Search

This book places the philosophy of Simone Weil into conversation with contemporary environmental concerns in the Anthropocene.The book offers a systematic interpretation of Simone Weil, making her ethical philosophy more accessible to non-Weil scholars. Weil's work has been influential in many fields, including politically and theologically-based critiques of social inequalities and suffering, but rarely linked to ecology. Kathryn Lawson argues that Weil's work can be understood as offering a coherent approach with potentially widespread appeal applicable to our ethical relations to much more than just other human beings. She suggests that the process of'decreation'in Weil is an expansion of the self which might also come to include the surrounding earth and a vast assemblage of others. This allows readers to consider what it means to be human in this time and place, and to contemplate our ethical responsibilities both to other humans and also to the more-than-human world. Ultimately, the book uses Weil's thought to decanter the human being by cultivating human actions towards an ecological ethics.This book will be useful for Simone Weil scholars and academics, as well as students and researchers interested in environmental ethics in departments of comparative literature, theory and criticism, philosophy, and environmental studies.

Hosting Earth is a timely and much-needed volume in the emerging literature of environmental philosophy, drawing upon art, science, and politics to explore alternatives to the traditional domination of nature by humans.Featuring a dialogue with Mary Robinson (former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former President of Ireland), which addresses the current climate emergency, this book engages the question of ecological hospitality: what does it mean to be guests of the earth as well as hosts? It includes chapters by cutting-edge scholars in the philosophy of nature, as well as artists, scientists, psychologists, and theologians. The contributors discuss proposals for a new'Poetics of the Earth,'opening horizons beyond our perilous Anthropocene to a new Symbiocene of mutual collaboration between human and non-human species.Focusing on the central role that the human psyche plays in answering our current ecological emergency, Hosting Earth is for anybody invested in the future of our planet and how psychological, psychoanalytic, and philosophical thought can reorient the current conversation about ecology.

A contemporary defense of conservationist Aldo Leopold's vision for human interaction with the environment. Informed by his experiences as a hunter, forester, wildlife manager, ecologist, conservationist, and professor, Aldo Leopold developed a view he called the land ethic. In a classic essay, published posthumously in A Sand County Almanac, Leopold advocated for an expansion of our ethical obligations beyond the purely human to include what he variously termed the “land community” or the “biotic community”—communities of interdependent humans, nonhuman animals, plants, soils, and waters, understood collectively. This philosophy has been extremely influential in environmental ethics as well as conservation biology and related fields. Using an approach grounded in environmental ethics and the history and philosophy of science, Roberta L. Millstein reexamines Leopold's land ethic in light of contemporary ecology. Despite the enormous influence of the land ethic, it has sometimes been dismissed as either empirically out of date or ethically flawed. Millstein argues that these dismissals are based on problematic readings of Leopold's ideas. In this book, she provides new interpretations of the central concepts underlying the land ethic: interdependence, land community, and land health. She also offers a fresh take on of his argument for extending our ethics to include land communities as well as Leopold-inspired guidelines for how the land ethic can steer conservation and restoration policy.

Depuis une cinquantaine d'années, l'écologie est devenue une affaire politique majeure, et a donné lieu à de nombreux travaux en éthique. En prenant appui sur des essais de mise en ordre des questions et d'inventaire des positions prises, l'auteur soutient ici que les éthiques proposées ne sont pas encore véritablement écologiques. Une éthique écologique doit dire comment, en toute action, considérer notre dépendance des conditions de l'existence et de l'action avec le fait que nous sommes nous-mêmes conditions de l'existence des êtres dont nous dépendons. Une transformation de l'éthique selon un nouveau paradigme est nécessaire. L'intérêt et les limites de la typologie systématique en matière d'écologie des éthiques de la nature de Gérald Hess et la portée de la pensée de Hannah Arendt sont enfin examinés.

Written for a wide range of readers in environmental science, philosophy, and policy-oriented programs The Routledge Companion to Environmental Ethics is a landmark, comprehensive reference work in this interdisciplinary field. Not merely a review of theoretical approaches to the ethics of the environment, the Companion focuses on specific environmental problems and other concrete issues. Its 65 chapters, all appearing in print here for the first time, have been organized into the following eleven parts:I. AnimalsII. LandIII. WaterIV. ClimateV. Energy and ExtractionVI. CitiesVII. AgricultureVIII. Environmental TransformationIX. Policy Frameworks and Response MeasuresX. Regulatory ToolsXI. Advocacy and ActivismThe volume not only explains the nuances of important core philosophical positions, but also cuts new pathways for the integration of important ethical and policy issues into environmental philosophy. It will be of immense help to undergraduate students and other readers coming up to the field for the first time, but also serve as a valuable resource for more advanced students as well as researchers who need a trusted resource that also offers fresh, policy-centered approaches.

