What rational justification is there for conceiving of all living things as possessing inherent worth? In Respect for Nature, Paul Taylor draws on biology, moral philosophy, and environmental science to defend a biocentric environmental ethic in which all life has value. Without making claims for the moral rights of plants and animals, he offers a reasoned alternative to the prevailing anthropocentric view--that the natural environment and its wildlife are valued only as objects for human use or enjoyment. Respect for Nature (...) provides both a full account of the biological conditions for life--human or otherwise--and a comprehensive view of the complex relationship between human beings and the whole of nature. This classic book remains a valuable resource for philosophers, biologists, and environmentalists alike--along with all those who care about the future of life on Earth. A new foreword by Dale Jamieson looks at how the original 1986 edition of Respect for Nature has shaped the study of environmental ethics, and shows why the work remains relevant to debates today. (shrink)

I present the foundational structure for a life-centered theory of environmental ethics. The structure consists of three interrelated components. First is the adopting of a certain ultimate moral attitude toward nature, which I call “respect for nature.” Second is a belief system that constitutes a way of conceiving of the natural world and of our place in it. This belief system underlies and supports the attitude in a way that makes it an appropriate attitude to take toward the Earth’s natural (...) ecosystems and their life communities. Third is a system of moral rules and standards for guiding our treatment of those ecosystems and life communities, a set of normative principles which give concrete embodiment or expression to the attitude of respect for nature. The theory set forth and defended here is, I hold, structurally symmetrical with a theory of human ethics based on the principle of respect for persons. (shrink)

Those who know anything about black history and culture probably know that aesthetics has long been a central concern for black thinkers and activists. The Harlem Renaissance, the Negritude movement, the Black Arts Movement, and the discipline of Black British cultural studies all attest to the intimate connection between black politics and questions of style, beauty, expression, and art. And the participants in these and other movements have made art and offered analyses that wrestle with clearly philosophical issues. In _A (...) Philosophy of Black Aesthetics_, I propose to identify and explore the most significant philosophical issues that emerge from the aesthetic dimensions of black life. The book will consist of eight short chapters, each of which will discuss a complex of related themes and phenomena. Every chapter will begin with one or two illustrative real-world examples, and then use the complexities of these opening cases to introduce the relevant issues. Many people in several fields have explored various bits of the terrain that I’ll cover. But none has surveyed the entire terrain in the name of aesthetics, and none has conducted this survey from an explicitly philosophical perspective. Setting up the project in this way means that its main conclusions will come in two forms. One kind of conclusion will emerge from the way I frame the issues. The two most important points here are that the field of aesthetics ought to cover more than the study of western fine art, and that the field of black aesthetics allows and requires the sort of comprehensive and philosophical analysis that I’ll offer. Another set of conclusions will emerge from my treatment of the specific issues in each chapter. In each case the aim will be to defend, albeit briefly, some position on the major issues raised in each chapter. (shrink)

Paul C. Taylor provides an accessible guide to a well-travelled but still-mysterious area of the contemporary social landscape. The result is the first philosophical introduction to the field of race theory and to a non-biological and situational notion of race. Provides the first philosophical introduction to the field of race theory. Outlines the main features and implications of race-thinking; asks questions such as: What is race-thinking? Don’t we know better than to talk about race now? Are there any races? What (...) is it like to have a racial identity? Engages with the ideas of such important figures as Linda Alcoff, K. Anthony Appiah, W.E.B. Du Bois, Howard Winant, and Naomi Zack. Explores the enduring significance of race in relation to culture, personal relationships and social justice. (shrink)

I present the foundational structure for a life-centered theory of environmental ethics. The structure consists of three interrelated components. First is the adopting of a certain ultimate moral attitude toward nature, which I call “respect for nature.” Second is a belief system that constitutes a way of conceiving of the natural world and of our place in it. This belief system underlies and supports the attitude in a way that makes it an appropriate attitude to take toward the Earth’s natural (...) ecosystems and their life communities. Third is a system of moral rules and standards for guiding our treatment of those ecosystems and life communities, a set of normative principles which give concrete embodiment or expression to the attitude of respect for nature. The theory set forth and defended here is, I hold, structurally symmetrical with a theory of human ethics based on the principle of respect for persons. (shrink)

