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1. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 1

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2. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 1

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features

3. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 1
Daniel Berthold-Bond

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The idea of “place” has become a topic of growing interest in environmental ethics literature. I explore a variety of issues surrounding the conceptualization of “place” in bioregional theory. I show that there is a necessary vagueness in bioregional definitions of region or place because these concepts elude any purely objective, geographically literal categorization. I argue that this elusiveness is in fact a great meritbecause it calls attention to a more essential “subjective” and experiential geography of place. I use a reading of Aldo Leopold’s Sand Country Almanac as an example of the value of a non-literalistic geography for the understanding of place
4. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 1
Julie L. Davidson

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In the eighteenth century, the economic problem was reformulated according to a particular set of politico-economic components, in which the pursuit of individual freedom was elevated to an ethical and political ideal. Subsequent developments of this individualist philosophy together with the achievements of technological progress now appear as a threat to future existence. Extensive environmentaldegradation and persistent global inequalities of wealth demand a new reformulation of the economic problem. Sustainable development has emerged as the most recent economic strategy for addressing concerns about ecological integrity and social justice. Although there is a recognized continuum of understanding about the concept—from conservative to radical—it has been argued that only the radical version of sustainable development embodies the ethical capacity to address these concerns. Simultaneously the perennial existential question “How should we live?” has been raised anew along with the novel ethico-moral question: “How should we arrange our systems of production and consumption to ensure the sustainability of the Earth under conditions of conspicuous and pressing environmentallylimiting conditions?” Moreover, the strong normative dimension embodied in the radical version of sustainability represents a challenge to liberal democracy and its understanding of individual and collective goods. I argue that the radical approach has the capacity to relieve what is an inherently acute tension of modern life and to reconcile individual autonomy with the wider social and ecological good.
5. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 1
Constantine Hadjilambrinos

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High-level radioactive waste is not fundamentally different from all other pollutants having long life spans in the biosphere. Nevertheless, its management has been treated differently by policy makers in the United States as well as most other nations, who have chosen permanent isolation from the biosphere as the objective of high-level radioactive waste disposal policy. This policy is to be attained by burial deep within stable geologic formations. The fundamental justification for this policy choice has been provided by utilitarian ethical analysis. It, in turn, has been supported primarily by assumptions, based on expert opinion, about the ultimate safety of geologic disposal. However, close analysis of these assumptions reveals that the safety of geologic disposal is highly uncertain. Moreover, factors such as the possibility for human intrusion into repository sites make it impossible to even guess at the ultimate consequences of any policy choice pertaining to the final disposal of high-level radioactive waste. I discuss why utilitarian ethics cannot be used to determine the efficacy of such policy choices. I then develop an alternative approach which is based on egalitarian principles of procedure and utilize it to explore policy proposals which promote justice and equity in the high-level radioactive waste management process. I argue that there are two possible solutions to the high-level radioactive waste dilemma: (1) an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to create an institution to advocate on behalf of the interests of future generations and (2) the active management of the waste in monitored, retrievable facilities in perpetuity. Of these two options, I find maintaining surveillance and vigilance in perpetuity to safeguard high-level radioactive waste to be preferable because of its political and ethical efficacy.

discussion papers

6. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 1
Richard Foltz

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Contemporary Muslim writers have demonstrated that an environmental ethic can be derived from the scriptural sources of Islam. However, at present, the impact of this type of interpretation within the Muslim world appears to be minimal. The most promising prospects for disseminating an environmental awareness based on Islamic principles have come from governments, such as those of Iran, Pakistan,and Saudi Arabia, which claim Islam as a basis for legislation.
7. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 1
Maria Davradou, Paul Wood

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In his book The Morality of Freedom, Joseph Raz argues that the promotion of personal autonomy can serve as a constitutive principle for a comprehensive political theory. He maintains that three conditions are necessary for attainment of individual autonomy: appropriate mental abilities, an adequate range of options, and independence. In this essay, by focusing on Raz’s conception of an adequate range of options, we suggest that Raz’s theory justifies environmental conservation in general. We present an empirical framework of present-day assaults on personal autonomy, construct a heuristic scenario, and argue against both neoclassical economics and utility maximization as adequate criteria regarding environmental decisions. We conclude that successful environmental policies should directly or indirectly strive to provide the conditions necessary for promoting individual autonomy.
8. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 1
Andrew J. Kerr

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One of the most distinguishing features of environmental ethics has been the effort to develop a nonanthropocentric intrinsic value theory, that is, a definition of the good which is not dependent upon some quality particular to humanity, a definition of the good whereby properties found in the terrestrial, nonhuman world are constitutive of that definition. In this paper, I argue that major nonanthropocentric theories suffer from arbitrariness. I argue through the use of representative thinkers that much nonathropocentric theory has committed the naturalistic fallacy because it has deployed various forms of empirical naturalism, and that to meet this challenge nonanthropocentrism must employ a form of metaphysically based nonanthropocentrism. I do not argue that the naturalistic fallacy is valid. Rather, I show that a sample of major thinkers, representative of a logically exhaustive set of possible evasions of the naturalistic fallacy, all fail to evade the fallacy. Further, I show that the failure of this set of possible evasionsleaves but one evasion possible, namely, ethical theory grounded in metaphysics. Finally, I recommend “process” metaphysics as the most promising metaphysical ground for environmental ethics, assuming the validity of the naturalistic fallacy.

book reviews

9. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 1
Laura Westra

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10. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 1
Eric Katz

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11. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 1
Robert Mugerauer

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12. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 1
Theodore W. Nunez

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