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41. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1

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42. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Kevin Elliott

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In his new book, Sustainability: A Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management, Bryan G. Norton proposes an account of sustainability grounded in the deliberation of local communities as part of an adaptive management process. One can distinguish two different ways of justifying his account—resulting in “political” and “metaphysical” conceptions of sustainability—in much the same way that John Rawls famously distinguishes between political and metaphysical conceptions of justice. Whereas the metaphysical conception of sustainability depends on principles that are specific to American pragmatist philosophical theory, the political conception draws on relatively uncontroversial elements of democratic political culture. Although Norton seems to lean toward a metaphysical conception of sustainability in his book, a political conception would actually be more compatible with the overarching aims of his project. Finally, the distinction between political and metaphysical conceptions could prove valuable as a model for thinking about how many of the current projects in environmental pragmatism relate to other strands of environmental philosophy. Thus, a potentially fruitful alteration to Norton’s recent work provides some conciliatory lessons for relating different projects in the field of environmental philosophy.
43. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Mick Smith

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The natural world’s myriad differences from human beings, and its apparent indifference to human purposes and ends, are often regarded as problems an environmental ethics must overcome. Perhaps, though, ecological ethics might instead be re-envisaged as a form of other-directed concern that responds to just this situation. That is, the recognition of worldly (in)difference might actually be regarded as a precondition for, and opening on, any contemporary ethics, whether human or ecological. What is more, the task of ethics might be regarded as one of conserving (at least some) such differences. The work of Iris Murdoch and the “difference ethics” of Emmanuel Levinas seem to offer possible ways to express such understandings. However, their ecological potential and theoretical limits, especially in terms oftheir metaphysical presuppositions, remain relatively under-explored. A closer examination of their work is presented in order to illustrate some of the possibilities and difficulties facing an ecological form of difference ethics.

discussion papers

44. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Katie McShane

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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.
45. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Colette R. Palamar

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Despite the successes, and the considerable and continuing ethical disputes regarding wolf reintroduction in the United States, no clear, cogent, theoretically based ethical examination of the wolf reintroductions has yet been completed. Ecological feminist thought, particularly as articulated by Karen J. Warren, presents one way to create such an ethical assessment. Applying ecological feminist theories to wolf reintroduction also generates an intriguing instance of theoretical application in the “real world” and sheds insight on the pragmatic value of ecological feminist thought. While ecofeminism does not give a definitive and decisively defensible position concerning wolf reintroduction, it does offer a repeatable framework and set of conditions by which one can assess environmental practice and policy, evidencing yet another example of the relevance of environmental ethics for the assessment of environmental policy.
46. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Sudhir Chella Rajan

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Automobility, or the myriad institutions that foster car culture, has rarely if ever been put under the lens of liberal political theory, even though driving is one of the most common and widely accepted features of daily life in modern societies. When its implied promise of guaranteeing both freedom and equality is examined more closely, however, it appears that the ethical implications of driving may be darker than initially supposed. Automobility may indeed be in violation of both the Kantian categorical imperative and Gewirth’s principle of generic consistency, even though there has thus far been remarkably little ethical analysis to reveal these possibilities. It is conceivable that liberal political theory has turned a blind eye to automobility precisely because the latter has naturalized us into accepting what Roberto Unger has called a routine of “false necessity,” so that driving is now virtually imperceptible as a social fact worthy of critical analysis.

book reviews

47. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Jeanne Kay Guelke

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48. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Ben Ridder

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49. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Frank W. Derringh

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50. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Steven Vogel

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51. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Per Sandin

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52. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 29 > Issue: 1
Darren J. Ranco

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