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news and notes
1. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 26 > Issue: 4
NEWS AND NOTES
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features
2. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 26 > Issue: 4
Alan Carter Saving Nature and Feeding People
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Holmes Rolston, III has argued that there are times when we should save nature rather than feed people. In arguing thus, Rolston appears tacitly to share a number of assumptions with Garrett Hardin regarding the causes of human overpopulation. Those assumptions are most likely erroneous. Rather than our facing the choice between saving nature or feeding people, we will not save nature unless we feed people.
3. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 26 > Issue: 4
Kevin de Laplante Environmental Alchemy: How to Turn Ecological Science into Ecological Philosophy
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Ecological science has been viewed by some philosophers as a foundational resource for the development of metaphysical, epistemological and normative views concerning humanity’s relationship with the natural environment, or what might be called an “ecological philosophy.” Analysis of three attempts to infer philosophical conclusions from ecological science shows that (1) there are serious obstacles facing any attempt to derive unique philosophical consequences from ecological science and (2) the project of developing an ecological philosophy relevant to human-environment relations is seriously hindered by a reliance on traditional ecological science that focuses on relations between nonhuman organisms and their environments. However, the search for an ecological philosophy is not inherently misguided because (1) although ecological science may never support a unique philosophical interpretation of ecological theory, empirical evidence can function to narrow the range of possible interpretations, which is a significant epistemic achievement; and because (2) there are several non-traditional branches of ecological science that focus on human-environment relations and that consequently may be better suited to function as conceptual resources for the sorts of problems that concern environmental philosophers.
discussion papers
4. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 26 > Issue: 4
Stephen J. Duffin The Environmental Views of John Locke and the Maori People of New Zealand
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In recent years, the trend in environmental ethics has been to criticize the traditional Western anthropocentric attitude toward nature. Many environmentalists have looked toward some of the views held by indigenous peoples in various parts of the world and argue that important ecological lessons can be learned by studying their beliefs and attitudes toward nature. The traditional Western viewpoint has been labeled as a form of shallow environmentalism, allowing few rights for anything other than human life. In contrast, indigenous peoples are seen as respecting all things. Thus, the claim is made that the latter’secological views are deeper than those of Western views. John Locke is often placed at the center of this tradition that is associated with indifference to the environment. Yet, a comparison of the fundamental beliefs that drive the environmental ethics of the Maori people with those of John Locke reveals surprising similaries. It may well be the case that any adoption by the West of another culture’s view would be too difficult given that there are so many foundational beliefs that are alien to the West, but which are nevertheless required to drive such an ethic. Nevertheless, if we can find similarities between various views, such as those of the Maori and Locke, we may have a greater appreciation of one another’s beliefs and hence less reluctance to adopt them if they will benefit the environment. Our efforts could then perhaps be directed toward putting environmental ethics into practice rather than fighting over which doctrine is the correct one.
5. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 26 > Issue: 4
Aaron Lercher Is Anyone to Blame for Pollution?
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By making use of a distinction between “making something happen” and “allowing it to happen,” a polluting act can be defined as making something happen with widely scattered externalized costs. Not all polluting acts are blameworthy, but we can investigate which polluting acts are sufficiently badly performed as to be blameworthy. This definition of polluting act permits us to justify the belief we often have that behavior concerning pollution may be blameworthy, even when we do not know whether the behavior caused harm.
6. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 26 > Issue: 4
Paul M. Wood Intergenerational Justice and Curtailments on the Discretionary Powers of Governments
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Governments of all nations presume they possess full discretionary policymaking powers over the lands and waters within their geopolitical boundaries. At least one global environmental issue—the rapid loss of the world’s biodiversity, the sixth major mass extinction event in geological time—challenges the legitimacy of this presumption. Increment by increment, the present generation is depleting the world’s biodiversity by way of altering species’ habitats for the sake of short term economic gain. When biodiversity is understood as an essential environmental condition—essential in the long term because it is the source of the biological resources upon which humans depend—then the strongly differential distribution of benefits and burdens between generations raises an issue of intergenerational justice. We receive the short-term benefits of economic development; future generations will receive the resulting burden of a biosphere in which one of the life-support systems necessary for humanity will have been compromised. Using Ronald Dworkin’s conceptions of distributive justice, it can be demonstrated that constitutional constraints on the discretionary powers of governments, for the sake of intergenerational justice, are entirely consistent with central tenets of liberal democracy. As a result, we should abandon to some extent the presumption that governments have full jurisdiction over the lands and waters within their boundaries.
book reviews
7. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 26 > Issue: 4
Ernest Partridge Justice, Posterity, and the Environment
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8. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 26 > Issue: 4
Shari Collins-Chobanian Democracy and the Claims of Nature
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9. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 26 > Issue: 4
Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands “Earthwork: Women and Environments,” Special Issue of Women’s Studies Quarterly
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comment
10. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 26 > Issue: 4
A. Dionys de Leeuw Angling and Sadism: A Response to Olson
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referees
11. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 26 > Issue: 4
REFEREES 2004
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index
12. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 26 > Issue: 4
INDEX FOR 2004
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