Strategies of environmental organisations in the Netherlands regarding the ozone depletion problem have been analysed both at the cognitive level and at the operational level. The first objective of this analysis was to describe their strategies over a period of time. Secondly, it aimed to increase understanding of the linkage between cognitive and operational aspects of the strategies. The third objective was to find out to what extent strategies are constant features of an organisation and how far they are defined (...) by particular problems. The results indicate that each of the organisations concerned with the ozone depletion problem adopted several different strategies, that the strategies of the organisations did not change much over time, and that there was no one-to-one linking of different aspects of the strategy of the organisations. Strategies seem largely to be defined by the problem encountered. (shrink)

„Kann das Anthropozän gelingen?" Der Begriff „Anthropozän" fungiert in aktuellen Debatten als Chiffre für eine mehrfache Krise. Empirisch wird der Begriff verwendet, um den von Menschen verursachten Bruch mit dem stabilen Zeitalter des Holozäns zu bezeichnen. Normativ wird er gebraucht, um zu Neuanfängen aufzufordern: beim Verständnis und bei der praktischen Ausgestaltung menschlicher Verhältnisse zur Natur. Zugleich gerät der Begriff zunehmend selbst in die Kritik: dass er mit seinem Bezug auf ‚den Menschen‘ die tatsächlichen Verantwortlichkeiten für die aktuellen Natur- und Klima-Katastrophen (...) verdecke. Der Band macht sich das Schillern des Anthropozän-Begriffs zunutze. In interdisziplinärer Perspektive – aus der Philosophie, Theologie, Geographie, sowie den Literatur-, Politik-, Sozial- und Klimawissenschaften – verbindet er kritische und affirmativ-konstruktive Debatten: Welche Menschenbilder, Motive, Macht- und Gewaltstrukturen bestimmen die gesellschaftlich vorherrschenden Naturverhältnisse? Was wären alternative Vorstellungen des menschlichen Lebens mit der Natur als Teil der Natur? Wie sind die Praktiken der Nachhaltigkeit zu beurteilen, die von den Regierungen, auf dem kapitalistischen Markt und in der Zivilgesellschaft gebahnt werden? (shrink)

دوگانه‌انگاری انسان/طبیعت دیدگاهی است که با تبیین خاصی از ارتباط میان انسان و طبیعت نقشی تعیین‌کننده و سرنوشت‌ساز در اخلاق زیست‌محیطی یافته است. در این دیدگاه، انسان به عنوان وجه برتر این تقسیم‌بندی حق هر گونه استفاده و رفتار با طبیعت را دارد. در نظر جنبش بوم‌شناسی ژرف‌نگر، به دلیل درهم‌تنیدگیِ انسان و طبیعت نمی‌توان این دو را مجزا از یکدیگر دانست. این نگرش به دلیل نقد تفکر دوگانۀ انسان/طبیعت دارای نکات مفید و سودمندی در باب اخلاق زیست‌محیطی است، که (...) از آن جمله است: خیزش علیه روحیۀ سلطه‌گر و انسان‌محورِ فرهنگی و تمدنی در مغرب‌زمین؛ خودشکوفاییِ اصیلِ انسانی از طریق فرارفتن از خود؛ توجه به احیای حقوق ازدست‌رفتۀ موجودات غیرانسانی. این جنبش، به رغم داشتنِ این نقاط قوت، ضعف‌هایی نیز دارد و ما معتقدیم با نگاهی دینی-الهیاتی و از طریق اصلاح و بازاندیشی آرای این جنبش می‌توان به رهیافتی درست در مورد ارتباط انسان/طبیعت دست یافت. این موارد از این قرارند: نداشتن یک فلسفۀ منسجم که نتیجۀ آن مبهم‌اندیشی و کلی‌گویی در خصوص مسائل محیط‌زیستی است؛ نبود برنامه‌ای جامع به منظور ایجاد بستری برای یک سلسله‌مراتب معین حیاتی؛ غفلت از مقام والای انسانی؛ عدم کارآمدی در کشورهای توسعه‌نیافته. هدف از این نوشتار نقد نظریۀ دوگانگی انسان/طبیعت در اخلاق زیست‌محیطی طبقِ هنجارهای بوم‌شناسی ژرف‌نگر و نیز اصلاح و تکمیل نقاط ضعف این جنبش با تکیه بر آموزه‌های الهیاتی در مسئلۀ حاضر است. (shrink)

