Introduction: Urban Ethics - Conflicts Over the Good and Proper Life in Cities (original) (raw)

Chapter 1 Introduction : Urban ethics – conflicts over the good and proper life in cities

Taylor & Francis eBooks, 2020

What constitutes a good life in the city, ethics under urban conditions or ethics of urban life? How do and how should people translate normative imperatives and reflections of "the good" into their everyday conduct of life in urban contexts and would that make for a "good" and possibly also emphatically "urban" life? Who gets to live this "good" urban life, who has the resources to engage in such reflections and whose ideas of the "good," of morality and propriety, prevail in these urban ethics? Questions like these are implicitly and explicitly being asked, debated, negotiated and fought over all around the world. This book and this introduction explore the overarching argument that, across their differences, such questions should also be seen and studied as questions of "urban ethics," as practical negotiations and public debates over the "good" and "proper" or "right" way of living in cities and in urban ways, and that through them, conflicting values and interests are being expressed, addressed, worked through, sometimes neutralized, sometimes transposed and sometimes brought to an escalation. Urban ethics surface in concrete events and movements and in projects that are recognizably "ethical," but they also have a much wider purchase. Focusing on them can help us understand a wide variety of urban situations better in contemporary societies, and also historically. It is necessary to stress from the start that this is a book of interdisciplinary social and cultural research, not of philosophy. It also is a book devoted primarily to analysis and critical reflection, not toward finding a better and more ethical practice, at least not always and straightforwardly so. Contributions to this volume explore different aspects of the ethical dimension of urban life, of urbanism and urbanity, and the specific ways of articulating and resolving conflicts that it tends to entail. Many of them also ask how this relates to questions of politics and the political. Rather than seeking answers to urban-ethical questions in a normative register, that is, rather than trying to figure out what the "good" and proper life in cities "really" is and should be, the book's contributors-without, of course, denying the importance of ethico-political reflection and action-study ethics as a sociocultural phenomenon that involves discourses, practices and materiality. As sociologist and anthropologist Didier Fassin summarizes a recent Introduction: urban ethics 5 and Throop 2014), but the former meanings are, in our view, predominantat least within initiatives for getting people to live better lives and, thus, build better cities, which is one important starting point for research on urban ethics. Ethical events and the promise of open cities Munich, in Germany, the city where the research group is based from whose work some of the chapters in this volume stem, is a good place to start looking more closely at public representations of urban ethics-not because it is a particularly "good" city, whatever that would mean, but because it has come to stand for "ethical" action by urban dwellers in a particular way. In the late summer of 2015, this somewhat saturated, economically successful Bavarian city, with its socially liberal tendencies and conservative backbone, became a near-global symbol for welcoming migrants and refugees, a place where many urban dwellers were doing simply the right thing in the face of human suffering and the callousness of European politics-or, from the skeptics' viewpoint, Munich became an example of a symbolic excess, an overreach of ethics, out of touch with (supposed) "popular" morality and realism in immigration matters. 1 At Munich Central train station, in late summer 2015, thousands of volunteers welcomingly cheered the new arrivals in the trains that had come from Hungary and Austria, many of whom were war refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq who had crossed the Mediterranean Sea. Volunteers handed out food, clothing, SIM cards and so on, acts which were immediately televised and broadcast, as well as shared on social media. In doing so, these refugees and their supporters became part of an assemblage of actors that temporarily defeated the European Union's border regime, or so it seemed, in what can be seen as a genuinely political act (Hess et al. 2017). In these actions, people signaled that refugees and migrants were indeed welcome, at least in cities like Munich. Some of the activists-if that is the right word, not everyone would subscribe to it-involved had been active in antiracist, anti-border campaigns for many years. Some had been migrants and refugees themselves. Most, however, were neither, and they emphasized that they were motivated primarily, even "compelled," to do what is right and good. 2 In such statements, there was also something oddly and conspicuously "ethical" about the Munich events. It was not just that these actions were morally good, but that they were exemplary of acting in an ethical way. In that sense, these events were also taking place below, above, beyond and, in a way, against the realm of politics. This has not been lost on high-profile observers either: Sociologist and urban theorist Richard Sennett, in a chapter of reflections on the figures of "Alien, Brother, Neighbor" in his recent Building and Dwelling. Ethics for the City, inspired by philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Okakura Kakuzo, takes Munich in 2015 as an exemplary case for moments of ethical openness in cities where "the Other appeared as a brother" (Sennett 2018, 122). The fact that these events could be taken

