This article provides a comprehensive review of the rather intricate relationship between contemporary environmental ethics, understood as a philosophical branch, and ancient philosophy. While its primary focus is on Western philosophy, it also includes some brief yet crucial considerations about the influence of Eastern traditions of thought on environmental ethics. Aside from the introduction in the first section, the discussion is organised into three main sections. In the Reception: Ancient philosophy in environmental ethics section, I review the initial reception of (...) ancient philosophy in contemporary environmental ethics. Next, in the Reaction: Environmental ethics in ancient philosophy scholarship section, I examine how the scholarship in AP responded to this early reception. I conclude, in the final section, with some constructive suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Ethical extensionism is a common argument pattern in environmental and animal ethics, which takes a morally valuable trait already recognized in us and argues that we should recognize that value in other entities such as nonhuman animals. I exposit ethical extensionism’s core argument, argue for its validity and soundness, and trace its history to 18th century progressivist calls to expand the moral community and legal franchise. However, ethical extensionism has its critics. The bulk of the paper responds to recent criticisms, (...) including (1) environmental ethicists’ objection against its austere conception of moral value (2), feminist ethicists’ claim that extensionism fails to account for the moral significance of difference, (3) disability theorists’ concern that ethical extensionist arguments are offensive, and (4) animal rights theorists’ lament that extensionism is a practical failure. While something is to be gained from each criticism, I argue that they ultimately fail and that extensionism remains compelling. (shrink)

For a long time, researchers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and futurists have hypothesized that the developed Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) systems can execute intellectual and behavioral tasks similar to human beings. However, there are two possible concerns regarding the emergence of AGI systems and their moral status, namely: 1) is it possible to grant moral status to the AGI-enabled robots similar to humans? 2) if it is (im)possible, then under what conditions do such robots (fail to) achieve moral status similar (...) to humans? To examine the possibilities, the present study puts forward a functionality argument, which claims that if a human being and an AGI-enabled robot have similar functionality, but different creative processes, they may have similar moral status. Furthermore, the functionality argument asserts that an entity’s (a human being or an AGI-enabled robot) creation/production from carbon or silicon or its brain’s utilization of neurotransmitters or semiconductors does not carry any significance. Rather, if both entities have similar functionality, they may have similar moral status, which implies that the AGI-enabled robot may achieve human-like moral status if it performs human-like functions. (shrink)

Anthropocentrism has been claimed to be the root of the global environmental crisis. Based on a multidisciplinary (e.g. environmental philosophy, animal ethics, anthropology, law) and multilingual (English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese) literature review, this article proposes a conceptual analysis of ‘anthropocentrism’ and reconstructs the often implicit argument that links anthropocentrism to the environmental crisis. The variety of usages of the concept of ‘anthropocentrism’ described in this article reveals many underlying disagreements under the apparent unanimity of the calls to reject anthropocentrism, (...) both regarding what exactly is the root of the problem, and the nature of the possible solutions. It highlights the limitations of the argument of anthropocentrism as the scapegoat of the environmental crisis and identifies two main challenges faced by attempts to go beyond anthropocentrism: an epistemological challenge regarding knowledge and the place of sciences, and a metaethical challenge related to values and cultural pluralism. Beyond the issue of an anthropocentric point of view, the core of the problem might be an intertwinement of views and assumptions that work together to undermine attempts to protect the environment from the greed of some humans, such as the human-nature dichotomy, capitalism, consumerism, industrialism, etc. Finally, this article suggests that making the nuances and the presuppositions that underlie various versions of the anti-anthropocentric rhetoric explicit is necessary to foster constructive dialogue among different anti-anthropocentrism proponents, as well as with their detractors. (shrink)

I argue that the main existing accounts of the relationship between the beauty of environmental entities and their moral standing are mistaken in important ways. Beauty does not, as has been suggested by optimists, confer intrinsic moral standing. Nor is it the case, as has been suggested by pessimists, that beauty at best provides an anthropocentric source of moral standing that is commensurate with other sources of pleasure. I present arguments and evidence that show that the appreciation of beauty tends (...) to cause a transformational state of mind that is more valuable than mere pleasure, but that leads us to falsely represent beautiful entities as being sentient and, in turn, as having intrinsic moral standing. To this extent, beauty is not, then, a source of intrinsic moral standing; it’s a source of a more important anthropocentric value than has hitherto been acknowledged. (shrink)