هگل از جمله فیلسوفانی است که اخلاق کانت را به صورت‌گرایی متهم کرده و در آثار مختلفش، به ویژه در فلسفۀ حق و پدیدارشناسی روح، تلاش کرده نقد خود را صورت‌بندی کند و از ابعاد مختلف آن را توضیح دهد. مقصود هگل از صورت‌گرایی به عنوان نقدی بر اخلاق کانت آن است که از صورت قانون اخلاقی کانت نمی‌توان ماده‌ای اخلاقی استنتاج کرد. او در نقد خود از مفاهیمی همچون استعلایی بودن مفهوم آزادی، سلب و ایجاب‌های کاذب و یهودیت‌وارگی اخلاق (...) کانتی استفاده کرده و نشان می‌دهد که این نقصان‌ها به ناکارآمدی و تهی‌بودگی اخلاق کانت می‌انجامد. شاید بتوان بر پایۀ تفسیر برخی مفسران کانت همچون کاسیرر، جان هر و جیوانی، از طریق تأکید بر مضامینی که کانت در کتاب دین در چهارچوب عقل صرف به آنها پرداخته، پاسخی برای نقد هگل مهیا ساخت. این پاسخ مدعی است که انسان‌شناسی دینی و دیگر مؤلفه‌های دینی اندیشۀ کانت، با شاکله‌سازی برای اخلاق، موجب می‌شوند تا اخلاق کانت از صورتِ عقلیِ محض خارج شود و بتواند فاعل و فعل اخلاقی را در مسیری انضمامی‌تر شناسایی و صورت‌بندی کند. به نظر می‌رسد که این پاسخ ضمن حل مشکلاتی همچون عقلانیت‌باوری صرف در خصوص اخلاق و انتزاعی کردن بیش از حد سوژۀ اخلاق، همچنان از پاسخ به معضلاتی همچون سلب و ایجاب‌های کاذب و تأکید بر مفهوم ارادۀ نیک ناتوان است. (shrink)

In responding to perceived crises—such as the COVID-19 pandemic—in routinized ways, contemporary bioethics can make us prisoners of the proximate. Rather, we need bioethics to recognize and engage with complex configurations of global ecosystem degradation and collapse, thereby showing us paths toward co-inhabiting the planet securely and sustainably. Such a planetary health ethics might draw rewardingly on Indigenous knowledge practices or Indigenous philosophical ecologies. It will require ethicists, with other health professionals, to step up and become public advocates for environmental (...) sustainability. The COVID-19 pandemic should be seen as opening a portal to planetary health ethics or ecologized bioethics. (shrink)

At its inception, geoethics was envisioned as a type of professional ethics concerned with the moral implications of geoscientific research, applications, and practices. More recently, however, some scholars have proposed versions of geoethics as public and global ethics. To better understand these developments, this article considers the relationship between geoethics and environmental ethics by exploring different aspects of the human-nature relation (i.e., the moral status and role of humans in relation to the non-human world). We start by noting that the (...) main strains of geoethical thought elaborated so far represent examples of environmental virtue ethics and defend moral weak anthropocentric positions (e.g., “ethical”, “responsible” or “enlightened” anthropocentrism). Some scholars propose that such weak anthropocentric geoethics can synthesize the different positions in environmental ethics and move beyond them toward a novel and distinct approach. We compare the meaning and the use of the term “anthropocentrism” in both environmental ethics and geoethics, stressing that although geoethics is inevitably epistemically anthropocentric (i.e., anthropogenic), it does not need to be morally anthropocentric. We consider the compatibility of non-anthropocentric stances with current geoethical theory and argue for the integration of normative non-anthropocentric accounts (e.g., ecocentric) into geoethical debates and geoscience education. (shrink)

