Epilogue Looking Back, Looking Forward

Abstract

The epilogue summarizes the contributions of studying environmental guilt and shame to environmental ethics and sets agendas for future research. Even as approaching environmental ethics as a finger-wagging scold is ethically suspect, it is also problematic to avoid the study of negative emotions given the many insights prompted by such study. Questions of motivation deserve more attention in environmental ethics, as the paralyzing character of shame among people with environmental values indicates that environmental values are not enough to spark environmental behavior as many environmental ethicists presume. Other future lines of inquiry include how demographic factors beyond gender, such as race and class, affect the experience of environmental guilt and shame and how environmental rituals may foster environmental and climate apology, restitution, adaptation, and mitigation. Addressing both the theoretical and applied ethical insights arising from environmental guilt and shame not only leads to richer accounts of responsibility and agency that better fit the phenomena but also enables more well-rounded approaches to environmental degradation than those that eschew emotions, the experience of laypeople, and collectives. Without such approaches, denial, paralysis, or incomplete and therefore unsuccessful approaches to environmental degradation including climate change are likely.