Who owns nature? The question could be less important than reducing animal sufferings in nature. It does not matter if nature does not belong to anyone or if it belongs to someone, because in both cases there are limitations, linked with animal welfare, regarding what we should do in nature. Sentient beings have interests that we must take into account when designing environmental policies. Since neither ecosystems nor plants have interests, preserving nature is less important than reducing animal sufferings. The (...) relevant moral issue is, therefore, knowing what happens to sentient animals in nature and developing policies to reduce their sufferings. This implies that we have the moral obligation of intervening in nature with the aim of reducing animal sufferings, so conservationist environmental policies defended by ecologists are morally unacceptable. (shrink)

In this first volume of The Sylvan Jungle, the editors present a scholarly edition of the first chapter, "Exploring Meinong's Jungle," of Richard Routley's 1000-plus page book, Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond. Going against the Quinean orthodoxy, Routley’s aim was to support Meinong’s idea that we can truthfully refer to non-existent and even impossible objects, like Superman, unicorns and the round-square cupola on Berkeley College. The tools of non-classical logic at Routley’s disposal enabled him to update Meinong’s project for a (...) new generation. This volume begins with an Introduction from Dominic Hyde, “The ‘Jungle Book’ in Context,” an essay that situates Exploring Meinong’s Jungle and Beyond historically. We provide the original Preface by Routley, followed by Chapter 1: “Exploring Meinong’s Jungle and Beyond.” In Chapter 2, Nicholas Griffin argues that Sylvan’s project was insufficiently radical with his essay, “Why the Original Theory of Items Didn’t Go Far Enough.” Sylvan revisits his position from this time in Chapter 3, with his article, “Re-Exploring Item-Theory.” Filippo Casati, who has worked in the Routley Archives then takes up the question of the future of Sylvan’s research program in his essay, “The Future Perfect of Exploring Meinong’s Jungle.” Iconic and iconoclastic Australian philosopher Richard Routley published Exploring Meinong’s Jungle and Beyond in 1980. This work has fallen out of print, yet without great fanfare it has influenced two generations of philosophers and logicians. (shrink)

Philosophy of technology was not initially considered a consolidated field of inquiry. However, under the influence of sociology and pragmatist philosophy, something resembling a consensus has emerged in a field previously marked by a lack of agreement amongst its practitioners. This has given the field a greater sense of structure and yielded interesting research. However, the loss of the earlier “messy” state has resulted in a limitation of the field’s scope and methodology that precludes an encompassing view of the problematic (...) issues inherent in the question of technology. It is argued that the heterodox disunity and diversity of earlier philosophy of technology was not a mark of theoretical immaturity but was necessitated by the field’s complex subject matter. It is further argued that philosophy of technology should return to its pluralistic role as a meta-analytical structure linking insights from different fields of research. (shrink)

La suposición de que una ética ambiental adecuada debe ser no-antropocéntrica es errónea. Hay dos formas de antropocentrismo: débil y fuerte, y el primero es suficiente para mantener una ética ambien¬tal. Sin embargo, la ética ambiental sí difiere de los sistemas éticos británicos y norteamericanos en la medida en que, para ser adecuada, debe ser no-individualista. La ética ambiental contiene dos niveles de decisión: el primero refiere a las decisiones usuales que afectan la equidad individual, el segundo no tiene esta (...) perspectiva individual. Este segundo nivel, llamado decisiones de asignación, no es reducible al primero y gobierna el uso de recursos a través del tiempo. El antropocentrismo débil provee una base para criticar las necesidades individuales de consumo y puede ser la base para juzgar entre estos niveles. Así, permite un fundamento adecuado para la ética ambiental sin necesidad de recurrir a los cuestionables compromisos ontológicos que adoptan los no-antropocentristas al atribuir valor intrínseco a la naturaleza. (shrink)

This essay considers how ancient Stoic cosmopolitanism – roughly, the claim all human beings are members of the same “cosmopolis”, or universal city, and so are entitled to moral concern in virtue of possessing reason – informs Stoic thinking about how we ought to treat non-human entities in the environment. First, I will present the Stoic justification for the thesis that there are only rational members of the cosmopolis – and so that moral concern does not extend to any non-human (...) part of the natural world – and explore the foundations of these views in Stoic physics. Next, I will show that, like other anthropocentric theories, Stoic cosmopolitanism allows for environmental preservation and protection of non-human entities, so long as these activities ultimately benefit human beings. However, because the Stoics include the appreciation of natural beauty as a component of the happy life, this justification is not as feeble as it might seem. Humans are naturally set up to contemplate the order and complexity of the universe, and so environmental degradation and species loss, in marring this harmonious system, frustrates the achievement of the human goal. After exploring these facets of Stoic philosophy, and assessing to what extent they might justify environmental conservation, I close with a critical appraisal of Stoic theory – specifically, of the claims that (i) only humans possess reason and (ii) only rational creatures are deserving of moral concern. (shrink)