In this article, I make the case for the continued relevance of Plato’s Timaeus. I begin by sketching Allan Bloom’s picture of the natural sciences today in The Closing of the American Mind, according to which the natural sciences are, objectionably, increasingly specialized and have ejected humans qua humans from their purview. I argue that Plato’s Timaeus, despite the falsity of virtually all of its scientific claims, provides a model for how we can pursue scientific questions in a comprehensive way (...) that stresses their connections to other disciplines, including the humanities, and that puts humanity qua humanity back in the picture. I then argue that being led by Plato’s philosophy to return humanity conceptually to the natural world can improve our thinking regarding climate change and other important environmental crises. (shrink)

The article scrutinises the complex relation between late twentieth century liberal and environmental thought. It concludes that if the key values of contemporary liberal and environmental thought are compared then the prognosis looks gloomy. There are implicit and deep tensions over most value questions. In order to provide a coherent focus for this analysis, the paper addresses the issue of liberal justice, namely, can liberal theories of justice be sensitively applied to environmental questions? The answer to this question is that (...) for much environmental thought, it is the very values and practices implicit within liberal justice theory which now constitute the key environmental danger. (shrink)

A partir del propósito de distinguirse de las expresiones clásicas de ética ambiental conocidas hasta el momento, el artículo presenta una apología filosófica del medioambiente, sustentada en una hermenéutica de la naturaleza leída como texto, de la que puede ser protagonista el sujeto despotenciado de las nuevas condiciones históricas; sujeto que, dada la rebaja de su estatuto ontológico y la extrema gravedad de la crisis ecológica, se ve impulsado a reconsiderar críticamente su programa tecnocientífico devastador del medio natural y asumir (...) la responsabilidad por las consecuencias de su acción individual y colectiva sobre el mundo.Taking distance from the classical expressions of environmental known to this day, this article presents a philosophical defense of the environment, based in a hermeneutic of nature regarded as a text, whose protagonist could be the disempowered subject in the new historical circumstances. Given the debasement of its ontological status and the gravity of the ecological crisis, this subject is impelled to critically reconsider its techno-scientific program, by which the natural environment is being ravaged, and to take responsibility for the consequences of its individual and collective action on the world. (shrink)

According to the relational approach we have obligations to members of future generations not because of their interests or properties but because, and only because, they are our descendants or successors. Common accounts of relational duties do not explain how we can have obligations to people who do not yet exist. In this defence of the relational approach I examine three sources of intergenerational obligations: the concern of parents for their children, including their future children; the desire of community members (...) to pass on a heritage to their descendants; and the relationship of citizens in an intergenerational polity. (shrink)

Ecology and constructivism are motivated by broadly shared political aspirations and subscribe to similar critiques of technocratism, patriarchy. and "instrumental rational ity." But they diverge considerably in respect to the discourses they offer on "nature." By staging an encounter between ecological argument and feminist comtructivist theory, this article seeks to illuminate, and to indicate the means of resolving, the ontological tensions between these respective critiques of modernity. It recognizes that the constructivist emphasis on the "discursivity" of nature offers an important (...) corrective to the more simplistic, and potentially reactionary, aspects of ecological rhetoric but defends a realist perspective as essential to the coherence of any gender theory and politics. (shrink)

Farmers' relationship with nature isdetermined by the significance of agriculturefor human beings. When agriculture is definedas human activity that uses renewable naturalresources and aims to produce usable food andfiber products, agriculture is explicitlydefined as production. Farmers' relationshipwith nature is based on the principle ofproduction. This article discusses thecontradiction between the peasant values ofprotection of nature that many farmers inFinland still have and the environmental harmtheir production-oriented farming style causes.When farmers interpret their farming practicesas harmonious co-operation with nature, it isdifficult for (...) them to see the polluting effectsof their work. Paul B. Thompson's suggestionthat three religious–philosophical doctrines(hard work, the doctrine of grace, and the mythof garden) have made it easy for farmers toadopt productionist farming strategy is used asa framework to interpret farmers' narrativesconcerning their relationship with nature. Theresearch is qualitative and biographical. Thedata include life stories and biographicaltexts farmers wrote for a competition in1997. (shrink)

