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Lucy McAndrew

B.A. (Joint Hons English Literature and Philosophy), Exeter University
M. St. Level (Forced Migration Studies), Oxford University
M.A. (Philosophy), Open University

Contact:

Tel: 097 81205/0861286449
E-mail: l.weirbinghammcandrew1nuigalway.ie

Biography:

On completing her BA from Exeter University in 1988, Lucy decided to put into practice some of what she had learnt of ethics, particularly through Peter Singer. She taught English in 'developing' countries (after an introductory year in Hungary) as a VSO in Sudan, Indonesia and Kenya. In between, she met Professor Harrell-Bond, founder and then-director of the Refugee Studies Programme in Oxford University. She completed the year-long postgraduate foundation course in Forced Migration Studies there while working with adolescents with challenging behaviour to fund the degree. She collected oral testimonies to demonstrate the value, particularly for those who are disbelieved, of the power of narrative. She worked as a research assistant for Dr Harrell Bond for a year before going to Kenya to collect oral testimonies as part of a four-university, EU funded team project researching the health and well-being of refugees in and out of camps (Moi, Makerere, Oxford and Utrecht).

A paper she wrote on the basis of research undertaken was accepted for presentation at the 1999 IRAP conference. In 2008, she completed an MA in Philosophy with the Open University (dissertation title: Does Rawlsian Liberalism Pay Sufficient Attention to Self Respect?).

Current Research:

(working title) Extravagant Humanity: Respect for Nature as a Key Concept in the Context of an Environmental Crisis

The aim of Lucy's research is to consider questions around the attitudes which currently dictate our relationships – to ourselves, to one another and to nature. Given the breadth of the topic, Lucy focuses primarily on an analysis of the relationship between humans and nature, leaving questions of the relationship to the self and to others aside. What is the rationale behind considering respect as a key concept in our relationship with nature? What role does respect play in our ability to relate to nature? Are we moving away from an attitude of respect for nature? What, if anything, can we do to elicit respect as the key element in our relationship with nature? What are the problems with and barriers to centring our relationship with nature on respect? What are the implications of doing so under increasingly straitened circumstances if, as seems possible, we are facing an environmental crisis? What is the relationship between respect and fear? Between respect and the notion of inherent worth (or intrinsic value)? Is it possible to take a pluralist view of respect or must such a key concept be monist? Once some of the main conceptual issues have been addressed, Lucy will ask what the practical implications are of making respect a key concept in how we relate to nature.

'In 2050 or soon after, most of the world may be scrub and desert and most of the oceans will be denuded of life, but temperatures here will remain very tolerable. The downside of that is that we risk becoming like a lifeboat with millions of refugees trying to settle here.' (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article1751509.ece)

Lucy's interest in 'respect' as a pivotal tool for understanding relationships stemmed initially from work undertaken with adolescents presenting 'challenging' behaviour, people with learning difficulties, older people in institutions, and people labelled as 'refugees' and 'asylum seekers'. The concept of respect transfers effectively through a triad of situations: the self, the 'other' (human) and nature (out of which the human has emerged). In attempting to understand how we might respond to an environmental crisis, Lucy became interested in the work of Garrett Hardin. Hardin raised important questions about moral responses to crises in his 'lifeboat ethics' scenario. Elinor Ostrom's work on the successful management of common resources somewhat refuted Hardin's 'tragedy of the commons' claim. However, the pollution and overfishing of the oceans remains a very real threat to species', and indeed, to our own, survival. Therefore practical implications of centring an ethic on respect need to encompass practical questions about how such a centring might mitigate some of the disastrous consequences of current attitudes. To this end, questions about imposing, rather than eliciting, an ethical response will also be asked. Is it possible to elicit respect for nature? If nature becomes more degraded by increasing exploitation, will it be more difficult to elicit respect? If we are under pressure to change quickly, is elicitation too slow a method for such a change?

Lucy is in the early stages of her research for this thesis, so some adjustments to the topic are probable. However, the general framework of nature, respect and crisis is likely to stand. She is currently working on a short piece for FEASTA, who are producing a book on responses to environmental crises.

Recommended reading

Axelrod, R., (1984), The Evolution of Cooperation, Basic Books, NY
Bader, V., (2005), The Ethics of Immigration, Constellations Vol 12, no. 3: 331-361
Berry, W., (1987), Landscape of Harmony, Five Seasons
Brennan, A., (1988), Thinking About Nature, Routledge, London
Clark, S.R.L., (1984), Are Animals Moral?, Oxford University Press, Oxford
Curry, O., (2006) Who's Afraid of the Naturalistic Fallacy? in Evolutionary Psychology, human-nature.com/ep-2006.4:234-247
Dennett, D.,(1995), Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, Penguin Press, London
de Waal, F., (2008), Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved, Princeton University Press, Princeton
Dobson, A. (2007: fourth edition), Green Political Thought, Routledge, London
Elliott, R., (1997), Faking Nature: the Ethics of Environmental Restoration, Routledge, London
Hume, D., (1739/1985), A Treatise of Human Nature, Penguin Classics
------------, (1777/1985), Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, Oxford University Press, Oxford
Joyce, R., (2006), The Evolution of Morality, The MIT Press, MA
Keller, D.R., ed., (2010), Environmental Ethics: the Big Questions, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester
Leopold, A., (1949), A Sand County Almanack, Oxford University Press, Oxford
Lorenz, K., (1966), On Aggression, Methuen, London
Lovelock, J.E., (1979), Gaia: a New Look at the Earth, Oxford University Press, Oxford
MacIntyre, A.C., (1966), A Short History of Ethics, MacMillan, New York
Moore, G.E., (1903/1993), Principia Ethica, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Steintrager, J.A., (2004), Cruel Delights: Enlightenment Culture and the Inhuman, Indiana University Press, Indianapolis
Taylor, P., (1986), Respect for Nature: a Theory of Environmental Ethics, Princeton University Press
Tinbergen, N., (1951), The Study of Instinct, Oxford University Press, Oxford
Wells, D., (1982), Resurrecting the Dismal Parson: Malthus, Ecology and Political Thought, Political Studies, 30 (1).

    

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