An overview of the ancient philosophers and their philosophical system (divided into the fields of logic, physics, and ethics) comprising the living, organic, enduring, and evolving body of interrelated ideas identifiable as the Stoic perspective.

Though largely a theoretical endeavour, environmental ethics also has a practical agenda to help humans achieve environmental sustainability. Environmental ethicists have extensively debated the grounds, contents and implications of our moral obligations to nonhuman nature, offering up different notions of an ‘environmental ethic’ with the presumption that, if humans adopt such an environmental ethic, they will then engage in less environmentally damaging behaviours. We assess this presumption, drawing on psychological research to discuss whether or under what conditions an environmental ethic (...) might engender pro-environmental behaviour. We focus discussion on three lines of scholarship in the environmental ethics literature, on 1) intrinsic value, 2) care ethics, and 3) the land ethic. We conclude by commenting generally on both the limits and transformative potential of an environmental ethic in its larger sociocultural context. (shrink)

I bet you don’t practice your philosophical intuitions. What’s your excuse? If you think philosophical training improves the reliability of philosophical intuitions, then practicing intuitions should improve them even further. I argue that philosophers’ reluctance to practice their intuitions highlights a tension in the way that they think about the role of intuitions in philosophy.

Ecofascism as a tradition in Environmental Ethics seems to burgeoning with potential. The roots of Ecofascism can be traced back to the German Romantic School, to the Wagnerian narration of the Nibelungen saga, to the works of Fichte and Herder and, finally, to the so-called völkisch movement. Those who take pride in describing themselves as ecofascists grosso modo tend to prioritize the moral value of the ecosphere, while, at the same time, they almost entirely devalue species and individuals. Additionally, these (...) ecofascists are eager to reject democracy, the idea of progress in its entirety, as well as industrialization and urbanization. They also seem to be hostile towards individual autonomy and free will. In this short essay I will present and discuss Kaarlo Pentti Linkola’s approach to environmental ethics, one that could be well described as the epitome of Ecofascism. I will argue that his arguments are neither sound nor documented, and I will conclude that Linkola’s overall approach is, in my view, contrary to the purpose as well as to the very essence of morality. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

Reportedly ever since Pythagoras, but possibly much earlier, humans have been concerned about the way non human animals (henceforward “animals” for convenience) should be treated. By late antiquity all main traditions with regard to this issue had already been established and consolidated, and were only slightly modified during the centuries that followed. Until the nineteenth century philosophers tended to focus primarily on the ontological status of animals, to wit on whether – and to what degree – animals are actually rational (...) beings; accordingly they allowed – or denied – them some kind of moral standing. This modus operandi was for the first time seriously questioned by Jeremy Bentham, who put the issue on a different track. If the question, as Bentham suggested, is not if animals can think or speak, but if they can suffer1, then it seems plausible that moral agents ought to abstain from inflicting unnecessary suffering on animals; in other words, humans might have at least one – even limited – moral duty towards animals. And if this, in turn, is true, then animals should arguably be allowed the commensurate moral right, namely the right not to be inflicted unnecessary pain. Then, if animals possess this right, they could probably possess others, as well. This is how grosso modo the issue of animal rights became a pivotal part of the discussion concerning animal ethics. Bentham himself, of course, wouldn’t have gone that far; to him even the idea of human rights sounded like “simple… rhetorical nonsense upon stilts”.2 It was mostly due to his views, however, that the debate was moved from the way things actually are to the way things should ideally be – thus merging into what, in my view, should always have been: one primarily concerning ethics. (shrink)

