The assumption that environmental ethics must be nonanthropocentric in order to be adequate is mistaken. There are two forms of anthropocentrism, weak and strong, and weak anthropocentrism is adequate to support an environmental ethic. Environmental ethics is, however, distinctive vis-a-vis standard British and American ethical systems because, in order to be adequate, it must be nonindividualistic.Environmental ethics involves decisions on two levels, one kind of which differs from usual decisions affecting individual fairness while the other does not. The latter, called (...) allocational decisions, are not reducible to the former and govern the use of resources across extended time. Weak anthropocentrism provides a basis for criticizing individual, consumptive needs and can provide the basis for adjudicatingbetween these levels, thereby providing an adequate basis for environmental ethics without the questionable ontological commitments made by nonanthropocentrists in attributing intrinsie value to nature. (shrink)

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-226-595 19-6 (cloth : alk. paper) . A . 1. Environmental policy. 2. Environmental management — Decision making. 3. Interdisciplinary research. 4. Communication in science. 5. Sustainable ...

At the end of a thoughtful article on the future of nuclear war, Wiesner and York concluded that: "Both sides in the arms race are... confronted by the dilemma of steadily increasing military power and steadily decreasing national security. It is our considered professional judgment that this dilemma has no technical solution. If the great powers continue to look for solutions in the area of science and technology only, the result will be to worsen the situation.".

Ecologically responsible policies are concerned only in part with pollution and resource depletion. There are deeper concerns which touch upon principles of diversity, complexity, autonomy, decentralization, symbiosis, egalitarianism, and classlessness.

Sartre explains the theory of existential psychoanalysis in this treatise on human reality.

The assumption that environmental ethics must be nonanthropocentric in order to be adequate is mistaken. There are two forms of anthropocentrism, weak and strong, and weak anthropocentrism is adequate to support an environmental ethic. Environmental ethics is, however, distinctive vis-a-vis standard British and American ethical systems because, in order to be adequate, it must be nonindividualistic.Environmental ethics involves decisions on two levels, one kind of which differs from usual decisions affecting individual fairness while the other does not. The latter, called (...) allocational decisions, are not reducible to the former and govern the use of resources across extended time. Weak anthropocentrism provides a basis for criticizing individual, consumptive needs and can provide the basis for adjudicatingbetween these levels, thereby providing an adequate basis for environmental ethics without the questionable ontological commitments made by nonanthropocentrists in attributing intrinsie value to nature. (shrink)

This text addresses the profound human questions of love and work. Beginning with a historical introduction, the author progresses through adaptive problems that humans face, and concludes by showing how evolutionary psychology encompasses all branches of psychology.

Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors-...

Unsustainability is an old problem - human societies have collapsed with disturbing regularity throughout history. I argue that a genetic predisposition for unsustainability is encoded in certain human physiological, social and behavioral traits that once conferred survival value but are now maladaptive. A uniquely human capacity - indeed, necessity - for elaborate cultural myth-making reinforces these negative biological tendencies. Our contemporary, increasingly global myth, promotes a vision of world development centered on unlimited economic expansion fuelled by more liberalized trade. This (...) myth is not only failing on its own terms but places humanity on a collision course with biophysical reality - our ecological footprint already exceeds the human carrying capacity of Earth. Sustainability requires that we acknowledge the primitive origins of human ecological dys-function and seize conscious control of our collective destiny. The final triumph of enlightened reason and mutual compassion over scripted determinism would herald a whole new phase in human evolution. (shrink)

This article introduces one type of comprehensive complex systems model to explain why humanity continues to be frustrated by its lack of progress toward sustainability. Human overconsumption has now raised concern over the depletion of resources and environmental decay to critical levels that threaten the integrity of the human species, the planet's biodiversity and the global ecosystem in general. The focus on biopsychosocial explanations of human unsustainability is framed to encourage an interdisciplinary approach to problem solving towards a global bioethics. (...) This framework relies on three essential elements: the first concerns the notion that human overconsumption behavior is principally driven by an unconscious set of evolutionary predispositions to survive and prosper; the second element focuses on our unique psychological make-up, which at its core is universal and naturally selected over a geologic period that spans at least the 200–250 million-year natural history of mammals; the third component of the biopsychosocial model is the human evolutionary predisposition to seek out and participate in social behavior. This third element is selected because of the reciprocal benefits of cooperating with others for the purpose of enhancing everyone's survival. These three components have an evolved interrelationship and interdependence from which the full complement of human behavior emerges. Moreover, these three factors constitute the root causes of human overconsumption behavior and the basis for our unsustainable nature. This article argues that the biopsychosocial explanation of human unsustainability can adequately characterize virtually any kind of human and social phenomena that involve the exploitation of resources. Examples, such as the origins and effects of media and advertising, politics, education and religion on overconsumption, are discussed. The final section attempts to demonstrate that a comprehensive approach that unifies biological, psychological and social parameters toward solving the human unsustainability problem can be achieved. (shrink)