Anthropocentrism has been proposed as the underlying cause of modern society's environmental impact. Concomitantly, hunter-gatherers’ orientation towards nature is connected with minimal environmental change or conservation, and seen as validating the idea that ‘what people do about their ecology depends upon what they think about themselves in relation to things around them’ (White 1967: 1205). Here it is argued that the notion that orientation towards nature is instrumental in environmental impact in any generalisable way has little empirical support and, most (...) importantly, is under-theorised and conceptually flawed. Employing a strong structurationist approach, it is shown that the tendency to abstract particular values from their social and environmental context must be resisted and that a deeper conception of the ‘inner lives’ of agents is required. Such an approach is more expansive and engages with a range of other motives as well as the unintended environmental consequences of actions. (shrink)

It has long been recognized that unnecessary cruelty to animals was held to be morally wrong by many classical moralists and medieval scholastics, and was echoed repeatedly in the early-modern period, though not necessarily reflecting any particular concern for animals, but rather to indicate the supposed brutalizing effects on the human character. The prevalence of the more radical view that cruelty to animals was wrong regardless of human consequences has only been dealt with comparatively recently, in the pioneering work of (...) Keith Thomas with regard to early-modern England. Thomas suggested that a remarkably constant and coherent argument underpinned the bulk of pamphleteering and preaching against animal cruelty in the period; man was entitled to domesticate animals and kill them for food and clothing but not to cause them unnecessary suffering. While wild animals could be killed for food or in self-defence, and game and vermin could be hunted, it was deemed wrong to kill only for pleasure. While this position could be found among Protestants of many different persuasions, the particular focus of successive campaigners changed over time. Preceding the Civil War the attack was concentrated on cock-fighting, bear-baiting and the ill-treatment of domestic animals; in the later seventeenth century it broadened out to include the caging of wild birds, brutal methods of slaughter, hare-hunting and vivisection. (shrink)

In a climate of increasing interest and activity within the field of business ethics, as yet there exists no coherent conceptual framework for organizational theory and research. From a review of current thinking and previous writings a framework of concepts is suggested to help set an agenda for empirical research. The elements of this are, first, a taxonomy of ethical domains: the foci of organizations'' and their agents'' ethical concerns and conduct. Second, it is considered how ethical functioning might be (...) analysed in terms of causal relationships between expressive forms, voluntary action and instituted forms. Third is discussed ethical process, the means by which ethical awareness is aroused. Fourth and last, the paper examines how normative evaluations might apply to the ethical condition of organizations and their agents, meaning change or stability in reputation and integrity. At each stage of the argument possible objectives for research are developed. (shrink)

Ecological research and conservation practice frequently raise difficult and varied ethical questions for scientific investigators and managers, including duties to public welfare, nonhuman individuals (i.e., animals and plants), populations, and ecosystems. The field of environmental ethics has contributed much to the understanding of general duties and values to nature, but it has not developed the resources to address the diverse and often unique practical concerns of ecological researchers and managers in the field, lab, and conservation facility. The emerging field of (...) “ecological ethics” is a practical or scientific ethics that offers a superior approach to the ethical dilemmas of the ecologist and conservation manager. Even though ecological ethics necessarily draws from the principles and commitments of mainstream environmental ethics, it is normatively pluralistic, including as well the frameworks of animal, research, and professional ethics. It is also methodologically pragmatic, focused on the practical problems of researchers and managers and informed by these problems in turn. The ecological ethics model offers environmental scientists and practitioners a useful analytical tool for identifying, clarifying, and harmonizing values and positions in challenging ecological research and management situations. Just as bioethics provides a critical intellectual and problem-solving service to the biomedical community, ecological ethics can help inform and improve ethical decision making in the ecology and conservation communities. (shrink)

