Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Brown, Peter G. --- "From the Earth Charter to the Ecozoic" [2019] ELECD 2186; in Burdon, Peter; Bosselmann, Klaus; Engel, Kirsten (eds), "The Crisis in Global Ethics and the Future of Global Governance" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 182

Book Title: The Crisis in Global Ethics and the Future of Global Governance

Editor(s): Burdon, Peter; Bosselmann, Klaus; Engel, Kirsten

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: From the Earth Charter to the Ecozoic

Author(s): Brown, Peter G.

Number of pages: 8

Abstract/Description:

This chapter examines the current fate of the Earth Charter through the lens of Francis Bacon’s Idols as developed in the New Organon published in 1620. Bacon lists four sources of error: 1) Idols of the Tribe; 2) Idols of the Cave; 3) Idols of the Marketplace; and 4) Idols of the Theatre. This chapter explores each lens in turn. Using Bacon’s arguments as a framework is not without considerable irony: Bacon is rightly criticized as being the principal proponent of the disastrous Western project of progress and Earth domination. Yet his analysis of how ignorance persists and errors arise is trenchant and can and should be applied to his own project - and indeed, to any ideas concerning an axial age.