The COVID-19 and Monkeypox pandemics and the ongoing Marburg outbreak in Rwanda provide a stark reminder of the importance of espousing a One Health (OH) approach to zoonoses as well as other public health and global health issues. Recent years have in fact seen an exponential rise in biomedical and public health journals and publications explicitly adopting the name of OH. Not all research that pertains to be OH however is indeed OH research, insofar as it does not comply with (...) the proclaimed OH goals of benefiting humans, animals, and the environment. Thus, to ensure such compliance a checklist or toolkit for an ethical analysis of research in OH (EAROH) should be required prior to publication in scientific journals or grant applications. Such a toolkit should be developed by a working group of scholars with expertise in OH ethics, animal ethics, and environmental ethics. (shrink)

Devant le constat du déclin toujours plus rapide de la diversité biologique et les limites des res- sources disponibles pour l’enrayer, il est nécessaire de déterminer quels moyens devraient être engagés dans sa protection. Pour ce faire, une méthode efficace serait d’évaluer les bénéfices tirés de la biodiversité afin d’estimer rationnellement les coûts légitimes de sa protection. L’évaluation économique, qui se présente d’emblée sur un mode quantitatif, serait alors un outil précieux. Dans ce texte, nous présentons différentes méthodes d’évaluation économique (...) de la biodiversité ainsi que certaines de leurs limites méthodologiques. Par la suite, nous montrons qu’en dépit de ses avantages pratiques, l’évaluation économique échoue à représenter l’ensemble des valeurs en jeu dans la protection de la biodiversité. Nous décrivons alors trois types de valeurs incommen- surables avec des bénéfices économiques : la valeur de legs, qui renvoie aux obligations de trans- mission du patrimoine naturel dont nous avons hérité ; la valeur d’existence, qui renvoie à la considération morale d’intérêts autres que ceux des êtres humains ; la valeur de transformation, qui renvoie à la capacité d’examiner et de critiquer nos préférences et inclinaisons afin d’inclure celles-ci dans une vision du monde rationnelle et cohérente. Pour conclure, nous plaidons en faveur de l’élaboration de méthodes de concertation et d’évaluation participatives et pluralistes permettant de rendre compte de la diversité et de l’hétérogénéité des valeurs de la biodiversité. (shrink)

The Origin and Development of Environmental Philosophy in the US according to John Muir, Aldo Leopold and J. Baird Callicot. The publication refers to environmental philosophy, which is also called ecological philosophy or ecophilosophy. It shows in what way philosophical reflection on the environment has been shaped in the American tradition. In this context, the views of the thinkers listed below have been presented, analysed and evaluated. John Muir, an astute observer of wild nature, has been presented as an enthusiast (...) and a prophet persuading a return to nature. Muir was a forester under the strong influence of the representatives of transcendentalism. As an activist, he founded national parks that served to preserve virgin areas, and as a writer he popularized the concept of the preservation of wild areas. For many representatives of ecophilosophy, the views of Aldo Leopold, as expressed in his well-known work, A Sand County Almanac, constituted a new pattern of thinking about wild nature. The book itself is almost generally regarded as a bible of environmental philosophy. Leopold, a forester interested in philosophy, created the fundamentals of holistic environmental philosophy, but the theory he developed is not without defects, to which some attention has been paid in this paper. The theory of J. Baird Callicot presents the attitude of an academic philosopher with regard to wild nature. His attitude is fully professional as regards the applied method, thus allowing the author to avoid committing a naturalistic fallacy. Callicot reinterprets the issues of facts and values, because he thinks that the discoveries of the dynamically developing ecology make possible the reformulation of the traditional approach to such issues by utilising a spirit of acceptance, and lead to a shift from is to ought to be. (shrink)

Thought experiments have played a pivotal role in many debates within ethics—and in particular within applied ethics—over the past 30 years. Nonetheless, despite their having become a commonly used philosophical tool, there is something odd about the extensive reliance upon thought experiments in areas of philosophy, such as applied ethics, that are so obviously oriented towards practical life. Herein I provide a moderate defence of their use in applied philosophy against those three objections. I do not defend all possible uses (...) of thought experiments but suggest that we should distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate uses. Their legitimate uses are determined not so much by the modal content of any actual thought experiment itself, but by the extent to which the argument in which it is nested follows basic tenets of informal logic and respects the fundamental contingency of applied ethical problems. In pursuing these ideas, I do not so much provide a set of criteria for their legitimate use, but more modestly present two significant ways in which their use can go awry. (shrink)