Apparent clashes of interest between 'deep ecologists' and 'animal liberationists' can be understood as differences in emphasis rather than conflicts of principle, although it is only too easy for campaigners to regard as rivals good causes other than their own. Moral principles are part of a larger whole, within which they can be related, rather than absolute all-purpose rules of right conduct. This is illustrated using the practical dilemma which often occurs in conservation management, of whether or not to cull (...) animals that are damaging their habitat by overgrazing. Here, and in general, when we are faced with a choice between two evils, the need for scrupulous discrimination and honesty cannot be overstated; but it is not a worthy option to retreat behind moral principles of limited application. (shrink)

Apparent clashes of interest between ‘deep ecologists’ and ‘animal liberationists’ can be understood as differences in emphasis rather than conflicts of principle, although it is only too easy for campaigners to regard as rivals good causes other than their own. Moral principles are part of a larger whole, within which they can be related, rather than absolute all-purpose rules of right conduct. This is illustrated using the practical dilemma which often occurs in conservation management, of whether or not to cull (...) animals that are damaging their habitat by overgrazing. Here, and in general, when we are faced with a choice between two evils, the need for scrupulous discrimination and honesty cannot be overstated; but it is not a worthy option to retreat behind moral principles of limited application. (shrink)

The ethics of bioculture deals with moral questions raised by the cultivation and farming of living things. P. W. Taylor believes that they have an inherent worth just like animals and wild plants. Therefore, judgment about how they should be treated cannot be limited to the principle of greater efficiency for the benefit of humans. Taylor developed a comprehensive theory that is founded on the symmetry between human and environmental ethics. He believes that every living thing is teleologically oriented and (...) a member of the earth's biotic community. A systemic and hologrammatic approach is the alternative to Taylor's ethics of bioculture. Each component of an ecosystem characterised by contingency, plays a role in co-evolution. Therefore, as moral agents, we must take historical responsibility for domesticating and employing other living things, and we should reconsider the emerging model of economic development and define criteria of ethical sustainability for bioculture companies. Such an ethics of bioculture can contribute to oriented decision-making to ensure that an increase in well-being for all living things is an economically and environmentally sustainable and political perspective. (shrink)

Many deep ecologists call for a 'new ecological ethic'. If this ethic is meant to be a moral ethic, then deep ecology fails. However if deep ecology is interpreted as an aesthetic movement, then it is both philosophically coherent and practically adequate.

I examine the basic logical character of ‘the last man example’, as well as the logical character of one of its more important variants. Although it has one striking antecedent in recent philosophy – of which more later – it’s fair to regard it as an example first presented to a contemporary audience by Richard Routley in his 1973 paper, ‘Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental, Ethic?’. I want to determine exactly how the example goes and what (...) it shows. I want to determine what it does not show. One reason for engaging in this exercise is the striking and engaging character of the last man example itself. Another is that a large number of environmental philosophers have since referred to the last man but have drawn different, sometimes contrary, lessons from it – though we won’t have time here to visit any but the earliest of these responses. It seems to me time to patiently revisit the example and time to attempt a conclusive understanding of its significance. A second, and broader, purpose I have is to describe the meta-ethical views it led Routley to adopt – or manufacture! – in an attempt to philosophically position his normative stance within a more fundamental, explanatory, framework. (shrink)

In recent years the idea of geoengineering climate has begun to attract increasing attention. Although there was some discussion of manipulating regional climates throughout the l970s and l980s. the discussion was largely dormant. What has reawakened the conversation is the possibility that Earth may be undergoing a greenhouse-induced global wamring, and the paucity of serious measures that have been taken to Prevent it. ln this paper Iassess the ethical acceptability of ICC, based on my impressions of the conversation that is (...) now taking place. Rather than offering a dispassionate analysis, I argue for a point of view. I propose a set of conditions that must be satisfied for an ICC project to be morally permissible and conclude that these conditions are not now satisfied. However, research on ICC should go forward.. (shrink)

I begin by briefly tracing the history of the split between environmental ethics and animal liberation, go on to sketch a theory of value that I think is implicit in animal liberation, and explain how this theory is consistent with strong environmental commitments. I conclude with some observations about problems that remain.

