In this article I argue that humans have a pro tanto duty to cognitively enhance some animals threatened with extinction. I will use as a case study a particular set of animals: smaller Australian marsupials. Many of these animals are on the brink of extinction thanks to the introduction of the fox and the domestic cat to the continent of Australia. Ecologists conjecture that these marsupials do not have the behavioural flexibility to cope with these introduced predators. By introducing predators, (...) humans performed a wrong action because it led to the extinction of species and continues to threaten many marsupials species such as woylies, Gilbert's potoroos, numbats and mountain pygmy possums. This wrong action gives rise to an obligation to intervene to prevent further species loss. Traditional means of conservation do not seem sufficient to address this obligation; therefore, there is a duty to cognitively enhance these creatures as soon as the technology is sufficiently researched and safe. (shrink)

To combat the ecological crisis, fundamental change is required in how humans perceive nature. This paper proposes that the human-nature bifurcation, a metaphysical mental model that is deeply entrenched and may be environmentally unsound, stems from embodied and tacitly-held substance-biased belief systems. Process philosophy can aid us, among other things, in providing an alternative framework for reinterpreting this bifurcation by drawing an ontological bridge between humans and nature, thus providing a coherent philosophical basis for sustainable dwelling and policy-making. Michael Polanyi's (...) epistemology can further help us understand these environmentally-oriented tacit processes of knowing, and also provide a basis for the political and educational implementation of process-philosophical insights, particularly via the nudging of mental models. (shrink)

Nudging refers to the subtle design of the context of choice in a way that mobilises the unconscious mind and alters human behaviour predictably. Nudging has been criticised for entailing numerous practical and ethical problems, including manipulation, elitism and cultural insensitivity. To respond to the problems, participatory and deliberative procedures have been proposed that would enable the questioning of the power relations embedded in behavioural governance. Yet participation and deliberation are themselves characterised by unconscious behavioural influences. I argue that awareness (...) of the prevalence of unconscious behavioural influences in environmental governance is a prerequisite for tackling the complex practical and ethical issues of nudging. I show that unconscious behavioural influences permeate environmental governance and outline analytical approaches for revealing them. (shrink)

What constitutes legitimate killing? How do our concerns over animal death fit with respect to our broader beliefs about the conservation or destruction of the ‘natural’ world? What does this mean for how we think about our own existence? This ethnography concerns itself with such questions as they have played out in a series of entangled conflicts with, and over, the non-human world; specifically, historically rooted tensions over the inception of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area in Queensland Australia and (...) contemporary arguments over the ‘hunting’ and ‘management’ of feral pigs ( Sus scrofa), an ‘exotic’ pest species. Similarities evident in the politics of natural heritage and animal death illuminate two distinct contemporary strategies for confronting existential struggles over life, death and destruction. (shrink)

The distinction between anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric theories, together with the more fine-grained distinction between anthropocentrism, biocentrism and ecocentrism, are probably two of the most frequently occurring distinctions in the environmental ethics literature. In this essay I draw attention to some problematic aspects of the terminology used to draw these distinctions: the ‘centrism-terminology’. I argue that this terminology is ambiguous and misleading, and therefore confusing. Furthermore, depending on which interpretation it is given, it is also either asymmetric and non-inclusive, or superfluous. (...) Although I find it unlikely that the centrism-terminology will be abandoned, I end the essay by providing a suggestion for an alternative way to categorise theories in environmental ethics. (shrink)

Since aesthetic experience is vital for the protection of nature, I address the relationship between environmental aesthetics and environmentalism. I first review two traditional positions, the picturesque approach and formalism. Some environmentalists fault the modes of aesthetic appreciation associated with these views, charging they are anthropocentric, scenery-obsessed, superficial, subjective, and/or morally vacuous. In light of these apparent failings of traditional aesthetics of nature, I suggest five requirements of environmentalism: that aesthetic appreciation of nature should be acentric, environment-focused, serious, objective and (...) morally engaged. I then examine two contemporary positions concerning appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature, the aesthetics of engagement and scientific cognitivism, assessing each in terms of the requirements of environmentalism. (shrink)

I present the foundational structure for a life-centered theory of environmental ethics. The structure consists of three interrelated components. First is the adopting of a certain ultimate moral attitude toward nature, which I call “respect for nature.” Second is a belief system that constitutes a way of conceiving of the natural world and of our place in it. This belief system underlies and supports the attitude in a way that makes it an appropriate attitude to take toward the Earth’s natural (...) ecosystems and their life communities. Third is a system of moral rules and standards for guiding our treatment of those ecosystems and life communities, a set of normative principles which give concrete embodiment or expression to the attitude of respect for nature. The theory set forth and defended here is, I hold, structurally symmetrical with a theory of human ethics based on the principle of respect for persons. (shrink)

Whether and how to intervene in nature to maintain or restore values is a contested issue among scholars within ecological restoration, protected area management and environmental ethics, but also among the practitioners and public officials who shape how nature is actually managed. This article analyses how the issue of intervention is debated in the case of protected forest area management in Sweden, a country with a traditionally strong preservationist discourse centred on maintaining areas as ‘untouched’ as possible. The analysis shows (...) how this traditional view is challenged by a more interventionist discourse centred on adaptive management for biodiversity, but also how there are still attempts to reaffirm a preservationist discourse and practice. The implications of this as-yet-unsettled debate are discussed, concluding by pointing to a need to examine critically not only the older preservationist discourse and ‘naturalness', but also the ascendant interventionist discourse and ‘biodiversity'. (shrink)

Suppose, as biocentrists do, that even microorganisms have a good of their own – that is, some objective form of welfare. Still, human welfare is vastly greater and more valuable. If it were infinitely greater, individualistic bio-centrism would be pointless. But consideration of the facts of evolutionary history and of the conceptual relations between infinity and incommensurability reveals that there are no infinite welfare differences among living things. It follows, in particular, that there is some very large number of bacteria (...) whose aggregate overall welfare is not less than the welfare of a human being. (shrink)

The primary method for defending biocentric individualism—a prominent theory of the moral value of organisms—is to appeal to the fact that certain things are good for or bad for living creatures, even if they are not sentient. This defense is typically and frequently met with the objection that we can determine what is good for some living creature without thereby having any moral reason or obligation to promote or avoid undermining it. In this paper I show how a theory of (...) the morality of defensive violence undermines this objection. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss the comparison between the restoration of natural environments and the Nazi project to develop a pure homeland for native species and authentic Aryan humans. There exists a metaphorical comparison between Nazi eliminationist policies regarding specific human populations and the eradication of invasive and non-native species in ecological restorations. Moreover, there are substantive environmental policies of the Nazi regime that appear to be similar to the goals and methodology of contemporary restoration practice. But there is also (...) a more fundamental connection: the idea of the domination of the natural world. The idea of domination is the key to understanding both the process of ecological restoration and its real connection to Nazism. (shrink)

Understanding how and why practices may be transformed is vital for any transition towards socio-environmental sustainability. However, theorising and explaining the role of individual agency in practice change continues to present challenges. In this paper we propose that theories of practice can be usefully combined with a psychosocial framework to explain how agency is biographically patterned and how this patterning is a product of attachment relationships and emergent strategies for dealing with uncertainty. Biographical interview data from the project Energy Biographies (...) is used to illustrate the ways in which this theoretical approach can enhance understanding of how potential for practice change may be opened up or obstructed. (shrink)