Alternative paradigms for sustainability: Decentring the human without becoming posthuman

Abstract

One of the most amazing conceptual revolutions in contemporary academic discourse has been the rise of the concept of the Anthropocene, the notion that humans now fundamentally affect the course of planetary geology. Amidst this conceptual turn a number of contested philosophical standpoints have emerged. This essay addresses one of these standpoints-posthumanism-an attempt based on a revived postmodern sensibility to disavow the centrality of humans in relation to nature. The essay compares posthumanism to an earlier modernist standpoint that attempted to civilise capitalism by decentring the cash nexus and talking about a Triple Bottom Line. The argument of the essay is that neither approaches work: the first because of internal incoherence based on a lack of grounding; and the second because it re-centres the economy without acknowledging it. Consideration of the weaknesses of these positions gives rise to considerations of what might constitute a viable alternative, one that still decentres the human, but continues to recognise the responsibility of all humans for ameliorating the devastating effects of anthropogenic impact.