Review of Byron Williston, The Anthropocene Project

Jay Foster

Byron Williston has titled his thoughtful and engaging book on virtue ethics and climate change\ The Anthropocene Project. Here Williston is grappling with an issue that vexes most of us. The science of anthropogenic climate change has been increasingly clear, at least since the IPCC First Assessment Report in 1990. But, in the intervening twenty-five or so years we’ve done damn little about it. We have responded to climate change with dithering and doubt, not concrete action. Why is this? Williston suggests that it is because we are bad people—well, perhaps not exactly bad but just not very good. Grappling with climate change, he argues, will require us to become better, more virtuous people. As he tells us: “If we are going to find a morally defensible path through the climate crisis we need to become better people, and that means cultivating the virtues”. To glean the wisdom needed to cope with climate change, the specific virtues of hope, truthfulness and justice will need cultivation.