Topic: Process & Law: The New Ecological Social Contract

Presenters: Herman Greene

Herman Greene will begin with a discussion of the past work done of process thinkers on legal theory. He will then move to his own work in the emerging field of Earth law and the new ecological social contract. (See his attached Earth Law chapter, “Ecocentric Governance: The New Ecological Social Contract.”)  Bruno Latour argued in his 2013 Gifford lectures that we humans have entered a new state of nature, a Hobbesian condition of a war of all against all, with the protagonists now including tuna, and sea levels, and carbon emissions, as well as the various human factions. This time though it is not a condition before people entered into a social contract, it is a present condition, and calls for a new social contract that includes nature—a task that will take “two hundred” years. It is the primary task of humans in the Anthropocene.

Herman Greene, JD, MA, MDiv, DMin is founder and president of the Center for Ecozoic Studies in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a research and education center for an ecological-cultural age. He is Thomas Berry Scholar-in-Residence of the Earth Law Center and is co-author and co-editor of Earth Law: Emerging Ecocentric Law—A Guide for Practitioners. He serves on the Board of the International Process Network, and on the Advisory Boards of the Center for Process Studies and the Institute for the Post-Modern Development of China. He is a retired business lawyer and holds graduate degrees in law (University of North Carolina-JD), theology (University of Chicago-MTh & MDiv, and United Theological Seminary-DMin), and political science (Stanford University-MA). 

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