The Ethics of Climate Change: An Introduction systematically and comprehensively examines the ethical issues surrounding arguably the greatest threat now facing humanity. This second edition has been updated and includes two new chapters on climate change and capitalism and climate change and law. Williston addresses important questions such as: Has humanity entered the Anthropocene epoch? Is climate change primarily an ethical or an economic issue? Can capitalism be reformed to prevent climate catastrophe? What are the moral failings of international climate diplomacy? What are the main causes of political inaction and climate denial? Should tort law be used to sue those responsible for climate change? What are intragenerational and intergenerational justice? Is geoengineering an ethically justifiable response to climate change? Featuring case studies throughout, this textbook provides a philosophical introduction to an immensely topical issue studied by students within the fields of applied ethics, global justice, sustainability, geography, and politics.

L'éthique de l'environnement se penche tantôt sur des conceptions purement philosophiques, tantôt sur des approches plutôt politiques ou sociologiques, et enfin sur des données scientifiques, mais qui se réorientent toujours vers la réflexion philosophique. Que ce soit de comprendre la valeur octroyée à la nature, de saisir la complexité de l'interrelation des trois sphères du développement durable, de s'approprier les conceptions fondamentales en lien avec la discipline, de présenter les récentes découvertes tout en y cernant les enjeux ou de proposer des solutions en parcourant les dernières innovations, le présent ouvrage vous invite à un survol sommaire, efficace et surtout bien vulgarisé et accessible de l'éthique environnementale.

Ethical Humans questions how philosophy and social theory can help us to engage the everyday moral realities of living, working, loving, learning and dying in new capitalism. It introduces sociology as an art of living and as a formative tradition of embodied radical eco post-humanism.Seeking to embody traditions of philosophy and social theory in everyday ethics, this book validates emotions and feelings as sources of knowledge and shows how the denigration of women has gone hand in hand with the denigration of nature. It queries post-structuralist traditions of anti-humanism that, for all their insights into the fragmentation of identities, often sustain a distinction between nature and culture. The author argues that in a crisis of global warming, we have to learn to listen to our bodies as part of nature and draws on Wittgenstein to shape embodied forms of philosophy and social theory that questions theologies that tacitly continue to shape philosophical traditions. In acknowledging our own vulnerabilities, we question the vision of the autonomous and independent rational self that often remains within the terms of dominant white masculinities. This book offers different modes of self-work, drawing on psychoanalysis and embodied post-analytic psychotherapies as part of a decolonising practice questioning Eurocentric colonising modernity. In doing so it challenges, with Simone Weil, Roman notions of power and greatness that have shaped visions of white supremacy and European colonial power and empire.This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental ethics, environmental philosophy, social theory and sociology, ethics and philosophy, cultural studies, future studies, gender studies, post-colonial studies, Marxism, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and philosophy and sociology as arts of living.

Au moment où notre monde est en pleine crise environnementale causée par les changements climatiques et le développement de certaines technologies qui, inexorablement, détruisent notre planète, cet ouvrage propose une nouvelle approche de l'éthique de l'environnement fondée sur les notions de coexistence et de reconstruction. Quels sont les fondements théoriques et pratiques de cette éthique? Comment ces notions participent-elles d'une réflexion critique sur le devenir humain de l'Homme? Plus précisément, il est question de repenser une éthique soucieuse de la préservation de la vie des humains et non-humains. Cette éthique s'appuie sur une conception de la vie-bios (façon de vivre propre à un individu ou un à groupe) et de la vie-zoé (la vie que les humains partagent en commun avec les non-humains). Parce qu'elles doivent absolument être préservées et protégées, ces deux vies s'érigent en valeurs des valeurs.

OECD, UNESCO, the European Union, and the United Nations acknowledge that formal educational systems alone cannot respond to rapid and constant technological, social, and economic change in society and that they should be reinforced by non-formal educational practices. Examining a New Paradigm of Heritage With Philosophy, Economy, and Education is a critical scholarly publication that provides comprehensive research on the sustainability of identity and cultural heritage. The book establishes uniform and consistent conceptual criteria to identify and distinguish the different typological categories of heritage and discusses the concept of “cultural landscape” and environmental ethics. Moreover, connections between cultural heritage and natural heritage and the economy of heritage are explored. Finally, the book discusses cultural landscape as an educational resource with reading and interpretation of the cultural landscape as a basis for learning with a methodology of experimental science and its first metamorphosis of value. Featuring a range of topics such as curriculum design, ethics, and environmental tourism, this book is ideal for academicians, sociologists, biologists, researchers, policymakers, and students.

