Biography
Sharon Krause is Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence and Professor of Political Science. Her work in political theory ranges from the history of political thought (especially 18th century) to contemporary liberal and democratic theory. She is the author of Freedom Beyond Sovereignty: Reconstructing Liberal Individualism (University of Chicago Press, 2015); Civil Passions: Moral Sentiment and Democratic Deliberation (Princeton University Press, 2008); and Liberalism with Honor (Harvard University Press, 2002). She is currently writing a book called Eco-Emancipation: An Earthly Politics of Freedom, which explores the relationship between the human domination of nature and the political, economic, and social domination of human beings.
Our dominant cultural conception of responsibility, modeled on the legal notion of liability, is deeply disabling of environmental action because it presupposes intentionality and control, emphasizes blame and punishment, and saddles the individual with changes that no one can accomplish alone. This conception of responsibility is ill suited to the environmental domain, where people often contribute to damage without intending or controlling their effects, and where they reasonably chafe at being blamed for participating in practices they cannot realistically avoid or change on their own. This talk explores an alternative way of conceiving responsibility in the environmental context, emphasizing responsibility as accountability rather than liability. Accountability means that we can sometimes be obligated to help repair damage that we did not intend to bring about or have control over, damage that we cannot be blamed for having caused. And while accountability applies to us as individuals, it requires us to act collectively for change going forward, including change in the structural forces that shape the conditions of action for all of us. Along with exploring the meaning of environmental responsibility in this alternative form, we’ll look at several initiatives at the level of culture, politics, and the economy that could help motivate and support its practice.