In the past thirty years environmental ethics has emerged as one of the most vibrant and exciting areas of applied philosophy. Several journals and hundreds of books testify to its growing importance inside and outside philosophical circles. But with all of this scholarly output, it is arguably the case that environmental ethics is not living up to its promise of providing a philosophical contribution to the resolution of environmental problems. This article surveys the current state of the field and offers (...) an alternative path for the future development of environmental ethics toward a more publicly engaged model of applied philosophy. (shrink)

The fields of environmental ethics and of religion and ecology have been shaped by Lynn White Jr.'s thesis that the roots of ecological crisis lie in religious cosmology. Independent critical movements in both fields, however, now question this methodological legacy and argue for alternative ways of inquiry. For religious ethics, the twin controversies cast doubt on prevailing ways of connecting environmental problems to religious deliberations because the criticisms raise questions about what counts as an environmental problem, how religious traditions change, (...) and whether ethicists should approach problems and traditions with reformist commitments. This article examines the critiques of White's legacy and presents a pluralist alternative that focuses religious ethics on the contextual strategies produced by moral communities as they confront environmental problems. (shrink)

This essay provides an overview of the field of environmental ethics. I sketch the major debates in the field from its inception in the 1970s to today, explaining both the central tenets of the schools of thought within the field and the arguments that have been given for and against them. I describe the main trends within the field as a whole and review some of the criticisms that have been offered of prevailing views.

The paper explores an apparent tension in Spinoza's thought between his treatment of man as part of nature, with no specially privileged position within it; and his treatment of morality as circumscribed by what is good for human beings. These two themes, it is argued, are in fact interconnected in Spinoza's thought. The paper goes on to consider some possible responses, from a contemporary standpoint, to Spinoza's rejection of animal rights. Finally, it is argued that the apparent tension in Spinoza's (...) thought becomes more understandable in the light of his treatment of the importance of truth to human beings; and that this throws into relief some puzzling features of some contemporary formulations of the theme of man as part of nature. (shrink)

The primary concern of environmental ethics pushed to the limit is the question of survival. An ethic of survival would concern the possibility of morality in an environmental crisis that promises humanity immeasurable damage, suffering, and even the possibility of species extinction. A phenomenological analysis of the question of moral response to such future catastrophe reveals—in Heideggerian fashion contra-Heidegger—that the very question positions us in a relation of responsibility towards a world and a humanity that lies beyond one’s reach and (...) extends into the future. Responsibility, then, arises as a constituting element that defines humanity and therefore cannot be bracketed away or suspended in a time of crisis. Through a reading of Hans Jonas’ notion of responsibility and a critique of some major notions of Environmental Ethics, this article argues that an ethic of survival is conditioned by the survival of humanity as a moral, responsible species. The main challenge of this responsibility is further suggested to be the clash between the autonomy and dignity of the individual and the vital needs of the larger community in the struggle for survival. (shrink)

Environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman contents. This entry covers: (1) the challenge of environmental ethics to the anthropocentrism (i.e., humancenteredness) embedded in traditional western ethical thinking; (2) the early development of the discipline in the 1960s and 1970s; (3) the connection of deep ecology, feminist environmental ethics, and social ecology to politics; (4) the attempt to apply (...) traditional ethical theories, including consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, to support contemporary environmental concerns; and (5) the focus of environmental literature on wilderness, and possible future developments of the discipline. (shrink)

In the last decades of the twentieth century nature writing lost some of its enchantment with the idea of wilderness. It was criticized for its remoteness, separating the natural world from human life, for being out of step with the interests of Indigenous peoples, and for holding an otherwise dynamic natural world, static. Recently, however, writers have begun to rehabilitate the idea of wilderness, and call for increased wilderness conservation. The period of critique was helpful in clarifying both the nature (...) and need for wilderness conservation, as well as for other stewardship practices. I trace some of the disagreements, particularly between the traditional conservationist and those advocating bolder stewardship practices that do not so much conserve the natural world as they remake it. I doubt that we either do or must live in an exclusively post-wild engineered world, and find a place also for natural heritage and its conservation. (shrink)

