Accountability and Transparency in the Modern Anthropocene

285 Pages·2023·6.173 MB·English

by  Glen Lehman

Glen Lehman
Accountability
and Transparency
in the Modern
Anthropocene
Accountability and Transparency in the Modern
Anthropocene
Glen Lehman
Accountability and
Transparency in the Modern
Anthropocene
Glen Lehman
Adelaide, SA, Australia
ISBN 978-981-16-5190-8 ISBN 978-981-16-5191-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5191-5
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore
Pte Ltd. 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721,
Singapore
Preface
Our entire picture of the world has to be altered even though the [theory] changes only by a
little bit. This is a very peculiar thing about philosophy. … Even a very small effected some-
times requires profound changes in our ideas. (Feynman, the Feynman Lectures on Physics,
found in Hutto & Myin, 2017, p. ix)
Since the seventeenth century Enlightenment, Western economic and political
thought has stressed the importance of economic growth as integral to a sustainable
world (Stoknesa & Rockströmbgreen, 2018). Over the course of this epoch, a sus-
tainable and growth society is assumed to be achievable within existing social struc-
tures, such as those based on free-market principles of laissez-faire economics.
These processes have led to the construction of what is referred to as the
Anthropocene (Luke, 2019). This is a term that denotes the current geological age,
viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence
on climate and the environment (Jamieson, 2016).1
Humanity has become a major force of Nature in the Modern Anthropocene, and
this book offers a critical interpretation of these economic and calculative approaches
that shape and dominate ecological discourse and political theory. The major theo-
retical impediment to challenging the implications of the Anthropocene is largely
the intolerable inequality of modern Western and capitalist modernity. The inequali-
ties of today are made provisionally tolerable only by rapid economic growth. As
such we must rethink the concept of economic growth together with steady-state
social arrangements in challenging the pursuit of unlimited growth through profit
structures (Sen, 1994).
A notable example is how neoliberal economic theory assumes that unlimited
economic growth is feasible and possible through ever increasing technological and
1 In this book I use the term ‘analytic-interpreters’ to refer to the ideas of Dreyfus, Gadamer,
Nussbaum and Taylor. It has also been defined as communitarian-libearlism or post-liberalism.
Interpretation is about examining, identifying and (possibly) combining divergent political strate-
gies within a broad and encompassing set of political commonalities. Some of these definitions and
ideas have been developed in Fiedler & Lehman (1995), Lehman (1995, 1998, 2004, 2010a, b,
2011a, b, 2015, 2017).
v
vi Preface
scientific advances (Davis & Walsh, 2017). Environmentalists such as Paul Ehrlich
(1968) have argued that limits to growth exist. This means that continual escalations
in economic growth may not be feasible in the medium to long term. Modernity
must respond to the challenges of inequality. Here, ideas from Casanova’s (2011)
Public Religions and Taylor’s (2007) A Secular Age are used to explain how our
Western secular age is influenced not only by a narrow vision of the natural environ-
ment but a procedural and secular conception of practical reason (see Abbey, 2002
for early work on Taylor’s interpretivism). This is a form of reasoning that sub-
merges other ways to think about modernity and the various social fields in the
public sphere (Bourdieu, 1993, 2005; Taylor, 2011). In their various ways, both
thinkers did not set out to find a single narrative about modernity. Moreover, they
were not arguing whether religion was being eroded by modernisation or not.
Rather, they explored how religion was being reshaped by modernity. Modernisation
did not bring secularity per se, but it did bring a differentiation of social spheres so
that no one religion could pervade all elements of social life.
Secularist research has been undertaken by theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu
(1993), José Casanova (2011), Hubert Dreyfus (2004) and Charles Taylor (2007).
Their ideas are used to form an interpretivist political response to the problems
confronting modern communities. This involves returning, in part, to counter-
Enlightenment thinkers to whom modernity offers a dangerous trajectory. Indeed,
the seventeenth-century philosopher, Johann Herder, was one of the first to observe
that the Enlightenment spawned an instrumental political virus that submerges our
non-inferential engagements with the world. This is where the idea of non-inferen-
tialism refers to humanity’s direct engagements in Nature. A counter-Enlightenment
vision of modernity involves consideration of our place in the world, that is, a world
where language is the conduit through which the otherness of Nature is articulated
(Luke, 2019; Lehman, 1995, 1999, 2011a, 2021; Taylor, 1986, 1989b, 1993).
