Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T16:26:08.287Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - A Critique of Mastery and an Ethics of Attunement: From Spe Salvi to Laudato Si’

from Part II - The Philosophy and Methodology of Laudato Si’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2019

Frank Pasquale
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
Get access

Summary

Recent Catholic social thought features a consistent concern with the environment and humankind’s place in it. The natural world is a source of value and values. Pope Francis’s Laudato Si′ marks both continuity with extant Catholic Social Thought on the environment, and an advance growing out of it. The continuity is remarkable in Pope Francis’s recurrent critique of aspirations to technological mastery. The advance lies in a profound ethics of attunement that challenges not just present, weak environmental regulations, but also the dominant political and economic orders that enframe nature as little more than a pool of resources for human use and enjoyment. This essay explores the continuity between Laudato Si′ and Pope Benedict’s perspectives on environmental topics, explaining how Pope Francis’s Laudato Si′ has now complemented extant Catholic critique of value-free mastery with a profound account of attunement—that is, the fit between human nature and the natural world we are part of.
Type
Chapter
Information
Care for the World
Laudato Si' and Catholic Social Thought in an Era of Climate Crisis
, pp. 123 - 142
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×