Over the last two decades, there was an upsurge of research and innovation in biotechnology and related fields, leading to exciting new discoveries in areas such as the engineering of biological processes, gene editing, stem cell research, CRISPR-Cas9 technology, Synthetic Biology, recombinant DNA, LMOs and GMOs, to mention only a few. At the same time, these advances generated concerns about biosafety, biosecurity and adverse impacts on biodiversity and the environment, leading to the establishment of Research Ethics Committees (...) (RECs) at Higher Education and Research Institutions dedicated to reviewing research with implications for biosafety and the environment. -/- These Biosafety and Environment Research Ethics Committees, referred to as EBRECs, are in the early stages of their establishment and formalisation, and there is much uncertainty about their composition, scope, procedures of decision-making and the principles that should guide their deliberations and assessments. In many respects, EBRECs are venturing into uncharted territory, facing a very wide range of complex research fields, far-reaching research practices and deep concerns new to Review Boards, raising the question to what extent EBRECs can fall back on the fairly well-established principles and procedures of RECs focusing on Human, Health or Animal research, and to what extent they need new or adapted principles and procedures. -/- Against this background, I set out to answer the following three main research questions in this thesis: 1. What is the current state of ethical principles for ethics reviews in the field of environmental and biosafety research ethics? Which principles are currently used in this context, and how? 2. What are the shortcomings of the current principles used by EBRECs and how can they be overcome? 3. What ethical principles must be adopted by environmental and biosafety research ethics committees and guide them in their decision-making? -/- In order to prepare the ground and set the scene for my discussion of these questions, I also formulated four supporting research questions: i. What is environmental research ethics in action? ii. What is biosafety research ethics in action? iii. How are environmental and biosafety ethics related to one another? iv. How should the guidelines and ethical principles related to these two overlapping fields be implemented in the ethics review process? Following my introduction and problem statement in Chapter 1, I devoted Chapters 2 and 3 to an overview of my supporting questions to set the scene for Environmental and Biosafety Research Ethics. In Chapter 4, I turned to my main research question with a discussion of national and international declarations, frameworks and legislation and an investigation of principles in the different research areas to get a picture of applicable principles that can guide EBRECs. -/- The main finding of my thesis is that due to the complexity of EBR, different categories of principles could be the solution for EBRECs. I elaborate on this in Chapter 5, my concluding chapter, in which I also propose a list of core principles that can serve as an accessible and easy-to-use guide for EBRECs in their decision-making. In this proposal, I cluster different kinds of principles in terms of four categories: 1. Principles as a Moral Concept 2. Principles as a Social Concept 3. Principles as a Legal Concept 4. Principles as a Safety Concept . (shrink)

In decision-making based on multiple criteria, situations may arise where agents find their options to be neither better than, worse than nor equal to each other with respect to the relevant criteria. How, if at all, can a justified choice be made between such options? Are the options incomparable? This article explores a hypothetical case that illustrates how such a situation can arise in an environmental context; more specifically, it considers the deliberations of an imagined 'ethics committee' as (...) it struggles to decide whether or not a deep-sea mining project should be allowed to proceed. I argue that the case is best understood as involving options that are comparable in the sense of being 'on a par'. Working out from a discussion of Ruth Chang's 'self-governance' theory of choice in cases of parity, I suggest that, in the environmental context, the idea of choices expressing a moral identity may lead us in the direction of a plausible solution to these particularly challenging cases. (shrink)

Abstract Gender and Ethics Committees: Where’s the Different Voice? -/- Prominent international and national ethics commissions such as the UNESCO Bioethics Commission rarely achieve anything remotely resembling gender equality, although local research and clinical ethics committees are somewhat more egalitarian. Under-representation of women is particularly troubling when the subject matter of modern bioethics so disproportionately concerns women’s bodies, and when such committees claim to derive ‘universal’ standards. Are women missing from many ethics (...) class='Hi'>committees because of relatively straightforward, if discriminatory, demographic factors? Or are the methods of analysis and styles of ethics to which these bodies are committed somehow ‘anti-female’? It has been argued, for example, that there is a ‘different voice’ in ethical reasoning, not confined to women but more representative of female experience. Similarly, some feminist writers, such as Evelyn Fox Keller and Donna Haraway, have asked difficult epistemological questions about the dominant ‘masculine paradigm’ in science. Perhaps the dominant paradigm in ethics committee deliberation is similarly gendered? This article provides a preliminary survey of women’s representation on ethics committees in Eastern and Western Europe, a critical analysis of the supposed ‘masculinism’ of the principlist approach, and a case example in which a ‘different voice’ did indeed make a difference. (shrink)

A cross-sectional study was done on 50 ethics committee members from 15 different Ethics Committee (EC) over a period of 6 months from February 2018 to June 2018 to understand the structure and function of ECs in Bangladesh. Most of the ECs were male predominant (66.3%) and maximum ECs had technical members (93.33%). Only 8.3% ECs had lay person. Forty percent of the ECs did not update SOP routinely. Most of the ECs had no provision of training for (...) its members (79.2%) and had no budget (71.8%). Maximum ECs service were voluntary (82.22%). Different ECs had different quorum to start the meeting. A little less than half of the respondents (45.76%) felt that their decision had not been noted down if disagreed against majority of vote in the ECs and did not placed in the meeting’s minutes. Maximum respondents (88.18%) did not know whether there was any law in Bangladesh to create a EC. A big percentage (89%) of ECs did not monitored by authorized body to guide and oversee the functioning of ECs. This article concluded that some ECs followed the international rules and regulation to formation and function the ECs but still a handsome number of ECs were lag behind in Bangladesh. The capacity of ECs can only be strengthened by training and various recognition/accreditation programs. (shrink)

