distributive justice embrace some notion
equality as an intrinsic or an instrumental value to be realised, or at least as
regulatory ideal to be approximated. They typically endorse redistributive o
remedial principles that may level down the well-being of the rich somewh
as part of a more general project of levelling up the well-being of the poor. T
geo-power/well-being transaction casts such principles in a somewhat diffe
ent light.
I have said above that, like most other forms of power, geo-power is
unequally distributed. The global rich have always exercised much more geo-
power than the global poor, and their production and consumption patterns
have more intense and extensive impacts on ecosystems than do those of the
poor. In fact, the poor suffer from the geo-power of the rich: they have done
little to cause global ecological degradation, but are extremely vulnerable to its
effects - because their livelihoods often depend directly on ecosystems, and/or
because they lack the financial and technological capacity necessary to adapt
to such effects.
This seems to raise blatant demands of justice, but here's the catch: From a
global ecosystem perspective, the sensible way of rectifying geo-power asym-
metries between the rich and the poor is by levelling down only , not by giving
more geo-power to the poor. Insofar as people becoming rich leads to an in-
crease in their geo-power, theories of global justice with egalitarian leanings
face the following problem. They can hardly commit to no levelling up since
their primary goal is to lift the global poor to something closer to the status of
the global rich. Yet in order to minimise ecological disruptions, the geo-power
connected to the production and consumption patterns of everyone (rich and
poor) should be minimised.
Obviously, what is desirable is that everyone becomes as well-off as possi-
ble - not that everyone becomes as poor as the global poor - but that they do so
in a way that minimises overall geo-power. This is one way to characterise the
spirit behind what is customarily called 'sustainable development'. A 'green
revolution' in global production and consumption patterns has often been in-
voked as a way to dissolve the well-being/geo-power transaction. The way
seems obvious in the abstract, but is quite uneasy in practice - as it requires
reformed mechanisms of global governance, major retooling in many key
industries, significant market restructuring (including financial markets, par-
ticularly those brokering basic natural resources, food, and energy supplies),
novel styles of policy design, new means of knowledge and information trans-
mission and revised styles of consumer, citizen and private behaviour. Until at
least most of that is in place, the geo-power/well-being transaction holds sway.
190
MARCELLO DI PAOLA
A fourth difference between bio- and geo-power is that the latter is a p

nomenon larger than the former. Its impacts extend far beyond the force
life, and onto the non-living, geological stage on which such forces are pla
out. Unlike bio-power, geo-power impacts the forces of life derivatively; b
unlike bio-power, it does so inevitably- because it is exercised by the force
life themselves. Even if those were magically liberated from whatever form
Foucaultian bio-power may heteronomously control them, they would still
in the grip of the Anthropocenic geo-power that frames their interplay, as th
themselves exercise it.
Moreover, geo-power inevitably implies at least some forms of bio-power,
while the opposite is not the case. The subjugation of bodies and populations
does not inevitably entail changes in the natural systems in which such bod-
ies and populations are nested. Bio-power can, for instance, be dramatically
and most efficiently increased through the administration of various drugs to
people, without geo-power being much increased thereby. Changes in basic
ecological systems, on the other hand, will inevitably entail the subjugation of
bodies and populations: those living in areas visited by new epidemics, or who
will be exposed to food and water scarcity, or forced to migrate by the rising
seas.
ii) Regulatory impasse
The Anthropocene is hard to govern. This is a very large issue both

cally and practically, and here I will have to restrict my focus to two i
sub-domains, one macro, the other quite micro. At the global level, t
to be a disquieting structural gridlock in international cooperation (
and Young, 2013). There are many more and more diverse players at
than there used to be (not just emerging countries like China, India
but also global institutions like the WTO and the IMF, global financial n
rating agencies, multinationals, transnational social movements, n
megacities, NGOs, etc.), and the issues they confront and need to
are more complex than they used to be. It is hard to come together
issues like climate change, finance insecurity, public health and ene
bution. Finding answers is extremely important also locally, of cour
of these cases the global spills over onto the domestic. But precise
of that, these issues are differently processed by different countries,
different and differently motivated responses. Many of the most ur
quandaries that characterise the Anthropocene essentially escape g
ernance and are effectively (though not always efficaciously) govern
In some important cases, they escape local governance as well. C
the case of natural capital exploitation. In the Holocene, such ex
was mostly red-handed: resulting from causally and spatiotempora
mate predatory interventions, locally perpetrated by identifiable ag
191
identifiable natural entities or systems. For instance, illegal traders would ta

