The terms below are found throughout my work (e.g., Epting 2023, 2024). Reading them in the sequential order below should provide a view of how they fit together.
The Problem of Moral Prioritization: The problem of moral prioritization involves issues wherein several stakeholder groups deserve moral consideration. While the order of stakeholders is not absolute, some possibilities include marginalized or disenfranchised groups or persons, vulnerable individuals or groups, the public (which consists of the previous groups), ecosystems and nonhuman lifeforms, possible future people, and urban artifacts.
Stakeholder: A stakeholder, implied as an urban stakeholder, is an entity that has a stake in a specific urban affair. Marginalized or disenfranchised groups or persons, vulnerable individuals or groups, and the public (which includes the previous groups) have an obvious stake due to the conditions for their existence. Ecosystems and nonhuman lifeforms have a stake, but the conditions required for knowledge of such a stake beyond existence remain anthropomorphic. This point entails that we must act on what we assume is in their interest based on such a stake. Considering that this outlook will always stem from humankind’s inescapable mindset, no matter how ecologically oriented, we are compelled to assign them a stakeholdership. The pattern of this thought extends to possible future people. To exist in the city means to have a stake in it, but they do not exist, meaning “they” do not have a stake. Still, humans today assume that they will exist, so we must assign stakeholdership to their possible existence. This pattern (somewhat) further extends to urban artifacts. We value them, so in turn we assign them stakeholdership, even though it might be more accurate to say “placeholdership,” considering that there is no stake, per se. However, the “stake” is that we want them to have one.
Anthropocentric: Anthropocentric is a non-normative (i.e., ethical) term meaning “human-centered.” It refers to the inescapable epistemological conditions of being human and perceiving and rationalizing the world, including nonhuman life and ecosystems, from this position. For more information, see Hargrove (1992).
Moral Ordering: Moral Ordering is a suggestive and inclusive hierarchical process, thought of as a device, to help deal with the problem of moral prioritization. Those impacted by the decisions subject to the moral ordering process should have the meaningful ability to participate in decision-making activities.
Cooperative City Planning (“Co-planning”): Co-planning is the process that helps carry out moral ordering. It is aligned with earlier conceptions of participatory planning, but the term “cooperative” signals that cooperation must remain central, and even though moral ordering is hierarchical, this cooperative aspect endeavors to mitigate connotations that suggest authoritative or dominant positions within it.
Urban Enlightenment (Pursuit of): The pursuit of urban enlightenment happens when urban residents work together or co-plan with moral ordering to understand their place and others’ positions in the moral ordering sequence. While one cannot achieve urban enlightenment, the point is to pursue it to attain a better understanding of one’s fellow urban residents and stakeholders and the city (which includes oneself).
City (Two Senses): The first sense of the city is the “ordinary view.” It accounts for urban-like places with things typically associated with them. The second sense of the city is a group of citizens. Fleshing out the concept of the citizen helps show the extraordinary view of the city in this sense.
Citizen: A citizen is a person who has the ability to shape the city, works to ensure that those lacking citizen status (and desire it) can achieve it, and engages in civil and eco-civil behaviors necessary to secure city status as it relates to the city and other stakeholders.
Potential Citizen: A potential citizen is an urban resident who wants citizenship.
Non-Citizen: A non-citizen is someone who denies oneself citizenship by continuously, habitually, and intentionally (most likely) engaging in behavior that is disrespectful to others and other stakeholders.
Urban Resident: Urban residents can mean citizens and potential citizens broadly, but it can also include others who do not fit the description of non-citizens. In the latter sense, an urban resident does not necessarily have or want citizenship, but they also do not meet the requirements for a non-citizen. Other outliers may also be considered urban residents.
Municipal Agent: A municipal agent is one who makes decisions or acts on behalf of a local government. Examples include but are not limited to mayor, city manager, city councilmember, planner, engineer, and architect.
Civil: Civil is a loosely defined term that, at a minimum, means respecting fellow stakeholders. In a more robust sense, it means something like being nice, polite, friendly, or displaying urban camaraderie or neighborly love for other metropolitan residents.
Eco-civil: Eco-civil is a type of action that demonstrates moral consideration for nonhuman stakeholders, typically based on the intrinsic value of the subject or collective intrinsic value.
Collective Intrinsic Value: Collective intrinsic value is a subvariety of subjective intrinsic value (also known as weak anthropocentric intrinsic value). The latter two terms align with Eugene Hargrove’s (1992) description, holding that intrinsic value requires valuers to assign value, meaning that such value is not dependent on objective existence. For the term to have meaning and carry weight, relevant experts must agree that an entity possesses intrinsic value. For collective intrinsic value in the city, urban residents who know and are connected to cultural or historical artifacts that are deeply valued beyond instrumentality could count as a kind of expert, along with historians and others with relevant technical expertise.
Applied Mereology: Mereology is any area of analytic metaphysics concerned with part-to-part and part-to-whole relationships and how parts fit together to form larger wholes (e.g., Varzi, 2015). Applied mereology is inspired by this approach, using the concept to think about how parts of a municipality or city fit and work together in terms of how they affect stakeholders. The goal in using this approach is to increase the “moral utility” of parts and the arrangement of parts.
Moral Utility: Moral utility is the total amount of benefits that result from how a part or an arrangement of parts affects stakeholders. It is a rough term that is gauged rather than precisely measured. Typically, it is achieved through city planning (contrasted with urban planning).
Urban Planning: Decisions and actions geared toward the arrangement of parts, such as urban artifacts.
City Planning: Decisions and actions geared toward the arrangement of parts, such as urban artifacts that result from morally ordered co-planning with urban residents (broadly) and municipal agents.
Urban Existentialism: Urban existentialism is shorthand for “urban existential thinking,” a theoretical device wherein citizens (and urban residents in some cases) take responsibility for the city via co-planning measures or similar actions that lead to efforts where they can see how their efforts help shape the city to a degree and have the ability to find meaning in the process. It begins from a position of moral ordering. In turn, urban existential thinking starts from a position of ethicality. Considering that citizenship requires the ability to shape the city, stronger associations will be found with citizens, but it can include potential citizens and urban residents broadly construed. Bearing in mind that it is consistent with co-planning and the conditions for citizenship, it supports efforts to increase citizenship and preserve a city’s status as a city. In turn, urban existential thinking should seek to extricate urban residents from dreadful conditions or improve city living, which involves collaborative authenticity.
Dreadful Conditions: Inspired by Kierkegaard’s conception of dread, dreadful conditions account for a wide range of unwelcome situations found in cities affecting urban residents. In many instances, urban residents are unaware of them because they might seem typical, inherent elements associated with urban living. Some examples could include being part of daily gridlock on major roadways, spending several hours per day riding in hot buses, standing in the sun or rain waiting for a bus, or any other scenario that makes people “dread” that part of their day. These are the conditions that would benefit from morally ordered co-planning when such efforts increase the moral utility of the arrangement of parts playing a role in dreadful outcomes.
Extricate: “Extricate” accounts for how to remove dreadful conditions affecting someone or stakeholders.
Collaborative Authenticity: Collaborative authenticity results from co-planning projects. When urban residents co-plan with municipal agents to increase moral utility, which may involve extrication from dreadful conditions, their collaboration yields authentic, as in “one-of-a-kind,” outcomes.
Urban Resilience: Urban resilience is when municipal agents work to increase resilience in a defined area.
City Resilience: City resilience is municipal agents co-planning with urban residents to increase resilience in a defined area.