Having scandalous unethical research practices in the mid and late 20th century, study protocols of biomedical research reviewed by the Ethics Committee (EC) has become the accepted international standard. The Declaration of Helsinki uniformly requires that all biomedical research involving human participants, including research on identifiable human material or data, should be approved by the EC. Today, concerns over the quality of the EC functions worldwide. There are research globally in this regard but no data are available from Bangladesh. (...) Hence, we conducted a questionnaire based pilot study on knowledge and attitude of EC members on bioethics and structure & function of EC in Bangladesh. (shrink)

As national and state health care policy -making becomes contentious and complex, there is a need for a forum to debate and explore public concerns and values in health care, give voice to local citizens, to facilitate consensus among various stakeholders, and provide feedback and direction to health care institutions and policy makers. This paper explores the role that regional health care ethics committees can play and provides two contrasting examples of Networks involved in facilitation of public input (...) into and the development of health care policies and adoption of state-wide practices. (shrink)

In its recent statement 'Sex Selection and Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis', the Ethics Committee of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine concluded that preimplantation genetic diagnosis for sex selection for non-medical reasons should be discouraged because it poses a risk of unwarranted gender bias, social harm, and results in the diversion of medical resources from genuine medical need. We critically examine the arguments presented against sex selection using preimplantation genetic diagnosis. We argue that sex selection should be available, at least (...) within privately funded health care. (shrink)

Most medical research and a substantial amount of non-medical research, especially that involving human participants, is governed by some kind of research ethics committee (REC) following the recommendations of the Declaration of Helsinki for the protection of human participants. The role of RECs is usually seen as twofold: firstly, to make some kind of calculation of the risks and benefits of the proposed research, and secondly, to ensure that participants give informed consent. The extent to which the role of (...) the REC includes the former is not uncontroversial. Indeed, the most prevalent debate on the role of RECs sees liberals and strong paternalists arguing over the importance of informed consent given by competent agents versus the significance of making benevolent decisions on behalf of others. On the one hand, liberals argue for the rights of competent adults to decide for themselves the kinds and extents of risks to which they wish to expose themselves. On the other hand, proponents of strong paternalism raise concerns about the likelihood of participants being able to truly understand the complex data involved in research. They support a role for RECs in which they exercise duties of benevolence towards patients and participants by limiting the extent to which they can be exposed to significant, permanent and irreversible harms. In this paper, we will argue that when it comes to decisions about risk it is neither possible nor desirable for RECs to adopt either role. (shrink)

Translation failure occurs when a treatment shown to be safe and effective in one type of population does not produce the same result in another. We are currently in a crisis involving the translatability of preclinical studies to human populations. Animal trials are no better than a coin toss at predicting the safety and efficacy of drugs in human trials, and the high failure rate of drugs entering human trials suggests that most of the suffering of laboratory animals is futile, (...) creating no commensurate benefit for human patients. Here, I argue that animal ethics committees have a role to play in getting us out of this crisis. Inadequate representation is a known contributor to translation failures and is a matter of both scientific and ethical concern. Ethical review committees have the authority to address it by reprioritising the values already enshrined in their guiding principles. (shrink)

The burgeoning literature on the ethical issues raised by climate engineering has explored various normative questions associated with the research and deployment of climate engineering, and has examined a number of responses to them. While researchers have noted the ethical issues from climate engineering are global in nature, much of the discussion proceeds predominately with ethical framework in the Anglo-American and European traditions, which presume particular normative standpoints and understandings of human–nature relationship. The current discussion on the ethical issues, therefore, (...) is far from being a genuine global dialogue. The aim of this article is to address the lack of intercultural exchange by exploring the ethics of climate engineering from a perspective of Confucian environmental ethics. Drawing from the existing discussion on Confucian environmental ethics and Confucian ethics of technology, I discuss what Confucian ethics can contribute to the ethical debate on climate engineering. (shrink)

The predominant view is that a study using health data is observational research and should require individual consent unless it can be shown that gaining consent is impractical. But recent arguments have been made that citizens have an ethical obligation to share their health information for research purposes. In our view, this obligation is sufficient ground to expand the circumstances where secondary use research with identifiable health information is permitted without explicit subject consent. As such, for some studies the Institutional (...) Review Board/Research Ethics Committee review process should not assess the practicality of gaining consent for data use. Instead the review process should focus on assessing the public good of the research, public engagement and transparency. (shrink)