botanical specimens from the wild, or some company would pump chemic
waste into the soil of given areas. In the Anthropocene, our geo-power ha
not just been magnified but also rarified by technology, and natural capit
exploitation has taken on a rather more subtle, pervasive, impalpable, clea
hands form. Nowadays it is unintentionally perpetrated through commonpla
everyday activities (flipping light switches, adjusting thermostats, driving ca
taking hot showers, eating meat, having babies, etc.), and its pernicious deli
erances are systemic and largely unseen - rather than localised and visible (D
Paola, 2013).
Red-handed exploitation could be regulated with relative ease: it could sim
ply be made more costly through coercive legislation. For instance, in order
protect wild ecosystems from predatory human intervention, guarded natu
reserves or national parks could be instituted. Such institutionalisation act
alised a societal pre-commitment (Elster, 1970) to the value(s) of the entiti
or systems at stake, and to the objective of protecting them. Institutionalise
place-based ecosystem management was a fitting response to red-handed e
ploitation. The backbone of such response was an enforced policy of 'benig
neglect', which coerced individuals not to act, and instead just let things be
The efficacy of a societal pre-commitment to place-based ecosystem man
agement decreases as the impacts of clean-hands exploitation grow stronger.
the Anthropocene, species can go extinct without anyone touching a specime
for habitats can be disrupted at a distance. This suggests at least two cons
erations. First, the sorts of activities that give rise to ecological degradation
the Anthropocene are not easily susceptible to top-down regulation - not ev
at a national or a more local level. Regulating the everyday behaviours and
choices of people in matters like private investment, housing, mobility, d
and reproduction would involve colossal administrative, monitoring, enforc
ment and sanctioning costs. Moreover, the desirability of top-down regulat
on such behaviours and choices is quite questionable - given the encroach-
ments on individual freedoms it would in most cases involve.6 Thus, even
the micro-level, the sources of many Anthropocenic quandaries are extreme
hard to govern and regulate, at least from above. Agents (individual, comp
nies, governments, etc.) must often self- regulate. In the specific case of natur
capital exploitation, they must be regulators of their own geo-power.
6. This is not to say that rigor legis will be useless in the Anthropocene: just that, to be effecti
on individual lifestyles, its exercise will in many cases be quite costly in terms of resourc
expended and liberties sacrificed. Also note that I criticise policies that restrict individual
liberties while leaving largely unchallenged the often unsustainable, unfair and risky soci
economic systems in which such liberties have hitherto been exercised. With that, I am no
denying that it is a task for institutions to create and promote applicable alternatives to suc
systems. See Shove, 2010 for a relevant discussion specifically in connection to climat
change.
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MARCELLO DI PAOLA
The second remark speaks to the past and the future of environment
ethics. Environmental ethicists have traditionally prized the property of
uralness, or even 'wildness', quite highly.7 Given clean-hands exploitatio
however, even the fate of that little 'wild' that is left (that scarce 10 per cen
the Earth's surface that has been declared a natural reserve or national p
now crucially depends on what happens in the remaining humanised 90
cent - and particularly in cities. Well over half the world's population liv
urban agglomerates, and this figure is only destined to increase. Most envi
mental degradation is nowadays produced or triggered by the demands
activities of city-dwellers. The salient loci of environmental protection in
Anthropocene are thus cities - thoroughly humanised rather than wild ar
Benign neglect obviously makes no sense in cities; and because the fate of
areas depends on the distant demands and activities of city-dwellers, it
makes less sense there, too (but see Sandler, 2013). The salient approach
environmental ethics in the Anthropocene seems thus to be one of steward
- self-starting engagement with the protection and promotion of ecolog
conditions that have so far been congenial to humanity (Di Paola, 2013).
In sum, rather than pre-committed, institutionalised, place-based ecosy
tem management whose backbone is benign neglect, an environmental e
for the Anthropocene must be based on individualised, self-starting, self-r
lating, metropolitan, networked ecosystem stewardship.
iii) Elusive moral imperatives
We have a hard time classifying such individualised effort, and in gene

any individual engagement with the global quandaries that characterise
Anthropocene, as a moral obligation. Two important reasons for that are th
is hard to specify the relevant grounds for ascribing individual responsibi
as well as to grapple with the moral characteristics of the main candidate
dressees of these putative obligations. I take up these points in turn.8
Responsibility - In the Anthropocene, the impalpable forces of geo-pow

