Green Paper 02 — Regulation: Body · Relation · Institution
Green Papers: Notes Toward Planetary Guardianship
Author’s note — AI co-creation. These papers are working notes authored by Lars A. Engberg. They were drafted and edited in conversation with an AI language model (GPT-5 Thinking mini). The AI assisted with phrasing, organization, and initial drafting; the author curated, edited, and is fully responsible for substantive claims, omissions, and interpretations. Where passages were substantially shaped by the AI, this is indicated in the editorial log. The work is offered as field notes and an experiment in collaborative composition rather than a finished, peer-reviewed product.
Abstract
This paper proposes a simple proposition: ethics is not only a question of principles, but also a question of regulation. Moral agency depends on the capacity to remain coherent under change—within bodies, within relationships, and within institutions.
Under sustained stress, time horizons shrink, attention narrows, trust becomes expensive, and systems become reactive. In such conditions, ethical ideals may remain intact, yet the ability to embody them quietly collapses.
1. A starting clarity
Much moral language is aspirational: justice, dignity, freedom, care, responsibility. These concepts are essential. Yet they are not self-executing.
People can sincerely agree on ethical principles and still fail to act well— not because they are malicious, but because they are overloaded.
The claim of this paper is modest: ethical life depends on regulation. Without it, we lose access to the capacities that make moral judgment workable—attention, patience, nuance, cooperation, and repair.
2. What “regulation” means here
Regulation is often misunderstood as either discipline or compliance. That is not the meaning used in this series.
Regulation refers to the capacity of living systems to maintain coherence across change. A regulated system is not a static system. It is a system able to adapt without collapsing.
Three dimensions matter:
- Body-level regulation — nervous system capacity, recovery, rhythm, attention
- Relational regulation — trust, attunement, boundaries, repair
- Institutional regulation — protocols, legitimacy, feedback loops, decision coherence
Ethics becomes viable when coherence holds across these three levels.
3. Body-level regulation: capacity before ideals
Under stress, human perception changes. The world becomes sharper, smaller, and more urgent. The nervous system prioritizes threat-detection and short-term survival.
In such states, moral capacity reduces:
- time horizons shorten
- complexity becomes difficult to hold
- responsibility becomes heavy rather than natural
- empathy becomes costly
- repair becomes unlikely
A politics of capacity begins with basic realities: rest, rhythm, recovery, attention hygiene, and conditions of stability—material and existential.
4. Relational regulation: trust, rupture, repair
Human ethics is not only individual. It is relational. Most moral action happens inside social fields: families, workplaces, communities, institutions, cultures.
Relationships are regulated not by perfection, but by repair. A regulated relationship is one that can return after rupture.
5. Institutional regulation: coherence without coercion
Institutions shape moral outcomes through their design. Not only through explicit rules, but through incentives, rhythms, information flows, accountability structures, and what remains invisible.
6. Planetary constraint: regulation at long horizons
Ecological instability introduces a new moral condition: we are operating under constraints that cannot be negotiated away.
Planetary boundaries, thresholds, and irreversibilities demand longer time horizons. But long time horizons are difficult to carry in a dysregulated world.
Methods / Editorial note
These Green Papers are written as field notes and working reflections. The drafting process combined (1) authorial writing and revision, (2) iterative prompts to an AI language model for drafting and editing, and (3) conventional editorial revision. Key practices:
- AI assistance: The AI produced early drafts and suggested language; the author reviewed and revised every paragraph.
- Sourcing: The papers use a “working bibliography” as orientation rather than a formal literature review. Citations are selective; empirical claims should be verified before formal use.
- Verification: The author is responsible for verification of cited sources and accepts responsibility for errors. Prior to academic submission, each reference and empirical claim should be independently checked and expanded.
- Versioning: Each paper carries a version line (v0.1). Substantial revisions will be tracked in a change log at Planetary Guardians / Spiralweb.
Closing questions
- What stabilizes ethical agency under sustained stress?
- Which forms of overload consistently produce moral collapse?
- How do we design institutions that support repair, not only control?
- What makes participation possible in real civic life, not just in theory?
- How do we build long-horizon responsibility without ideology?
References (Working bibliography — selected, APA 7)
- Bachelard, G. (1958). The Poetics of Space. Beacon Press.
- Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. University of Chicago Press.
- Durkheim, É. (1912). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (English translations available).
- Illich, I. (1973). Tools for Conviviality. Calder & Boyars.
- Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social. Oxford University Press.
- Lederach, J. P. (1997). Building Peace. USIP Press.
- Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J., & Behrens III, W. W. (1972). The Limits to Growth. Universe Books.
- Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons. Cambridge University Press.
- Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling Alone. Simon & Schuster.
- Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut Economics. Chelsea Green Publishing.
- Rockström, J., & Steffen, W. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. Science.
- Sennett, R. (2008). The Craftsman. Yale University Press.
- Simon, H. A. (1997). Administrative Behavior. Free Press.
- Steffen, W., et al. (2015). Planetary boundaries update. Science.
- Tronto, J. C. (1993). Moral Boundaries. Routledge.
- Turner, V. (1969). The Ritual Process. Aldine.
- Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations. Sage.
- Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and Reality. Tavistock Publications.
License & archival recommendation
These working papers are released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). You are free to share and adapt with attribution. Please cite the version line (v0.1, January 2026) when re-using this material. For archival stability and citation, consider depositing a revised version in an open repository (e.g., Zenodo or OSF) to obtain a DOI.