1.2 A framing paradox: experiencing nature with cognitive tools Whilst language tools are helpful in conveying meaning in conversation amongst humans, establishing what matters in ‘conversation’ between human and non-human nature, or amongst non-human living entities, requires different cognitive tools. Cognition refers to the way in which external information from the environment is processed. As sentient beings, humans and some other animals are able to experience wellbeing and suffering. In the next reading, Ronald Moore examines how we engage with
1.1 Framing nature using language tools By framing, I mean the structures and pre-assumptions that we consciously or unconsciously apply to a situation in order to make sense of it. So are there any differences between the way in which we frame nature in caring for environment and the way in which we frame it to provide accountability? What significance might this have, and what tools might be used to bridge the responsibilities of caring and accountability? Caring for environment makes manifest the informal aspects of
Keep on learning   There are more than 800 courses on OpenLearn for you t 1.4.3 It's all down to connections For Iris Marion Young, the responsibility of those in North America and Europe towards distant others does indeed rest with their connections to injustices elsewhere, but it would be a mistake to stretch this line of reasoning too far. Although these connections, whether as a consumer, boardroom executive or shop manager, can establish a line of responsibility, as was claimed in Section 3.1, for Young this is only the starting point and not the end point of our involvement. We do not have to 1.2.8 In praise of cheap offshore labour? continued There are two points which are central to this line of thinking. One, according to Wolf (2004), is that the whole process, as odd as it may sound, is about mutual exploitation. Outside firms do indeed exploit the poor by taking advantage of the profitable opportunities that a pool of cheap labour represents. But Indonesian or Chinese workers, for instance, could be said to exploit the incoming firms by extracting higher pay from them and taking advantage of opportunities that previousl Keep on learning   There are more than 800 courses on OpenLearn for you t 1.2 The influence of narratives and spiritual traditions In his 1974 publication Man’s Responsibility for Nature, John Passmore – an Australian philosopher who pioneered a concern for developing a change of attitude towards the environment – argues from an explicitly anthropocentric perspective. He suggests that the special ties between parents and children provide the basis for continual development of obligations amongst humans, which can then translate into a more responsible engagement with the environment. People normally ca Acknowledgements Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following: Reading: Stephen Talbott, ‘Toward 2.2 Informal and formal conversations The process of conversation is, of course, interactive. It requires listening (Figure 5) and feeding back. In human conversations the interactive process is largely enabled through a shared language. In conversing with nature the challenge is in formulating the right ‘language’, in terms of both ‘listening’ and ‘feeding bac Conclusion We are biologically predisposed to provide for our offspring and may try to ensure that this provision continues after our death. However, our interactions with other members of society are wide-ranging and many people leave legacies to benefit the wider community. All species alter their environment to some extent because they do not live in isolation from one another. The study of the interactions between plants, animals and their environmen 5.3 Problems with international rights The international human rights discourse claims that the value of its conception of rights lies in it being universal, empowering and human-centred. The idea of universality asserts the relevance of human rights to anyone, anywhere. Empowerment is the concept of human rights as a defence against inequality and the domination of the powerful over the weak. The human-centred feature of international rights seeks to provide a perspective on global questions, ‘putting the value of human dignity 5.1 Rights, justice and international politics What happens to notions of rights and justice when we move the discussion to the level of international politics? In fact, three crucial things happen: The meaning of rights takes its bearings from the rights discourse developed from the UN Declaration. We will investigate the effects of this, both on rights and on international politics. We find that it is not always easy to establish who the right can be claimed against. 2.2 The origins of a rights discourse In some form, the ideas of ‘rights’ and ‘justice’ could probably be found in all societies and cultures. They are moral concepts because they are concerned with moral ideals; with how things should be rather than describing how things are. However, the notion of rights now has a prominence in political debate in a way it has not had in other times and places. In the political thought of the ancient world, for example, a key question was how individuals could best contrib 2.1 Background to the idea of international rights The UN Charter and the Declaration form part of a post-Second World War international settlement which established, on the one side, the formal legitimating ideology of the international system, national self-determination and sovereign equality and, on the other, the ideology of universal human rights. The appeal of this set of claims was the hope that different peoples could live together in peace and security. It was an attempt to accommodate difference (through the idea of national self-d Introduction This course is about rights and rights claims, and the idea of implementing justice in the international sphere based on the concept of rights. It is agreed by most people that ‘rights are a good thing’ and in many respects they are. However, this course deliberately takes a critical view. It seeks to examine closely why rights are a good thing and highlights some of the problems associated with rights. In this way, we hope that the sense in which rights are still, ultimately, ‘a good t Acknowledgements Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce materia 4.2 Shifting ground In Section 3 and in Section 4 so far, we have begun with the questions of how and why humans found their way to oceanic isl Introduction The course uses the example of climate change to highlight the dynamic and volatile character of the planet, and how globalisation links together, in often unequal ways, people and places across the world. The course focuses on the potentially momentous impact of global environmental change on Pacific Islands like Tuvalu. It introduces students to geographical ways of thinking about the world. This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course Author(s): Introduction Free trade or fair trade? This course will help you to analyse the relationship that exists between developed and developing countries under the World Trade Organization regime of Development Round negotiations. The current world trade regime has a very mixed record in promoting growth and reducing poverty. This OpenLearn course provides a sample of Level 3 study in Author(s): Business operations
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This series of tracks examines the operations management in four service industries. Each has unique problems associated with their sector but they all have operational processes to ensure smooth delivery of their product. Material is taken from The Open University Course T883 Business operations: delivering value. The OpenLearn team.
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