What matter matters as a matter of justice

Bibliographic Data

ID4328906
AuthorsCalvert J Winter (0000-0002-5427-9196, Politics Programme, University of Otago, Dunedin, corresponding author), David Schlosberg (0000-0003-3547-919X, Politics, University of Sydney, Sydney)
Year2024
Volume33
Issue7
Pages1205-1224
Publication date2024-11-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0964-4016 • E-ISSN: 1743-8934
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09644016.2023.2220640
OpenAlexW4385209653
LanguageEN
Citations received27
References cited54

With planet-wide environmental unravelling ideas of multispecies and planetary justice are gaining multidisciplinary attention. They frame a set of ethical, moral and political obligations to life-on-Earth. While it is clear it is humans who bear the duties and obligations of justice, who or what is the subject of justice-beyond-human varies widely: Some limit the subject to sentient animals, others include all living things. We argue for a more expansive subject that includes both living and non-living matter. We claim that privileging living/life is an anthropocentric categorisation embedded in the foundational epistemologies and ontologies driving environmental damages, resource conflicts and mass extinction. An exclusion of matter from concerns of justice ignores multiple fundamental more-than-human relationships in humans’ every-day material lives. We argue that the subject of planetary justice must be expansive – addressing sentient or not, living or not, animal, vegetable, mineral, and elemental – to be inclusive, applied, plural, and sustainable

Anthropocentrism · Economic Justice · Environmental ethics · Environmental justice · Expansive · Plural · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Subject matter · Environmental Philosophy and Ethics · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Ecology, and Ethics

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