An article just published in Sustainability
"Ethics to Intersect Civic Participation and
Formal Guidance"
(by Martin Bohle, Cornelia E. Nauen, and Eduardo Marone)
Abstract:
Sound governance arrangement in socio-ecological systems (human niche) combines different means of sense-making. The sustainability of human niche-building depends on the governability of the social-ecological systems (SES) forming the niche. Experiences from small-scale marine fisheries and seabed mining illustrate how ethical frameworks, civic participation and formalised guidance combine in the context of a “blue economy”. Three lines of inquiries contextualise these experiences driving research questions, such as “what is the function of ethics for governability?” First, complex-adaptive SES are featured to emphasise the sense-making feedback loop in SES. Actors are part of this feedback loop and can use different means of sense-making to guide their actions. Second, the “Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries” and geoethical thinking are featured to highlight the relevance of actor-centric concepts. Third, Kohlberg’s model of “stages of moral adequacy” and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) are used to show how to strengthen actor-centric virtue-ethics. Combining these lines of inquiry leads to the conclusion that ethical frameworks, civic participation and formalised guidance, when put in a mutual context, support governability and multi-actor/level policy-making. Further research could explore how creativity can strengthen civic participation, a feature only sketched here.
Free Download:
http://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/5195a5_ea0fec9cb7104298bfa884391941f213.pdf
Other articles on geoethics in the IAPG website (free download):
http://www.geoethics.org/articles-geoethics
Books on geoethics (chapters for free download):
http://www.geoethics.org/books-on-geoethics
IAPG - International Association for Promoting Geoethics:
http://www.geoethics.org
