Political representation, the environment, and Edmund Burke: A re-reading of the Western canon through the lens of multispecies justice

Serrin Rutledge-Prior*, Edmund Handby

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

A major puzzle in contemporary political theory is how to extend notions of justice to the environment. With environmental entities unable to communicate in ways that are traditionally recognised within the political sphere, their interests have largely been recognised instrumentally: only important as they contribute to human interests. In response to the multispecies justice project's call to reimagine our concepts of justice to include other-than-human beings and entities, we offer a novel reading of Edmund Burke's account of political representation that, we argue, can be applied to the environment. Burke claimed that interests are ‘unattached’ to any actual class or group, and that it is the duty of the representative to represent these unattached interests. Beyond providing an original application of Burke's work, the paper offers an alternative to the ‘allure’ of authoritarian environmentalism, an alternative which conservative thinkers may use as an entryway into debates on environmental justice.

Original languageEnglish
Number of pages21
JournalEuropean Journal of Political Theory
Early online date28 Feb 2024
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 28 Feb 2024

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