Introduction: Researching Urban Ethics at the Dawn of the Urban Century.

Introduction: Researching Urban Ethics at the Dawn of the Urban Century., 2023

Now that cities congregate the majority of human beings, it is urgent to investigate the manner in which the good life is negotiated in them. This introduction to the volume sketches a framework to examine urban ethical practices and discourses. At a time of environmental catastrophe and sociocultural tensions, the various scales of negotiation – between individuals, regarding materialities and other life forms, or among institutions – configure arenas that shape novel interactive and material landscapes. The emphasis of the text is to promote a research agenda for more scrutiny over such ethics-in-practice and -in-discourse. The deliberations and contestations in question are over individual lives in the city, collective urban life, issues regarding the urban condition, as well as about the urban itself. Cities are, therefore, laboratories of sociality where dwellers and traversers act, interact with one another or avoid each other. Each of these and other deeds shapes not only the current circumstances of the urban, but also, crucially, the future of cities.

Urban Ethics: Towards a Research Agenda on Cities, Ethics and Normativity

City, Culture and Society, 2020

To live in a city is to be confronted with difference, contingency and conflict, and with questions about how one should live one's life in the urban context. What is a ‘good’ life in the city? How does my ‘good’ life affect others and vice versa? Is the ‘good’ also that which is ‘right’ and ‘proper’? Or, perhaps, who should be made to live in accordance with specific values, how and why?

Urban Ethics as Research Agenda. Outlooks and Tensions on Multidisciplinary Debates.

Urban Ethics as Research Agenda, 2023

This book provides an outline for a multidisciplinary research agenda into urban ethics and offers insights into the various ways urban ethics can be configured. It explores practices and discourses through which individuals, collectives and institutions determine which developments and projects may be favourable for dwellers and visitors traversing cities. Urban Ethics as Research Agenda widens the lens to include other actors apart from powerful individuals or institutions, paying special attention to activists or civil society organizations that express concerns about collective life. The chapters provide fresh perspectives addressing the various scales that converge in the urban. The uniqueness of each city is, thus, enriched with global patterns of the urban. Local sociocultural characteristics coexist with global flows of ideas, goods and people. The focus on urban ethics sheds light on emerging spaces of human development and the ways in which ethical narratives are used to mobilize and contest them in terms of the good life. This timely book analyses urban ethical negotiations from social and cultural studies, particularly drawing on anthropology, geography and history. This volume will be of interest to scholars, researchers and practitioners interested in ethics and urban studies. Raúl Acosta is a social anthropologist specialized in urban and environmental governance. He has conducted fieldwork in Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Venezuela and Peru. He is the author of Civil Becomings (2020) as well as numerous articles and chapters. He carried out research in Mexico City as part of the Urban Ethics Research Group.

Urban Ethics as Research Agenda

Urban ethics as research agenda: outlooks and tensions on multidisciplinary debates, 2023

The Ethical City: A Rationale for an Urgent New Urban Agenda

The ethical city, in contrast to many other adjectives used to describe our cities, implies an approach to urban development that is about doing the right thing for and by urban citizens. Acknowledging the rich traditions of urban development studies and human ethics, this article draws on examples of existing practices in cities that reflect a principled and ethical approach to leadership, governance, planning, economic development, sustainability and citizen engagement. An increased focus on ethics and justice is central in shaping how we respond effectively to global pressing issues such as climate change while at the same time tackling diverse social and economic problems in our cities including inequality, marginalization and lack of access to opportunities for the most vulnerable. While an ethical city points towards sustainability, resilience, inclusion and shared prosperity, the opposite direction could lead to corruption, poverty and social disaffection.