PDF with introduction and front and back materials. Abstract: A provocative examination of the consequences of Levinas’s and Adorno’s thought for contemporary ethics and political philosophy. This book unfolds a dialogue between Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor W. Adorno, using their thought to address contemporary environmental and social-political situations. Eric S. Nelson explores the “non-identity thinking” of Adorno and the “ethics of the Other” of Levinas with regard to three areas of concern: the ethical position of nature and (...) “inhuman” material others such as environments and animals; the bonds and tensions between ethics and religion and the formation of the self through the dynamic of violence and liberation expressed in religious discourses; and the problematic uses and limitations of liberal and republican discourses of equality, liberty, tolerance, and their presupposition of the private individual self and autonomous subject. Thinking with and beyond Levinas and Adorno, this work examines the possibility of an anarchic hospitality and solidarity between material others and sensuous embodied life. -/- “This is an extremely impressive, original, and thorough treatment of two key twentieth-century thinkers and their applicability to the most pressing social and political issues of our time.” — Jeffrey A. Bernstein, author of Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History -/- “This book is an excellent and timely contribution to political and environmental philosophy, located around a nuanced historical and philosophical approach to Levinas and Adorno. It will be of great interest to anyone concerned with these figures or with the current moment.” — Martin Shuster, author of Autonomy after Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism, and Modernity. (shrink)

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)

Environmental ethics has been compared to a bicycle brake on an international jet airliner; it is ineffective. Here I show how and why an ecological ethics based on process philosophy could be effective against the forces driving global environmental destruction. However, this will involve a radical transformation in what are taken to be the problems of ethics and how ethical philosophy is understood. Ethics needs to be centrally concerned with the virtues required to develop (...) and sustain desirable social forms. To address global environmental problems ecological ethics must concern itself with the virtues required to develop and sustain democracy. Developing these virtues, it is argued, will involve reversing the growing fragmentation of work to revive a feeling of responsibility for creating a better world. Such an ethics must not only provide guidance for action, but also provide people with a sense of their place in and role in history and nature and an inspiring vision to motivate them to work for a better world. Process philosophy can provide such an ecological ethics not only because it can justify respect for all living beings, but also because it is a revolt against the fragmentation of intellectual, cultural, and social life which led to the trivialization of philosophy in the first place. (shrink)

Lynn White’s seminal article on the historical roots of the ecological crisis, which inspired radical environmentalism, has cast suspicion upon religion as the source of modern anthropocentrism. To pave the way for a viable Islamic environmental ethics, charges of anthropocentrism need to be faced and rebutted. Therefore, the bulk of this paper will seek to establish the non- anthropocentric credentials of Islamic thought. Islam rejects all forms of anthropocentrism by insisting upon a transcendent God who is utterly unlike (...) His creation. Humans share the attribute of being God’s creations with all other beings, which makes them internally related to every other being, indeed to every single entity in this universe. This solves the problem that radical environmentalism has failed to solve, namely, how to define our relation with nature and other beings without dissolving our specificity. Furthermore, Islamic ethics structures human relations strictly around the idea of limiting desires. The resulting ethico-legal synthesis, made workable by a pragmatic legal framework, can sustain a justifiable use of nature and its resources without exploiting them. The exploitation of nature is inherently linked to the exploitation of one’s self and of fellow human beings. Such exploitation, according to Qur’anic wisdom, is the direct result of ignoring the divine law and the ethics of dealing with self and “other.” Only by reverting to the divine law and ethics can exploitation be overcome. The paper ends by briefly considering possible objections and challenges vis-à-vis developing a philosophically viable yet religiously oriented environmental ethics. (shrink)

Environmental pollution and climate change have been considered the main environmental challenges affecting the world’s ecosystem, including that of South Africa. They cause poverty, land degradation, and health hazards. One of the leading causes and contributing factors of environmental pollution and climate change is carbon emissions into the atmosphere. As a way to curb these emissions, Carbon tax policy has been introduced in various countries, including South Africa. In 2019, a Carbon tax was introduced to assist South (...) Africa in delivering on the commitments made in the Paris Agreement in 2015. If the policy is effectively applied, it will raise revenues while reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Before and after introducing the Carbon tax policy in South Africa, there has been debate and discussion on its impact on the environment, economy, and society. Based on the debate and discussion, it has been observed that more attention is paid to the economic implications and benefits of the tax on South Africa than the ethical implications. Thus, this paper aims to contribute to the ongoing debate and discussion by ethically evaluating the Carbon tax policy in South Africa. (shrink)

