Em questões ambientais, a relação dos seres humanos com a natureza é vista como um problema ético importante. Isso gerou várias posições éticas como antropocentrismo, biocentrismo, ecocentrismo e similares. Sobre a relação do homem com o animal, B. G. Nortor menciona que animais em “contexto” devem ter prioridade em relação a animais em “conteúdo”. Norton nomeia animais domesticados e animais selvagens mantidos em cativeiros como animais em “contexto”. Ele sustenta que devemos cuidar dos animais domesticados na medida em que temos (...) um contrato hipotético com eles (Norton, 2003). Ao mesmo tempo em que concordamos com a posição de Norton de cuidar dos animais domesticados, defendemos que sua compreensão do contrato e sua subsequente compreensão de “cuidado” como derivando de um valor instrumental dos animais reflete sua posição de um antropocentrismo fraco. Neste artigo, defendemos que uma ética do “cuidado” é mais significativa quando emerge de uma perspectiva não-antropocêntrica que trate o outro como valioso intrinsecamente.: In environment related issues, the relationship of human beings to nature is seen as an important ethical issue. This issue has resulted in various ethical positions like anthropocentrism, biocentrism, ecocentrism and like. On man’s relationship with animal beings, Bryan G. Norton mentions that animals in ‘context’ should be given priority over animals in ‘content’. Norton brings the domesticated animals and captive bred wild animals under the ‘context’ animals. Norton maintains that we should take care of the domesticated animals as we have a hypothetical contract with them. (Norton, Searching for Sustainability: Interdisciplinary Essays in the Philosophy of Conservation Biology, 2003) While we agree to Norton’s position of taking care of the domesticated animals, we maintain that his understanding of contract and his subsequent understanding of ‘care’ as stemming from an instrumental value of animals reflects his position of weak-anthropocentrism. In this paper, we claim that a ‘care’ based ethics is more meaningful when it emerges from a non-anthropocentric perspective that treat the other as intrinsically valued. Keywords : Content, Context, Intrinsic Value, Instrumental value, Pragmatism, Animal Care. (shrink)

In this article I consider four concerns regarding the possibility of an environmental virtue ethic functioning as an alternative – rather than a supplement – to more conventional approaches to environmental ethics. The concerns are: (1) it is not possible to provide an objective specification of environmental virtue, (2) an environmental virtue ethic will lack the resources to provide critique of obtaining cultural practices and policies, (3) an environmental virtue ethic will not provide sufficient action-guidance, (4) an environmental virtue ethic (...) cannot ground constraints on human activities regarding the natural environment. Each of these concerns makes a claim about the poverty of normative resources at the disposal of environmental virtue ethics. I defend a conception of environmental virtue – as a character virtue with the same normative standing as the conventional personal and interpersonal virtues – that enables an environmental virtue ethic with the wherewithal to address each of the concerns. (shrink)

Environmental pragmatism has faced numerous criticisms for relativism and crude instrumentalism as well as for sidestepping the fundamental concerns of environmental ethics. Recently, Andre Santos Campos and Sofia Guedes Vaz have proposed a new ‘method’ of environmental pragmatism, justificatory moral pluralism, with the aim of overcoming these criticisms. It is argued that this new approach is plagued by the traditional concerns. Instead, the pitfalls of pragmatism can be avoided by adopting the central insight of the classical pragmatists that values may (...) be revised in light of experience in a process that resembles scientific inquiry. The resulting view may not be satisfying for those who expect pragmatism to live up to its periodic promise of immediate and concrete results. Nevertheless, pragmatism presents the environmental ethicist with a range of promising tasks. (shrink)

Toby Svoboda (2011, 2015) argues that humans cannot ever justifiably attribute intrinsic value to nature because we can never have evidence that any part of non-human nature has intrinsic value. We argue that, at best, Svoboda's position leaves us with uncertainty about whether there is intrinsic value in the non-human natural world. This uncertainty, however, together with reason to believe that at least some non-human natural entities would possess intrinsic value if anything does, leaves us in a position to acquire (...) evidence that non-human nature has intrinsic value. We appeal to Michael Huemer's (2013) Probabilistic Reasons Principle to argue that we have direct reasons to not act in ways destructive to non-human nature, even if this reason is defeasible. Hence, if having intrinsic value just is being a source of direct reasons, it also implies that non-human nature has intrinsic value. (shrink)

Most environmental philosophers have had little use for 'conventional' philosophical and political thought. This is unfortunate, because these traditions can greatly contribute to environmental ethics and policy discussions. One mainstream concept of potential value for environmental philosophy is the notion of the public interest. Yet even though the public interest is widely acknowledged to be a powerful ethical standard in public affairs and public policy, there has been little agreement on its descriptive meaning. A particularly intriguing account of the concept (...) in the literature, however, may be found in the work of the American pragmatist John Dewey. Dewey argued that the public interest was to be continuously constructed through the process of free, cooperative inquiry into the shared good of the democratic community. This Deweyan model of the public interest has much to offer environmental philosophers who are interested in making connections between normative arguments and environmental policy discourse, and it holds great promise for enhancing environmental philosophy's role and impact in public life. (shrink)