Doing Environmental Ethics explains how we may transform our fossil-fuel-burning economy, which continues to intensify our ecological crisis, into a circular and ecological economy. The text resists political corruption and personal greed by gleaning ethical insights from our philosophical and religious cultures and by embracing the scientific Gaia hypothesis for the Earth. Its reasoning ascribes intrinsic worth to uplifting duties and rights as well as inspiring virtues and relationships, and tests applying these values by predicting the likely consequences of acting on them. It affirms all life has value for itself, and that human life also values reasoning and feelings and being ethical.The third edition examines US and international environmental policies through 2018. It analyzes the Trump administration's repudiation of the environmental policies of the Obama administration and its new rules slashing the social costs of climate change. The text reviews a draft UN treaty that would impose human rights and environmental constraints on transnational corporations, but it also highlights outstanding examples of corporate upcycling and low-carbon innovation. Finally, the third edition explains why food security requires protecting the food sovereignty of farming communities and cooperatives, as well as public policies ensuring fair profits for farmers practicing agro-ecology.

Climate change has become the most pressing moral and political problem of our time. Ethical theories help us think clearly and more fully about important moral and political issues. And yet, to date, there have been no books that have brought together a broad range of ethical theories to apply them systematically to the problems of climate change. This volume fills that deep need. Two preliminary chapters—an up-to-date synopsis of climate science and an overview of the ethical issues raised by climate change—set the stage. After this, ten leading ethicists in ten separate chapters each present a major ethical theory (or, more broadly, perspective) and discuss the implications of that view for how we decide to respond to a rapidly warming planet. Each chapter first provides a brief exposition of the view before working out what that theory “has to say” about climate change and our response to the problems it poses.Key features:• Up-to-date synopsis of climate science• Clear overviews of a wide range of ethical theories and perspectives by leading experts• Insightful discussions of the implications of these theories and perspectives for our response to climate change• A unique opportunity to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of various ethical viewpoints.

This Second Edition of A New Environmental Ethics: The Next Millennium for Life on Earth offers clear, powerful, and often moving thoughts from Holmes Rolston III, one of the first and most respected philosophers to write on the environment and often called the'father of environmental ethics.'Rolston surveys the full spectrum of approaches in the field of environmental ethics and offers critical assessments of contemporary academic accounts. He draws on a lifetime of research and experience to suggest an outlook, and even hope, for the future. This forward-looking analysis, focused on the new millennium, will be a necessary complement to any balanced textbook or anthology in environmental ethics. The First Edition guaranteed'to put you in your place.'Beyond that, the Second Edition asks whether you want to live a'de-natured life on a de-natured planet.'Key Updates in the Second Edition Covers the worsening environmental situation due to actions of the Trump administration, including withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Includes information on legislation in key U.S. states (e.g., California and New York) aimed to ameliorate the damage done at the federal level Increases coverage of group knowledge, group agreement and disagreement, and group action in collective environmental ethics, as distinguished from individual knowledge and action Examines the deleterious effects of online consumer behavior Explains how a loss of solidarity among a nation's citizens and even a larger solidary among humanity leads to environmental degradation Offers new analysis of the effects of epistemic bubbles, echo chambers, and fake news on the behavior of voters and consumers Provides an extended critique of the Anthropocene Epoch, and the prospect of geo-engineering Earth to become a synthetic environment.

Die Corona-Krise machte deutlich, dass im Umgang mit der ökologischen Krise, insbesondere auch der Klimakrise, mehr politischer Gestaltungsspielraum besteht, als die Politik der Gesellschaft bisher vermittelte. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden in diesem Buch ethische Leitbilder wie Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben, Nachhaltigkeit und Verantwortung noch einmal neu diskutiert. Darüber hinaus werden ein umfassender Blick auf die ökologische zivilgesellschaftliche Bewegung geworfen und eine Skizze des Gesamtentwurfes dieser gezeichnet. Damit sie tatkräftig und kreativ bleibt, ist eine spirituelle Orientierung notwendig – dazu legt Roland Mierzwa hier ein Konzept vor.

Climate change is a defining issue of our time for which the immediate as well as potential future scope causes enormous impediments to human understanding and comprehension. It is argued here that humans ought to make wise use of their capacity of thinking, language, and communication in working on the task of responsible action. Required is nothing less than moving out of “thoughtlessness”, an unresponsiveness and ignorance in particular towards certain environmental problems. As human beings, we are a species on this planet that is uniquely capable to think and foresee potential consequences and hold power to induce change on our actions. It is up to human beings to confront challenges such as climate change, to consider what has been critically assessed in thought and reflect on potential responses. Crucial in this dialog is the ability to take the standpoint of the other –– including that of species as well as ecosystems –– in human imagination. It also means to develop a sensibility for the other in making sense of the world that today is largely shaped by humans. Throughout history, narratives, stories, images, artistic expressions have all played a key role for imaginative ventures that allow the mind to imagine the past, present, and the future. Language and communication can serve comprehension of an issue like climate change and provide a path in developing responsible responses to abstract problems of complex global future dimensions.

