The Post-Factual Role of Ethics and Law in Our Environment
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The Post-Factual Role of Ethics and Law in Our Environment
Jahrbuch Recht und Ethik, Vol. 29(2021), Iss. 1 : pp. 3–25
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Junker, Kirk W., Prof. Dr., Lehrstuhl für US-amerikanisches Recht, Environmental Law Center, Universität zu Köln, Aachenerstraße 201/4. OG, D-50931 Köln
Abstract
In our actions and decisions, we never fully oriented ourselves to facts and the western culture already existed before the invention of the concept of facts. Records show that the concept of the fact was invented by law to distinguish randomly from abstract rules. The concept of the fact went from law into the natural sciences, where the importance of acts shifted to the existence of material things. The scientific concept of factual has been permeated with the entire culture since the Enlightenment, but was criticized in the second half of the twentieth century because of its social construction. This useful criticism attracted populists with destructive motives and as a result, an element of disregarding facts has crept into civil society discourse, including environmental issues. Without the possibility of relying arguments on scientific facts, the right must recognize that large parts of the public make their decisions based on values and not from scientific facts. The public reactions to climate change and Covid-19 are examples of this phenomenon. The states have failed in the past thirty years to take sensible legal measures to contain climate change, although the scientific facts have become more and more numerous. In pandemic, citizens refuse to take measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 among their fellow citizens and refer to a certain level of personal freedom. How can you create values without supporting them through facts? What role can environmental law play in the determination of these values beyond fact -based systems of rights and duties? In the pre -factic culture of Greece, Ethos and Pathos courts were recommended on an equal footing next to the Logos. However, there is no records of a preliminary vocation on the pathos in the name of non-human or abstract structures such as "the environment". The post-factual world of empathic conviction is therefore largely new territory.
The Post-Factual Role of Ethics and Law in Our Environment
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kirk W. Junker, The Post-Factual Role of Ethics and Law in Our Environment | 3 | ||
| I. Introduction: Our Environment after the Fact | 3 | ||
| II. From Pre-Fact to Fact | 4 | ||
| 1. Legal | 5 | ||
| 2. Science Fact and Science Fiction | 6 | ||
| a) Establishing the Notion of Scientific Fact | 6 | ||
| b) Science Fiction: Critiques of the Concept of the Scientific Fact | 8 | ||
| 3. Legal Facts and Legal Fictions | 11 | ||
| III. Environmental Ethics and Environmental Law | 3 | ||
| 1. Environmental Liabilities | 3 | ||
| 2. Environmental Rights | 3 | ||
| IV. Exercising an “Environmental” Ethic through the Law | 3 | ||
| 1. Exercising an “Environmental” Ethic through the Law with Scientific Facts | 3 | ||
| 2. Environmental Ethics in Law during the Post-Fact Era | 3 | ||
| a) The Ethic of Ethics | 3 | ||
| b) Facing Facts | 3 | ||
| 3. Law and the Social Animal: From Pathos to Empathy | 4 | ||
| V. Conclusion | 4 | ||
| Zusammenfassung | 4 |