Displaying: 21-40 of 2063 documents

0.178 sec

21. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 1 > Issue: 2
Richard A. Watson Self-Consciousness and the Rights of Nonhuman Animals and Nature
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
A reciprocity framework is presented as an analysis of morality, and to explain and justify the attribution of moral rights and duties. To say an entity has rights makes sense only if that entity can fulfill reciprocal duties, i.e., can act as a moral agent. To be a moral agent an entity must (1) be self-conscious, (2) understand general principles, (3) have free will, (4) understand the given principles, (5) be physicallycapable of acting, and (6) intend to act according to or against the given principles. This framework is foundational both to empirical and supernatural positions which distinguish a human milieu, which is moral, from a nonhuman milieu, which is not. It also provides a basis for evaluating four standard arguments for the rights ofnonhuman animals and nature-the ecological, the prudential, the sentimental, and the contractual. If reciprocity is taken as being central to the general concepts of rights and duties, then few animals, and no natural objects or natural systems, have rights and duties in an intrinsic or primary sense, although they may be assigned them in an extrinsic or secondary sense as a convenience in connection with human interests. Nevertheless, there are some animals besides humans - e.g., especially chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins, and dogs - which, in accordance with good behavioral evidence, are moral entities, and sometimes moral agents. On the grounds of reciprocity, they merit, at aminimum, intrinsic or primary rights to life and to relief from unnecessary suffering.
22. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 1 > Issue: 3
Kathleen M. Squadrito Locke’s View of Dominion
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In this paper l examine the extent to which Locke’s reIigious and poIiticaI ideoIogy might be considered to exempIify values which have Ied to environmentaI deterioration. In the Two Treatises of Governlnent, Locke appears to hold a view of dominion which compromises humanitarian principles for economic gain. He often asserts that man has a right to accumulate property and to use land and animals for comfort and convenience. This right issues from God’s decree that men subdue the Earth and have dominion over every living thing. Although abuse of the environment appears to be justified in Locke’s political works, I argue that there are many passages in this work that cast doubt on such an interpretation. Further , the view of dominion adopted in Locke's educational work is one of responsible stewardship. On the whole, his view stresses man’s duties and obligation towards all creation.
23. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 1 > Issue: 3
NEWS AND NOTES (2)
24. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 1 > Issue: 3
R.J. Nelson Ethics and Environmental Decision Making
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Environmental ethics tends to be dominated by the idea that the right environmental actions require a change in the value systems of many people. I argue that the “rebirth” approach is perverse in that moral attitudes are not easily changed by moral suasion. A properly ethical approach must begin where we are, as moderately moral people desiring the best for all. The real ethical problem is to develop procedures for collectively defining environmental ends that will be fair to the parties participating in the decision process. This idea is essentially utilitarian, and depends on the maximization of expected social utility. This type of environmental ethics is contrasted with current theories of social choice in welfare economics and with Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness.
25. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 1 > Issue: 3
Archie J. Bahm Marx and Engels on Ecology
26. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 1 > Issue: 3
Eugene C. Hargrove The Historical Foundations of American Environmental Attitudes
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
John Passmore has claimed that American environmental attitudes are incompatible with Western traditions and Western civilization: they arose out of a Romantic transvaluation of values in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and today are defensible only in terms of antiscientific nature mysticism and Oriental religions. I argue that these attitudes developed out of an intricate interplay between Western science and art over the last three centuries, and are, therefore, of Western, not Eastern, origin. Moreover, they are apart of scientific and aesthetic changes so broad and fundamental that, despite Passmore’s prediction that they are unlikely to survive into the twenty-first century, they cannot be regarded lightly as a passing fad, and probably have already found a permanent place in Western thought and values.
27. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 1 > Issue: 3
R. V. Young, Jr. A Conservative View of Environmental Affairs
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The contemporary debate over man’s relation to his natural environment raises many complex issues which have thrown our familiar liberal and conservative political alignments into disarray. Although ecology is now generally regarded as a liberal cause with conservatives supporting commercial and industrial expansion, until very recently liberals almost unanimously championed industrialization andtechnological advance. Resistance to “progress” was the folly of only the most eccentric conservatives. Today, both liberal proponents of environmental protection and conservative defenders of business and industry argue on merely prudential grounds: each side maintains that only the adoption of its own program can save human civilization from collapse, or even the race from extinction. Extremely radical environmentalists have based their arguments on nloral principle: humanity is just one species among many, and men are, therefore, morally obligated to respect the rights of other organisms and of the ecosystem as a whole. This position, however, is ultimately reducible to a self-contradictory utilitarianism. It is the reverent attitude of traditional conservatism - that man is superior to other creatures as the steward of creation, holding it not as absolute possessor but only in trust from his Creator - that promises both the most moral and the most sensible approach to environmental affairs.
28. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 1 > Issue: 3
NEWS AND NOTES (1)
29. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 1 > Issue: 3
William Aiken Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity
30. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 1 > Issue: 3
Don E. Marietta, Jr. The Interrelationship of Ecological Science and Environmental Ethics
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Arecent trend among environmentalists (e.g., Aldo Leopold) of basing ethical norms for land use, resource management, and conservation on ecological principies such as homeostasis is examined, and a way to justify such an ethical approach through analysis of moral judgment is explored. Issues such as the is/ought impasse, the connection between value judgments and reasons for acting, and the question of whether moral judgments are definitive and categorical are treated as they relate to an ecological ethic, i.e., an environmental ethic grounded in ecological science. I argue that such an ethic is in such regards as sound as more traditional approaches.
31. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 4
A. Dionys de Leeuw Contemplating the Interests of Fish: The Angler’s Challenge
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
I examine the morality of sport fishing by focusing on the respect that anglers show for the interests of fish compared to the respect that hunters show for their game. Angling is a form of hunting because of the strong link between these two activities in literature, in management, and in the individual’s participation in both angling and hunting, and in the similarity of both activities during the process of pursuing an animal in order to control it. Fish are similar in many ways to animals that are hunted, including their interests in survival and in avoiding pain. These interests need to be considered by anglers for moral reasons. All hunters and anglers value their sport with animals more than they respect the lives of animals they pursue. Hunters are, therefore, similar to anglers in the respect that they show for the survival interests of their game animals. Hunters, however, are significantly different from anglers in the respect that they show for an animal’s interest in avoiding pain and suffering. While hunters make every effort to reduce pain and suffering in their game animals, anglers purposefully inflict these conditions on fish. These similarities and differences have three important consequences: (1) The moral argument justifying the killing of animals for sport in hunting must apply to all of angling as well. (2) Angling, unlike hunting, requires a second justification for the intentional infliction of avoidable pain and suffering in fish. (3) If ethical hunters hold true to their principle of avoiding all suffering in the animals that they pursue, then hunters must reject all sports fishing.
32. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 4
Frederik Kaufman Callicott on Native American Attitudes
33. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 4
Francisco Benzoni Rolston’s Theological Ethic
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The centerpiece of Holmes Rolston, III’s environmental ethic is his objective value theory. It is ultimately grounded not in the Cartesian duality between subject and object, but in the divine. It is not his value theory, but rather his anthropology that is the weak link in an ethic in which he attempts to weave together the natural, human, and divine spheres. With a richer, more fully developed theological anthropology, Rolston could more deeply penetrate and critique those aspects of the present ways of being-in-the-world that are environmentally destructive.
34. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 4
J. Baird Callicott American Indian Land Ethics
35. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 4
REFEREES 1996
36. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Bryan G. Norton Convergence and Contextualism: Some Clarifications and a Reply to Steverson
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The convergence hypothesis asserts that, if one takes the full range of human values—present and future—into account, one will choose a set of policies that can also be accepted by an advocate of a consistent and reasonable nonanthropocentrism. Brian Steverson has attacked this hypothesis from a surprising direction. He attributes to deep ecologists the position that nonhuman nature has intrinsic value, interprets this position to mean that no species could ever be allowed to go extinct, and proceeds to show that my commitment to contextualism prohibits me from advocating the protection of species universally. In response, I show, by reference to recent scientific findings, how difficult it is to defend species preservation in all situations. In particular, I argue that Steverson’s appeal to a possible world in which we have nearly complete biological knowledge misses the point of the convergence hypothesis. It is an empirical hypothesis, with significant indirect, and some direct, evidence to support it. Although it is a falsifiable hypothesis about realworld policies, it cannot be falsified by a contrary-to-fact case.
37. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Greta Gaard Orcid-ID Ecofeminism and Wilderness
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
I argue that ecofeminism must be concerned with the preservation and expansion of wilderness on the grounds that wilderness is an Other to the Self of Western culture and the master identity and that ecofeminism is concerned with the liberation of all subordinated Others. I suggest replacing the master identity with an ecofeminist ecological self, an identity defined through interdependence with Others, and I argue for the necessity of restoring and valuing human relationships with the Other of wilderness as integral to the construction and maintenance of an ecofeminist ecological self. I conclude that ecofeminists must be concerned with the redefinition, preservation, and expansion of wilderness.
38. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Harold Glasser On Warwick Fox’s Assessment of Deep Ecology
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
I examine Fox’s tripartite characterization of deep ecology. His assessment abandons Naess’s emphasis upon the pluralism of ultimate norms by distilling what I refer to as the deep ecology approach to “Self-realization!” Contrary to Fox, I argue that his popular sense is distinctive and his formal sense is tenable. Fox’s philosophical sense, while distinctive, is neither necessary nor sufficient to adequately characterize the deep ecology approach. I contend that the deep ecology approach, as a formal approach to environmental philosophy, is not dependent upon and embodies much more than any single ultimate norm. I discuss how Naess’s deep ecology approach supports a wide diversity of ultimate norms. The only stipulation placed upon ultimate norms, to make them deep ecological ultimate norms, is that the so called deep ecology platform be derivable from them. The deep ecology approach is distinguished, in part, through its focus on diminishing environmentally degrading practices and policies by addressing root causes and by highlighting pseudo-conflicts. I present an interpretation of the deep ecology approach that hightlights Naess’s emphasis upon assisting individuals to arrive at thoroughly reasoned, consistent, and ecologically sound concrete decisions by supporting them in the articulation of their own personal ecological total views (ecosophies).
39. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Rick O’Neil Intrinsic Value, Moral Standing, and Species
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Environmental philosophers often conflate the concepts of intrinsic value and moral standing. As a result, individualists needlessly deny intrinsic value to species, while holists falsely attribute moral standing to species. Conceived either as classes or as historical individuals, at least some species possess intrinsic value. Nevertheless, even if a species has interests or a good of its own, it cannot have moral standing because species lack sentience. Although there is a basis for duties toward some species (in terms of their intrinsic value), it is not the one that the holists claim.
40. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 19 > Issue: 1
Environmental Ethics and the Earth Charter