Sustainability Ethics and Sustainability Research

1. Introduction PART I: Sustainability and Ethics 2. The Meaning of Sustainability 3. The Inherent Ethical Dimension of Sustainability - Toward a Relational Ethical Perspective 4. Limits and Potential of Traditional Moral Philosophy and Current Ethics - Some Arguments For the Need For a New Type of Sustainability Ethics4.1 The Limits of Utilitarianism and Deontology4.2 Environmental Ethics and Sustainability Ethics4.3 Virtue Ethics and Ethics of Care: The Ethical Relevance of Relationships4.4 The Ethical Relevance of Social Structures and Institutions 5. The Challenges of Sustainability Ethics PART II: Meta-structures and Sustainability 6. Sustainability, Institutions, and Patterns of Thought and Action 7. Meta-structures7.1 Science As a Meta-structure7.2 Technology As a Meta-structure7.3 The Economy As a Meta-structure7.4 Interrelations Among Meta-structures 8. The Impact of the Web of Meta-structures on the Sustainability Relations PART III: Toward a New Sustainability Ethics 9. The Relational Dimension of Sustainability Ethics and the Role of Individual Morality9.1 Ethics of the Human-Nature Relationship9.2 Ethical Specifics of the Relationship With Future Generations9.3 Sustainability and the Ethics of the Relationship Between Contemporaries9.4 An Integrated Ethical Approach to All Sustainability Relations: The Sustainable Person 10. The Structural Dimension of Sustainability Ethics10.1 An Ethical Critique of the Existing Web of Meta-structures10.1.1 The Reduction of the Human-Nature Relation10.1.2 The Reduction of the Relationship with Future Generations10.1.3 The Reduction of the Relationship Between Contemporaries10.1.4 Conclusion10.2 Guidelines for a Redesign of the Meta-structures10.3 Examples of Internal Structural Change: Biomimicry, Industrial Ecology, and Fair Trade10.4 Excursus: Rationality, Human Self-identity, and Meta-structures PART IV: Toward an Encompassing Sustainability Research 11. The Need For a New Type of Sustainability Research 12. Inter- and Transdisciplinarity12.1 Interdisciplinary Integration of Sciences and Sustainability Ethics12.2 Transdisciplinary Integration of Research Into the Sustainability Relations 13. Capabilities and Personal Identity of the Researcher 14. The Role of Philosophy for Sustainability Research 15. Conclusion Index