Given the unprecedented novel nature and scale of coronavirus and the global nature of this public health crisis, which upended many public/environmental research norms almost overnight. However, with further waves of the virus expected and more pandemics anticipated. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 opened our eyes to the ever-changing conditions and uncertainty that exists in our world today, particularly with regards to environmental and public health practices disruption. This paper explores environmental and public health evidence-based practices toward (...) responding to Covid-19. A literature review tried to do a deep dive through the use of various search engines such as Mendeley, Research Gate, CAB Abstract, Google Scholar, Summon, PubMed, Scopus, Hinari, Dimension, OARE Abstract, SSRN, Academia search strategy toward retrieving research publications, “gray literature” as well as reports from expert working groups. To achieve enhanced population health, it is recommended to adopt widespread evidence-based strategies, particularly in this uncertain time. As only together can evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM) can become a reality which include effective policies and practices, transparency and accountability of decisions, and equity outcomes; these are all more relevant in resource-constrained contexts, such as Nigeria. Effective and ethical EIDM though requires the production as well as use of high-quality evidence that are timely, appropriate and structured. One way to do so is through co-production. Co-production (or co-creation or co-design) of environmental/public health evidence considered as a key tool for addressing complex global crises such as the high risk of severe COVID-19 in different nations. A significant evidence-based component of environmental/public health (EBEPH) consist of decisions making based on best accessible, evidence that is peer-reviewed; using data as well as systematic information systems; community engagement in policy-making; conducting sound evaluation; do a thorough program-planning frameworks; as well as disseminating what is being learned. As researchers, scientists, statisticians, journal editors, practitioners, as well as decision makers strive to improve population health, having a natural tendency toward scrutinizing the scientific literature aimed at novel research findings serving as the foundation for intervention as well as prevention programs. The main inspiration behind conducting research ought to be toward stimulating and collaborating appropriately on public/environmental health action. Hence, there is need for a “Plan B” of effective behavioral, environmental, social as well as systems interventions (BESSI) toward reducing transmission. (shrink)

Biological diversity or biodiversity refers to the variety of life on Earth, comprising millions of plants, animals, microorganisms and the genes they contain. It simply means the existence of a wide variety of plant and animal species in their natural environments or the diversity of plant and animal life in a particular habitat. Environmental ethics is a branch of ethics and a form of philosophy which deals with the studies of relation of human beings and the environment. (...) It includes a moral consideration of human approach to natural resources and believes that human as well as other living creatures as parts of society. Biggest environmental ethic for human is to care for creation. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, virtue ethicists have begun to devote increasing attention to applied ethics. In particular, the application of virtue ethical frameworks to the environmental ethics debate has flourished. This chapter reviews recent contributions to the literature in this field and highlights some strengths and weaknesses of thinking about climate change through a virtue ethical lens. Section “Two Benefits of Virtue Ethical Approaches to Climate Change” explores two benefits of applying virtue ethics to climate (...) change: (a) we can better capture the phenomenology of our moral experience, and (b) we avoid the problem of inconsequentialism. Section “A Catalogue of Environmental Virtues” analyzes various practical proposals that have been put forward in the form of specific environmental virtues. Section “An Objection to Virtue-Oriented Approaches to Climate Change” reconstructs a fundamental objection to the idea of using a virtue ethical normative approach to tackling the urgent and imminent dangers of climate change. (shrink)

This work introduces the reader to the central issues and theories in Western environmental ethics, and against this background develops a Buddhist environmental philosophy and ethics. Drawing material from original sources, there is a lucid exposition of Buddhist environmentalism, its ethics, economics and Buddhist perspectives for environmental education. The work is focused on a diagnosis of the contemporary environmental crisis and a Buddhist contribution for positive solutions. Replete with stories and illustrations from original (...) Buddhist sources, it is both informative and engaging. (shrink)

Dr Stockmann, the principal character in Henrik Ibsen's A Public Enemy, is a classic example of a whistle-blower who, upon detecting and disclosing a serious case of environmental pollution, quickly finds himself transformed from a public benefactor into a political outcast by those in power. If we submit the play to a 'second reading', however, it becomes clear that the ethical intricacies of whistle-blowing are interwoven with epistemological issues. Basically, the play is about the complex task of communicating scientific (...) (notably microbiological) data to lay audiences. This becomes even more apparent when we realise that Stockmann was a contemporary of real 'microbe hunters' such as Pasteur and Koch. The play's basic message is that epoch-making scientists (such as Pasteur and Koch) not only produced convincing and reliable data from a scientific point of view, but also acquired the skills and insights needed to enter into a dialogue with their cultural and societal environment. (shrink)

While environmental philosophers have been striving to extend ethics to deal with future generations and nonhuman life forms, very little work has been undertaken to address what is perhaps a more profound deficiency in received ethical doctrines, that they have very little impact on how people live. I explore Alasdair MacIntyre’s work on narratives and traditions and defend a radicalization of his arguments as a direction for making environmental ethics efficacious.

Environmental ethics and sustainable development maintain a very close relationship with each other. Environmental ethics gives priority to the future generation, and sustainable development also says about development considering the next generation. In this essay, the Rampal coal power plant in Bangladesh has been analyzed, focusing on future generation's sustainability. From this essay, it is found that the environmental specialists and UNESCO argue to stop the project, but from the government is arguing, showing the logic (...) that the project is not harmful to the environment and the project authority can manage the probable environmental degradation because of it. The author of this essay has also found a more persuasive argument against the project. (shrink)

Daoism and Environmental Philosophy explores ethics and the philosophy of nature in the Daodejing, the Zhuangzi, and related texts to elucidate their potential significance in our contemporary environmental crisis. This book traces early Daoist depictions of practices of embodied emptying and forgetting and communicative strategies of undoing the fixations of words, things, and the embodied self. These are aspects of an ethics of embracing plainness and simplicity, nourishing the asymmetrically differentiated yet shared elemental body of life (...) of the myriad things, and being responsively attuned in encountering and responding to things. These critical and transformative dimensions of early Daoism provide exemplary models and insights for cultivating a more expansive ecological ethos, environmental culture of nature, and progressive political ecology. This work will be of interest to students and scholars interested in philosophy, environmental ethics and philosophy, religious studies, and intellectual history. (shrink)

