Arguments for the preservation of natural objects and environments sometimes appeal to the value of those objects as cultural heritage. Can something be valuable because of its relation to the historical past? I examine and assess arguments for preservation based upon heritage value and defend the thesis that we have an obligation to appreciate what our predecessors valued and to value those thingsthat have played an important role in our history. I show how this conception of our obligations can be used to defend the preservation of natural objects and environments including wilderness areas.

The main objective of this paper is to introduce the space-time concept of V. I. Vernadsky and to show the importance of this concept for understanding the biosphere theory of Vernadsky. A central issue is the principle of dissymmetry, which was proposed by Louis Pasteur and further developed by Pierre Curie and Vernadsky. The dissymmetry principle, applied both to the spatial and temporal properties of living matter, makes it possible to demonstrate the unified nature of space and time. At the same time, this principle shows the difference between the spatial-temporal properties of living matter and those of the inert environment. Living matter as opposed to the inert environment is an important part of the Weltanschauung of Vernadsky and is connected with all basic statements of his theoretical system

Models of nature have usually referred to ecological, or more generally, scientific understandings, and have seldom included cultural factors. Recently, however, there has been a trend toward defining nature as a “social construction,” that is, as an artifact of human social and linguistic capability. I argue that constructionism attempts to assimilate nature to an exclusively anthropocentric “reality,” and that it should be seen as expressing long-term industrialist tendencies to separate the “human” and the “natural” realms and to assimilate the latter to the former. Consequently, the constructionist approach, rather than offering us a fertile means of incorporating cultural influences within environmental theorizing, is better viewed as a cognitive counterpart to industrialism’s physical assimilation of the natural world.

Sometimes people act contrary to environmentalist values because they reject those values. This is one kind of conflict: conflict in values. There is another kind of conflict in which people act contrary to environmentalist values even though they embrace those values: because they cannot afford to act in accordance with them. Conflict in priorities occurs not because people’s values are in conflict, but rather because people’s immediate needs are in conflict. Conflict in priorities is not only an environmental conflict, but also often an economic conflict—a conflict rooted in differing economic circumstance. Such a conflict cannot be resolved as an environmental conflict unless it is also resolved as an economic one.

Donna Haraway’s cyberfeminism has shown considerable appeal on an interdisciplinary level. Her basic premise is that by the end of the twentieth century the boundary between humans and machines has become increasingly porous, and, whether we acknowledge it or not, we are already cyborgs. She also posits this cyborg identity as an acceptable emblem for progressive politics. I disagree, and cite such writers as Susan Bordo, Sharona Ben-Tov, and Jhan Hochman to highlight some of the weaknesses of her position. I argue that we have had repeated warnings about implications of yoking the human to the machine, and that Haraway’s “promising monsters” are anything but promising.

I address the problem of reconciling environmental holism with the intrinsic value of individual beings. Drawing upon Madhyamaka (“middle way”) Buddhism, the later philosophy of Martin Heidegger, and deep ecology, I present a distinctly holistic conception of nature that, nevertheless, retains a commitment to the intrinsic worth of individual beings. I conclude with an examination of the practical implications of this “thing-centered holism” for environmental ethics.

In this paper, I challenge the work of David Abram, who makes a case for phenomenology as the only philosophical tradition amenable to restoring balanced human-nature relationships. While phenomenology provides a useful conceptual framework for understanding the environmental ethics of oral cultures, this paper considers the tradition of American pragmatism to be more applicable to theenvironmental task at hand: devising an environmental ethic of reform for modern, capitalist, Western culture. The application of phenomenology and pragmatism to environmental ethics is compared according to four main philosophical questions: the essential uncertainty of life, the existence of a human/nature divide, the necessary conditions for claiming truth, and the relative role of metaphysics or imagination and that of science in relating to the world.

Conventional wisdom suggests that environmental pragmatists balk at the mere mention of intrinsic value. Indeed, the leading expositor of the pragmatic position in environmental philosophy, Bryan Norton, has delivered withering criticisms of the concept as it has been employed by nonanthropocentrists in the field. Nevertheless, I believe that Norton has left an opening for a recognition of intrinsic value in his arguments, albeit a version that bears little resemblance to most of its traditional incarnations. Drawing from John Dewey’s contextual approach toward moral inquiry, I offer a reconstructed notion of intrinsic value that avoids the metaphysical pitfalls identified by Norton. I argue that this contextual understanding of noninstrumental claims has the advantage of turning our attention toward, and not away from, the critical realm of practice and policy, and that it is especially compatible with the norms of democratic deliberation. By way of example and in defense of my position, I conclude with a rejoinder to Holmes Rolston’s claims about the role of foundational intrinsic value commitments in settling the human-nature dilemma at Royal Chitwan National Park in Nepal.

We read the roots of contemporary ecofeminism through the lens of feminist pragmatism. After indicating the general relation between ecofeminism and feminist pragmatism, we provide a detailed analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s saga Herland and With Her in Ourland to document the strong connection between these two traditions. Gilman’s congruencies with ecofeminism make clear that she was a forerunner and perhaps a foundation for contemporary ecofeminism. However, further analyses are needed to reveal the full import of this link between ecofeminism and “ecofeminist pragmatism,” as well as bridge the gap between ecofeminist pragmatism and ecopragmatism, including environmental pragmatism.

