In this study, Clare Palmer challenges the belief that the process thinking of writers like A.N. Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne has offered an unambiguously positive contribution to environmental ethics. She compares process ethics to a variety of other forms of environmental ethics, as well as deep ecology, and reveals a number of difficulties associated with process thinking about the environment.

" -- Ethics"I think the unique collection of so many different perspectives will help to push readers out of their disciplinary views and work to bring theory ...

Written by major scholars and practitioners of Goethean science today, this book considers the philosophical foundations of Goethe's approach and applies the ...

How can science teach us that animals feel no pain when our common sense observations tell us otherwise? Rollin offers a welcome insight into questions like this in The Unheeded Cry, a rare, reasonable account of the difficult and controversial issues surrounding the images of animals found in science. Widely hailed on its first appearance, the book is updated here to include recent changes in thinking and practice in this fast growing field. With anecdotes and a dose of humour, Rollin (...) pokes holes in the neutral, objective, and value-free stance of animal-using scientists in the positivist tradition. He shows how this stance leads to the denial of the existence of animal consciousness and pain, and he points out the consequences. His work will help professionals and amateurs with an interest in the moral status of animals in their attempts to penetrate the fortress of scientific ideology and practice, and to effect change. (shrink)

Environmental pragmatism is a new strategy in environmental thought. It argues that theoretical debates are hindering the ability of the environmental movement to forge agreement on basic policy imperatives. This new direction in environmental thought moves beyond theory, advocating a serious inquiry into the merits of moral pluralism. Environmental pragmatism, as a coherent philosophical position, connects the methodology of classical American pragmatic thought to the explanation, solution and discussion of real issues. This concise, well-focused collection is the first comprehensive presentation (...) of environmental pragmatism as a new philosophical approach to environmental thought and policy. (shrink)

With their remarkable electoral successes, Green parties worldwide seized the political imagination of friends and foes alike. Mainstream politicians busily disparage them and imitate them in turn. This new book shows that 'greens' deserve to be taken more seriously than that. This is the first full-length philosophical discussion of the green political programme. Goodin shows that green public policy proposals are unified by a single, coherent moral vision - a 'green theory of value' - that is largely independent of the (...) `green theory of agency' dictating green political mechanisms, strategies and tactics on the one hand, and personal lifestyle recommendations on the other. The upshot is that we demand that politicians implement green public policies, and implement them completely, without committing ourselves to the other often more eccentric aspects of green doctrine that threaten to alienate so many potential supporters. (shrink)

In this book I advance an argument concerning the nature of the deep ecology approach to ecophilosophy. In order to advance this argument in as thorough a manner as possible, I present it within the context of a comprehensive overview of the writings on deep ecology.

This collection of 24 readings is the first comprehensive treatment of important topics by leading figures in the rapidly growing interdisciplinary field of...

With growing public awareness of critical environmental issues, arguments about man's obligation to nature often assume a moral dimension. Kohlberg's theory of moral development is relevant to research on development of environmental ethical reasoning. From Kohlberg's perspective, moral development refers to the ontogenesis of justice reasoning in terms of moral judgments at progressively more abstract, comprehensive, and universal levels of cognition . Due to the philosophical assumptions of his model , Kohlberg's conception of morality was Western and anthropocentric. Application of (...) his theoretical framework in a environmental context represents a theoretical departure from most previous research. ;This paper reports an investigation of development of environmental ethical reasoning. A model of ontogenetic development of environmental ethical reasoning was synthesized from related research and theoretical extension of Kohlberg's model. An instrument, based on the Defined Issues Test , was developed to measure principled moral reasoning using an environmental ethical orientation. The content of the instrument was derived from informal interviews about environmental ethics and content analyses of environmental literature. ;The behavior of approximately 25,000 subjects was observed at several experimental sites in a national park. Persons observed to engage in environmentally destructive behavior and a matched random sample of other visitors were contacted for inclusion in the study. A total of 568 respondents completed the environmental ethics questionnaire, which was administered by mail. ;Analyses indicate subjects' responses conform to the hypothesized stages of environmental ethical reasoning. Subjects were consistent in use of stage of reasoning. There was a significant correlation between pretest subjects' DIT scores and scores on the environmental instrument. Age is correlated with scores on the environmental instrument among younger subjects. Education is significantly correlated with scores among all subjects. ;Conclusions based on the analyses and assumptions about environmental ethical development are reviewed. Tests for reliability and validity of the instrument are reported. The limitations of the research in practical application and suggestions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

It always struck me as interesting that a major tenet in the Hippocratic Oath, an oath that in various forms has been taken by many physicians around the world for almost 2,000 years, is simply, "Do no harm to your patients." The positive injunctions are few; but that negative injunction jumps right out at you. Why would it even be necessary to ask a future physician to promise something like that? It is as if Hippocrates understood that, of all the (...) power a physician has, much of it enormously positive and beneficial, one item needs most to be checked: the almost unprecedented capacity to harm a person, legally. (shrink)