The familiar “centrisms” in environmental ethics aim to make ethics progressively more inclusive by expanding a single circle of moral consideration I propose a radically different kind of geometry. Multicentrism envisions a world of irreducibly diverse and multiple centers of being and value—not one single circle, of whatever size or growth rate, but many circles, partly overlapping, each with its own center. Moral consideration necessarily becomes plural and ongoing, and moral action takes place within an open-ended context of negotiation and (...) covenant. Much critical and constructive work, both in environmental ethics proper and in many related fields, is already multicentric in spirit. It needs to be drawn together into an explicit, alternative environmental-ethical “platform.”. (shrink)

Language is commonly regarded as an exclusively human attribute and the possession of the word has long served to demarcate culture from nature. This is often taken to imply that nature is incapable of meaningful expression, that any meaning it acquires is merely bestowed upon it by humanity. This anthropic logocentrism seriously undermines those forms of 'environmental advocacy' which claim to find and speak of the meaning and value of nature perse. However, shorn of their own anthropocentric presuppositions, the expressivist (...) hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Walter Benjamin might offer an alternative understanding of the nature of language and the language of nature. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to discuss the idea of dialogue with nature. Even though the idea of dialogue with animals, plants – even objects of inanimate nature – is well known, it has usually been treated as an expression of a naive or folk view. Yet, it has recently gained in importance as an idea that is used to describe an ecological approach to natural environment and tends to be treated as a foundation for an ecological culture. A (...) noteworthy contribution to the reconsideration of the concept of human-nature dialogue has also been given by a number of contemporary philosophers who have offered an environmental reinterpretation of phenomenology and hermeneutics based on, among other things, Martin Buber’s concept of the I-You relationship. The paper will focus on two aspects of the concept of dialogue, namely on its epistemological and ethical implications. Following Erazim Kohák’s theory, which will be presented as a key figure of a particular manner of speaking about nature, one that leads to ecological personalism. (shrink)

The main concern of environmental philosophy has been to find value for nature. The thesis is an attempt to link a theory of nature, a theory of human nature and a theory of value, which Andrew Brennan stipulated for a viable environmental philosophy. The problem is set forward in Part I where a definition of nature is explored. The complexity of the task leads to a brief history of the concept of nature (after a criticism of other historical accounts by (...) three environmental philosophers) whereby two opposing explanations of nature and human nature are revealed: teleological and non-teleological. Part II traces the decline of teleological explanation in favour of non-teleological explanations and the development of two main explanations of human nature in relation to nature that are prevalent today: Ultra-Darwinism (a reductionist explanation of human nature) and postmodernism. An analysis of these two positions shows that neither have an adequate metaphysics for finding value for nature, and this is revealed by an examination of two different types of environmental philosophy influenced respectively by the two opposing views. In Part III the problem of values is discussed with particular emphasis on moral values. An argument for objective values based on objective knowledge is put forward as well as a theory of human nature which leads to the conclusion that teleological explanations link a theory of nature, a theory of human nature and a theory of value more satisfactorily than the non-teleological explanations of Ultra-Darwinism and postmodernism. The relevance of this conclusion to the problems of the environment is shown. (shrink)

This paper outlines a constructivist approach to environmental ethics which attempts to reconcile realism in the ontological sense, i.e., the view that there is an objective material world existing outside of human consciousness, with the view that how nature is understood and acted in are epistemologically and morally constructed. It is argued that while knowledge and ethics are indeed culturally variable, social constructions of nature are nonetheless constrained by how things actually stand in the world. The 'realist' version of constructivism (...) proposed here can be linked to dialectical forms of reasoning which see knowledge and ethics as arising out of human interactions with an objectively real environment, and contrasted with strong constructivist views which see nature as 'nothing more than' a social construct. While both the physical environment and human attitudes towards it are in part socially constructed, nature also retains a measure of autonomy, or 'wildness', apart from human constructions. (shrink)