Geoethics intends to shape human behaviour "wherever human activities interact with the
Earth system" [*]. Considering that ambition, geoethics should render human
activities a more effective and efficient feature of the Earth system. Such an
ambition requires to analyse the function of geoethical thinking from the
perspective of system dynamics.
It sounds like a buzzword, ‘wicked’.
Nevertheless, it describes how human agents may perceive the dynamics of
complex-adaptive social-ecological systems that make-up the ‘human niche’. People
are an intrinsic part of social-ecological systems. Examples of ‘wicked’ system
behaviour are emergent properties, that is, outcomes of complex-adaptive systems that are more than the sum of their parts.
In times of anthropogenic global change, the
Earth system emerges as a planetary network of social-ecological systems. Global
supply-chains and hegemonic systems of cultural values interconnect them, and,
subsequently, the geosphere, biosphere and technosphere amalgamate into the
planetary ‘human niche’, blending into the Earth system dynamics also
individual and collective human behaviour.
The technosphere is more than the
technological ‘hardware’ of infrastructures, production system and consumption
patterns that humankind has built. Human behaviour is the ‚software’ of the
technosphere. Human behaviour is encompassing attitudes and actions of
individuals as well as the functioning of governance systems of many scales and
designs. Human behaviour is an essential feature of the technosphere because it
determines what design-features the ‘hardware’ exhibits and how it is deployed
and used (‘software’).
Underpinning the human behaviour are
individual and social sense-making processes. These processes exhibit rational
and affective features; the latter also expressing social and emotional belongingness
of the agent. The objects of the sense-making processes are natural and
artificial environments, groups and individual human beings, and the individual
or collective sense-making agent self. The different perceptions that result
from the various sense-making processes show variable, agent-depending biases. Irrespectively, in what manner the
perceptions may be shaped or prejudiced, the sense-making processes feed into
actions of individuals, groups or institutions. The action, in turn, targets to
modulate either natural and people-made environments or human behaviour. It is
done by deploying technological ‘hardware’ and economic, social and political
processes (‘software’), respectively. Consecutive acts of ‘sense-making and
acting’ set a feedback loop within the Earth system.
The kind of a given feedback loop, either
negative (that is, damping) or positive (that is, enforcing) as well as its
relative strength determines how it may shape system dynamics. The feedback
loops that humans exercise in Earth systems through the design of the
technosphere is a noticeable key-feature of the human niche in times of
anthropogenic global change. Shaping these feedback loops is a governance /
cultural task that is exercised, for example, through specifying the design
features of the technology, how to deploy and use it, or what are values and
world-views that guide the design and use.
Complex-adaptive systems challenge the
capability of human agents to make sense of system behaviour and to act
appropriately. The challenge arises, for example, because complex adaptive
systems may change simultaneously at various scales, coupled with cascading
cause-effects relations and constraining path-dependencies. Therefore,
complex-adaptive system dynamics dwarf blue-print-like problem handling. A
blue-print-like problem handling is adapted to the so-called ‘tame’ systems (opposed
to what is called ‘wicked’ systems). Problem handling of ‘wickedness’ must be
adaptive, participative and explorative, as experience shows. Subsequently, the
issue arises how to empower human agents to act, in the absence of
‘blueprints’, in an appropriate manner across the system and in a reasonably
coordinated manner.
Complex-adaptive system behaviour may arise,
in a first instance, from non-linear processes and positive feedback loops
within the natural environments that humans did not perturb. That is,
complex-adaptive system behaviour may be a feature of pristine natural systems.
In the second instance, technological systems can exhibit complex-adaptive
system behaviour because of in-built non-linear processes and positive feedback
loops. Subsequently, intersections of the natural and technological system can
exhibit non-linearity and positive feedbacks at the interfaces. Finally, and in
the third instance, as technological systems are built, deployed and altered
‘with a purpose in mind’ the iterations of human ‘sense-making and acting’ are
an explicit feedback process. Complex-adaptive system behaviour may arise
because of the feedback loop of ‘human sense-making and acting’ that occurs in
the social sphere.
Complex-adaptive systems bind human agents in
a struggle for control, for mastering circumstances, or for reacting
appropriately. Often different agents are not aware of each other, act non-coordinated,
or react to effects of other-agents’ actions. Under such circumstance, the notion
‘wickedness’ may reflect appropriately their perceptions of their operation
within complex-adaptive system, for example, when facing issues like
anthropogenic pressure, environmental and technological risks or multi-level
governance. This generic circumstance calls for enforcing capability that
enables human agents to face ‘wickedness’ (of geo-systems). To that end,
effective capability building must focus on ‘human sense-making and acting’,
what, in turn, brings geoethics into the play.
The key-features of geoethics, namely ‘actor-centric, virtue-ethics focused,
responsibility focused, knowledge-based, context-dependence’ should be made
key-enablers. Taking a systems-perspective, it results because geoethical
thinking is about sense-making and acting, that geoethical thinking intervenes
directly in the feedback process of ‘sense-making and acting’. Because
geoethical thinking is knowledge-based, the interventions of the actors are
nourished by insights into the system behaviour (of natural, technological and
human systems). As geoethical thinking is concerned about social and political
contexts, the actors should be able to intervene in a value-sensitive and
culture-conscious manner.
[*]
Peppoloni, S.
(2018). Spreading geoethics through the languages of the world. Translations of
the Cape Town Statement on Geoethics. International Association for Promoting
Geoethics. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2122/11907
p.s. This essay is a stump for a scientific article that is in the making. It draws on various talks given during the last year. The test is published to invite comments.
Some literature:
Bohle, M., Preiser, R., Di Capua, G., Peppoloni, S., & Marone, E. (2019). Exploring Geoethics - Ethical Implications, Societal Contexts, and Professional Obligations of the Geosciences. (M. Bohle, Ed.). Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-12010-8
Colding, J., & Barthel, S. (2019). Exploring the social-ecological systems discourse 20 years later. Ecology and Society, 24(1), art2. doi:10.5751/ES-10598-240102;
Innes, J. E., & Booher, D. E. (2016). Collaborative rationality as a strategy for working with wicked problems. Landscape and Urban Planning, 154, 8–10. doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2016.03.016;
Jentoft, S., & Chuenpagdee, R. (2009). Fisheries and coastal governance as a wicked problem. Marine Policy, 33(4), 553–560. doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2008.12.002
Kowarsch et al. (2016) Scientific assessments to facilitate deliberative policy learning. Palgrave Communications, 2, 16092 DOI: 10.1057/palcomms.2016.92
Kowarsch et al. (2016) Scientific assessments to facilitate deliberative policy learning. Palgrave Communications, 2, 16092 DOI: 10.1057/palcomms.2016.92
Schlüter, M. et al. (2019). Capturing emergent phenomena in social-ecological systems: an analytical framework. Ecology and Society, 24(3), art11. doi:10.5751/ES-11012-240311
Termeer, C. J. A. , Dewulf, A., & Biesbroek, R. (2019). A critical assessment of the wicked problem concept: relevance and usefulness for policy science and practice. Policy and Society, 38(2), 167–179. doi:10.1080/14494035.2019.1617971;
Termeer, C. J. A. , Dewulf, A., & Biesbroek, R. (2019). A critical assessment of the wicked problem concept: relevance and usefulness for policy science and practice. Policy and Society, 38(2), 167–179. doi:10.1080/14494035.2019.1617971;
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