The Ethics of Climate Change: An Introduction systematically and comprehensively examines the ethical issues surrounding arguably the greatest threat now facing humanity. Williston addresses important questions such as: Has humanity entered the Anthropocene? Is climate change primarily an ethical issue? Does climate change represent a moral wrong? What are the impacts of climate change? What are the main causes of political inaction? What is the argument for climate change denial? What are intragenerational justice and intergenerational justice? To what extent is climate change an economic problem? Is geoengineering an ethically appropriate response to climate change? Featuring case studies throughout, this textbook provides a philosophical introduction to an immensely topical issue studied by students within the fields of applied ethics, global justice, sustainability, geography, and politics.

Arguing for a renewed view of objects and nature, Ethical Responses to Nature's Call considers how it is possible to understand our ethical duties - in the form of ethical intuitionalism - to nature and the planet by listening to and releasing ourselves over to the call or address of nature.Blending several strands of philosophical thought, such as Graham Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology, W. D. Ross's prima fathics, Alphonso Lingis's phenomenological ethics traceable to The Imperative, and Michael Bonnett's ecophilosophy, this book offers a unique rejoinder to the problems and issues that continue to haunt humans'relationship to nature. The origins of such problems and issues largely remain obscured from view due to the oppressive influence of the'Cultural Framework'which gives form and structure to the ways we understand, discourse on, and comport ourselves in relation to the natural world. Through understanding this'Cultural Framework'we also come to know the responses we continue to offer in answer to nature's call and address, and are then in a position to analyze and assess those responses in terms of their potential ethical weight. Such a phenomenon is made possible through the descriptive-and-interpretive method of eco-phenomenology. This renewed vision of the human-and-nature provides direction for our interaction with and behavior toward nature in such a way that the ethical insight offers a diagnosis and provides a potentially compelling prescriptive for environmental ills.

Si les maux qui frappent la biosphère s'aggravent, ce n'est pas que l'effet de l'empire de la marchandise et de l'avidité du capitalisme. La volonté de toute-puissance est plus ancienne : elle commence avec les civilisations au IIIe millénaire avant notre ère et leurs dieux inventés pour justifier leurs ambitions. Si nous voulons un humanisme écologique, nous devons combattre les idéologies de « l'exception humaine » et la rage de posséder et de spolier. Si nous voulons protéger notre bien commun, nous devons réformer en profondeur nos croyances, institutions et modes de vie, en commençant par trouver notre véritable place dans la Nature.

Au fil du temps, le statut de la philosophie en tant que « Mère des Sciences » s'est disloqué. Néanmoins, elle a posé les jalons d'une conceptualisation de la morale et de l'éthique. L'éthique environnementale s'est employée à étendre la morale et à susciter le débat sur des questions contemporaines. A travers l'écosophie, cette éthique renouvelle les fondamentaux d'une morale classique devenue la norme de gouvernance actuelle. Elle critique l'anthropocentrisme au profit d'autres points de vue, pour une reconnaissance morale des constituants écosystémiques planétaires, avec un partage équitable des ressources et une planète Terre comme bien commun à toutes les formes de vie.

Environmental issues raise crucial questions. What should we value? What is our place in nature? What kind of life should we live? How should we interact with other living things? Environmental management and policy-making is ultimately based on answers to these and similar questions, but do we need a new ethics to be able overcome the environmental crisis we face? This book addresses these important questions and explores the values that decision-makers often presuppose in their environmental policy-making. Examining the content of the ethics of sustainable development that the UN and the world's governments want us to embrace, this book examines alternatives to this kind of ethics, and the differences in basic values that these make in practice. Offering a detailed analysis of the ethics that lie behind current policy-making as it is expressed in documents such as Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration, this unique contribution to the field of environmental studies shows how different environmental ethical theories support different goals of environmental management and generate different policies when it comes to population growth, agriculture, and preservation and management of wilderness areas and endangered species. Mikael Stenmark concludes that policy-makers must take more seriously the value assumptions and conflicts connected to environmental issues, and state explicitly on what values their own proposals and decisions are based and why these should be accepted. Those studying environmental issues or environmental philosophy will find this accessible text invaluable in presenting a clear understanding of environmental ethics and contemporary applications and policies.

Contributions by prominent scholars examining the intersections of environmental philosophy and philosophy of technology.Environmental philosophy and philosophy of technology have taken divergent paths despite their common interest in examining human modification of the natural world. Yet philosophers from each field have a lot to contribute to the other. Environmental issues inevitably involve technologies, and technologies inevitably have environmental impacts. In this book, prominent scholars from both fields illuminate the intersections of environmental philosophy and philosophy of technology, offering the beginnings of a rich new hybrid discourse. All the contributors share the intuition that technology and the environment overlap in ways that are relevant in both philosophical and practical terms. They consider such issues as the limits of technological interventions in the natural world, whether a concern for the environment can be designed into things, how consumerism relates us to artifacts and environments, and how food and animal agriculture raise questions about both culture and nature. They discuss, among other topics, the pessimism and dystopianism shared by environmentalists, environmental philosophers, and philosophers of technology; the ethics of geoengineering and climate change; the biological analogy at the heart of industrial ecology; green products and sustainable design; and agriculture as a bridge between technology and the environment.ContributorsBraden Allenby, Raymond Anthony, Philip Brey, J. Baird Callicott, Brett Clark, Wyatt Galusky, Ryan Gunderson, Benjamin Hale, Clare Heyward,Don Idhe, Mark Sagoff, Julian Savulescu, Paul B. Thompson, Ibo van de Poel, Zhang Wei,Kyle Powys Whyte