spring from causally and spatiotemporally fragmented sources. I am on
7. The axiological idealisation of 'the wild' has been a hugely influential theme in environ
tal ethics, particularly in North America. For a review of wilderness-based arguments,
Nelson, 2003; for an influential critique, see Callicott, 2003. For a general discussion of
topic see Jamieson, 2008: chapter 6. For some reflections on the sources of our fascinat
with naturalness and the wild see Di Paola, 2015.
8. What I am about to discuss are justificatory hurdles (and just two among many). Ther
also notable motivational hurdles in the Anthropocene. There is a significant amount of li
ture on both topics, often addressing specific sub-domains such as climate change and glo
poverty (see for instance Sunstein, 2007 and Jamieson, 2014 in relation to climate chan
and Singer, 2009 and Lichtenberg, 2013 in relation to global poverty). I will not disc
motivational hurdles here (but see Di Paola, 2013). Nonetheless, I will keep some of them
consideration when discussing the role of virtues in the next section.
193
these sources, and so is any other agent. Across the global systems that g
ern our planet, causation is non-linear. The actions of billions of other peo
as well as various natural and social feedback effects of various magnitud
perturb the causal chains that run from my own actions to any specific per
cious ecological or social outcome (climate change and global poverty,
instance).9 Moreover, given the sheer scale of the quandaries in question, m
contribution to (or against) them can seemingly make no difference over
Finally, when I drive or buy certain goods, I certainly have no intention
doing any evil to anyone or anything: whatever harms or burdens are impo
onto people or nature, I certainly did not set out to impose them. All of th
tends to justify moral disengagement on my (and everyone else's) part.
These points create difficulties for both deontological and consequentiali
moral theories. The former are particularly troubled by lack of intentiona
and non-linear causal chains. To assign responsibility, deontologists typica
want to know whether the harms or burdens imposed were intended by age
(as opposed to merely foreseen, risked, allowed or enabled), and/or they wa
to know whether these harms or burdens were in fact brought about by agent
along a readable causal chain unequivocally connecting outcomes to actors.
Neither of these conditions apply when it comes to the global quandaries th
characterise the Anthropocene.
Consequentialist moral theories would struggle with the idea of assignin
responsibilities to individual agents whose actions cannot make any differe
overall (Glover, 1975; Parfit, 1984; Sinnott-Armstrong, 2005; Kagan, 2011
The global quandaries of the Anthropocene are just so vast that it does no
matter what I personally do: I do not personally cause them, nor can I pe
sonally fix them.10 In regards to causing them, in particular, the point is
that I am not part of the cause of, say, climate change: of course I am, inso
as I exercise geo-power by driving cars, eating steaks, taking long shower
etc. The point is rather that to be part of a cause is not to be the cause of
specific part of its effect, or any one of its many effects.11 The emissions p
duced by my car will cumulate with those of other billions of cars, travel acro
space-time, disperse into the workings and feedbacks of various physical an
chemical systems at different scales, and at no point ever cause any speci
flood, drought, species extinction or impose specific harms and burdens on
specific humans. The impacts of my geo-power do not harm or burden anyo
or anything in particular: at most, they lightly impinge on nature's future an
derivatively, on the fate of humanity. In this respect, individual responsibi
9. In connection with this see Sinnott- Armstrong, 2005; Gardiner, 2011; and Jamieson, 2
on climate change; Pogge, 2008 and Wenar, 201 1 on global poverty.
10. For an alternative view in relation to climate change see Di Paola, 2014.
1 1 . Sinnott- Armstrong makes this point in an online dialogue with A. Hiller, available at htt
www.philostv.com/avram-hiller-and-walter-sinnott-armstrong/
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MARCELLO DI PAOLA
for many important quandaries of the Anthropocene is not just diffused

planetary scale: it effectively does not exist.12
There are other conceptions of moral responsibility that do not require l
ear causal chains, intentionality, or even any prospect of making a signifi
difference. The beneficiary principle, for example, wants those who ben
from the harms and burdens imposed onto others to take on responsibility
alleviating such harms and burdens - arguably in the name of some larger
medial principle. But it can be hard to detect who is really benefiting and
in the quickly changing world of the Anthropocene. If one tries to apply
principle to states, the difficulty arises that those harmed yesterday may be
beneficiaries of tomorrow (think of India, which has gone from colonial su
gation to formidable economic growth and geo-power). If one tries to apply
principle to individuals, the difficulty arises that there are rich and poor pe
in all countries, which makes it hard to individuate the loci of remedial rig
and duties and thus to apportion these with the precision that individuals w
legitimately demand (a poor American should not be asked for more than a
Indonesian). Moreover, we may ask: benefiting in terms of what, anyway?
is unclear what the metric of well-being should be, in the Anthropocene.
good old per capita GDP, or some much more complex measure of hu
flourishing? If the latter, as many argue (Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi, 2009
Forgeard et al., 201 1), how do we isolate which parts of whose flourishing
be tracked back to the exercise of geo-power and clean-hands exploitation,
are thus rightly subject to the application of remedial principles?
Another possibility is the ability-to-pay principle, which allows for grad
tion both at the state and the individual level. This is more at home within
consequentialist theories, as it simply wants those who can do (whatever
amount of) good to take on responsibility for doing it. This principle seems
to be the best option available, if only residually. But of course, in the spati-
otemporally unbounded moral context of the Anthropocene, the ability-to-pay
principle threatens to be very demanding (just as demanding as consequen-
tialism is often thought to be). In the case of individuals, it needs to be
circumscribed, if not by restricting its spatiotemporal unbound outreach, then
by carefully defining just what sort of responsibility those able to pay actually
have, and how they should discharge it.13
12. It still does exist, of course, in all red-handed cases. The latter continues to be very possible
and widely practised in the Anthropocene.
13. One way to do this would be by configuring a non-maximising (but rather systematically or
overall improving), non-act based (but rather practice-based) consequentialist theory. The
responsibility of those able to pay would then be not to maximise through each and all of
their actions the benefits accruing to the spatiotemporally distant, but rather to individuate
and engage in practices that benefit the spatiotemporally distant systematically or overall. I
have given a first presentation of these ideas in Di Paola, 2014, and I am further developing
them in an article entitled 'Practice consequentialism'. For a discussion of improving (or as
the authors dub it 'progressive') consequentialism, see Elliot and Jamieson, 2009.
195
Obligation - Agents can be held responsible for the fate of patients on other
grounds than what they did to (or can do for) them. They can also simply owe
it to patients that they do (or not do) certain things to (or for) them, just on the
grounds of the sorts of patients that these are - i.e., if and when they have some
intrinsic moral worth, and thus moral standing. Now, the relevant patients in
the Anthropocene are spatiotemporally distant humans (the global poor and
future generations) and non-human nature. Whether or not these peculiar pa-
tients can be rightful addressees of moral obligations is highly controversial.
In the case of the global poor, there is no doubt that they have moral standing
but determining what obligations the relatively affluent have towards them de-
pends on first resolving the issues of responsibility raised above. In the case of
non-human nature, the question is whether or not natural entities and systems
have moral standing at all, and thus whether or not they even qualify as right-
ful addressees of moral obligations. Future generations, for their part, may be
granted moral standing on grounds of their very humanity, or because future
well-being is not intrinsically less valuable than present well-being. But if that
means granting moral standing to specific future individuals (as granting mora
standing to the global poor means granting it to specific poor individuals across
the globe), then it is unclear whether, or at least how, consideration for their
fate should guide our present actions.
Consider first the idea that we have obligations towards nature, or elements
thereof. After a few decades of reflection, environmental ethics (at least in its
analytic incarnation) has produced strong arguments for the moral standing of
individual sentient animals (Singer, 1975), but only considerably more fragile
ones when it comes to plants (Taylor, 1986), species (Sarkar, 2005) and eco-
systems (Rolston III, 1994). These debates are still open and rich, of course,
but that only signals their complexity, and there is currently no promise of
breakthroughs.14 As things stand, our moral systems seem to tell us that we
have no decisive reason to believe that those elements of nature have moral
standing. If they do not, then they cannot count as legitimate addressees of any
moral obligations at all.
Eco-centric views may suggest that Earth, as such, has moral standing
- over and beyond, and perhaps independent of whether specific natural ele-
ments within its systems do. But even granting that, the notion that we may
have moral obligations towards the planet , as such, is implausible. One reason
for that is that personal responsibility of the agent (for harms and burdens
inflicted) and moral standing of the patient, while being logically distinct
grounds for ascribing obligations, are in fact intimately related. Even if the
planet has moral standing (a thought that needs much unpacking anyway), we
still cannot harm or burden the planet. Climate change, biodiversity loss and
whatever we may call the toughest ecological quandaries of our time are such
only for us humans (and many other species), but of no matter whatsoever to
14. For a review of relevant arguments see Jamieson, 2008: chapters 3, 5, 6.
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MARCELLO DI PAOLA
the planet. Cosmically speaking, they are of no matter whatsoever at al