The analysis and exploration of ecological and global politics in the Modern
Anthropocene can benefit from an interpretivist approach to politics. This is to
argue that accountability, ecological politics and sustainability research must con-
sider the notion of steady-state social arrangements (Taylor, 1978, 1989b. 2010a, b).
Using ideas from political interpretation, phenomenology and secular reasoning,
new research focuses on our engaged bodily relationships in the world (Taylor,
1978). No longer can we consider ourselves thinking beings capable of controlling
Nature. Rather, we are beings immersed in the world (both human and natural in
terms of ecosystems). Our engagements in the world are then expressed through our
languages touched by Nature. This more basic way to think about our humanity
offers new opportunities to consider the commonalities needed to organise the
human situation in the Modern Anthropocene. Environmental and social issues are
more than simply calculating and costing our relationships with the natural world.
These ideas are taken further to understand the various patterns of meaning which
have influenced the construction of our societies. Through the narratives, paths and
structures that shape communities in the Modern Anthropocene it is possible to
perceive and visualise the natural world. New political structures must be designed
Preface vii
that align our activities and systems with the natural environment. This is a task
needed now more than ever before (Baquendano Jer, 2019).
In this regard, critical and environmental thinkers express the caveat that the
criterion of sustainability is limited by its affiliation with procedural and secular
forms of reasoning. Procedural and technical approaches to the world do not engage
fully with critical and interpretivist means to understand our place in the natural
world. Critical and interpretivist theorists maintain that sustainability must be con-
sidered in the light of the narratives and processes of Western thinking. More funda-
mentally, the focus should be about how these narratives have adversely impacted
Nature (Rosenzweig et al., 2008; Lehman, 2001, 2011a, b, 2021). That is, to under-
stand the complexity of the dilemmas confronting modern communities, we must
not constrain thinking by narrow interpretations reliant purely on anthropocentric
and secular thinking (see Economist, 2020; Iovino and Opperman, 2014).
It is not enough to simply rely on corporate environmental and political strate-
gies, politics must engage with cultures different from our own in the pursuit of
environmental sustainability. Part of any viable strategy must focus critically on the
role of discourse to reveal the implications associated with ideologies such as com-
munitarianism, liberalism, socialism, and utilitarianism (Nussbaum, 2006). The
interpretivist and secularist loci classici are Hegel’s (1977) Phenomenology of Spirit
together with ideas from Heidegger’s (1962) Being and Time and Merleau-Ponty’s
(1964) The Primacy of Perception. These works are used to illustrate our direct and
immediate relationship with Nature (Taylor, 1989a, 1994, 1995). These various
authors provide a multifaceted understanding of the specificity of communal life,
and the common purposes that exist for everyone as part of the natural environment.
Challenging modernity’s preoccupation with growth is a concern that single set
economic and political solutions are unlikely to provide. They do not offer full
understanding of the conundrums confronting modern communities. The challenge
therefore is to understand how humanity is engaged in the world and does not con-
trol it. Intriguingly, theorists of secularist processes (Casanova and Taylor) explain
how modernity is empowered by sources such as religion. Arguments for the role of
religion leads to the view that anthropocentrism narrows the frameworks that can
explain, interpret, and shape our being-in-the-world. The relevance of interpretation
is that it concurs with deep ecologists from one point of view, theists from another.
Speculating, Taylor states in his introduction to A Secular Age:
I may find it inconceivable that I would abandon my faith, but there are others, including
possibly some very close to me, whose way of living I cannot in all honesty just dismiss as
depraved, or blind, or unworthy, who have no faith (at least not in God or the transcendent).