This essay uses the concept of reconstruction to make an argument and an intervention in relation to the practice and study of black aesthetics. The argument will have to do with the parochialism of John Dewey, the institutional inertia of professional philosophy, the aesthetic dimensions of the US politics of reconstruction, the centrality of reconstructionist politics to the black aesthetic tradition, and the staging of a reconstructionist argument in the film, Black Panther (Coogler 2018). The intervention aims to address the (...) fact that arguments like these tend not to register properly because of certain reflexive and customary limits on some common forms of philosophical inquiry. The sort of professional philosophy I was raised to practise and value tends not to be particularly inclusive and open-minded, especially when it comes to subjects that bear directly on the thoughts, lives, and practices of people racialized as black. black aesthetics, by contrast, is an inherently ecumenical enterprise, reaching across disciplinary and demographic boundaries to build communities of practice and exchange. Hence the need for an intervention: to create the space for arguments and the people who work with them to function across disciplinary and demographic contexts. (shrink)

The scale and variety of acts of religious intolerance evident in so many countries today are of enormous contemporary concern. This 2005 study attempts a thorough and systematic treatment of both Universal and European practice. The standards applicable to freedom of religion are subjected to a detailed critique, and their development and implementation within the UN is distinguished from that within Strasbourg, in order to discern trends and obstacles to their advancement and to highlight the rationale for any apparent departures (...) between the two systems. This dual focus also demonstrates the acute need for the European Court to heed the warnings from various patterns of violation throughout the world illustrated by the Human Rights Committee and the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. (shrink)

Preface: The dog's bollocks-- at the media dinner party -- Introduction: "The Marx brothers", "The Elvis of cultural theory", and other media clichés -- The mediated imp of the perverse -- Žižek's tickling shtick -- Big (Br)other : psychoanalysing the media -- Understanding the media : the sublime objectification of ideology -- The media's violence -- The joker's little shop of ideological horrors -- Conclusion: Don't just do it : negative dialectics in the age of Nike.

For many decades, race and racism have been common areas of study in departments of sociology, history, political science, English, and anthropology. Much more recently, as the historical concept of race and racial categories have faced significant scientific and political challenges, philosophers have become more interested in these areas. This changing understanding of the ontology of race has invited inquiry from researchers in moral philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and aesthetics. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of (...) Race offers in one comprehensive volume newly written articles on race from the world's leading analytic and continental philosophers. It is, however, accessible to a readership beyond philosophy as well, providing a cohesive reference for a wide student and academic readership. The Companion synthesizes current philosophical understandings of race, providing 37 chapters on the history of philosophy and race as well as how race might be investigated in the usual frameworks of contemporary philosophy. The volume concludes with a section on philosophical approaches to some topics with broad interest outside of philosophy, like colonialism, affirmative action, eugenics, immigration, race and disability, and post-racialism. By clearly explaining and carefully organizing the leading current philosophical thinking on race, this timely collection will help define the subject and bring renewed understanding of race to students and researchers in the humanities, social science, and sciences. (shrink)

Louis G. Lombardi’s arguments in support of the claim that humans have greater inherent worth than other living things provide a clear account of how it is possible to conceive of the relation between humans and nonhumans in this way. Upon examining his arguments, however, it seems that he does not succeed in establishing any reason to believe that humans actually do have greater inherent worth than animals and plants.