this view, we cannot owe it to Earth, as such, that we avert these quandar
through our stewardship - unless it can be shown that it would somehow
loss for Earth that, say, its morphology or atmosphere changed, and huma
other species were to fare much worse, or even go extinct altogether. A c
vincing defence of such claims does not seem forthcoming. And even if i
come, it would not assuage the worry that the project of stewarding the pl
if that means anything close to managing it, may ultimately be delusional
way (see Welchman, 2012).15
All this suggests a more plausible candidate addressee for our individu
moral obligations in the Anthropocene. It seems sensible to say that a theo
cally plausible and practically feasible environmental ethic should be bas
on the idea of stewarding not nature but humanity. In the Anthropocene,
is to be achieved through the management of one's own behaviour, not of
ture itself. After all, in the overwhelming majority of cases, and particu
in cities anyway, what must be minimised is one's clean-hands rather th
one's red-handed exploitation of natural capital. Most city-dwellers will n
be directly involved with extra-urban natural entities, much less with fir
hand management of ecosystems. What they will be involved in is things
driving, eating meat, taking hot showers, etc. For an individual to mini
her clean-hands exploitation of natural capital, she must self-regulate th
activities. This captures stewardship's focus on self-restraint and virtue
excludes any delusional dream of managing the planet.
Now consider future generations. Above, I deliberately talked of stewar
ing 'humanity' rather than future generations. For if 'future generations' me
specific people living in the future, then there are obvious problems with
tifying them. And if we do not know who these people will be, when they
live, where, and how, what their needs and aspirations will be, then how
we to know what the contents of our obligations are (Partridge, 2001)?
may say that our obligation is (roughly) to leave future people adequate co
tions to exercise choice and pursue whatever needs and aspirations they m
come to have. If this is meant to release us from the burden of making v
specific choices it fails, for it just shifts the problem one level up. We shall s
have to be the ones deliberating and legislating and making or withdrawing
relevant investments in order to realise whatever these adequate condition
to be. Moreover, we can decisively orient the very contents of future peo
needs and aspirations - through our political, economic, social and cultur
choices. So they will choose, but the set of options to choose from will
largely already set up for them.16 And it is in any case unclear that we can e
do wrong - whichever way we set up their choices by making ours - to an
15. Both worries could be assuaged if stewardship was theologically-based, as it originally