Australia is a suburban nation, with 85 percent of the 20 million people clinging to the coastal fringes of the world's largest island and oldest continent. This article explores Australian suburbia as the `third space' that mediates urbanism to `nature'. It draws on the thought of George Seddon, an important initiator of ecological history, regional geography and sub/urban politics in Australia. Seddon's insights on Australian ecosystems and Australian interpretations, namings, perceptions and shapings of their natural environment since the beginning of (...) European colonization in 1788 are used to think about the `nature of suburbia', `nature in suburbia' and suburbia in Australian `nature'. Its central argument is that nature is always culturally mediated and that the dominant ecological imaginary in Australia is suburban. The suburbs are the sites of economic, ecological and cultural trafficking about nature. It is argued here that the `bush', at least since the Second World War in Australia, has been more determinative of the suburban social imaginary than the `city'. In recent years, the meaning of the `bush' has transmuted from the `country' into the `wilderness', and from a valorization of the historic settlement process to myths of pure, aboriginal nature unadulterated by human imaginings and interventions. Though the meanings of the `bush' have changed in each case, its interpreter and maker is the socialized gardener of suburbia. The future of Australian nature is to be played out in the suburbs. (shrink)

What do the living owe those who come after them? It is a question nonsensical to some and unanswerable to others, yet tantalizing in its persistence especially among environmentalists. This article makes a new start on the topic of intergenerational justice by bringing together human rights and environmental justice arguments in a novel way that lays the groundwork for a theory of intergenerational environmental justice based in the human rights to clean air, water, and soil. Three issues foundational to such (...) a theory are explored here. First is the broad question of whether justice is applicable to future (or past) generations in any real sense, or do such issues fall under the rubric of superogation. Second, can environmental goods properly be contained in a theory of distributive justice at all, since, superficially at least, they seem different in kind than the usual objects of justice? I will discuss them as “emergent” goods in fact central to contemporary justice distributions. Third, what is the relationship of justice to rights, and how can environmental human rights be included in justice distributions? (shrink)

This essay discusses ways of thinking about botanic gardens that pay close attention to their particularity as designed spaces, dependent on technique, that nonetheless purport to present (and preserve) natural entities (plants). I introduce an account of what gardens are, how botanic gardens differ from other gardens, and how this particular form of garden arose in history. After this I contrast three ways of understanding the function of botanic gardens in the present time: as sites of recreation, of conservation or (...) of encounter with nature. Finally I develop the idea that these gardens may serve as archetypes of collaboration with nature. I conclude that, in principle, botanic gardens can model alternative, creative new ways for human beings to relate to the natural environment. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that thewestern view of humanity's place in nature isdominated by a dualistic opposition between nature andculture. Historically this has arisen fromexternalization of nature in both productive andcognitive practices; instances of such externalizationhave become generalized. I think the dualism can bedecomposed by identifying dominant elements in eachparticular instantiation and showing that their strictseparation evaporates under close scrutiny. The philosophical challenge this perspective presents isto substitute concrete socioecological analysis forfoundational metaphysics. A review of majorinterpretations of the history of (...) the dualism inWestern thought indicates that the legacy is moremultistranded than is usually admitted. Modern scienceis often assumed to lie squarely within the dualism,but this is unfounded. In contrast, science providestools for contextual analysis on how human activitiesand natural processes merge. The dualism thusevaporates in actual research practice. Nevertheless,the foundational metaphysics needs to be challenged,primarily because of its paralyzing effect onenvironmental philosophy. (shrink)

As the number of intrinsically unknowable technologically produced risks global society faces continues to grow, it is evident that the question of our responsibilities towards future people is of urgent importance. However, the concepts with which this question is generally approached are, it is argued, deficient in comprehending the nature of these risks. In particular, the individualistic language of rights presents severe difficulties. An alternative understanding of responsibility is required, which, it is argued, can be developed from phenomenological and feminist (...) concepts of care. Such concepts privilege an understanding of human beings that is primarily relational rather than individualistic, and show that responsibility is, in the first place, about connection rather than respecting separation. Care, by opening up for us an understanding of the diversity of values that are constitutive of a worthwhile life, also connects us to the future as the future of care. As such, it provides us with ethical resources that can guide us in the face of uncertainty, including general principles of action and the desire for institutions that can articulate them. (shrink)