[English] The paper observed that the various ethics that constitute the system of African environmental ethics are not based on or linked to any known African ontology and formal logic. It argued that the contextualisation of African environmental ethics on African ontology and African logic is essential since Western ontology and logic do not serve to adequately explain and provide proper meanings to the various concepts and propositions employed in the African environmental ethics. (...) Therefore, the paper aimed to, and indeed, link and establishes African environmental ethics on a definite and sound African ontology and formal logic based on Ibuanyidanda complementary ontology and Ezumezu integrativist logic. -/- [Annang] Nwed ndun̄ọ ami akondo ada akud ate k’ idem mme ido ukpeme nkan-n̄kuk ke Africa ada nsan nsan ye ọntọlọgy ye lọgik Africa. Nnwed ami abenne awọ́d ate ke ọntọlọgy ye lọgik mfia agwo iwamma ke adinam awan̄a mme nsio nsio akpọ-ikọ, adaha ikọ, mme usem, ye mme edu ake 'adọhọke ke mme ido ukpeme nkan-n̄kuk ke Africa. Ntak ade anam ukpep mkpọ ami anwana ndiben ido ukpeme nkan-n̄kuk Africa n̄ka n̄ke kọọn̄ ke ọntọlọgy ye lọgik afọnnọ nte itiat ikaba, ade anam anye asan̄a 'ke kem ye Ibuanyidanda Ontology ye Ezumezu Logic. (shrink)

African societies are becoming aware of the shortcomings of Western capitalist value system, because of its aftermath on individual, society, and environment. Many of African conservationist values, moral attitudes and ways of life have been destroyed by the exploitative capitalist ethos of European colonialism and modernity. Three decades of African countries trying to build their economies like the Western models have left her people wallowing in poverty, and her environment exposed to hazards. With this new imbibed Western values, African population (...) will continue to rise, as well as innovation in science and technology, thus, there is a growing need to put adequate measures in place against further environmental degradation. This paper tends to show the ethical implication of environmental crises on African societies. It concludes with the need for Africans to jettison western anthropocentric, capitalist and individualist values for her communal values. This paper further acknowledges that due to modernity, African value systems such as taboo and totems are being outdated. This paper proposes that scientific methods of environmental conservation and Christian ethics in the spirit of African communitarianism can go a long way in curbing ecological problems within the continent. This work is carried out with the philosophical method of analysis and exposition. (shrink)

WINNER OF THE SIMON HAILWOOD ESSAY PRIZE. This paper discusses the problem of alienation from nature, considered through the phenomena of reification and de-objectification. I propose understanding alienation as the result of a distorted relation between the subjective and the objective and I suggest a tentative solution via the combination of two ethico-political practices: releasement and reappropriation. In doing so, I put forward a structural-ethical critique and response to our current ecological crisis.

The norms of simplicity, convenience, unfussiness, and self-control guide Diogenes the Cynic, Zeno of Citium, Chrysippus, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius in approaching food. These norms generate the precept that meat and dainties are luxuries, so Stoics should eschew them. Considerations of justice, environmental harm, anthropogenic global climate change, sustainability, food security, feminism, harm to animals, personal health, and public health lead contemporary Stoics to condemn the meat industrial complex, debunk carnism, and select low input, plant-based foods.

Many have begun to despair that climate justice will prevail even in a minimal form. The affective dimensions of such despair, we suggest, threaten to make climate action appear too demanding. Thus, despair constitutes a moral challenge to individual climate action that has not yet received adequate attention. In response, we defend a duty to act in hope for a more just (climate) future. However, as we see it, this duty falls differentially upon the shoulders of more and less advantaged (...) agents in society. From arguments by Black thinkers like Derrick Bell, we draw a set of distinctions between two types of hope: one for ideal justice, and one for more modest change; and between two types of hopeful actions, those undertaken through formal political channels and those we call 'extra-political' actions; and between two sites of differential moral burdens, those of the privileged and those of the oppressed. Ours is a case for facing even bleak realities, demanding otherwise, and acting in hope to achieve a better future. (shrink)

Animal ethics, which investigates the appropriate ethical relationship between humans and nonhuman animals, is a field that was until recently ignored by most contemporary philosophers working in the classical pragmatist tradition. There are several reasons for this neglect. For example, one who sidesteps a confrontation over the relative merits of the utilitarian maxim or the Kantian practical imperative as supreme moral principles is not likely to quibble over anthropocentric versus sentientist variations of these principles. An unfortunate result is that (...) pragmatism has been silent in one of the most conceptually rich and practically significant fields of contemporary ethics. After a detailed study of John Dewey’s deeply entrenched and systematic biases toward other animals, this chapter underscores Dewey-inspired pragmatism’s virtue as a pluralistic yet nonrelativistic framework within which to listen to and incorporate the insights of divergent theoretical perspectives. (shrink)

Xunzi's philosophy provides a rich resource for understanding how ethical relationships between humans and nature can be articulated in terms of harmony. In this paper, I build on his ideas to develop the concept of reciprocal harmony, which requires us to reciprocate those who make our lives liveable. In the context of the environment, I argue that reciprocal harmony generates moral obligations towards nature, in return for the existential debt that humanity owes towards heaven and earth. This can be used (...) as a normative basis for an environmental ethic that enables humanity and nature to flourish together. (shrink)