I argue for an environmental virtue ethics which specifies human excellence and flourishing in relation to nature. I consider Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson as environmental virtue ethicists, and show that these writers share certain ethical positions that any environmental virtue ethics worthy of the name must embrace. These positions include putting economic life in its proper,subordinate place within human life as a whole; cultivating scientific knowledge, while appreciating its limits; extending moral considerability to the nonhuman world; and supporting wilderness protection. I argue that Thoreau, Leopold, and Carson themselves exemplify the potential for cultivating excellence in engagement with wild nature: their lives are among our most powerful arguments for its preservation.

Tom Regan has powerfully argued that all sentient beings having some awareness of self are equal in inherent value, and that their interests where relevant must be given equal treatment. Yet Regan also contends that there are some situations in which the value of different lives should be compared and choice made between them. He supposes an overloaded lifeboat with five occupants in which all will die unless one is thrown overboard. Four of the occupants are human, one is a dog; and Regan holds that it is the dog that ought to go since its life is of less value than that of a human. Regan has thus been sharply attacked for inconsistency. Some say that the comparison of lives, even in this sort of case, contradicts the principle of equal inherent value and introduces a utilitarian calculation of benefit. Othersobject that no ground of choice exists in situations of this sort. But all these criticisms turn out to be unjustified.

The meaning of sustainability is the subject of intense debate among environmental and resource economists. Perhaps no other issue separates more clearly the traditional economic view from the views of most natural scientists. The debate currently focuses on the substitutability between the economy and the environment or between “natural capital” and “manufactured capital”—a debate captured in terms of weak versus strong sustainability. In this article, we examine the various interpretations of these concepts. We conclude that natural science and economic perspectives on sustainability are inconsistent. The market-based Hartwick-Solow “weak sustainability” approach is far removed from both the ecosystem-based “Holling sustainability” and the “strong sustainability” approach of Daly and others. Each of these sustainability criteria implies a specific valuation approach, and thus an ethical position, to support monetary indicators of sustainability such as a green or sustainable Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The conflict between “weak sustainability” and “strong sustainability” is more evident in the context of centralized than decentralized decision making. In particular, firms selling “services” instead of material goods and regarding the latter as “capital” leads to decisions more or less consistent with either type of sustainability. Finally, we discuss the implications of global sustainability for such open systems as regions and countries. Open systems have not been dealt with systematically for any of the sustainability criteria.

I begin from the premise that “environmentalism needs queers.” Given that desire is a significant element in environmental ethics, and that the social organization of sexual-erotic desire has important impacts on human-nonhuman interactions, queer theory promises to aid environmental thought in unraveling and challenging some of these relations. I contribute the following elements to that challenge:the social-sexual organization of natural space; the organizing effects of dominant discourses of reproductive sexuality for both political possibility and bodily experience; and the retrieval (using the works of queer theorist Elizabeth Grosz) of a queer/ecological “erotogenic ethics” based on the blurring of bodily boundaries through eroticized tactile apprehension of the (human and nonhuman) Other.

The principle that we should not interfere with nature plays a prominent role in both popular and academic accounts of environmental ethics. For example, it is often cited to justify the claims that we should not actively manage wilderness areas and that we should not extinguish naturally occurring fires in those areas. It is far from clear, however, exactly what that principle entails for our treatment of species and ecosystems. Does all human interaction with nature amount to interference? If there are different kinds of interference, are they all wrong? Might not there be such a thing as beneficial interference? Can one part of nature interfere with another, and if so, is it morally permissible or forbidden for humans to prevent this kind of interference? These questions can be answered only if we have a clear notion of interference. First, I examine one initially plausible account which takes it to be a kind of cause. One interferes with a species or ecosystem when one alters or redirects it. Second, I answer a crucial question that must be faced with regard to any theory that takes interference to be a kind of cause. If interference involves nothing more than having an effect on an ecosystem, then the activities of practically every species in an ecosystem interfere with it. However, these activities are usually thought of as legitimate or normal ecosystemic change, as essential components of the ecosystem, rather than as interference.Thus, some criterion must be proposed to distinguish between interference and the actions of other species which have an effect on an ecosystem but do not interfere with it. I look at a number of proposals and conclude that no one of them is uniquely correct. Rather, the criterion one employs to understand interference must be determined by one’s projects and goals.

Although environmental ethics has become more familiar and comfortable with the work of postmodernism, “deconstruction” in particular continues to be depicted as “destructive” and “nihilistic.” A close examination of some specific works of deconstruction, however, shows that, far from denying responsibilities to the environment, deconstruction seeks to affirm a radical obligation toward the “other.” Because this possibility is habitually ruled out by denunciations of deconstruction’s imputed relativism, I begin with a dramatized account of the possible reception of deconstruction within environmental ethics in order to stage the ethical implications of modes of criticism. I then discuss specific parallels between the work of deconstruction and that of environmental ethics, and suggest that a deconstructive spirit is at the heart of environmental philosophy’s recent—and most important—work on the question of “universal consideration.”

Aldo Leopold’s influence on environmental ethics cannot be overstated. I return to Leopold’s work in order to show the connection between the ethics of integrity and many of the points made by Leopold in his writings. I also show how the spirit of Leopold’s land ethic and his love and respect for wilderness is present and current in the Wildlands Project, and that it is a live part of public policy in North America, albeit a debated one.