Eco-republicanism

Patrick Curry

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 Suppl C 2020: 31–8

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First published: 4 March 2020 | PERMANENT URL | DOWNLOAD CITATION IN RIS FORMAT

Abstract

This article argues that eco-republicanism is a good, perhaps the best, model for an ecocentric and therefore ecologically sustainable polity. Conversely, it maintains that ecocentrism (and arguably only that) would enable a republican project to fully realize its goals. It begins by describing the chief characteristics of civic republicanism, concentrating on the Florentine or Atlantic tradition. It then considers the changes to that model that would follow from clearly defining the 'common good' as fundamentally ecological in a sense that includes but is far from only concerned with human beings. It also begins to address the implications of deep-green civic duty, the need for a corresponding emphasis in education, and the difficult question of how to institute and protect ecocentrism from destructive sectarian meddling (which is anti-republican by definition), no matter how popular or 'democratic'.

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