Many nonanthropocentric environmental ethicists subscribe to a ``principle-ist'''' approach to moral argument, whereby specific natural resource and environmental policy judgments are deduced from the prior articulation of a general moral principle. More often than not, this principle is one requiring the promotion of the intrinsic value of nonhuman nature. Yet there are several problems with this method of moral reasoning, including the short-circuiting of reflective inquiry and the disregard of the complex nature of specific environmental problems and policy arguments. In (...) the present paper, we advance an alternative, pragmatic contextualist approach to environmental ethics, one grounded in the moral theory of John Dewey. We present the results of an empirical study of public environmental ethics and natural resource management attitudes to support our position, and we conclude with a few recommendations for future inquiry in the field of environmental ethics. (shrink)

Recent critics (Andrew Light, Bryan Norton, Anthony Weston, and Bruce Morito, among others) have argued that we should give up talk of intrinsic value in general and that of nature in particular. While earlier theorists might have overestimated the importance of intrinsic value, these recent critics underestimate its importance. Claims about a thing’s intrinsic value are claims about the distinctive way in which we have reason to care about that thing. If we understand intrinsic value in this manner, we can (...) capture the core claims that environmentalists want to make about nature while avoiding the worries raised by contemporary critics. Since the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic value plays a critical role in our understanding of the different ways that we do and should care about things, moral psychology, ethical theory in general, and environmental ethics in particular shouldn’t give up on the concept of intrinsic value. (shrink)

Debates in animal ethics are largely characterized by ethical monism, the search for a single, timeless, and essential trait in which the moral standing of animals can be grounded. In this paper, we argue that a monistic approach towards animal ethics hampers and oversimplifies the moral debate. The value pluralism present in our contemporary societies requires a more open and flexible approach to moral inquiry. This paper advocates the turn to a pragmatic, pluralistic approach to animal ethics. It contributes to (...) the development of such an approach in two ways. It offers a pragmatist critique of ethical monism in animal ethics and presents the results of a qualitative study into the value diversity present in the different ways of thinking about animals in the Netherlands. Carefully arranged group discussions resulted in the reconstruction of four distinctive moral value frameworks that may serve as instruments in the future process of moral inquiry and deliberation in the reflection on animal use. (shrink)

Pragmatist environmental philosophers have (erroneously) assumed that environmental ethics has made little impact on environmental policy because environmental ethics has been absorbed with arcane theoretical controversies, mostly centred on the question of intrinsic value in nature. Positions on this question generate the allegedly divisive categories of anthropocentrism/nonanthropocentrism, shallow/deep ecology, and individualism/holism. The locus classicus for the objectivist concept of intrinsic value is traceable to Kant, and modifications of the Kantian form of ethical theory terminate in biocentrism. A subjectivist approach to (...) the affirmation of intrinsic value in nature has also been explored. Because of the academic debate about intrinsic value in nature, the concept of intrinsic value in nature has begun to penetrate and reshape the discourse of environmental activists and environmental agency personnel. In environmental ethics, the concept of intrinsic value in nature functions similarly to way the concept of human rights functions in social ethics. Human rights has had enormous pragmatic efficacy in social ethics and policy. The prospective adoption of the Earth Charter by the General Assembly of the United Nations may have an impact on governmental environmental policy and performance similar to the impact on governmental social policy and behaviour of the adoption by the same body in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Belatedly, but at last, the most strident Pragmatist critics of the concept of intrinsic value in nature now acknowledge its pragmatic power and promise. (shrink)

In the past thirty years environmental ethics has emerged as one of the most vibrant and exciting areas of applied philosophy. Several journals and hundreds of books testify to its growing importance inside and outside philosophical circles. But with all of this scholarly output, it is arguably the case that environmental ethics is not living up to its promise of providing a philosophical contribution to the resolution of environmental problems. This article surveys the current state of the field and offers (...) an alternative path for the future development of environmental ethics toward a more publicly engaged model of applied philosophy. (shrink)

Environmental revelationism is the view that there are preferred means of knowing the value and structure of nature, and these means are characterized by experiences of awe or ceremonial feelings of reverence. This paper outlines the dogmatic consequences of this view.

The subject-matter of this essay is the moral status of nature. This subject is dealt with in terms of normative reasons. The main question is if there are direct normative reasons to care for nature in addition to the numerous indirect normative reasons that there are for doing so. Roughly, if there is some such reason, and that reason applies to any moral agent, then nature has direct moral status as I use the phrase. I develop the notions of direct (...) normative reason and direct moral status in detail and identify and discuss the two main types of theory according to which nature has direct moral status: analogy-based nature-considerism and non-analogy-based nature-considerism. I argue for the plausibility of a particular version of the latter, but against the plausibility of any version of the former. The theory that is representative of AN claims that nature has direct moral status in virtue of possessing interests. Proponents of this theory fail to show that nature has interests of the kind that they reasonably want to ascribe to it, and that interests of this kind are morally significant. In contrast to AN, NN comes in a variety of different forms. I elaborate a version of NN according to which there are direct normative reasons to care for nature in virtue of its unique complexity, and its indispensability. I argue that even if these reasons should turn out not to apply to any moral agent, they are still genuine direct normative reasons: there is nothing irrational or misdirected about them. Finally, I show how the question of whether there are direct normative reasons to care for nature is relevant to private and political decision-making concerning nature. This is exemplified with a case from the Swedish mountain region. (shrink)