traditionally was. Secularised stewardship is a more shaky business (see Callicott, 1999).
1 6. For an extended discussion of our obligations to future people see Mulgan, 2009.
197
whose very existence and identity depends on our choices being such as they
are. The existence and identity of particular future people is so dependent (
Parfit, 1984).
From all this, however, it need not follow that we have no obligations to
future people. It only follows that such obligations should not be to particular
future people. To that extent, my moral obligation in the Anthropocene sounds
quite peculiar: to steward humanity rather than particular humans. By human-
ity one may mean the species Homo sapiens (rather than particular specimens
of it); or those human features that enable and require us to relate morally as
fellows to whoever may happen to possess them (cf. L. Meyer, 2008); or again
the ongoing adventure of Homo sapiens on Earth (cf. Scheffler, 2013) - the
human practice of living in response to our needs and in pursuit of our aspira-
tions, as these have evolved up until today and may further evolve in the future
and as they are exemplified, often in widely different ways and combinations,
in and by each and every human specimen.17
Any way one chooses to go, it is clear that such peculiar obligation would
need much conceptual unpacking. At the same time, it is quite unclear what
practical directives it would deliver in real life. Moreover, the obligation to
steward humanity looks more like an aesthetic and/or perfectionist endeavour
than a moral one. Perhaps these distinctions are to some extent blurred by the
circumstances of the Anthropocene: but whether this is so, and the desirabil-
ity (both theoretical and practical) of such possible conclusion, remain open
questions.18
iv) The homeopathic curse
The last circumstance of the Anthropocene that I want to signal is quite obvi-
ous. The alleviation of the global ecological quandaries that characterise the
Anthropocene depends on us; at the same time, these quandaries are largely
brought about by us. The alleviation must thus perforce be homeopathic: hu-
mans must steward the congenial ecosystem ic conditions their very form of
life tends to disrupt.
What makes stewardship in the Anthropocene something of a curse is its
inherently self-contradictory and desperate nature. In order to defend congenial
ecosystemic conditions, thus defending ourselves from the threats connected
to a loss of their congeniality, we must in a sense defend ourselves from our-
selves, as such loss is anthropogenic. In fact, each individual would just do
best to self-regulate her geo-power to the point of minimising or even erasing
its impacts altogether (through offsetting perhaps - see Di Paola, 2014), thus
1 7. Not all human interests and cares are deserving of our stewardship: those that run contrary to
the Harm Principle, for instance, are not.
18. All those general statements obviously call for further and dedicated treatment. This is the
subject of an article I am currently working on entitled 'Stewarding humanity'.
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MARCELLO DI PAOLA
leaving no trace on the geological record. Stewardship in the Anthropocen

thus, quite literally, a self-contradictory task. Moreover, as the quandaries
confront are not discrete problems that can be conclusively solved, but ra
systemic and interrelated problematic circumstances that track (and furth
define) the very form of the life that Homo sapiens has come to live, we
only hope to adaptively manage them, rather than expecting that there wi
an end-point to such endeavours. Such systemic circumstances are to be m
aged by the same element that brought them about and continuously reinfo
them. This makes stewardship in the Anthropocene an inherently desper
task.
So I ask: in a situation of unprecedented geo-power; in the face of spa-
tiotemporally unbound quandaries characterised by non-linear causation and
planetary diffusion of responsibility; when the incentives traditionally pro-
vided by political coercion and moral obligations falter, and yet we are left to
unravel the contradictory and desperate task of stewardship - as individuals,
how are we to go on?
2. VIRTUES FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE
The question is what, given i - iv, would count as environmentally virtuo

