Planetary well-being

Abstract

Tensions between the well-being of present humans, future humans, and nonhuman nature manifest in social protests and political and academic debates over the future of Earth. The increasing consumption of natural resources no longer increases, let alone equalizes, human well-being, but has led to the current ecological crisis and harms both human and nonhuman well-being. While the crisis has been acknowledged, the existing conceptual frameworks are in some respects ill-equipped to address the crisis in a way that would link the resolving of the crisis with the pivotal aim of promoting equal well-being. The shortcomings of the existing concepts in this respect relate to anthropocentric normative orientation, methodological individualism that disregards process dynamics and precludes integrating the considerations of human and nonhuman well-being, and the lack of multiscalar considerations of well-being. This work derives and proposes the concept of planetary well-being to address the aforementioned conceptual issues, to recognize the moral considerability of both human and nonhuman well-being, and to promote transdisciplinary, cross-cultural discourse for addressing the crisis and for promoting societal and cultural transformation. Conceptually, planetary well-being shifts focus on well-being from individuals to processes, Earth system and ecosystem processes, that underlie all well-being. Planetary well-being is a state where the integrity of Earth system and ecosystem processes remains unimpaired to a degree that species and populations can persist to the future and organisms have the opportunity to achieve well-being. After grounding and introducing planetary well-being, this work shortly discusses how the concept can be operationalized and reflects upon its potential as a bridging concept between different worldviews.