The moral status of future persons is problematic. It is often claimed that we should take the interests of the indefinite unborn very seriously, because they have a right to a decent life. It is also claimed (often by the same people) that we should allow unrestricted access to abortion, because the indefinite unborn have no rights. In this paper I argue that these intuitions are not in fact inconsistent. The aim is to provide an account of trans-temporal concern which (...) resolves the prima facie inconsistency between commonly held intuitions about our obligations to future persons. I argue that our intuitions can be reconciled provided that we explicate obligations to the future in terms of impersonal principles subject to retroactive person-affecting constraints. (shrink)

The last century has witnessed a succession of revolutionary transformations in the discipline of biology. The rapid expansion of our understanding of life and its nature has however had curiously little impact on the way that questions about life and its significance have been discussed by philosophers. This paper explores the answers that biology provides to central questions about our existence, and examines why the substitution of causal explanations for teleological ones appears natural and satisfying in the case of physical (...) theory, but meets widespread resistance in the case of biology. (shrink)

The literature on Hinduism and the environment is vast, and growing quickly. It has benefitted greatly from the work of scholars in a wide range of disciplines, such as religious studies, Asian studies, history, anthropology, political science, and so on. At the same time, much of this work fails to define key terms and make fundamental assumptions explicit. Consequently, it is at least initially difficult to engage with it philosophically. In the first section of this paper, I clarify a central, (...) implicit assumption that many of the authors working in this area share—namely, the assumption that a plausible environmental ethic must attribute direct moral standing to individual, living, non-human entities in nature, such as animals and plants. In the second section, I offer a preliminary defense of this assumption. In the third section, I respond to objections, and conclude that the argument is at least initially convincing. (shrink)

I argue that the main existing accounts of the relationship between the beauty of environmental entities and their moral standing are mistaken in important ways. Beauty does not, as has been suggested by optimists, confer intrinsic moral standing. Nor is it the case, as has been suggested by pessimists, that beauty at best provides an anthropocentric source of moral standing that is commensurate with other sources of pleasure. I present arguments and evidence that show that the appreciation of beauty tends (...) to cause a transformational state of mind that is more valuable than mere pleasure, but that leads us to falsely represent beautiful entities as being sentient and, in turn, as having intrinsic moral standing. To this extent, beauty is not, then, a source of intrinsic moral standing; it’s a source of a more important anthropocentric value than has hitherto been acknowledged. (shrink)

Ethicist assumptions about the causes and solutions of environmental problems are widely held within environmental philosophy. It is typically assumed that an important cause of problems are the attitudes towards the natural environment held by individuals and that problems can be solved by getting people to adopt a more ethical orientation towards the environment. This article analyses and criticises these claims. Both the highly mediated nature of the relationship between individuals and the natural environment and the pervasive pressure on firms (...) in market economies to reduce their costs provide reasons to question the ethicist assumptions. (shrink)

Philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Brentano, Moore, and Chisholm suggest marks of intrinsic value. Contemporary philosophers such as Christine Korsgaard have insightful discussions of intrinsic value. But how do we verify that some specific thing really is intrinsically valuable? I propose a natural way to test for intrinsic value: first, strip the candidate bare of all considerations of good consequences; and, second, see if what remains is still a good thing. I argue that we, as ordinary human beings, have (...) an astonishingly difficult time completing this test for plausible candidates. More precisely, for us as we are, it seems that the conditions for completing the first step of the test militate against the conditions for completing the second step. I conclude, then, that we have a good reason to think that we cannot verify whether or not particular things are intrinsically good. I explore some implications and I consider a number of important objections. (shrink)