From the urban to the civic: the moral possibilities of the city

Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 2001

Relating bioethics to the philosophy of the city creates the possibility for developing the field along paths not yet explored. In the Western tradition, the city has been understood as the venue for two quite different forms of activity and two different types of moral possibility. In one guise, the city is an urbs, a center of commerce, market exchange, and social individualism. In another guise, the city is a civitas or polis, the space of active democratic citizenship, equality under law, and civic virtue. As civitas, classical philosophers regarded the city as the place of moral growth and full human self-realization. These two possibilities of human moral and political experience in the city have given rise to distinct traditions of political theory-liberalism and civic republican and democratic theory. This article traces these conceptual configurations into the domain of contemporary bioethics, arguing that most work in the field has drawn on the liberal tradition and hence has been insufficiently critical of the moral paradigm of market individualism and unduly inattentive to the values of civitas and the civic tradition. It argues for the creation of a form of civic bioethics and explores some of the theoretical foundations that type of bioethics would require.

Ethical Cities

Routledge eBooks, 2020

Combining elements of sustainable and resilient cities agendas, together with those from social justice studies, and incorporating concerns about good governance, transparency and accountability, the book presents a coherent conceptual framework for the ethical city, in which to embed existing and new activities within cities so as to guide local action. The authors' observations are derived from city-specific surveys and urban case studies. These reveal how progressive cities are promoting a diverse range of ethically informed approaches to urbanism, such as community wealth building, basic income initiatives, participatory budgeting and citizen assemblies. The text argues that the ethical city is a logical next step for critical urbanism in the era of late capitalism, characterised by divisive politics, burgeoning inequality, widespread technology-induced disruptions to every aspect of modern life and existential threats posed by climate change, sustainability imperatives and pandemics. Engaging with their communities in meaningful ways and promoting positive transformative change, ethical cities are well placed to deliver liveable and sustainable places for all, rather than only for wealthy elites. Likewise, the aftermath of shocks such as the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic reveals that cities that are not purposeful in addressing inequalities, social problems, unsustainability and corruption face deepening difficulties. Readers from across physical and social sciences, humanities and arts, as well as across policy, business and civil society, will find that the application of ethical principles is key to the pursuit of socially inclusive urban futures and the potential for cities and their communities to emerge from or, at least, ameliorate a diverse range of local, national and global challenges.

Towards an ethical turn in urban studies: On the role of information and power in contemporary cities

plaNext. Next Generation Planning, 2016

This article explores an ethical approach to urban planning, drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy of becoming. A central argument in this study is that the reality policymakers face when deciding how to pursue good (in the moral sense) actions or how to eschew bad ones is ontologically unpredictable and unstable. Unpredictability and instability are characteristics of urban assemblages, which compose and decompose affecting each other in a positive or negative way. Following Deleuze and Spinoza, this paper claims that urban composition and decomposition are good (empowering) and bad (harming), respectively, in an ethical and amoral sense. However, moral and fixed values, often left unchallenged in urban planning and policymaking, fail to describe these ethical transitions among assemblages: in fact, urban planning and policies’ unavoidable conatus, namely their survival as rational system, is to avoid direct confrontation with ethical and dangerous happenings and, instead, increase their power of acting so as to make urban bodies docile, controlled and normalised through standardised moral categories and classifications. These categories are but ethically generated information shorn of their situated and eventful role, acquiring the shape of data and transformed into fixed layers of apparently stable and predictable reality.

Introduction: Urban Ethics - Conflicts Over the Good and Proper Life in Cities (original) (raw)

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