[English] This paper aims to discuss ten traditional and contemporary methodological paradigms in African philosophy, and demonstrates how they may apply to African environmental ethics research. The methods include: Ethno-philosophy, Sage Philosophy, Conversational Philosophy, Conceptual Mandelanization, Eco-Afrocentricism, Indigenous Language Analysis, Eco-Afro-feminism, Conceptual Decolonization, Storytelling Philosophy, and Cultural Adaptationism. The significance and limitations of the methodologies are highlighted. The concept and principles of African environmental ethics are analyzed and discussed to facilitate an understanding of the conceptual frameworks (...) that underpin the methodologies. In conclusion, the discourse demonstrates that environmental ethics research in Africa should be based on African philosophical methodologies so as to facilitate production of research that will be relevant in African contexts. -/- [Annang] N̄wed nduongo ami ayem ibene nwọ́d mme n̄kaan nne mfa usung unam nduongo ke vilọsọvi Afrịke , nne nte amọ ekeme iwam unam nduongo mbanga ido ukpeme nkan-nkuk ke Afrịke. Mme usung unam nduongo ami nsehe ade ami: vilọsọvi mben ufọk, vilọsọvi n̄kan ideen, vilọsọvi nneme, vilọsọvi Mandela, “Eco-Afrocentricism”, nduongore usem utiit ajid, vilọsọvi ibaan Afrịke, vilọsọvi mkpọk-nyak, vilọsọvi n̄ke, nne ukpep ido idung agwo. N̄wed ami abene awọd mme ikek nne nde mem idem usung nduongo ami. N̄wed ami atang mkpọ abanga se ido ukpeme nkan-nkuk ke Afrịke anwongo nne mme itai amọ, nne nte amọ ewam mbon nduongo ediọhọ nnanga ekpekakpa ibọrọ nduongo amọ. Ke n̄suuk ikọ, ukpep ami mkpọ abene awọd ate ke ekpena ekama usung nduongo vilọsọvi Afrịke enam nduongo ebanga ido ukpeme nkan-nkuk ke Afrịke man ibọrọ nduongo asanga akekem nne se adiiwam Afrịke. (shrink)

Margaret Cavendish (1623-73) held a number of surprising philosophical views. These included a materialist panpsychism, and some views in what we might call environmental ethics. Panpsychism, though certainly not unheard of, is still often a surprising view. Views in environmental ethics - even just views that involve a measure of environmental concern - are unusual to find in early modern European philosophy. Cavendish held both of these surprising views. One might suspect that panpsychism provides some (...) reasons for environmental concern. I argue, however, that Cavendish did not derive her environmental ethics from her panpsychism. If there is a connection, it is a developmental one, leading from the ethics to the panpsychism. The investigation of these issues also provides an occasion for thinking more generally about how Cavendish's views fit together, and whether she developed a systematic philosophy in the manner of several of her contemporaries. (shrink)

Many advocate practices of ‘local food’ or ‘locavorism’ as a partial solution to the injustices and unsustainability of contemporary food systems. I think that there is much to be said in favor of local food movements, but these virtues are insufficient to immunize locavorism from criticism. In particular, three duties of international ethics—beneficence, repair and fairness—may provide reasons for constraining the developed world’s permissible pursuit of local food. A complete account of why (and how) the fulfillment of these duties (...) constrains locavorism will require extensive empirical evidence about the relationship between agricultural demand-led industrialization, international trade (rules), and local food practices. In this paper I can only gesture at some of this evidence and, for that reason, my policy prescriptions are merely provisional. Instead, the upshot of this paper is that advocates of locavorism ought to be attentive to the empirical-dependence of the moral permissibility of their projects. As local food ‘scales up’—and comes to be embraced as a goal of political communities—these concerns should receive even greater attention. (shrink)

This paper sketches an emotion-aware model of environmental ethics education. The proposal draws on insights from feminists scholars, moral sentimentalism, as well as work in the pedagogy of discomfort traditions. It identifies and defends four core elements of climate change ethic, noting how they shed new light on the aims and challenges of environmental ethics education.

Why should we refrain from doing things that, taken collectively, are environmentally destructive, if our individual acts seem almost certain to make no difference? According to the expected consequences approach, we should refrain from doing these things because our individual acts have small risks of causing great harm, which outweigh the expected benefits of performing them. Several authors have argued convincingly that this provides a plausible account of our moral reasons to do things like vote for policies that will reduce (...) our countries’ greenhouse gas emissions, adopt plant-based diets, and otherwise reduce our individual emissions. But this approach has recently been challenged by authors like Bernward Gesang and Julia Nefsky. Gesang contends that it may be genuinely impossible for our individual emissions to make a morally relevant difference. Nefsky argues more generally that the expected consequences approach cannot adequately explain our reasons not to do things if there is no precise fact of the matter about whether their outcomes are harmful. -/- In the following chapter, author Howard Nye defends the expected consequences approach against these objections. Nye contends that Gesang has shown at most that our emissions could have metaphysically indeterministic effects that lack precise objective chances. He argues, moreover, that the expected consequences approach can draw upon existing extensions to cases of indeterminism and imprecise probabilities to deliver the result that we have the same moral reasons to reduce our emissions in Gesang’s scenario as in deterministic scenarios. Nye also shows how the expected consequences approach can draw upon these extensions to handle Nefsky’s concern about the absence of precise facts concerning whether the outcomes of certain acts are harmful. The author concludes that the expected consequences approach provides a fully adequate account of our moral reasons to take both political and personal action to reduce our ecological footprints. (shrink)

