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news and notes
1. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1
NEWS AND NOTES
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features
2. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1
Sara Ebenreck Opening Pandora’s Box: The Role of Imagination in Environmental Ethics
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While the activity of imagination is present in much writing about environmental ethics, little direct attention has been given to clarifying its role. Both its significant presence and provocative theoretical work showing the central role of imagination in ethics suggest a need for discussion of its contributions. Environmental ethicists especially should attend to imagination because of the pervasive influence of metaphorical constructs of nature and because imaginative work is required to even partially envision the perspective of a nonhuman being. Without clear awareness of the limits of contemporary Western metaphoric constructs of nature, environmental ethicists may overlook or even contribute to the cultural extinction of ideas of nature present in the imaginative visions of indigenous cultures. In this article, I briefly review the reasons why the dominant Western philosophical tradition ranks imagination below the power of abstract reasoning, survey contemporary ideas about the role of imagination in ethics, and consider the implications of these ideas for environmental ethics. The work of imaginative empathy in constructing what might be the experience of nonhuman beings, the role of diverse metaphors and symbols in understanding nature, and the process of envisioning the possible future are developed as three central contributions of imagination to environmental ethics. Imaginative work is not peripheral, butcomplementary to the work of reason in shaping an environmental ethic.
3. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1
Rebecca Raglon, Marian Scholtmeijer Shifting Ground: Metanarratives, Epistemology, and the Stories of Nature
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Recent discussions concerned with the problematical human relationship with nature have justifiably focused on the important role that language plays in both defining and limiting knowledge of the natural world. Much concern about language among environmental thinkers has been focused at the semantic level—proposing and analyzing definitions of certain key terms, such as anthropocentric, biocentric, wilderness, ecology, or holistic. Work at the semantic level, however, has had very little effect in challenging the scientific metanarrative of nature which is based on the primacy of objective knowledge. Using examples from three postmodern stories, we suggest that the only real challenge to the way humans presently construct and understand their relationship to nature can be found at the narrative level. In our discussion of these stories, we show that nature ceases to be a passive, designified object of the human eye. The result of these narrative shifts is a conception of nature composed of other subjects and otherrealities rather than a nature rendered meaningless by objectivity.
4. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1
Julia Meaton, David Morrice The Ethics and Politics of Private Automobile Use
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Despite growing awareness of its various problems, private automobile use is still seen as an inviolable individual freedom. We consider the ethical arguments for and against private automobile use with particular reference to John Stuart Mill’s theory of freedom. There is much evidence to show that private automobile use is an other-regarding harmful activity that is, therefore, on Mill’s terms, liable to public control. Although it cannot be an entirely self-regarding activity, we consider private automobile use in this category and argue that even on Mill’s terms it can properly be subjected to extensive control. We also challenge Mill’s theory and argue that private automobile use lacks adequate moral justification. We then consider the policy implications of this ethical argument and review some of the policy options available. We conclude that although an immediate total ban on private automobile use is justifiable, it is inadvisable at this time and that more limited, but effective control should be implemented in preparation for a total ban.
discussion papers
5. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1
Tim Hayward Universal Consideration as a Deontological Principle
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A major problem that skeptical critics have identified with the project of environmental ethics as it is often conceived is that it involves the search for a criterion of moral considerability, and some claim that this search has not only been unsuccessful, but it is in principle mistaken. Birch has recently argued that this whole problem can be avoided through his proposal of universal consideration in a “root sense,” which applies to all beings, with no exceptions marked by any of the criteria proposed by others. I argue that the strengths of this proposal are its openness to new value discoveries and its focus on agents’ practices. Its flaw is its failure to account convincingly for how values are ever formulated or obligations generated. Hence, it does not represent a viable alternative to the approach he rejects. However, rather than return to that approach, I suggest that Birch’s own line of argument could be developed more consistently if, from his starting point of “deontic experience,” one were to develop an explicitly deontological ethic that focuses more decisively on moral consideration as opposed to moral considerability.
news and notes
6. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1
NEWS AND NOTES
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discussion papers
7. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1
Mohammed H. I. Dore The Problem of Valuation in Neoclassical Environmental Economics
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In this paper I argue that the criterion of valuation in neoclassical economics is flawed because it is not an invariant measure of value. It is invariant only when unrealistically restrictive conditions are imposed on the class of admissible utility functions, which in fact makes it a special case. The only sensible alternative is to turn to classical value theory based on real sacrifices or opportunity costs.
8. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1
Douglas J. Buege The Ecologically Noble Savage Revisited
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The stereotype of the “ecologically noble savage” is still prevalent in European-American discourses. I examine the empirical justifications offered for this stereotype, concluding that we lack sound empirical grounds for believing in “ecological nobility.” I argue that the stereotype should be abandoned because it has negative consequences for native peoples. Instead of accepting questionable stereotypes, philosophers and others should focus on the lives of particular peoples in order to understand their philosophies as well as the relationships that they maintain with their homelands.
book reviews
9. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1
Jim Cheney Back to Earth: Tomorrow’s Environmentalism
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10. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1
Greta Gaard Ecofeminism
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11. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1
Ned Hettinger “The Intrinsic Value of Nature,” The Monist
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12. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1
H. Sterling Burnett Going Wild: Hunting, Animal Rights, and the Contested Meaning of Nature
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13. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 18 > Issue: 1
Robert Frodeman Thinking Through Technology: The Path between Engineering and Philosophy
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