Wilderness Experiences as Ethics: From Elevation to Attentiveness

Ethics, Policy and Environment 18 (3):283-300 (2015)
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Abstract

Wilderness experiences were celebrated by the Great Romantics, and figures such as Wordsworth and Thoreau emphasized the need to seek direct contact with the non-human world. Later deep ecologists accentuated the way in which wilderness experiences can spark moral epiphanies and lead to action on behalf of the natural environment. In recent years, psychological studies have manifested how the observations made by the Romantics, nature authors and deep ecologists apply to laypeople: contact with the wilderness does tend to lead to epistemological, ontological and normative ‘epiphanies.’ This paper analyses four different umbrella terms with which to make sense of the content of wilderness experiences. First, mystical experience, peak experience and elevation are explored. Although all three offer promising models for explicating the nature of wilderness experiences, they also run the risk of reducing those experiences to sheer experiential hedonism....

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Egoistic Love of the Nonhuman World? Biology and the Love Paradox.Elisa Aaltola - 2023 - Ethics, Policy and Environment 26 (1):86-105.

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References found in this work

The Varieties of Religious Experience.William James - 1903 - Philosophical Review 12 (1):62-67.
Metaphysics as a guide to morals.Iris Murdoch - 1993 - New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Allen Lane, Penguin Press.
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Eating Meat and Eating People.Cora Diamond - 1978 - Philosophy 53 (206):465 - 479.
Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals.Iris Murdoch & Peter J. Conradi - 2001 - Journal of Religious Ethics 29 (2):307-335.

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