Already a subscriber? - Login here
Not yet a subscriber? - Subscribe here

Browse by:



Displaying: 1-11 of 11 documents


news and notes
1. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
NEWS AND NOTES
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
features
2. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
Ned Hettinger Valuing Predation in Rolston’s Environmental Ethics: Bambi Lovers versus Tree Huggers
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Without modification, Rolston’s environmental ethics is biased in favor of plants, since he gives them stronger protection than animals. Rolston can avoid this bias by extending his principle protecting plants (the principle of the nonloss of goods) to human interactions with animals. Were he to do so, however, he would risk undermining his acceptance of meat eating and certain types of hunting. I argue,nevertheless, that meat eating and hunting, properly conceived, are compatible with this extended ethics. As the quintessential natural process, carnivorous predation is rightfully valued and respected by such environmentalists as Rolston. Because the condemnation of human participation in predation by animal activists suggests a hatred of nature, the challenge for Rolston’s animal activist critics is to show that one can properly appreciate natural predation while consistently and plausibly objecting to human participation in it.
3. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
Alastair S. Gunn Environmental Ethics and Tropical Rain Forests: Should Greens Have Standing?
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Almost everyone in the developed world wants the logging of tropical rain forests to stop. Like Antarctica, they are said to be much too important and much too valuable to be utilized just for development and are said to be part of a global heritage. However, it is not that simple. People in the developing world consider our criticisms to be ill-informed, patronizing, and self-serving. We are seen as having “dirty hands.” They hold that we neither have nor deserve moral standing as critics until we change our trade policies, rhetoric, and extravagant lifestyles.
discussion papers
4. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
John M. Gowdy Progress and Environmental Sustainability
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
One of the most pervasive ideas in Western culture is the notion of progress. Among economists, it is synonymous with economic growth. According to advocates of unlimited growth, more growth will result in a cleaner environment, a stable population level, and social and economic equality. Although most environmentalists do not subscribe to the growth ethic, they generally cling to a notion of progress by arguing that there has been continual enlightenment in public attitudes toward the environment and that this enlightenment can lead to environmental salvation. I argue that there is no convincingargument for past human progress and no reason to believe that it will occur in the future. Once we abandon notions of progress, we free ourselves to concentrate on making do with what we have rather than placing our hopes on some future material or ethical utopia.
news and notes
5. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
NEWS AND NOTES
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
discussion papers
6. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
Frederik Kaufman Machines, Sentience, and the Scope of Morality
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Environmental philosophers are often concerned to show that non-sentient things, such as plants or ecosystems, have interests and therefore are appropriate objects of moral concern. They deny that mentality is a necessary condition for having interests. Yet they also deny that they are committed to recognizing interests in things like machines. I argue that either machines have interests (and hence moral standing) too or mentality is a necessary condition for inclusion within the purview of morality. I go on to argue that the aspect of mentality necessary for having interests is more complicated than mere sentience.
7. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
Brian K. Steverson Ecocentrism and Ecological Modeling
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Typical of ecocentric approaches such as the land ethic and the deep ecology movement is the use of concepts from ecological science to create an “ecoholistic” ontological foundation from which a strong environmental ethic is generated. Crucial to ecocentric theories is the assumption that ecological science has shown that humanity and nonhuman nature are essentially integrated into communal or communal-like arrangements. In this essay, I challenge the adequacy of that claim. I argue that for the most part the claim is false, and that, if it were true, it would overextend the sphere of morally considerable entities to include entities that are implausibly deserving of moral consideration. In either case, the foundation of ecocentrism is significantly weakened.
8. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
David Strong Disclosive Discourse, Ecology, and Technology
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Currently, much hope for the protection of nature is pinned on the science of ecology. Without suggesting that we should pay less serious attention to science, I argue for a more pluralistic approach to the environmental and technological problems facing our time. I maintain that when ecology changes attitudes and ways of life, it does so by importing a language of engagement with nature rather than by remaining confined to a strictly scientific account. This language of engagement, which shows how nature and natural things can be engaged by humans in a multiplicity of ways, I call disclosive discourse. Disclosive discourse, however, is not used exclusively by ecologists and other scientists. To the contrary, the great literary writers exemplify in their writings the ways this discourse can present nature and natural things in their most profound and powerful appeal. Moreover, disclosive discourse is not limited to words: artworks, too, are disclosive. By characterizing the deeper problem with which we are faced differently, as fundamentally technological rather than environmental, a more diversified plurality of alternatives to technology, not limited to those having to do with primarily nature, can be brought into relief and encouraged.
book reviews
9. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
John B. Cobb, Jr. Six Billion & More: Human Population and Christian Ethics
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
10. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
Jesse Seaton Tatum Research in Philosophy & Technology: Technology and the Environment
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
11. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 16 > Issue: 1
Joseph W. Meeker The Voice of the Earth
view |  rights & permissions | cited by