Courage for sustainable development: A virtue ethics perspective

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The whole Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) intends to orientate action toward a desirable, valuable future. In this way, their pursuit falls within the scope of normative ethics as part of axiology, which is the philosophy of values. If the axiology of the Anthropocene was to be studied, it would without a doubt underline the weight of science, which produced the knowledge at the origin of the "Anthropocene" proposal, but stands also as a powerful analysis tool as well as an assistant toward decision-making. However, sustainable challenges do not only stand as scientific issues, they imply to develop new ways of living thus entail social and cultural dimensions. That is why a discussion about axiology in the Anthropocene must go beyond the value and virtue of science. In this paper, we raise the need for other "virtues" (moral characters) complementary to science and, in particular, we explore the problem of "courage" in the face of the Anthropocene and sustainability challenges. We first discuss "virtues" as an approach to normative ethics before and beyond deontology (rules of actions) and consequentialism (effects of actions). In ancient Greek, "virtue" is related to "excellence", it is a quest toward self-improvement intimately linked to the "logos", the rational thinking. In this sense, we can understand the linkage of virtue to knowledge and knowledge production, but virtue is also a matter of practice, it is learned by the daily exercise of rational thinking in the way we behave. We then review the substantive meanings of "courage" considered as a cardinal virtue. Indeed, Plato identified it as one of the four cardinal virtues of humans, to be adjoined notably with wisdom, the perfection of knowledge. Beyond Plato, we intend to consider the evolution of the meanings of "courage" today in contrast with ancient texts, and apply such a philosophical investigation to the threats of current un-sustainable development and planetary crisis. We finally discuss our results, and conclude in the framework of the conference regarding the potential of the "courage" virtue in for scientists for both analysis and action in seeking for sustainable development. Indeed, regarding the SDG, we believe that courage is most relevant in the fight against inequalities (SDG 10), the fight against biodiversity loss (14-15), the shift toward responsible consumption-production (12) and the fight against climate change (13): all of these objectives together ask for the courage to face our deep dependence to nature, the planetary limits and reinterrogate our acts, and projected futures on that basis.