This article analyzes the evolution of the land ethic re-presented by J. Baird Callicott over the last two decades under pressure from the charge of misanthropy and ecofascism. It also traces the development of Callicott?s own ethical system, and examines its most current phase both in itself and in relation to his other theoretical commitments, including his particular version of moral monism, and his communitarian critique of egalitarianism. It concludes that Callicott?s communitarianism is by itself insufficient to fund an adequate (...) environmental ethic, and that for the sake of self-consistency he should either discard his moral monism or else further revise his ethical system. (shrink)

In this essay I examine the relevance of the vocabulary of an ethics of care to ecofeminism. While this vocabulary appears to offer a promising alternative to moral extensionism and deep ecology, there are problems with the use of this vocabulary by both essentialists and conceptualists. I argue that too great a reliance is placed on personal lived experience as a basis for ecofeminist ethics and that the concept of care is insufficiently determinate to explicate the meaning of care for (...) nature. (shrink)

This article theorizes the politics of witnessing and grief in the context of the embodied experience of cows raised for dairy in the Pacific Northwestern United States. Bearing witness to the mundane features of dairy production and their impact on cows' physical and emotional worlds enables us to understand the violence of commodification and the political dimensions of witnessing the suffering of an Other. I argue that greater attention should be paid to the uneven hierarchies of power in the act (...) of bearing witness. Centering the animal as a subject of witnessing allows us to see with particular clarity the ethical ambiguities at work in witnessing while at the same time attending to the importance of witnessing-as-politics. My project here is to lay bare moments of emotional and physical turmoil not seen as such—the lives that are rendered ungrievable—and examine how we can and should respond to them. Thus, this article contributes to feminist conversations about witnessing, grief, and the political function of emotion. (shrink)

Many familial and cultural traditions rely on animals for their fulfillment - think of Christmas ham, Rosh Hashannah chicken soup, Fourth of July barbeques, and so forth. Though philosophers writing in animal ethics often dismiss interests in certain foods as trivial, these food-based traditions pose a significant moral problem for those who take animals’ lives and interests seriously. One must either turn one’s back on one’s community or on the animals. In this paper, I consider the under-theorized area of intra-cultural (...) critique. My focus is how we should think about and seek to resolve inter-animal conflicts of interest that arise within our own communities and cultural or religious groups. How should a theory that takes animals seriously approach a conflict between animals’ interests and culturally important human interests in the context of one’s own cultural, ethnic, or religious group? How, for example, should we think about the person staring down at a bowl of her grandmother’s chicken soup while recognizing the moral impermissibility of slaughtering chickens for human consumption? In contrast to traditional approaches that fail to take these robust, food-based, interests into account, I offer an ecofeminist approach that highlights the importance of respecting animals’ interests while also undertaking the work of moral repair to address damage done to relationships of love and care in the process. (shrink)

With regards to ecology, there has been a constant struggle between the scientific perspective and the philosophical approaches. This commentary dwells on the nature and structure of voices emerging from feminist environmentalists. Analogous to the feminist understanding that environmental degradation is a symbol of masculine domination leading to the suppression of the feminine, this paper tries to excavate the nature of a feminist perspective to environmental ethics.

Les objectifs de l'éthique environnementale et de l'écologie politique diffèrent. L'éthique environnementale, telle qu'elle s'est développée ces dernières années, a cherché, entre autres, à préciser la nature du lien entre l'Humain et la Nature. Cette démarche philosophique ne permet pas de définir les obligations environnementales valables pour tous dans une situation de pluralisme axiologique. Ce texte poursuit deux objectifs. À des fins d'illustration, nous présentons tout d'abord quatre approches représentatives de l'éthique environnementale contemporaine . Nous rappelons les principales objections soulevées (...) à leur endroit et le cul-de-sac théorique ou pratique dans lequel elles se trouvent engagées. Nous entreprenons ensuite de fournir l'esquisse d'une alternative que nous appelons simplement « l'écologie politique ». Nous en dressons les contours et surtout la spécificité par rapport à l'éthique environnementale. Les objets de l'éthique environnementale et de l'écologie politique sont peutêtre complémentaires mais certainement pas coextensifs.The objectives of environmental ethics and political ecology differ. Environmental ethics, such as it developed in the last few years, sought, among other things, to specify the nature of the link between Human Beings and Nature. This philosophical approach does not allow the definition of environmental obligations to be imposed on all in the context of moral pluralism. This article pursues two goals. To illustrate our argument, we will first present four representative approaches to contemporary environmental ethics . We will recall the principal objections raised against them and the theoretical and practical dead-ends in which they culminate. We will then propose the outline of an alternative which we call political ecology. We will then trace its boundaries and mainly its particularities in relation to environmental ethics. The objects of environmental ethics and of political ecology may be complementary but they are certainly not coextensive. (shrink)

This article considers the extent to which the debate about animal rights can be enriched by Richard Rorty’s theory of rights. Although Rorty’s work has enjoyed a lot of scholarly attention, commentators have not considered the implications of his arguments for animals. Nor have theorists of animal rights engaged his approach to rights. This paper argues that Rorty’s thinking holds a number of attractions for proponents of animal rights. It also considers some of its drawbacks. It is further argued that (...) Rorty’s thinking about rights avoids many of the problems that animal ethic of care theorists have found in rights discourse being applied to animals. Rorty’s work thus provides a valuable resource for bringing these two major strands within the animal ethics literature into closer theoretical kinship. (shrink)

In The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan argues that although all subjects-of-a-life have equal inherent value, there are often differences in the value of lives. According to Regan, lives that have the highest value are lives which have more possible sources of satisfaction. Regan claims that the highest source of satisfaction, which is available to only rational beings, is the satisfaction associated with thinking impartially about moral choices. Since rational beings can bring impartial reasons to bear on decision making, (...) Regan maintains that they have an additional possible source of satisfaction that nonrational beings do not have and, consequently, the lives of rational beings turn out to have greater value.. (shrink)