La ética ambiental nació como justa contestación a los excesos del antropocentrismo. Sin embargo, un énfasis obsesivo en lo ético y en lo ambiental, con el consiguiente olvido de lo antropológico, puede estar dañando la vida humana, la libertad de las personas y la vida en general. Abogamos aquí por la construcción de una ecología humana que vaya más allá y más al fondo que las éticas ambientales al uso. Defendemos que el humanismo es perfectamente compatible con el reconocimiento del (...) valor inherente de todos los seres naturales. Lo hacemos basándonos principalmente en algunas ideas de Hans Jonas, aunque rechazamos su heurística catastrofista. De él retomamos la idea de que existe una responsabilidad moral hacia los demás seres vivos, empezando por los más próximos en el tiempo y en el espacio, y hacia el libre florecimiento de las personas actuales. Con ello, también, se rebaja el peso de lo ético sobre nuestra acción ecológica. Esta ha de atender principalmente a criterios experienciales, antropológicos, científicos y de sentido común. Por último, defendemos que la política, la educación y la comunicación ambiental deben orientarse directamente hacia la libertad y el desarrollo virtuoso de las personas actuales, y no hacia el control de las mismas por culpabilización. El tránsito desde la ética ambiental hacia la ecología humana —concluimos— puede ser beneficioso tanto para las personas como para la naturaleza. (shrink)

Two major philosophical movements have sought to fundamentally rethink the relationship between humans and their environment(s): environmental ethics and enactivism. Surprisingly, they virtually never refer to or seek inspiration from each other. The goal of this analysis is to bridge the gap. Our main purpose, then, is to address, from the enactivist angle, the conceptual backbone of environmental ethics, namely the concept of intrinsic value. We argue that intrinsic value does indeed exist, yet its "intrinsicality" does not boil down to (...) being independent of the interests and needs of humans. Rather, it is brought forth by what we callshared enactionof an axiological domain. The latter is built upon such core posits of enactivism as autonomy, enaction, participatory sense-making as well as the most recent concept of loving as knowing proposed by Hanne De Jaegher. (shrink)

Environmental philosophers have argued that Kant’s philosophy offers little for environmental issues. Furthermore, Kant scholars typically focus on humanity, ignoring the question of duties to the environment. In my dissertation, I turn to a number of underexploited texts in Kant’s work to show how both sides are misguided in neglecting the ecological potential of Kant, making the case for the green Kant at the intersection of Kant scholarship and environmental ethics. I build upon previous literature to argue that the green (...) Kant matters for both sides. Rather than a liability, Kant is indeed a conceptual resource. Though many conceive of Kant’s philosophy as environmentally problematic, I argue that underappreciated evolutionary, aesthetic, and holistic sides of Kant’s philosophy can provide conceptual resources for issues in climate change and environmental ethics. Some aspects, such as the pre-critical view of nature, are quite green and merely require an application, while others, such as Kant’s philosophy of history, require a green appropriation to be relevant. The theoretical foundations I develop in these texts will allow Kantians to articulate duties regarding nature and duties for sustainability. This re-thinking of Kant redresses the complaints environmental thinkers hold against Kant. By means of a philosophical interpretation, defense, and application of particular texts from Kant’s works such as Universal Natural History, Critique of Judgment, and Idea for a Universal History, I show how the greening of Kant is not only helpful for contemporary issues, but also defensible. This will make the green Kant agreeable to Kant scholars yet all the while relevant for today with regard to environmental ethics and, more importantly, climate change. (shrink)

Introduction to the Routley/Sylvan Issue.

Philosophy and Literature is an internationally renowned refereed journal founded by Denis Dutton at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch. It is now published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Since its inception in 1976, Philosophy and Literature has been concerned with the relation between literary and philosophical studies, publishing articles on the philosophical interpretation of literature as well as the literary treatment of philosophy. Philosophy and Literature has sometimes been regarded as iconoclastic, in the sense that it repudiates academic pretensions, (...) insidious jargon and institutional vogue. Dutton, who remains the editor, still writes a regular column. A distinctive feature of Philosophy and Literature was the annual Bad Writing Contest, held from 1995–98, which sought to identify (and publish) the ‘most stylistically lamentable passages’ of academic prose, often to great amusement. (shrink)

RésuméCet article défend une approche à la philosophic et à l'éthique environnementale qui a originalement été avancée par Aldo Leopold. Selon cet auteur, l'éthique peut être comprise, d'un point de vue biologique, comme la forme spécifiquement humaine de la symbiose. La question cruciate de notre époque est de savoir si les humains peuvent coexister avec l'environnement global en un état de symbiose. La philosophie et les sciences humaines en général peuvent contribuer grandement à l'atteinte de ce but, à cause de (...) la façon très spéciale dont le caractère même des actions et des æuvres humaines peut être amplifié par l'écosystème. Je critique un argument thermodynamique qui a été formulé contre la possibilité de la symbiose humaine; et je mets en garde contre les tendances à l'autoritarisme et è l'évasion par l'introspection qui sont typiques des cultures en état de crise écologique. (shrink)