Gene Spitler has raised certain objections to my views on the biocentric outlook: (1) that a factual error is involved in the assertion that organisms pursue their own good, (2) that there is an inconsistency in the biocentric outlook, (3) that it is impossible for anyone to adopt that outlook, and (4) that the outlook entails unacceptable moral judgments, for example, that killing insects and wildfiowers is as morally reprehensible as killing humans. I reply to each of these points, showing (...) that the biocentric outlook on nature is not only a possible, but also a reasonable world view. (shrink)

This article introduces the preoccupations and themes that define the study and practice of black aesthetics. It presents a provisional sketch of a field that has long been recognized in other humanities disciplines, but that is only now gaining wide notice in academic philosophy. This sketch emphasizes the aspects of the field that invite specifically philosophic scrutiny, while touching lightly on specific artworks, critical literatures and historical developments. Among the topics that receive attention are the following: race, aesthetic politics, creolization, (...) nationalism, modernity, white supremacy and the blues. (shrink)

Louis G. Lombardi’s arguments in support of the claim that humans have greater inherent worth than other living things provide a clear account of how it is possible to conceive of the relation between humans and nonhumans in this way. Upon examining his arguments, however, it seems that he does not succeed in establishing any reason to believe that humans actually do have greater inherent worth than animals and plants.

Gene Spitler has raised certain objections to my views on the biocentric outlook: that a factual error is involved in the assertion that organisms pursue their own good, that there is an inconsistency in the biocentric outlook, that it is impossible for anyone to adopt that outlook, and that the outlook entails unacceptable moral judgments, for example, that killing insects and wildfiowers is as morally reprehensible as killing humans. I reply to each of these points, showing that the biocentric outlook (...) on nature is not only a possible, but also a reasonable world view. (shrink)

In his article “Ethics and the Environment” William K. Frankena distinguishes eight types of ethical theories which could generate moral rules and/or judgments concerning how rational agents should act with regard to the natural environment. The eight types are differentiated by their conceptions of moral subjects or patients. Each has its own view of the class of entities with respect to which moral agents can have duties and responsibilities. The eight types may be briefly delineated as follows: 1. Only what (...) benefits or harms the agent himself is morally relevant to how anything else in existence should be treated. 2. Only humans are proper moral patients. How we ought to act with respect to the environment is determined ultimately by the effects of our actions on humans or on persons. 3. All conscious beings are proper moral patients. Conduct with regard to the environment is right if it alleviates the suffering or increases the pleasure of beings that can suffer or experience pleasure. 4. All living beings, conscious or not, are proper moral patients. Our moral concern should extend beyond humans to all animals and plants. 5. Everything in existence, whether taken distributively or collectively, is to be considered as that toward which we may have duties and responsibilities. 6. God is the only ultimate moral subject as far as human action is concerned. We owe duties only to God, and we should treat the natural world in such a way as to fulfill our duties to God. 7. Combinations of any two or more of the above. 8. Nature itself is a moral patient. We should either follow the ways of nature or let the ways of nature take their course without our intervention. (shrink)

I argue that when we interpret a literary work, we engage with at least two different kinds of meaning, each requiring a distinct mode of interpretation. These kinds of meaning are literary varieties of what Paul Grice called nonnatural and natural meaning. The long-standing debate that began with Beardsley and Wimsatt's attack on the intentional fallacy is, I argue, really a debate about nonnatural meaning in literature. I contend that natural meaning has been largely neglected in our theorizing about literary (...) interpretation and that this comes at a serious cost, resulting in an inadequate account of what interpretation involves. I argue, first, that by recognizing that literary meaning includes both nonnatural and natural meaning, we are better placed to understand the interpreter's relationship with the author, and, second, that recognition of the distinction between nonnatural and natural meaning advances the established debate about literary meaning, offering support for actual intentionalism. The more inclusive view of literary meaning helps resolve an apparent difficulty raised by Noël Carroll. (shrink)

In Chapter Seven of his book, The Moral Point of View, Professor Kurt Baier draws our attention to an important difference between morality on the one hand and legal systems and customs on the other. He brings out this difference by considering the following questions.