I will discuss two themes that can be found in Mark Sagoff's most recent book, Price, Principle, and the Environment. Built from pieces fashioned in his entertaining and incisive critical es...

The overarching goal of environmentalism as a political movement is the creation of sustainable societies that share resources fairly among people, and among people and other species. The core objectives of environmental philosophy should include articulating the ideals and principles of such just and generous sustainability, arguing for them among academics and in the public sphere, and working out their implications in particular areas of our environmental decision-making. That means challenging the goodness of endless economic growth and helping other environmental (...) thinkers specify plausible and appealing alternatives to the economic status quo. It means ending our craven failure to honestly address population issues. It means committing to living according to our own environmental ideals. Interestingly, the mainstream philosophical tradition has some important, underutilized resources that, combined with new andcreative thinking, can help us achieve these goals and keep ethical philosophy relevant to meeting the challenges of the 21st century. (shrink)

This paper brings together evidence and theories from a number of disciplines and thinkers that highlight multiple, sometimes conflicting understandings about well-being.We identify three broad strands or themes within the literature that frame both the nature of the problem and its potential solutions in different ways. The first strand can be categorised as the "hard" science of well-being and its stagnation or decline in modern western society. In a second strand, social and political theory suggests that conceptualisations of well-being are (...) shaped by aspects of western culture, often in line with the demands of a capitalist economic system.A third theme pursues the critique of consumer culture's influence on well-being but in the context of broader human problems.This approach draws on ecology, ethics, philosophy and much else to suggest that we urgently need to reconsider what it means to be human, if we are to survive and thrive. Although no uncontroversial solutions are found within any of these themes, all play a necessary part in contributing to knowledge of this complex territory, where assumptions about the nature of the human condition come into question. (shrink)

The future of environmental ethics will be what environmental ethicists make of it. Since the field encompasses widely divergent philosophical orientations, talents, particular interests, and intuitions about the way forward, that future will be pluralistic. I believe this to be a good thing. But it is also helpful to step back from time to time, reflect on where we want to go, and ask whether we are leaving any essential tasks unaddressed.I take the overarching goal of environmentalism as a political (...) movement to be the creation of ecologically sustainable societies, which both preserve the biosphere's regenerative capacities and share resources fairly among people, among people and other species, and between .. (shrink)