Belief in God is no longer axiomatic. There are alternatives. And this will likely mean that
at least in certain milieux, it may be hard to sustain one’s faith. There will be people who
feel bound to give it up, even though they mourn its loss. (Taylor, 2007, p. 53)
Within this quotation lies an implicit question: what are the alternatives to moder-
nity? How do non-secular alternatives motivate action? Are they environmentally
and politically viable? Do they respect the rights of all citizens?
Interestingly, Richard Bernstein (2009) observed in his review of – A Secular
Age – that it is a very personal and passionate book. It offers an eloquent and
viii Preface
moving défense of the benefits of a humanistic religious faith in a Christian God.
Bernstein emphasises Taylor’s personal commitments as opposed to the analysis of
secular processes which have created a consumer-focussed culture (Taylor, 2007,
2010a, b). In literature dealing with secularity and modernity, the consumer culture
is referred to as a disenchanted world. In this regard, this is the price we pay for
failing to explore and understand all the ideas about our place in it (Taylor, 2011).
As will be seen in the 16 chapters of this book, political systems have the propen-
sity to create unsustainable and unjust outcomes, even when the motivations have
been constructed with sound intentions. Environmental politics searches for new
political structures that can accommodate sound environmental outcomes and uses
philosophy and political theory in this endeavour. They share the view that the proce-
dural and bureaucratic politics of today have limited means available for humanity to
visualise and meet the natural environment. As a result, humanity has remained alien-
ated from the natural world. The task is to re-enchant not only the natural environment
but the cultural visions on which it is based (see Lehman and Mortensen, 2019).
Adelaide, SA, Australia Glen Lehman
1st October 2020
References
Abbey, R. (2002). Taylor as a postliberal theorist of politics. In A. Laitinen & N. H. Smith (Eds.),
Perspectives on the philosophy of Charles Taylor (Acte Philosophica Fennica) (Vol. 71,
pp. 149–165).
Baquendano Jer, S. (2019). Ecocide or environmental self-destruction. Environmental Ethics,
41(3), 237–249.
Bernstein, R. (2009). The uneasy tensions of immanence and transcendence. International Journal
of Politics , Culture and Society, 21(1–4), 11–16.
Bourdieu, P. (1993). The field of cultural production. Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2005). Habitus: A sense of place (J. Hillier & E. Rooksby, Eds.). Ashgate.
Casanova, J. (2011). Public religions in the modern world. University of Chicago Press.
Davis, A., & Walsh, C. (2017). Distinguishing financialization from neoliberalism. Theory, Culture
and Society, 34(5–6), 27–51.
Dreyfus, H. L. (2004). Taylor’s (Anti-) epistemology. In R. Abbey (Ed.), Charles Taylor
(pp. 52–84). Cambridge University Press.
Economist. (2020). The next catastrophe, June 29th 2020, The Economist.
Ehrlich, P. R. (1968). The population bomb. Ballantine.
Fiedler, & Lehman, G. (1995). Accounting, accountability and the environmental factor.
Accounting Forum, 19(2/3), 195–204.
Hegel, G. W. F. (1977). Phenomenology of spirit. Oxford University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. Harper & Rowe.
Hutto, D. D., & Myin, E. (2017). Evolving enactivism: Basic minds meet content. MIT press.
Iovino, S., & Opperman, S. (Eds.). (2014). Material ecocriticism. Indiana University Press.
Jamieson, D. (2016). A review of ‘The Anthropocene Project’: Virtue in the age of climate change
by Byron Williston. Notre Dame. Philosophical Reviews: An Electronic Journal. https://ndpr.
nd.edu/news/the-anthropocene- project-virtue-in-the-age-of-climate-change/. Accessed 29
June 2018.
Preface ix
Lehman, G. (1995). A legitimate concern with environmental accounting. Critical Perspectives on
Accounting, 6(5), 393–413.
Lehman, G. (1999). Disclosing new world: Social and environmental accounting. Accounting,
Organizations and Society, 24, 217–241.
Lehman, G. (2001). Reclaiming the public sphere: Problems and prospects for corporate social and
environmental accounting. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 12(6), 713–733.
Lehman, G. (2004). Social and environmental accounting: Trends and thoughts for the future.
Accounting Forum, 28(1), 1–5.