In this second edition of The Spirit of the Soil: Agriculture and Environmental Ethics, Paul B. Thompson reviews four worldviews that shape competing visions for agriculture. Productionists have sought increasing yields—to make two seeds grow where only one grew before—while traditional visions of good farming have stressed stewardship. These traditional visions have been challenged by two more worldviews: a call for a total cost accounting for farming and an advocacy for a holistic perspective. Thompson argues that an environmentally defensible systems approach must draw upon all four worldviews, recognizing their flaws and synthesizing their strengths in a new vision of sustainable agriculture. This classic 1995 study has been thoroughly revised and significantly expanded in its second edition with up-to-date examples of agriculture's impact on the environment. These include extensive discussions of new pesticides and the effects of animal agriculture on climate and other areas of the environment. In addition, a new final chapter discusses sustainability, which has become a dominant idea within environmental studies and agrarian political philosophy.

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS, 7th Edition presents the main issues in environmental ethics using a diverse set of readings arranged in dialogue format. The seventh edition of this popular anthology features selections from contemporary authors as well as readings from classic writers, all chosen for their clarity and accessibility. By exploring both sides of every topic, this edition helps students quickly grasp each subject and move from theory to application. Making this textbook even more enjoyable to read include new sections on Environmental Justice, Climate Change, Food Ethics, Nature and Naturalness, Sustainability, Population and Consumption, Future Generations, and Holism.

The global ecological crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to confront, and humanity is failing. The triumph of the neo-liberal agenda, together with a debauched ‘scientism', has reduced nature and people to nothing but raw materials, instruments and consumers to be efficiently managed in a global market dominated by corporate managers, media moguls and technocrats. The arts and the humanities have been devalued, genuine science has been crippled, and the quest for autonomy and democracy undermined. The resultant trajectory towards global ecological destruction appears inexorable, and neither governments nor environmental movements have significantly altered this, or indeed, seem able to. The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization is a wide-ranging and scholarly analysis of this failure.This book reframes the dynamics of the debate beyond the discourses of economics, politics and techno-science. Reviving natural philosophy to align science with the humanities, it offers the categories required to reform our modes of existence and our institutions so that we augment, rather than undermine, the life of the ecosystems of which we are part. From this philosophical foundation, the author puts forth a manifesto for transforming our culture into one which could provide an effective global environmental movement and provide the foundations for a global ecological civilization.

This book brings together over thirty of the foremost contributions to environmental ethics, from pioneering papers to recent work at the cutting edge of thought in this field. It also unites them through an innovative introductory essay which appraises both strengths and weaknesses and presents a distinctive view of the subject. Areas covered include the land ethic, Deep Ecology, biocentric approaches, environmental virtue ethics, feminist contributions, debates on equity and on the interests and representation of future generations, preservation, sustainability and sustainable development. The importance of attempts to discover a comprehensive ethic relevant both to the environment and other key areas of ethical debate is highlighted. Robin Attfield has been working in this field for thirty years, and has published several related collections and monographs, of which the latest is Environmental Ethics: An Overview for the Twenty-First Century, published by Polity in 2003. The Ethics of The Environment complements that work, from which it incorporates a significant extract about the considerable practical difference that environmental ethics is capable of making.

Devant la complexité des questions environnementales et leur traitement difficile, cet Essai fait l'hypothèse qu'une confrontation des textes de Hans Jonas et d'André Stanguennec atteste que la réelle prise en compte des conditions de vie dans l'« écosphère » suppose une « sagesse pratique », fruit d'un savoir élaboré et mis en question dans les chemins dialectiques d'unification de la pensée et de l'être.

Broad in scope, this introduction to environmental ethics considers both contemporary issues and the extent of humanity's responsibility for distant future life. John Nolt, a logician and environmental ethicist, interweaves contemporary science, logical analysis, and ethical theory into the story of the expansion of ethics beyond the human species and into the far future. Informed by contemporary environmental science, the book deduces concrete policy recommendations from carefully justified ethical principles and ends with speculations concerning the deepest problems of environmental ethics. Pedagogical features include chapter outlines, annotated suggestions for further readings, the explanations of key terms when first mentioned, and an extensive glossary.