As the ecological crisis becomes increasingly pressing, the relation of environmentalism and democracy is spotlighted with new instancy. On one hand, the capability of present democratic governments to take adequate political action is seriously questioned. On the other hand, environmentalism is charged of being anti-democratic. This paper, in a first step, examines the “green” criticism of and sometimes actual departures from democracy. Drawing on that analysis as well as a pragmatist concept of democracy, the elements of an “ecological democracy” will (...) be outlined in a second step. Democracy, then, is not only a way of collective-problem solving, but also a form of life that has an intrinsic value, even in the face of unresolvable problems and failure. Striving for transformation and the best possible scenario nevertheless, finally, demands an attitude of ecological meliorism, which will be briefly outlined. (shrink)

The phenomena, processes and states related to the field of environment have been developed within complex contexts. Similarly, the meanings given to concepts in the context of environment too have gone into problematic situations. This leads to a dispute over meanings between environmentalist and philosophers within the same school of philosophy and among different schools such as western and eastern thoughts. This, further, has led to crippling of both the national and the international programs and plans that have been aimed (...) at solving environmental problems and conserving the environment. The broader objective of this paper is to inquire theoretical and historical evolutionary process of the concept of environment in the field of philosophy. In particular, this study discusses theoretical positions that were created in the history of philosophy in the context of modernity. In conclusion, this paper problematizes some issues which create ‘crisis in meaning’ in the context of environment and suggests practical and realistic orders to search a solution for the said crisis. (shrink)

The search for a worldwide environmental ethic is linked to the increase in environmental concern since (particularly) the 1960s, and the recognition that environmental problems can have a global i...To date, insufficient work has been carried out on how children view living organisms in the environment. In this study a large number of conversations were audio-taped and transcribed while primar...

In discussions on genetic engineering and plant breeding, the intrinsic value of plants and crops is used as an argument against this technology. This paper focuses on the new field of plant genomics, which, according to some, is almost the same as genetic engineering. This raises the question whether the intrinsic value of plants could also be used as an argument against plant genomics. We will discuss three reasons why plant genomics could violate the intrinsic value of plants: 1. genomics (...) is part of biotechnology; 2. genomics equals genetic engineering; 3. plant genomics may enhance trends that lead to the instrumentalization of plants. We will conclude that in the biotic view the intrinsic value of plants is violated by plant genomics only in case of 'the genomics equals genetic engineering scenario'. (shrink)

Public recognition of the fragility of the natural systems on which present and future generations depend has prompted calls for the practice of environmental stewardship —calls widely criticised in the environmental ethics literature. Some argue that stewardship 's historical associations entail that it is inherently sexist, speciesist and/or anthropocentric. Others argue that absent belief in a creator to appoint us as stewards and hold us accountable, talk of 'environmental stewardship ' is empty. I review the concept's recent evolution and provide (...) a tentative definition. I argue that so defined, it is not vulnerable to standard criticisms, but is instead a promising way of construing morally decent conduct towards the environment. (shrink)

Ecological research and conservation practice frequently raise difficult and varied ethical questions for scientific investigators and managers, including duties to public welfare, nonhuman individuals (i.e., animals and plants), populations, and ecosystems. The field of environmental ethics has contributed much to the understanding of general duties and values to nature, but it has not developed the resources to address the diverse and often unique practical concerns of ecological researchers and managers in the field, lab, and conservation facility. The emerging field of (...) “ecological ethics” is a practical or scientific ethics that offers a superior approach to the ethical dilemmas of the ecologist and conservation manager. Even though ecological ethics necessarily draws from the principles and commitments of mainstream environmental ethics, it is normatively pluralistic, including as well the frameworks of animal, research, and professional ethics. It is also methodologically pragmatic, focused on the practical problems of researchers and managers and informed by these problems in turn. The ecological ethics model offers environmental scientists and practitioners a useful analytical tool for identifying, clarifying, and harmonizing values and positions in challenging ecological research and management situations. Just as bioethics provides a critical intellectual and problem-solving service to the biomedical community, ecological ethics can help inform and improve ethical decision making in the ecology and conservation communities. (shrink)

