Learning with a Warmer World: Climate Change Education for Forms of Life*

Abstract

Climate change poses a threat to young people's capacity to flourish both now and in the future. In response, Aristotelian Climate Change Education (CCE) aims to cultivate radicalized climate virtues in students and give them structured opportunities to contemplate Socrates's question—“How should one live?”—amidst conditions of unprecedented ecological uncertainty. However appealing this approach may be to environmentalists, it faces a serious objection from political liberals who appeal to the principle of neutrality toward competing conceptions of the good life. In this article, we draw from critical theorist Rahel Jaeggi's Critique of Forms of Life to address the concern about liberal neutrality while deepening our account of Aristotelian CCE. Jaeggi's work helps us diagnose liberal neutrality as an ideological avoidance strategy and offers an alternative, context-transcending standard for legitimacy grounded in whether a form of life can learn from crises and overcome its own blockages to learning. After showing why Aristotelian CCE should not be held to liberal neutrality as a standard of legitimacy, we argue that it is nevertheless legitimate because it cultivates capacities, such as problem recognition and good deliberation, necessary for successful learning. Along with structured time and space for contemplation about the good life, an education in radicalized climate virtues prepares students to flourish as they and their forms of life learn from a continually evolving climate.