In this book, Toby Svoboda develops and defends a Kantian environmental virtue ethic, challenging the widely-held view that Kant's moral philosophy has little to offer environmental ethics. On the contrary, Svoboda contends that on Kantian grounds, there is good moral reason to care about non-human organisms in their own right and to value their flourishing independently of human interests, since doing so is constitutive of certain (environmental) virtues. Svoboda argues that Kant's account of indirect duties regarding nature can ground a compelling environmental ethic: the Kantian duty to develop morally virtuous dispositions strictly proscribes unnecessarily harming organisms, and it also gives us moral reason to act in ways that benefit such organisms. Svoboda's account engages the recent literature on environmental virtue (including Rosalind Hursthouse, Philip Cafaro, Ronald Sandler, Thomas Hill, and Louke van Wensveen) and provides an original argument for an environmental ethic firmly rooted in Kant's moral philosophy.

This volume works to connect issues in environmental ethics with the best work in contemporary normative theory. Environmental issues challenge contemporary ethical theorists to account for topics that traditional ethical theories do not address to any significant extent. This book articulates and evaluates consequentialist responses to that challenge. Contributors provide a thorough and well-rounded analysis of the benefits and limitations of the consequentialist perspective in addressing environmental issues. In particular, the contributors use consequentialist theory to address central questions in environmental ethics, such as questions about what kinds of things have value; about decision-making in light of the long-term, intergenerational nature of environmental issues; and about the role that a state's being natural should play in ethical deliberation.

Environmental Philosophy: A Revaluation of Cosmopolitan Ethics from an Ecocentric Standpoint calls for a new approach to ethics. Starting from the necessity for all life of air, water, and food, the book revalues the relation of ethics and environmentalism. Using insights of the environmental ethicists, environmental ethics becomes the model for ethics as a whole. Humans are part of a larger environment. Cosmopolitanism should be revised in accord with environmental ethics.The book applies a new theory of values to the relation of value and obligation, and of duty, rights and virtue, to accord with ecocentrism. The book also critically evaluates Utilitarianism and the self interest theory. Other chapters address population, species preservation and a practical program for environmental policy.

Drawing extensively on his experiences of more than thirty years as a humanitarian worker, Richard Poole takes us on a journey from our earliest origins to our present day, one that enables us to see how far we have strayed from our guiding principles to create a world that is bent on self-destruction. Mankind's Last Chance argues that the repair of our broken societies, our collapsing economies and our wrecked environment lies not in the application of any new form of political and economic governance but in a moral re-awakening and a renewed commitment to the common good that can only come from a spiriitual transformation on a universal scale. More importantly it tells us where the source of such a transformation is to be found and how it can be achieved.,

Doing Environmental Ethics faces our ecological crisis by drawing on environmental science, economic theory, international law, and religious teachings, as well as philosophical arguments. It engages students in constructing ethical presumptions based on arguments for duty, character, relationships, and rights, and then tests these moral presumptions by predicting the likely consequences of acting on them. Students apply what they learn to policy issues discussed in the final part of the book: sustainable consumption, environmental policy, clean air and water, agriculture, managing public lands, urban ecology, and climate change. Questions after each chapter and a worksheet aid readers in deciding how to live more responsibly. The second edition has been updated to reflect the latest developments in environmental ethics, including sustainable practices of corporations, environmental NGO actions, and rainforest certification programs. This edition also gives greater emphasis to environmental justice, Rawls, and ecofeminism. Revised study questions concern application and analysis, and new'Decisions'inserts invite students to analyze evaluate current environmental issues.

Providing a bold and original rethinking of environmental ethics, Ben Minteer's Refounding Environmental Ethics will help ethicists and their allies resolve critical debates in environmental policy and conservation practice. Minteer considers the implications of John Dewey's pragmatist philosophy for environmental ethics, politics, and practice. He provides a new and compelling intellectual foundation for the field—one that supports a more activist, collaborative and problem-solving philosophical enterprise. Combining environmental ethics, democratic theory, philosophical pragmatism, and the environmental social sciences, Minteer makes the case for a more experimental, interdisciplinary, and democratic style of environmental ethics—one that stands as an alternative to the field's historically dominant “nature-centered” outlook. Minteer also provides examples of his pragmatic approach in action, considering a wide range of application and issues, including invasive species, ecological research, biodiversity loss, protected area management, and conservation under global climate change.

The Green Halo is a highly readable introduction to the vast field of contemporary ecological thought. It is a basic education in environmental philosophy and a welcome propadeutic for understanding the most crucial problem facing humankind in the coming century: How can humans live on this earth so that they do not destroy the preconditions for their own existence?

