An ēthos against scarcity: Sketching an ethic of care and dike for late modernity

The “ethotic turn” in contemporary political thought is yet to theorize the sort of ēthos which is pertinent to the challenge of natural resources scarcity. This essay seeks to address this gap and has therefore two aims: first, tο offer an understanding of ēthos as mode of dwelling on the world; second, to sketch a particular appearance of this dwelling, one that invokes care for human affairs, but also the disposition to pursue justice, which is here affirmed as dike. An ethic that is informed by these two elements, care and dike, disposes us to address contemporary problems such as natural resources scarcity by urging us to think of the current state of affairs not in order to manage it, but to re-arrange it towards a more just direction. Heidegger's ontological scrutiny into “original ethics” proves pertinent to the task undertaken in the essay. We are human, “dwellers,” because we care to achieve a more just, that is less hubristic, rearrangement of the “scheme of things.”