Eco-Ethics and an Ethics of Suffering

After situating the eco-ethical project in the contexts of four major themes in contemporary philosophical reflection in the companion volume published simultaneously, Eco-Ethics and Contemporary Philosophical Reflection, Peter McCormick now suggests a re-articulation and critical appraisal of ecoethics in terms of its two cardinal concepts, the technological conjuncture and ethical innovation. In the second part he then articulates one direction only that further work on the ecoethical project might follow, namely sustained philosophical inquiry into what he has discussed elsewhere in terms of a "negative sublime" and the deep pathos of famine, the global necessity today for an ethics of suffering. When taken together, both books open perspectives on how contemporary Western philosophical reflection can benefit from broadening its present scope to more active engagements with contemporary East Asian reflection.