Foreword by Daniel A. Dombrowski. A central concern of nearly every environmental ethic is its desire to extend the scope of direct moral concern beyond human beings to plants, nonhuman animals, and the systems of which they are a part. Although nearly all environmental philosophies have long since rejected modernity's conception of individuals as isolated and independent substances, few have replaced this worldview with an alternative that is adequate to the organic, processive world in which we find ourselves. In this context, Brian G. Henning argues that the often overlooked work of Alfred North Whitehead has the potential to make a significant contribution to environmental ethics. Additionally inspired by classical American philosophers such as William James, John Dewey and Charles Sanders Pierce and environmental philosophers such as Aldo Leopold, Peter Singer, Albert Schweitzer, and Arne Naess, Henning develops an ethical theory of which the seminal insight is called'The Ethics of Creativity.'By systematically examining and developing a conception of individuality that is equally at home with the microscopic world of subatomic events and the macroscopic world of ecosystems, The Ethics of Creativity correctly emphasizes the well-being of wholes, while not losing sight of the importance of the unique centers of value that constitute these wholes. In this way, The Ethics of Creativity has the potential to be a unique voice in contemporary moral philosophy.

Climate change is arguably the great problem confronting humanity, but we have done little to head off this looming catastrophe. In The Perfect Moral Storm, philosopher Stephen Gardiner illuminates our dangerous inaction by placing the environmental crisis in an entirely new light, considering it as an ethical failure. Gardiner clarifies the moral situation, identifying the temptations (or'storms') that make us vulnerable to a certain kind of corruption. First, the world's most affluent nations are tempted to pass on the cost of climate change to the poorer and weaker citizens of the world. Second, the present generation is tempted to pass the problem on to future generations. Third, our poor grasp of science, international justice, and the human relationship to nature helps to facilitate inaction. As a result, we are engaging in willful self-deception when the lives of future generations, the world's poor, and even the basic fabric of life on the planet is at stake. We should wake up to this profound ethical failure, Gardiner concludes, and demand more of our institutions, our leaders and ourselves.'This is a radical book, both in the sense that it faces extremes and in the sense that it goes to the roots.'--Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews'The book's strength lies in Gardiner's success at understanding and clarifying the types of moral issues that climate change raises, which is an important first step toward solutions.'--Science Magazine'Gardiner has expertly explored some very instinctual and vitally important considerations which cannot realistically be ignored. --Required reading.'--Green Prophet'Gardiner makes a strong case for highlighting and insisting on the ethical dimensions of the climate problem, and his warnings about buck-passing and the dangerous appeal of moral corruptions hit home.'--Times Higher Education'Stephen Gardiner takes to a new level our understanding of the moral dimensions of climate change. A Perfect Moral Storm argues convincingly that climate change is the greatest moral challenge our species has ever faced - and that the problem goes even deeper than we think.'--Peter Singer, Princeton University

There is a broad consensus that climate change presents the international community with a formidable challenge. Yet progress on all fronts-prevention, mitigation, and adaptation-has been slow. Ved P. Nanda finds an explanation for this disparity in the sharp divide between the developed and developing countries. Developing countries demand that major industrialized nations provide the necessary resources and technology to address climate change, while many developed countries seek firm commitments and timetables on action from the developing countries. The result is a stalemate. Climate Change and Environmental Ethics contains first-rate research and thinking from scholars from multiple disciplines-ethics, ecology, philosophy, economics, political science, history, and international law. What distinguishes this volume from recent work on climate change are two of its special features. One is the multi-disciplinary backgrounds of the scholars, their stellar experiences, and the wisdom with which they express not simply their philosophy and theory but also their suggestions for concrete, specific action in practical terms. The second is the special niche this volume fills in its overarching theme of the need for a renewed environmental ethic that can bring together these disparate but interconnected views. This volume explores alternative ways of conceiving our relation to the natural world. A spirit of international cooperation and collaboration is needed to meet the challenge. The reader is complelled to think anew about our understanding of the scientific and technical issues, as well as our values and ethical responsibilities regarding climate change.

This important book brings together leading environmental thinkers to debate a central conflict within environmental philosophy: Should we appreciate nature mainly for its ability to advance our interests or should we respect it as having a good of its own, apart from any contribution to human well being? Specifically, the fourteen essays collected here discuss the'convergence hypothesis'put forth by Bryan Norton—a controversial thesis in environmental ethics about the policy implications of moral arguments for environmental protection. Historically influential essays are joined with newly commissioned essays to provide the first sustained attempt to reconcile two long-opposed positions. Norton himself offers the book's closing essay. This seminal volume contains contributions from some of the most respected scholars in the field, including Donald Brown, J. Baird Callicott, Andrew Light, Holmes Rolston III, Laura Westra, and many others. Although Nature in Common? will be especially useful for students and professionals studying environmental ethics and philosophy, it will engage any reader who is concerned about the philosophies underlying contemporary environmental policies.

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is considered in its application to human beings in this book. Brian Baxter examines the various sociobiological approaches to the explanation of human behaviour which view the human brain, and so the human mind, as the product of evolution, and considers the main arguments for and against this claim. In so doing he defends the approaches against some common criticisms, such as the charge that they are reductionist and dehumanising. The implications of these arguments for the social sciences and humanities are assessed, as is the naturalistic view of ethics to which they lead. A key issue examined in the book is the connection between this Darwinist perspective on human beings and modern environmental ethics, which also often assume that human beings are part of an evolved living world. The implications of these positions for the meaningfulness of human life are also examined. Throughout the discussion the positions in sociobiology and environmental ethics developed by Edward O. Wilson are taken as an exemplar of the characteristic features of a Darwinian worldview, and the arguments of Wilson and his chief critics are thoroughly examined.