ways of looking at and going about our lives, and how relevant virtues ca
be developed. I see three main reasons for focusing on virtues: (1) i - iv ca
not deprive individuals of certain and complete jurisdiction over their ow
character; (2) environmentally virtuous behaviour has ecologically benefic
outcomes; (3) the process of developing and exercising virtues enables the
exploration of important sources and dimensions of meaning and value in a
for our lives, now that these take place amidst uncertain, seemingly remot
apparently intractable and yet highly dangerous phenomena of global ecolog
cal degradation.
In what follows, I shall be concerned with (3). I have discussed (2) at leng
elsewhere (Di Paola, 2012). In regards to (1), I only underline that suc
Stoic-like slogan entails, among other things, that, even if our political syste
are incapable of regulating our ecologically uncongenial everyday behaviour
and our moral theories have trouble justifying relevant obligations, nothi
forbids an agent to make and pursue a self-starting resolve in favour of i
dividualised practices of stewardship - irrespective of whether she has an
political or moral obligation to do so, or even much hope to make any pos
tive difference thereby. Resolves are freely adopted intentions which regime
one's behaviour to a freely adopted course of action. One may make all sor
of resolves for all sorts of reasons, not just moral. I might resolve in favou
of practices of stewardship out of prudential, perfectionist or aesthetic r
sons, for instance, or even out of spite, caprice or a sense of revolt. What
199
distinctive of resolves is not the sorts of reasons for adopting them, but the fa
that their adoption entrenches such reasons, whatever they may be. Resolve
are intentions especially designed to stand firm in the face of contrary incli
tions, and their pursuit is non-contingent on the behaviour of others. In mod
cases, having resolved in favour of a certain course of action, I simply avo
reconsidering my stance (see Holton, 2009 for an extended discussion). This
a matter of character and strength of will, not obligation.
To develop relevant environmental virtues, one must resolve to practice
that are conductive to such development. One such practice is gardening - a
this is fortunate, because gardens are available to us even in cities. In fact
food-producing urban gardens/gardening seem distinctly apt contexts/pr
tices for the actualisation of that self-starting, self-regulating, individualise
metropolitan, networked ecosystem stewardship that, as I argued in sectio
1, point ii, is the form that environmental protection shall have to take in t
Anthropocene.19
My suggestion, then, is that the process of developing and exercisin
relevant environmental virtues by gardening will disclose, and enable the ex
ploration of, important sources and dimensions of meaning and value in a
for our lives in the Anthropocene. In particular, garden-based virtue-develo
ment will enable a deeper understanding and acceptance of our new station
within the wider workings of things (see Cooper, 2006; Harrison, 2009; Di
Paola, 2012) and the reaffirmation of the dignity of our humanity right in t
face of possible anthropogenic disaster. In what follows, I describe two gard
virtues that I believe will be of special relevance for the Anthropocene.
i) Mindfulness
A mindful agent takes account of and responsibility for the causal premis
and implications, however remote, of her behaviours. Most of our environ
mentally pernicious behaviours are commonplace, habitual and unthinking
These behaviours are nested in, and reinforce, ecologically unsustainab
economic, political, social and cultural infrastructures whose costs are pass
onto the spatiotemporally distant and the rest of nature. The mindful age
will consistently strive to locate her behaviours within said infrastructures
reconstructing the causal premises and anticipating the causal implications
of her taking a drive for pleasure, or of her fruit having been delivered fro
overseas. She will also take responsibility for the contribution of such cau
19. On urban gardening as a form of stewardship see Di Paola, 2012, particularly chapter
On the positive ecological impacts of urban gardening see Viljoen, 2005; Hester, 2006;
Cumberlidge and Musgrave, 2007; the WorldWatch Institute's State of the World 2011
chapter 10; and The Climate-Friendly Gardener report, produced by the Union of Concerne
Scientists and available at http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/food_and_agriculture
climate-friendly-gardener.pdf. Other useful sources and case studies are available at http:/
www.iclei.org and http://www.urbanagricultureeurope.la.rwth-aachen.de
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MARCELLO DI PAOLA
networks to global ecological degradation, even in the absence of a direct a

univocal causal link between her actions and any specific pernicious effect
such degradation.
Consider awareness of the causal networks surrounding one's behaviou
and how gardening can train the agent to its pursuit. Gardening is a pract
that requires recalling past experiences and anticipating future consequenc
A good gardener must examine and record the aetiology of her plants' pa
performances (what she did and did not to them, when, how, under what cond
tions, etc.), and on these grounds provide for all eventualities that may hin
or promote their good performance in the future. A gardener is vividly c
fronted by the fact that none of her actions is inconsequential: each of th
will be absorbed into nature's course, receive momentum thereby, and gene
further causal ramifications. She becomes aware of causal networks as th
unfold through time, made unequivocally visible by the performance of
plants, and learns to think further into the future - in terms of seasons, rath
than minutes or days.
Consider now taking responsibility for the causal networks surroundi
one's behaviours. What is needed here is a practice that trains the agent
see herself as imputable for ecological outcomes she contributes to, even
the absence of univocal and direct causal links between such outcomes and
the agent's personal behaviours. Gardening seems just the right candidate for
that. A gardener learns to see herself as directly responsible for the existence/
persistence/performance of her plants. These are 'hers' in the sense that, with-
out her, they would not exist/persist/do well. Obviously, nature does its part:
it provides the sunlight and rains that nurture the plants, for instance - so that
it cannot be said that there is a direct and univocal causal link between the
gardener's actions and their good performance. Nonetheless, without the gar-
dener's aspirations, choices and work, nature would be of lesser help, or not
at all, or it could even damage the plants. A gardener thus learns to see the
existence/persistence/good performance of her plants as her own merit and
their death or degradation as her personal failure. Of course, nature could have
a hand there too: nevertheless, apart from tornadoes and locusts, there is no
validating poor gardening by claiming that the forces of nature have amplified
the consequences of one's poor acting beyond expectations - for one is imput-
able first and foremost with having failed to anticipate. And one is directly and
thus personally imputable with that , and perceives herself as such. The fact
that no univocal and direct causal link can be individuated between any of her
actions (or inactions) and the poor performance or death of her plants in no
way detracts from the gardener's responsibility, nor does the gardener see it
as so detracting. Looking at the damages caused to her plot by unusually early
and heavy autumn rains, she sees not the malice of nature, but the trenches she
should have dug in the summer and never did.
201
The development and exercise of mindfulness is a behavioural and attitudi-