A notable feature of recent philosophical work on climate ethics is that it makes practically no reference to ‘traditional’ environmental philosophy. There is some irony in this, since environmental ethics arose as part of a broader movement within philosophy, starting in the 1960s, aimed at developing different fields of applied philosophy, in order to show how everyday practice could be enriched through philosophical reflection and analysis. The major goal of this paper is to explain why this branch of practical ethics (...) has, for the most part, failed the test of practicability when it comes to formulating a response to global climate change. The central problem is that debates in environmental philosophy became absorbed by a set of metaphysical questions about the nature of value. The result has been a field dominated by views that provide unsuitable foundations for the development of public policy. (shrink)

In this article, we reflect critically on how moral actions are categorised in some recent studies on moral spillovers. Based on classic concepts from moral philosophy, we present a framework to categorise moral actions. We argue that with a finer classification of moral values, associated behaviour is better understood, and this understanding helps to identify the conditions under which moral licensing takes place. We illustrate our argument with examples from the literature on pro-environmental behaviours. Moral spillovers are frequently studied in (...) this behavioural domain and to understand what causes their occurrence is highly (policy) relevant if we wish to promote sustainable behaviour. (shrink)

The paper advances a Humean metaethical analysis of "intrinsic value" - a notion fundamental in moral philosophy in general and particularly so in environmental ethics. The analysis reduces an object's moral properties (e.g., its value) to the empirical relations between the object's natural properties and people's psychological dispositions to respond to them. Moral properties turn out to be both objective and subjective, but in ways compatible with, and complementary to, each other. Next, the paper investigates whether the Humean analysis can (...) support non-anthropocentric environmental ethical theories, which attribute intrinsic value to nonhuman natural entities. It argues that one of the most useful resources from Hume for non-anthropocentrism is his account of justice as an artificial virtue, which is a plausible model for the internalization of various environmentally friendly conventions and the creation of environmental values. Finally, the paper concludes that any Humean account of intrinsic value is empiricist all the way down. Moral questions about what things are intrinsically valuable, and to what extent they are so, are ultimately empirical questions about complex psychological capacities and dispositions of human beings, which cannot be single-handedly answered by philosophers a priori; and that ethics is more appropriately seen as an interdisciplinary investigation, requiring collaboration among the various psychological and social sciences, human biological and neurological sciences, and history and philosophy. (shrink)

Anthropocene jurisprudence amounts to a legal attitude that posits human beings as the ultimate subject to which the legal ontology, epistemology, and language serve. This attitude inevitably leads to exceptionalism not only in terminology but also in the impact which legal verdicts incur, especially on the natural environment and species. In this paper, we make a coupled reading of jurisprudence and environmental science while suggesting a post-Anthropocene model of law which can be made philosophically consistent by appropriating a new theory (...) of human as a 'biocultural creature' to outgrow the attitude of exceptionalism in law. In doing so, we take recourse of dynamic systems and complexity theory for a law to account for the ontology, epistemology and linguistics of post-Anthropocene jurisprudence. (shrink)

Biocentric and ecocentric ethics offer a rich discourse on protecting biotic communities – defending conservation with inherent value tied to life. A problem ar...

The subject-matter of this essay is the moral status of nature. This subject is dealt with in terms of normative reasons. The main question is if there are direct normative reasons to care for nature in addition to the numerous indirect normative reasons that there are for doing so. Roughly, if there is some such reason, and that reason applies to any moral agent, then nature has direct moral status as I use the phrase. I develop the notions of direct (...) normative reason and direct moral status in detail and identify and discuss the two main types of theory according to which nature has direct moral status: analogy-based nature-considerism and non-analogy-based nature-considerism. I argue for the plausibility of a particular version of the latter, but against the plausibility of any version of the former. The theory that is representative of AN claims that nature has direct moral status in virtue of possessing interests. Proponents of this theory fail to show that nature has interests of the kind that they reasonably want to ascribe to it, and that interests of this kind are morally significant. In contrast to AN, NN comes in a variety of different forms. I elaborate a version of NN according to which there are direct normative reasons to care for nature in virtue of its unique complexity, and its indispensability. I argue that even if these reasons should turn out not to apply to any moral agent, they are still genuine direct normative reasons: there is nothing irrational or misdirected about them. Finally, I show how the question of whether there are direct normative reasons to care for nature is relevant to private and political decision-making concerning nature. This is exemplified with a case from the Swedish mountain region. (shrink)