Lehman, G. (2010a). Perspectives on accounting, commonalities & the public sphere. Critical
Perspectives on Accounting, 21(8), 724–738.
Lehman, G. (2010b). Interpretive accounting research. Accounting Forum, 34(3–4), 231–236.
Lehman, G. (2011a). The management of sustainability: The art of interpretation. Journal of
Applied Management Accounting Research, 9, 75–88.
Lehman, G. (2011b). Interpretativism, postmodernism and the natural environment. Philosophy
and Social Criticism, 37, 795–821.
Lehman, G. (2015). Charles Taylor’s ecological conversations: politics, commonalities and the
natural environment. Palgrave Macmillan.
Lehman, G. (2017). The language of environmental and social accounting research: The expres-
sion of beauty and truth. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 44, 30–41.
Lehman, G. (2021). Accountability, philosophy and the natural environment. Taylor & Francis.
Lehman, G., & Mortensen, C. (2019). Finance, nature and ontology. Topoi. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s11245- 019- 09654- 5
Luke, T. W. (2019). Las Vegas as the Anthropocene: The neoliberal city as desertification all the way
down. In The challenge of progress (Current perspectives in social theory) (Vol. 36, pp. 159–178).
Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0278- 120420190000036020
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964). The primacy of perception. Northwestern University Press.
Nussbaum, M. (2006). Frontiers of justice: Disability, nationality and species membership.
Belknap Press & Harvard University Press.
Rosenzweig, C., Karoly, D., Vicarelli, M., Neofotis, P., Wu, Q., Casassa, G., Menzel, A., Root,
T. L., Estrella, N., Seguin, B., Tryjanowski, P., Liu, C., Rawlins, S., & Imeson, A. (2008).
Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change. Nature, 453,
353–357.
Sen, A. (1994). Population: Delusion and reality. The New York Review of Books, XLI(15), 62–71.
Stoknesa, P. E., & Rockströmbgreen, J. (2018). Growth within planetary boundaries. Energy
Research & Social Science, 44, 41–4.
Taylor, C. (1978). Politics of the steady state. New Universities Quarterly, 32(2), 157–184.
Taylor, P. W. (1986). Respect for nature: A theory of environmental ethics. Princeton University Press.
Taylor, C. (1989a). Cross-purposes: The liberal-communitarian debate. In N. Rosenblum (Ed.),
Liberalism and the moral life. Harvard University Press.
Taylor, C. (1989b). Sources of the self. Oxford University Press.
Taylor, C. (1990). Modes of civil society. Public Culture, 3(1), 95–118.
Taylor, C. (1993). Explanation and practical reason. In M. Nussbaum & A. Sen (Eds.), The quality
of life (pp. 208–232). Clarendon Press.
Taylor, C. (1994). Response to my critics. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 54(1),
203–212.
Taylor, C. (1995). Philosophical arguments. Harvard University Press.
Taylor, C. (2007). A secular age. Oxford University Press.
Taylor, C. (2010a). Afterword: Apologia pro Libro suo. In M. Warner, J. Vanantwerpen,
& C. Calhoun (Eds.), Varieties of secularism: In a secular age (pp. 300–321). Harvard
University Press.
Taylor, C. (2010b). Challenging issues about the secular age. Modern Theology, 26(3), 404–416.
Taylor, C. (2011). Why we need a radical redefinition of secularism. In J. Butler (Ed.), The power
of religion in the public sphere (pp. 34–60). Columbia University Press.
Acknowledgements
I have benefited from many very helpful discussions on these topics with various
scholars. To name the most recent: Dr. George Couvalis, Dr. Andrew Grienke,
Bonnie Manning, Anna Murison, Caitlin Pendergrast, Professor Russell Craig,
Professor David David, Emeritus Professor Chris Mortensen and Professor David
Parker. In the United Kingdom, Emeriti, Emeritus Professors Jane Broadbent, Mike
Jones, Richard Laughlin, Prem Sikka and Professor Jim Haslam have been very
supportive and helpful when visiting there. I would like to thank my parents,
Douglas and Patricia, for supporting this research over many years.
xi