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news and notes
1. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
NEWS AND NOTES
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features
2. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
Christopher J. Preston Conversing with Nature in a Postmodern Epistemological Framework
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In a recent contribution to this journal, Jim Cheney argues for a postmodern epistemological framework that supports a conception of inquiry as a kind of “conversation” with nature. I examine how Cheney arrives at this metaphor and consider why it might be an appealing one for environmental philosophers. I note how, in the absence of an animistic account of nature, this metaphor turns out to be problematic. A closer examination of the postmodern insights that Cheney employs reveals that it is possible to stress the agency of nature in epistemology without having to draw on the metaphor of conversation. I conclude that this alternative account is not only more plausible, but can probably do the same ethical work as the problematic metaphor of inquiry as conversation.
3. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
Janna Thompson Environment as Heritage
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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.
discussion papers
4. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
Frank Schalow Who Speaks for the Animals?: Heidegger and the Question of Animal Welfare
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I address the ethical treatment of animals from a Heideggerian perspective. My argument proceeds in two stages. First, it is necessary to develop a nonanthropocentric concept of freedom which extends beyond the sphere of human interests. Second, it is essential to show that our capacity to speak must serve the diverse ends of “dwelling,” and hence can be properly exercised only by balancing the interests of animals with those of our own. Rather than point to naturalistic similarities between humans and animals (e.g., the capacity to feel pain), or even ontological ones (e.g., the shared dimension of “care” [Sorge]), the better strategy lies in expanding the scope of moral agency in a way which allows the differences between humans and animals to suggest guidelines as to why the former should exhibit benevolence toward the latter. In this way, I show that the basic percepts of Heidegger’s philosophy support an ethic which can attend to, and speak in behalf of, the welfare of animals.
5. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
Lee Hester, Dennis McPherson, Annie Booth Indigenous Worlds and Callicott’s Land Ethic
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We assess J. Baird Callicott’s attempt in Earth’s Insights to reconcile his land ethic with the “environmental ethics” of indigenous peoples. We critique the rejection of ethical pluralism that informs this attempted rapprochement. We also assess Callicott’s strategy of grounding his land ethic in a postmodern scientific world view by contrasting it with the roles of “respect” and narrative in indigenous “ethics.”
6. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
J. Baird Callicott The Indigenous World or Many Indigenous Worlds?
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Earth’s Insights is about more than indigenous North American environmental attitudes and values. The conclusions of Hester, McPherson, Booth, and Cheney about universal indigenous environmental attitudes and values, although pronounced with papal infallibility, are based on no evidence. The unstated authority of their pronouncements seems to be the indigenous identity of two of the authors. Two other self-identified indigenous authors, V. F. Cordova and Sandy Marie Anglás Grande, argue explicitly that indigenous identity is sufficient authority for declaring what pre-Columbian indigenous environmental attitudes and values were. Exclusive knowledge claims based on essentialist racial-cultural identity, though politically motivated, are politically risky. They may inadvertently legitimate more noxious and dangerous racial-cultural identity politics and exclusion of those who identify themselves (or are identified by others) in oppositional racialcultural terms from full and equal participation in the political and economic arenas of the prevailing culture. Biologically, racial differences are entirely superficial; Homo sapiens is a single, homogeneous species. Contrary to Hester et al., ethnic conflict was common among pre-Columbian indigenous North American peoples. Other indigenous authors, among them McPherson, have found my comparison of pre-Columbian indigenous North American attitudes and values with the Aldo Leopold land ethic to be illuminating. I wish I had not said that pre-Columbian indigenous North American attitudes and values are “validated” by ecology, but rather that they and ecology are “mutually validating.”
book reviews
7. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
Peter S. Wenz Justice for Here and Now
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8. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
Steven Vogel Natural Causes
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9. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
Shari Collins-Chobanian Environmental Injustices, Political Struggles
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10. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
Mark Lacy Capitalism, Democracy and Ecology: Departing from Marx
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11. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
John Opie Explorations in Environmental History
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12. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
Richard A. Watson The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia
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13. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
Bart Gruzalski Ethics of Consumption
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comment
14. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
James P. Sterba Reviewing a Reviewer: A Response to Peter Wenz
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15. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 22 > Issue: 3
Arne Naess Avalanches as Social Constructions
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