The theories of cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker arise from an existential and psychological analysis of the death terror/anxiety deep in the unconscious of every human. Becker details how this anxiety governs the ideologies and behaviors of our species—something now confirmed by thousands of experiments performed by psychologists engaged in contemporary terror management theory (TMT). Humans manage their anxiety through what Becker terms “hero systems”—concepts, beliefs, and myths we create to give us a sense of significance and meaning during, and even (...) beyond our mortal lives. Today, many dominant economic, technological, and religious hero systems seek to confirm our significance by denying that we are—like all other species—animals who must exist in a decaying, mortal body. Becker shows how this attempt to deny our “creatureliness” (basic biological nature) causes humans to stand against the natural world we are embedded in, leading to an assault on the planet and nonhuman animals. As a result, Becker believed pacifism was the only hero system capable of keeping humankind from destroying itself and the earth. Pacifism is the precursor to the more encompassing ethical concept of “reverence for life,” advocated by Dr. Albert Schweitzer. By respecting the will-to-live in all sentient beings, reverence for life transcends concern for humans alone and extends moral and physical safeguards to life as such. Confronting the fact that humans are increasingly alienated from their commodified world and their own being, reverence for life stands as a vital solution to many of our modern problems. And following contemporary TMT research, reverencing life can also expand one’s self-esteem, which research shows lowers death anxiety, reduces aggression, and offers authentic meaning to life itself. (shrink)

Environmental health research produces scientific knowledge about environmental hazards crucial for public health and environmental justice movements that seek to prevent or reduce exposure to these hazards. The environment in environmental health research is conceptualized as the range of possible social, biological, chemical, and/or physical hazards or risks to human health, some of which merit study due to factors such as their probability and severity, the feasibility of their remediation, and injustice in their distribution. This paper (...) explores the ethics of identifying the relevant environment for environmental health research, as judgments involved in defining an environmental hazard or risk, judgments of that hazard or risk's probability, severity, and/ or injustice, as well as the feasibility of its remediation, all ought to appeal to non-epistemic as well as epistemic values. I illustrate by discussing the case of environmental lead, a housing-related hazard that remains unjustly distributed by race and class and is particularly dangerous to children. Examining a controversy in environmental health research ethics where researchers tested multiple levels of lead abatement in lead-contaminated households, I argue that the broader perspective on the ethics of environmental health research provided in the first part of this paper may have helped prevent this controversy. (shrink)

In this paper I contrast the metaphysical philosophies of Benedict de Spinoza and the ‘sudden enlightenment’ tradition of Chan Buddhism. Spinoza’s expressivist philosophy, in which everything can be conceived via a lineage of finite causes terminating in substance as a metaphysical ground of all things, emphasises the relative sameness of all entities. By contrast, Chan’s philosophy of emptiness, which rests on the dependent co-origination of all entities, renders such comparison fundamentally meaningless. Having no source beyond dependent co-origination to generate a (...) thing’s distinct nature leads to a metaphysics in which, rather than being relatively similar or different, all things are at one and the same time absolutely the same and absolutely distinct. As a result, Spinoza grounds ethics wholly is sameness or similarity, whereas Chan transcends the dichotomy of sameness and difference and offers an environmental ethics grounded simultaneously in absolute sameness and absolute difference. As a result, in Spinoza’s case, the dissimilarity between human beings and the non-human world places limits on our concern for it. In Chan Buddhism, however, insight into the emptiness of all phenomena leads to a concern for all entities in their suchness, regardless of whether they are similar or different to human beings. As such, I argue that Chan is in a better position than Spinoza to develop a robust environmental ethic. (shrink)

The urgent need for solutions to critical environmental challenges is well attested, but often environmental problems are understood as fundamentally collective action problems. However, to solve to these problems, there is also a need to change individual behavior. Hence, there is a pressing need to inculcate in individuals the environmental virtues — virtues of character that relate to our environmental place in the world. We propose a way of meeting this need, by the judicious, safe, and (...) controlled administration of “classic” psychedelic drugs as a way to catalyze the development of environmental virtues – a form of moral bio-enhancement. Recent evidence shows that psychedelics can be given safely in controlled environments, and can induce vivid experiences of unity and connectedness. These experiences, in turn, can durably increase feelings of nature-relatedness and pro-environmental behaviors. Therefore, we argue that responsible psychedelic use can reliably catalyze the development of a key environmental virtue known as living in place. This is a “master environmental virtue” that subsumes the qualities of respect for nature, proper humility, and aesthetic wonder and awe. Our account advances the environmental virtues debate by introducing a relevant practical proposal, and advances the psychedelic moral enhancement debate by providing a much-needed conceptual framework. (shrink)

