Abstract

Arendt's conception of culture could supersede claims that nature's intrinsic value or human interests best ground environmental ethics. Fusing ancient Greek notions of non-instrumental value and Roman concerns for cultivating and preserving worldly surroundings, culture supplies an ethic for the treatment of nonhuman things. Unlike a system of philosophical propositions, an Arendtian ecology could only arise in public deliberation, since culture's qualitative judgements are intrinsically linked to processes of political persuasion.