4 - Prudence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2026
Summary
Prudence is the virtue of seeing things clearly. It has been notably central to Christian accounts of what it means to be a virtuous person, and to live a virtuous life. At the foundation of that lies the idea that to act well we have not only to understand the sorts of traditions that help us know what is good, but also to work on having an accurate account of the concrete situations we face. Much of what is offered as convenient solutions to climate change fail in the second way: these easy fixes simply aren’t realistic or accurate, as they cannot be implemented at the speed or scale we need. Drawing on the work of the philosopher Iris Murdoch, we call this sort of techno-optimism ‘fantasy’, and contrast it with the sort of imaginative response to the world as it really is that Murdoch championed, and which any successful response to climate change demands.
Information
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- Promise the EarthA Safe Climate in Good Faith, pp. 44 - 48Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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