nal response to non-linear causation and planetary diffusion of responsibility.
It is also a response to the expansion of our geo-power, insofar as a persistent
effort to locate the causal premises of one's behaviours within global economi
cal, political, social and cultural infrastructures and to visualise their possible
implications across space-time is a necessary step to a more informed selec-
tion of what behaviours to adopt and what to avoid - and thus to any effort
at minimising one's geo-power. Furthermore, it is a response to a regulatory
impasse, because becoming aware of, and taking responsibility for, the causal
networks surrounding one's behaviours enables patterns of self-regulation that
may substitute for (extremely costly and generally undesirable) external moni-
toring and sanctioning. And although obligations to nature will become no less
elusive for the mindful agent, nor will moral consideration for the spatiotem-
porally distant necessarily come to guide her everyday behaviours, insofar as
mindfulness will lead to the minimisation of her geo-power there will be ben-
efits precipitating onto the spatiotemporal ly distant and the rest of nature.
But what should motivate an agent to live mindfully? The mindful agent
will gain access to, and enjoy the exploration of, one important source of mean
ing and value - namely a deeper understanding and acceptance of her place
within the wider workings of things. A knowing connection to the facts flatters
human curiosity, discloses alternatives and thus enables precise focusing of
one's creative thought and action. This gives the agent a suddenly meaning-
ful role - at least in her own eyes - in monumental systems that are indeed
completely indifferent to her. It also gives her a chance to further valorise that
role - at least in her own eyes - by taking responsibility for its outcomes. To
accept one's role in the wider workings of things, irrelevant as such role may
be, is to vindicate one's agency. For if it is true that my kicking a pebble from
here to there does not make any difference overall, it is also true that by doing
so I effectively change the configuration of the universe. Both my irrelevance
and my relevance are true, and it is quite open to me to vindicate the second
rather than surrender to the first. This is both a comforting and a stimulating
vision of our role of stewards in the Anthropocene. It is perhaps an uncom-
fortable vision, however, insofar as accepting it coincides with embracing the
homeopathic curse.
ii) Cheerfulness
The other virtue that I want to discuss is a behavioural and attitudinal response
to the homeopathic curse. It is learnt in gardens by pursuing the most mundan
of garden tasks: digging weeds. That is the very core of gardening, and es-
sential to it. There is no garden without weeds, as weeds spread thanks to the
gardener herself, who disseminates and nurtures them as she works the soil and
waters her plants. Weeds are the result and the signal of human presence and
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MARCELLO DI PAOLA
activity: unless humans brought them there, there are no weeds in the 'w
They are rather found in gardens, cultivated fields, cities. If climate chang
the grand herald of the Anthropocene, weeds are its viral ground-troops
Meyer, 2006). For every weed that is pulled, others grow because the first
been pulled: seeds fly through the air, or chunks of roots remain in the soil a
harbour new sprouts. The gardener produces weeds by gardening; and bein
gardener, she must eliminate them. This is a self-contradictory and despe
task.
The battle against weeds is a defence of what is important to the gardener
in the face of a threat. Though the latter is disguised as an external threat, the
gardener is in fact defending her spaces and plants from herself - after all,
she is the demiurge of weeds. In defending her spaces and plants, she fully
acknowledges the threat posed by weeds. However, because that threat is not
brought by an external intrusion, but originates in her own practice, she is
wholly free to defend her spaces through that very same practice. In so doing,
and in doing so well, she masters her world, as it were: but only momentarily,
and then only seemingly, as weeds resume their growth the instant they are
pulled out and because they are pulled out. The battle against weeds is relent-
less and without end: there will not come a day when weeds will have been
permanently defeated, and the gardener's work will be done. To the contrary, a
day will inevitably come that the gardener will no longer be around, and weeds
will take over what once was hers.
If her practice is self-contradictory and desperate - then why, and in the
name of what, does a gardener act? Solely in her own name: she defends her
spaces and plants simply because they make her world better for her - no more,
but no less. To protect and promote such world, she must first accept the way
it works. Weeds are brought in by her; they will not go away by themselves;
and by getting them out of the way more will come. In the very act of weed-
ing, therefore, a gardener renounces the dream of an end-point to her toils,
and simply adheres to the way things work, accepting her station within them.
Her practice, self-contradictory and desperate as it is, once accepted as such
becomes cheerful in Democritus' sense: a force aiming at no set and final tar-
get - which is, for that very reason, self-propelling and thus ultimately free. A
resolute force, whose freedom and dignity resides precisely in its resoluteness
- in its being consistently and thoroughly applied, no matter what. In short,
a gardener knows the game cannot be won, but denies that this is enough to
disqualify her from playing it. By contesting what cannot be contested, she
reaffirms her freedom to do so, her ways of doing so, and the dignity of doing
so well. Such reaffirmation can be replicated at will, and the transient but mo-
mentarily pervasive satisfaction of a job well done is never foreclosed. This is
reason for cheerfulness.
Cheerfulness in the Anthropocene is thus not a negation but an embrace-
ment of the homeopathic curse. Much like a gardener pulling weeds, in order
203
to defend the congeniality of basic ecological systems we must, as it wer

