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features
1. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 3
Andrew Light, Eric S. Higgs The Politics of Ecological Restoration
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Discussion of ecological restoration in environmental ethics has tended to center on issues about the nature and character of the values that may or may not be produced by restored landscapes. In this paper we shift the philosophical discussion to another set of issues: the social and political context in which restorations are performed. We offer first an evaluation of the political issues in the practice of restoration in general and second an assessment of the political context into which restoration is moving. The former focuses on the inherent participatory capacity at the heart of restoration; the latter is concerned with the commodified (primarily in the United States) and nationalized (primarily in Canada) uses to which restoration is being put. By comparing these two areas of inquiry we provide a foundation for a critical assessment of the politics of restoration based on the politics in restoration.
2. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 3
Angus Taylor Animal Rights and Human Needs
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The idea that animal rights can be married to environmental ethics is still a minority opinion. The land ethic of Aldo Leopold, as interpreted by J. Baird Callicott, remains fundamentally at odds with the ascription of substantial rights to (nonhuman) animals. Similarly, Laura Westra’s notion of “respectful hostility,” which attempts to reconcile a holistic environmental ethic with “respect” for animals, has no place for animal rights.In this paper, I argue that only by ascribing rights to sentient animals can an environmental ethic avoid an unacceptable degree of anthropocentrism because only a rights-based environmental ethic can prohibit humans from significantly interfering with sentient animals when human vital needs are not at stake. A rights view that permits significant interference when it is required for the satisfaction of human vital needs avoids problems that otherwise plague a rights view. The “vital-needs rights view” reconciles the rights of animals with the satisfaction of human vital needs—including the vital need to have a flourishing natural environment—suggesting a possible alliance between animal rights and deep ecology and revealing the connections among vital needs, capitalism, and environmental degradation.
3. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 3
Michael Lockwood End Value, Evaluation, and Natural Systems
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I develop a general framework for natural and human values based on the position that end value is constructed by persons, but not wholly referent to them, identify and analyze three hierarchically related levels of end value in relation to the functional values which support them and the held and ascribed values generated by entities possessing teleological value, use this framework to indicate the context in which economic values should be located, and assess the implications of the framework for environmental policy and future valuation work.
discussion papers
4. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 3
J. Mark Morgan Resources, Recreationists, and Revenues: A Policy Dilemma for Today’s State Park Systems
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Many state park systems across the U.S. are facing a controversial policy issue over the three R’s: resources, recreationists, and revenues. It is becoming increasingly difficult for state parks to protect the resources and allow for public enjoyment, mainly because of political demands for increased revenue. As a result, many state park systems have built elaborate facilities for visitors. Are these park improvement projects motivated by a sincere desire to satisfy diverse user groups or simply another way of generating revenue for state governments? What are the “hidden” costs of park development? I discuss the policy implications for state park management, along with some philosophical issues concerning the utilization of publicly owned natural resources.
5. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 3
Carmen Velayos Castelo Reflections on Stoic Logocentrism
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William O. Stephens is to be applauded for the way in which he presents and analyzes some paradigmatic Stoic arguments, and thus defends Stoicism from the misplaced charges of Jim Cheney. Nonetheless, Stephens’ individualist interpretation of what he calls Stoic “logocentrism” obscures key features of the Stoics’ theory of value and their related ethic and metaphysic. Once the Stoics are allowedto speak for themselves, it emerges that they adhered to a holistic axiology, that for them virtue lay in conformity with cosmic nature, and that the standard charges of anthropocentrism and blindness to natural beauty, often wielded by environmental philosophers against them, are misguided.
6. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 3
Keekok Lee The Source and Locus of Intrinsic Value: A Reexamination
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In the literature of environmental philosophy, the single most potent argument that has been made against the claim that nature may possess intrinsic value in any objective sense is the Humean thesis of projectivism and its associated view that human consciousness is the source of all values. Theorists, in one way or another, have to face up to this challenge. For instance, J. Baird Callicott upholds this Humean foundation to modern Western philosophy. However, by distinguishing between the source and locus of value, he makes it possible to argue that nature is the locus of intrinsic value without at the same time compromising the thesis that human consciousness is the source of all values. On the other hand, Holmses Rolston, III, another eminent environmental philosopher, criticizes the distinction as well as challenges the Humean foundation itself. In this article, I attempt to resolve the disagreement between Callicott and Rolston over this particular distinction, thereby doing justice to the insights which each theorist, undoubtedly, has brought to bear on the issue of intrinsic value, at least as far as individual organisms is concerned. However, I am also critical of both for having failed to draw out the full implications behind certain crucial distinctions that should be made about the notion of intrinsic value itself.
7. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 3
J. Donald Hughes Francis of Assisi and the Diversity of Creation
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Francis’ view of nature has been seen as positive in an ecological sense even by those who are for the most part critical of Christianity’s attitude to nature, such as Lynn White, Jr. I argue that one element of Francis’ uniqueness was that he saw the diversity of life as an expression of God’s creativity and benevolence and attempted to carry out that vision in ethical behavior. Much of what has been written about him has precedents in traditional hagiography, but there remains an unmistakable impression of originality. It has been noted that Francis insisted on the goodness of creation, used terms of family relationship to refer to creatures other than human, and preached to them. However, another element has escaped notice: his emphasis on the presence of God in the diversity of created entities and his desire that humans should rejoice in this diversity and glorify God for it and with it. His devotion did not immediately dissolve multiplicity into oneness, but glorified God in each created being and delighted in their individuality. He advocated that praise be expressed by acting in ways consistent with respect for created diversity, not only by observing a strict rule of abstaining from harm to living beings, but also in positive treatment of all creatures. Nature took its meaning not from its serviceability to mankind, but from its expression of the multiple forms of God’s benevolent presence.
book reviews
8. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 3
J. Baird Callicott A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds
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9. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 3
O. Gene Myers The Biophilia Hypothesis
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10. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 3
Anthony Weston The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World
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11. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 3
Janis Birkland Beyond Economic Man: A Commentary
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