Author ORCID Identifier
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
Abstract
“Alienation from nature” is a popular notion in Western environmental culture. Influential Anglophone critical theorist Steven Vogel claims that it makes no sense, unlike alienation from our productive capacity to dwell on Earth, called “alienation from the environment.” His criticism is accurate, but his view isn’t. The normative sets appropriate production and consists of social processes of arriving at norms. Politics is foremost among these processes, and it is fundamentally know-how. Given these assumptions, poor practical capacity ends up being the heart of “environmental alienation” – alienation from the built environment. Look at large-scale, anthropogenic, environmental change: a deficit of political know-how leaves people alienated from the planetary environment created by human engineering.
Keywords
environmental alienation, practical capacity, normativity, political know-how, Steven Vogel
Language
English
Publication Title
Ethical Studies
Rights
© The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/), which permits non-commercial copying and redistribution of the material in any medium or format, provided the original work is not changed in any way and is properly cited.
Recommended Citation
Bendik-Keymer, Jeremy. "Poor in Practical Capacity: How Environmental Alienation Is Really A Lack Of Political Know-How." Етически Изследвания (Ethical Studies): 3. https://jesbg.com/jbendik-keymer-poor-in-practical-capacity-how-environmental-alienation-is-really-a-lack-of-political-know-how/
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