defend ourselves from ourselves. This makes stewardship inherently self
contradictory. And because there is no end-point to reach, when one mana
systemic problematic circumstances that are brought about and reinforced
her, stewardship is also desperate. Nonetheless, the cheerful agent will not
out of the game, but rather play it every day, without diversions, excuse
delegating it to others. In so doing, she will reaffirm her freedom and dig
and proudly celebrate rather than condemn her humanity, even and espec
in the face of looming anthropogenic disaster. She will take repose and deli
in the transient moments of satisfaction following local success and in the
cess of refining her notion of success as well as her ways of pursuing it.
will not back out in the face of overall futility and final inevitable defeat.
The opportunity to pursue those transient moments of satisfaction rem
open in the Anthropocene, and the capacity of doing so well is entirely
to develop and exercise. This is reason for cheerfulness, and cheerfulness
further motivate us to stewardship. I would even add that the cheerful ag
will see irony, rather than reason for discouragement, in the fact that the
of her geo-power coincides with the most urgent need to minimise it; that
must be done even in the absence of personal responsibility for any pernic
effects that such geo-power might have; and unaided by the incentives tr
tionally provided by political edicts and moral obligations. She will then
stewardship precisely for what it is: an ethical possibility actualised by fr
engaging in certain sets of practices of different degrees of complexity an
pursuing them resolutely. Her focus will be not on 'discharging' some obli
tion by making a morally satisfactory amount of positive difference, but rat
on opening and exploring all the opportunities for self-development and s
understanding that a resolute engagement with various stewardship practi
may offer. In short, as with all virtues, her primary focus will be on the pra
rather than its outcomes and on the benefits internal to the practice rather t
those produced by it.20
CONCLUDING REMARKS
This paper has discussed individual environmental ethics in a rapidly ch

ing, ecologically deteriorating world. I have argued that an ethic for
Anthropocene must be based on individualised, self-starting, self-regulat
metropolitan, networked, resolute ecosystem stewardship whose backbo
20. Note that this neither means that outcomes do not matter, nor that good outcomes
materialise even if their production is not the agent's primary focus (on the good outcom
urban gardening see note 21). See O'Neill, 2008 and Jamieson, 2014 for analogous foc
practice over outcome. On the notion of benefits internal to practices see Maclntyre, 1
and also Elster, 1985. On the notion of practice see Thompson, 2008.
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MARCELLO DI PAOLA
active, virtuous engagement. I have discussed two relevant environmental

tues - mindfulness and cheerfulness - which can be developed and exerci
in highly humanised contexts of engagement - namely urban gardens.
Overall, I told a story of ethical disorientation and great difficulty. But
it, our freedom and dignity found their place as well. No ecological quanda
global governance crisis, or moral puzzle can rob individuals of complete
risdiction over their own character. In the Anthropocene, we are still free
devise and pursue ways of conjugating stewardship with our own self-und
standing and development and with the exploration of important sources
meaning and value in and for our lives.
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Virtues for the Anthropocene

Author(s): MARCELLO DI PAOLA

Center for Ethics and Global Politics

The paper discusses some difficulties that life in Anthropocene poses to o

Anthropocene, virtues, gardens

According to current classifications, we live in the Holocene. This ep

The adventures of Homo sapiens on Earth have been so extensive, intens

Environmental Values 24.2

climate change in particular can be expected to cause large, faster-than-usu

1 . On mindfulness as an environmental virtue see Jamieson, 2007: 23.

Environmental Values 24.2

However, I do claim them to be pivotal virtues, and gardening to be most

1. CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE ANTHROPOCENE

Here are some ethically problematic features of life in the Anthropocene.

Environmental Values 24.2

Our (technologically mediated) ability to impact and alter (intentionally or not)

5. So, interestingly, as my geo-power expands, my liberty comes to be limited in unexpected

Environmental Values 24.2

- somewhere, in the (not necessarily far) future, harming and burdening

Environmental Values 24.2

geo-power. These, unfortunately, breed threats to the long-term sustainabili

Environmental Values 24.2

A fourth difference between bio- and geo-power is that the latter is a p

ii) Regulatory impasse

The Anthropocene is hard to govern. This is a very large issue both

Environmental Values 24.2

identifiable natural entities or systems. For instance, illegal traders would ta

Environmental Values 24.2

iii) Elusive moral imperatives

We have a hard time classifying such individualised effort, and in gene

Responsibility - In the Anthropocene, the impalpable forces of geo-pow

Environmental Values 24.2

Environmental Values 24.2

for many important quandaries of the Anthropocene is not just diffused

Environmental Values 24.2

14. For a review of relevant arguments see Jamieson, 2008: chapters 3, 5, 6.

Environmental Values 24.2

the planet. Cosmically speaking, they are of no matter whatsoever at al

15. Both worries could be assuaged if stewardship was theologically-based, as it originally

Environmental Values 24.2

iv) The homeopathic curse

Environmental Values 24.2

leaving no trace on the geological record. Stewardship in the Anthropocen

2. VIRTUES FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE

The question is what, given i - iv, would count as environmentally virtuo

Environmental Values 24.2

Environmental Values 24.2

networks to global ecological degradation, even in the absence of a direct a

Environmental Values 24.2

The development and exercise of mindfulness is a behavioural and attitudi-

Environmental Values 24.2

Environmental Values 24.2

to defend the congeniality of basic ecological systems we must, as it wer

This paper has discussed individual environmental ethics in a rapidly ch

Environmental Values 24.2

active, virtuous engagement. I have discussed two relevant environmental

Bendik-Keymer, J. and A. Thompson, eds. 2012. Ethical Adaptation to Clim

Cooper, D. 2006. A Philosophy of Gardens. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Crutzen, P 2002. 'Geology of mankind'. Nature 415 (6867): 23. CrossRef