Catastrophe Ethics - by Travis Rieder (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A warm, personal guide to building a strong ethical and moral compass in the midst of today's confusing, scary, global problems. The moral challenges of today are unfamiliar in the history of philosophy. Climate change is the paradigm example of what Travis Rieder calls "The Puzzle" in the way your choices can seem at odds with what the planet urgently needs. How do we decide the right thing to do in the face of a massive collective challenge? Should you drink water from a plastic bottle or not? Drive a Tesla? Or is that just what Elon and all the other corporations want you to think? What makes individual ethics difficult to think about in the case of catastrophic climate change makes ethics difficult to think about in many other contexts as well. The Puzzle, as he explains, is everywhere now. The chapters include a lively, meaningful tour of traditional moral reasoning looking at the contributions of Plato, Hegel, and Kant among others. But they could not grasp The Puzzle we now face. Old fashioned exercises like trolley problems involving sacrificing one person on this track for a bunch of people on the other don't address the huge consequential and complex crises our global community faces today. The tools most of us unthinkingly rely on when we try to do the right thing don't help when it comes to reasoning about individual responsibility for large collective problems. Expanding our suite of ethical concepts is now urgently required. Rieder defines exactly how to change our thinking, addressing mundane issues like bottled water to the biggies like whether to have children. This is a way to live a morally decent life in the scary, always complicated world we and our children live in. It's how to build your own Catastrophe Ethics"--

Book Synopsis

How to live a morally decent life in the midst of today's constant, complex choices

In a world of often confusing and terrifying global problems, how should we make choices in our everyday lives? Does anything on the individual level really make a difference? In Catastrophe Ethics, Travis Rieder tackles the moral philosophy puzzles that bedevil us. He explores vital ethical concepts from history and today and offers new ways to think about the "right" thing to do when the challenges we face are larger and more complex than ever before.

Alongside a lively tour of traditional moral reasoning from thinkers like Plato, Mill, and Kant, Rieder posits new questions and exercises about the unique conundrums we now face, issues that can seem to transcend old-fashioned philosophical ideals. Should you drink water from a plastic bottle or not? Drive an electric car? When you learn about the horrors of factory farming, should you stop eating meat or other animal products? Do small commitments matter, or are we being manipulated into acting certain ways by corporations and media? These kinds of puzzles, Rieder explains, are everywhere now. And the tools most of us unthinkingly rely on to "do the right thing" are no longer enough. Principles like "do no harm" and "respect others" don't provide guidance in cases where our individual actions don't, by themselves, have any effect on others at all. We need new principles, with new justifications, in order to navigate this new world.

In the face of consequential and complex crises, Rieder shares exactly how we can live a morally decent life. It's time to build our own catastrophe ethics.

Review Quotes

"An informed, careful investigation of the connection between individual choices and large, complex problems." --Kirkus (STARRED REVIEW)

"Thought provoking...an excellent resource for the environmentally conscious weighing their life's choices" --Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)

"Smart, splendid, and brave. A crash course in ethics from an expert philosopher. This book gave me hope for the future and taught me that living a moral life is having the courage to parse the nuanced in-between. A must read for anyone who cares about doing good in the world." --Anna Lembke, New York Times bestselling author of Dopamine Nation

"A fascinating and thought-provoking guide to navigating the ethics of the climate crisis." --Siddarth Shrikanth, author of The Case for Nature

"If you want to be hopeful about whether an individual can act morally in a world where individuals don't seem to make much of a difference, this is the book for you." --Barry Lam, host of Slate's Hi-Phi Nation and professor of philosophy

"Urgent, accessible, and a pleasure to read. The topic could hardly be more serious, but Rieder serves up his philosophy as a readable mix of erudition, self-reflection, anecdote and wit." --Dr. Elizabeth Cripps, author of What Climate Justice Means and Why We Should Care and Parenting on Earth

"When people don't know what to do, they tend to do nothing. In this important book, Rieder puts a very erudite finger on a problem many of us have experienced but not had a name for: we've been trying to solve the ethical dilemmas of the twenty-first century, like to what extent we're each responsible for fixing climate change, with a framework built for an era that no longer exists. He gives us new ways to think that stand a chance at propelling us past our current exercise in collective inertia and and into ethical action." --E. Freya Williams, author of Green Giants

About the Author

Travis Rieder, PhD, is a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, where he directs the Master of Bioethics degree program. He holds secondary appointments in the departments of Philosophy and Health Policy and Management, as well as the Center for Public Health Advocacy. His first book, a memoir of opioid dependence and withdrawal, was named an NPR Best Book of 2019, and his TED Talk on the same topic has been viewed more than 2.5 million times. He has been interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air and his opinion writing has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, and Psychology Today.