The history of sonar technology provides a fascinating case study for philosophers of science. During the first and second World Wars, sonar technology was primarily associated with activity on the part of the sonar technicians and researchers. Usually this activity is concerned with creation of sound waves under water, as in the classic “ping and echo”. The last fifteen years have seen a shift toward passive, ambient noise “acoustic daylight imaging” sonar. Along with this shift a new relationship has begun (...) between sonar technicians and environmental ethics. I have found a significant shift in the values, and the environmental ethics, of the underwater community by looking closely at the term “noise” as it has been conceptualized and reconceptualized in the history of sonar technology. To illustrate my view, I will include three specific sets of information: 1) a discussion of the 2003 debate regarding underwater active low- frequency sonar and its impact on marine life; 2) a review of the history of sonar technology in diagrams, abstracts, and artifacts; 3) the latest news from February 2004 on how the military and the acoustic daylight imaging passive sonar community has responded to the current debates. (shrink)

The intuitions at the core of environmental ethics and of other neglected value realms put pressure on traditional anthropocentric ethics based on monistic value theories. Such pressure is so severe that it has led many to give up on the idea of monistic value theories altogether. I argue that value monism is still preferable to value pluralism and that, indeed, these new challenges are opportunities to vastly improve impoverished traditional theories. I suggest an alternative monistic theory, Richness (...) Theory, and show how it provides an opportunity to capture the needs of both environmental ethics and of our traditional ethics. (shrink)

Recent critics (Andrew Light, Bryan Norton, Anthony Weston, and Bruce Morito, among others) have argued that we should give up talk of intrinsic value in general and that of nature in particular. While earlier theorists might have overestimated the importance of intrinsic value, these recent critics underestimate its importance. Claims about a thing’s intrinsic value are claims about the distinctive way in which we have reason to care about that thing. If we understand intrinsic value in this manner, we can (...) capture the core claims that environmentalists want to make about nature while avoiding the worries raised by contemporary critics. Since the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic value plays a critical role in our understanding of the different ways that we do and should care about things, moral psychology, ethical theory in general, and environmental ethics in particular shouldn’t give up on the concept of intrinsic value. (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)

First, the thorny problem of locating the Midwest is treated. Second, the ancient Stoics’ understanding of nature is proposed as a fertile field of ecological wisdom. The significance of nature in Stoicism is explained. Stoic philosophers (big-S Stoics) are distinguished from stoical non-philosophers (small-s stoics). Nature’s lessons for living a good Stoic life are drawn. Are such lessons too theoretical to provide practical guidance? This worry is addressed by examining the examples of Cincinnatus and Cato the Elder—ancient Romans lauded for (...) their virtues who worked the land. They exhibited the virtues of civic responsibility, justice, self-sufficiency, parsimony, perseverance, equanimity, modesty, and respect for limits—an agrarian virtue dear to Wendell Berry. Agrarianism views rural society as superior to urban society and the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker. Reflection on the virtues of stoical Roman agrarians suggests that features of Roman Stoic agrarianism resonate with a contemporary instantiation of Stoicism in the Midwest. The main thesis is that Midwest Stoic agrarianism (MSA), guided by an array of earthy virtues, promotes agricultural practices that harmonize with nature and support living in agreement with nature, while rejecting agricultural practices contrary to nature and propelled by vice. MSA endorses, e.g., locally sourced, sustainably grown crops instead of CAFOs. MSA tackles the ecological and sociopolitical pressures confronting Midwest farmers in the Anthropocene and can fortify environmental virtue ethics beyond this region. (shrink)

Environmental Ethics and Behavioral Change is a unique text that weaves together subject in ethics, moral psychology, and political philosophy to explore the ways in which people can be motivated to behave in more environmentally sustainable ways. In this review, I offer a short synopsis of the book and appraise its usefulness for teaching courses in environmental ethics and related areas.

We take kelp as material entities immersed in a multitude of relations with other creatures (for whom kelp serves as both nourishment and shelter) and inorganic elements of the milieu it resides in, on the one hand, and as a figuration: a material-semiotic “map of contestable worlds” that encompasses entangled threads of “knowledge, practice and power” (Haraway 1997, 11) in its local and global sense, on the other. While drawing on our field notes from the congress and feminist posthumanities and (...) environmental humanities literatures (e.g. Alaimo 2016; Åsberg & Braidotti 2018; Sandilands & Erickson 2010; Iovino & Opperman 2014) – with a special focus on the so-called blue humanities/oceanic humanities (e.g. DeLoughrey 2019) – that unpack human/nonhuman relations in the context of the current environmental crisis and the accompanying “slow violence” (Nixon 2011), we mobilise a reflection on and make a proposal for “thinking with kelp” as a multi-faceted methodology of transversal and transdisciplinary knowledge production and practices: situated (Haraway 1988), enfleshed, transcorporeal (Alaimo 2010), collaborative, and committed to an ethics of multispecies response-ability (Haraway 2008). (shrink)

The ecological crisis has long since reached global proportions, so that environmental problems can no longer be tackled solely within national borders. This anthology opens intercultural perspectives on environmental ethics and hightlights the potential of non-European traditions of thought for exploring alternative paths.