Sustainability, Wellbeing and the Posthuman Turn

Chapter 1: IntroductionHere, the problematic of sustainable development shall be established, beginning with a synopsis of 20th century environmental debates, followed by discussion of how the discourse of sustainable development emerged to bring together concerns for the environment with those regarding wealth, quality of life and inequality. I shall here review how the idea of going 'beyond growth' has become a prominent concern amongst those who question the ecological and social impacts of contemporary global economy. It will briefly examine the origins of such debates in the seminal work of green and 'steady state' economists, including E.F. Schumacher and Herman Daly, amongst others.Chapter 2: WellbeingWith the interest in transcending GDP, and mounting evidence that increased wealth hasn't translated into increased social flourishing, notions of wellbeing have come to the fore in recent decades. This has resulted in an explosion of popular and academic work on the topic, including best-selling books, dedicated journals and high-profile national statistical commissions. Influential policy initiatives such as the Kingdom of Bhutan's famous metric of 'Gross National Happiness' and Ecuador's emphasis on 'buen vivir' will also be introduced here, as exemplifying this trend. Concluding the section, the argument shall be made that the term 'wellbeing' is, amidst this proliferation, often taken for granted, perhaps more than it should be.Chapter 3: SustainabilityLike wellbeing, sustainability has increasingly been made relevant in overwhelmingly abstract and quantitative terms of late, largely displacing previous philosophical and moral concerns in environmental thought, for example with regard to 'ecocentrism' and 'intrinsic worth'.
Chapter 4: The Posthuman Turn: Ecological Ethics and the Multiple SelfThis final chapter takes a more polemical approach, summing up what has been lost in current understandings of sustainable development,

Thomas S.J. Smith received his PhD from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. He is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Environmental Studies at Masaryk University, Czech Republic, and an editor at the Dark Mountain Project, an environmental literary initiative which gathers writers, poets, and artists who are interested in challenging the conventional narratives of civilisation.