The primary purpose of the paper is the broadly exegetical one of explaining and connecting Heidegger's many remarks, made in several different contexts of enquiry, on nature. The three main contexts are those of ontology, scientific methodology, and technology. After showing how Heidegger's central theses in these contexts are related to one another, I argue, in the final section, that his observations on scientific method are pivotal. Unless these are secured, his further claims about ontology and technology lose their essential (...) support. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A (not the) history of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy is presented in a series of snapshots, some of them with 360° angles, taken at ten-year intervals from the time of its foundation to the time of writing. Attention is paid to influences on the AJP ranging from the social and political to the individual, from the financial to the technical, from the historical to the geographical, and to how these influences are (or are not) reflected in its contents (...) and appearance. (shrink)

Response to Dale Jamieson's article 'Animal Liberation is an Environmental Ethic' in Environmental Values Vol. 7, No. 1.

Although the idea of nature has allbut disappeared from recent discussion ofeducation, it remains highly relevant to thephilosophy and practice of education, sincetacit notions of human nature and whatconstitutes underlying reality – the `natural'order of things – necessarily orientateseducation in fundamental ways. It is arguedthat underlying our various senses of nature isthe idea of nature as the `self-arising' whoseintrinsic integrity, mystery and valueimplicitly condition our understanding ofourselves and of the reality in which we live.I argue that the acknowledgement of nature (...) soconceived opens up a perspective on educationthat requires us to review currently dominanttechnological notions of truth and knowledge,and also of what should characterize theprocess of education, reasserting the properplace of more intuitive, local and dialogicalknowledge and relationships. (shrink)

Krause’s philosophy deserves to be memorized as the first link in a chain of thinking on animal rights that is still on the way today. Though Krause was not the first to talk of animal rights in the history of animal ethics, his theory of animal rights is pathbreaking in embedding a conception of animal rights in an all-encompassing metaphysical system. The essay situates Krause’s theory of animal rights in the framework of his general theory of rights and points to (...) the challenges Krause’s theory faces by the inevitability of trade-offs between animal and human rights. (shrink)

Biozentrische Postulate eines intrinsischen Wert des Lebendigen können nicht nur metaethisch unterschiedlich eingebettet sein, sie lassen sich auch unterschiedlich begründen und akzentuieren. Der Beitrag untersucht die Tragfähigkeit des Versuchs, den intrinsischen Wert des Lebendigen auf dessen Würde zurückzuführen, eine Konzeption, die u. a. bei der Einführung des Begriffs "Würde der Kreatur" in die Schweizerische Bundesverfassung in den frühen 1990er Jahren leitend gewesen ist. Es werden drei unterschiedlich anspruchsvolle Konzeptionen einer "Würde des Lebendigen" unterschieden sowie drei unterschiedlich anspruchsvolle normative Ausgestaltungen und (...) gezeigt, dass selbst noch die jeweils schwächsten Formen mit schwerwiegenden Begründungsproblemen konfrontiert sind. (shrink)

After the first wave of writings in environmental philosophy in the early 1970s, which were mostly critical of anthropocentrism, a new trend emerged which sought to humanise this subject, and to revive or vindicate anthropocentric stances. Only in this way, it was held, could environmental values become human values, and ecological movements manage to become social ecology. Later writers have detected tacit anthropocentrism lurking even in Deep Ecology, or have defended ‘perspectival anthropocentrism’, as the inevitable methodology of any system of (...) environmental ethics devised by and for the guidance of human beings. Human good, broadly enough conceptualised, is held to be the basis of ethics. Besides, it is sometimes added, non-anthropocentric considerations in any case add nothing to anthropocentric ones, when broadly construed. (shrink)

I contrast the integrity of nature understood as a community with the integrity of nature understood as an organism. Whereas the latter is typified by nature in its pristine condition and precludes almost all human uses of nature and so excludes the human from the natural, I argue that the integrity of nature (ecological integrity) allows for human uses of nature to sustain human life when nature is understood as a community, which includes humans among its members. Cultural landscapes, understood (...) in a narrow sense, are manifestations of such uses and of man's being in nature on nature's terms. An example of a literary expression of this view is Knut Hamsun's Growth of the Soil. As an ethical value, ecological integrity imposes certain moral constraints on our uses of nature, on the manner in which humans live and co-exist. (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)