This book argues that an attentive encounter with nature is of key importance for the development of an environmentally appropriate culture. The fundamental idea is that the environmental degradation that we are increasingly experiencing is best conceived as the consequence of a cultural mismatch: our cultures seem not to be appropriate to the natural environment in which we move and on which we depend in thoroughgoing ways. In addressing this problem, Thomas Heyd weaves together a rich tapestry of perspectives on human interactions with the natural world, ranging from traditional modes of managing human communities that include the natural environment, to the consideration of poetic travelogues, ecological restoration and botanic gardens. The volume is divided into three parts, which respectively consider the relation of human beings to nature in terms of ethics, aesthetics and culture. It engages the current literature in each of these areas with the help of inter-disciplinary approaches, as well as on the basis of personal encounters with natural spaces and processes. The ultimate aim of this book is to make a contribution to the development of a cultural fabric that is suitable to the natural spaces and processes in which we may thrive, and on which we all depend as individuals and as a species.

Gifford Lecturer and Templeton Prize winner Holmes Rolston, III is widely known as the father of environmental ethics. His writings range between natural philosophy and theology and include detailed presentations of an interlocking position that includes aesthetics, value theory, natural resource policy, wilderness advocacy, and sustainable development.'Nature Value and Duty: Life on Earth with Holmes Rolston, III'is a collection of contemporary writings on the work of Holmes Rolston, III. The authors contributing to this volume are a mixture of senior scholars in environmental ethics and new voices in philosophy and in literature. Together they provide an in depth evaluation of many of the topics discussed by Rolston. They probe the strengths and weaknesses of his work and suggest valuable correctives. Rolston himself, in a detailed reply to each of his critics at the end of the volume, reveals where some of these criticisms sting him the most and in the process provides one of the most detailed and articulate defenses of his position ever offered.

Presupposing no prior knowledge of philosophy, John Benson introduces the fundamentals of environmental ethics by asking whether a concern with human well-being is an adequate basis for environmental ethics. He encourages the reader to explore this question, considering techniques used to value the environment and critically examining'light green'to'deep green'environmentalism. Each chapter is linked to a reading from a key thinker such as J.S. Mill and E.O. Wilson. Key features include activities and exercises, enabling readers to monitor their progress throughout the book, chapter summaries and guides to further reading.

Much has been written in recent years on environmental ethics relating to the more general'natural'environment but little specifically written about ethics of the built environment. Ethics and the Built Environment responds to this need and offers a debate on the ethical dimension of building in all its forms from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and approaches.This book should be of interest to architects, students of building and building design, environmentalists, politicians and general readers with an interest in ethics.

The first comprehensive philosophical examination of our duties to future generations, Dr de-Shalit argues that they are a matter of justice, not charity or supererogation.

The Spirit of the Soil challenges environmentalists to think more deeply and creatively about agriculture. Paul B. Thompson identifies four `worldviews'which tackle agricultural ethics according to different philosophical priorities; productionism, stewardship, economics and holism. He examines current issues such as the use of pesticides and biotechnology from these ethical perspectives. This book achieves an open-ended account of sustainability designed to minimise hubris and help us to recapture the spirit of the soil.

Faking Nature explores the arguments surrounding the concept of ecological restoration. This is a crucial process in the modern world and is central to companies'environmental policy; whether areas restored after ecological destruction are less valuable than before the damage took place. Elliot discusses the pros and cons of the argument and examines the role of humans in the natural world. This volume is a timely and provocative analysis of the simultaneous destruction and restoration of the natural world and the ethics related to those processes, in an era of accelerated environmental damage and repair.

First published in 1992. This book provides an introduction to the key environmental debates. By addressing specific global problems and placing them within an ethical context, the collection provides the reader with both theoretical and practical understanding of environmental issues. The contributors are internationally known figures drawn from a range of different disciplines, including geography, psychology, social policy and philosophy. The contributions range from those tackling individual concrete issues (such as nuclear waste and the threat to the rain forest) to those addressing matters of policy, principle and attitude (such as our obligations to future generations and the nature of technological risk). Emphasis lies not only on scientific facts, but on ethical perspectives—principles of trust, cooperation, far-sightedness, respect and concern for the future. The Environment in Question is designed as a text for students of philosophy, environmental science, environmental education, ecology and teacher education. It can be used as a self-contained, inter-disciplinary course book or in conjunction with relevant material. In addition, this collection of previously unpublished essays will interest professionals in each field, as well as the interested layperson concerned about this planet's future. The substantial cross-section of concerns and approaches will provide all readers with the necessary background and insights to develop an awareness of the problems and to enter into the environmental debate.