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news and notes
1. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
NEWS AND NOTES
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features
2. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
Jason Kawall Reverence for Life as a Viable Environmental Virtue
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There have been several recent defenses of biocentric individualism, the position that all living beings have at least some moral standing, simply insofar as they are alive. I develop a virtue-based version of biocentric individualism, focusing on a virtue of reverence for life. In so doing, I attempt to show that such a virtuebased approach allows us to avoid common objections to biocentric individualism, based on its supposed impracticability (or, on the other hand, its emptiness).
3. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
Bill Hook Intrinsic Value: Under the Scrutiny of Information and Evolutionary Theory
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We do not yet have a sound ontology for intrinsic value. Albert Borgmann’s work on information technology and Daniel Dennett’s thoughts on evolutionary theory can provide the basis for an account of intrinsic value in terms of what it is, how it comes into existence, where it is found, and whether it can be quantified or compared. Borgmann’s information and realization relations are cornerstones forunderstanding value. According to Borgmann, things are valuable when they are meaningful and things become meaningful as information and realizations. It is in these relations that intrinsic and extrinsic values find their common roots. Dennett’s musing on the relationship between DNA instructions, DNA readers, and phenotypes invites a commingling of information technology and evolutionary theory. His notion of design space provides a basis for the claim the biotic community has on intrinsic and extrinsic values.
discussion papers
4. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
Matthew Gowans, Philip Cafaro A Latter-Day Saint Environmental Ethic
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The doctrines and teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints support and even demand a strong environmental ethic. Such an ethic is grounded in the inherent value of all souls and in God’s commandment of stewardship. Latter-day Saint doctrine declares that all living organisms have souls and explicitly states that the ability of creatures to know some degree of satisfaction and happiness should be honored. God’s own concern for the well-being and progress of all life, and His sacrifice through Jesus Christ, illustrate the generous way that He expects His children to exercise their brief stewardship of this world. In addition, the important role nature has played in the religious lives of Latter-day Saint members, from the Prophet Joseph Smith to the present day, argues strongly for wilderness preservation as a spiritual resource for future generations.
5. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
Alexander Gillespie Legitimating a Whale Ethic
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Ethical discussions have entered into the discourse of the International Whaling Commission. In accordance with the existing approach in international environmental law, countries can legitimately choose not to exploit a resource in the traditional sense. Recognition of this possibility is important because it is commonly suggested that countries must adopt a lethal approach to so-called “sustainable whaling” as there are no other legitimate alternatives. However, the precedent of Antarctica suggests otherwise in international environmental law. Moreover, when the possibilities of the nonlethal utilization of whales via operations such as whale watching are examined, the legitimacy of the nonlethal choices is even stronger.
book reviews
6. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
Anthony Weston Bringing the Biosphere Home
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7. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
Gary Varner Life’s Intrinsic Value
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8. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
Seamus Carey An Ethics of Place: Radical Ecology, Postmodernity, and Social Theory
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9. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
Cara Nine Main Currents in Western Environmental Thought
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10. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
Robert Kirkman The Skeptical Environmentalist
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11. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
Melissa Clarke Land, Value, Community: Callicott and Environmental Philosophy
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index
12. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
INDEX FOR 2003
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referees
13. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
REFEREES 2003
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index
14. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 4
TWENTY-FIVE-YEAR INDEX (1979–2003)
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news and notes
15. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 3
NEWS AND NOTES
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features
16. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 3
Sanford S. Levy The Biophilia Hypothesis and Anthropocentric Environmentalism
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Much anthropocentric environmental argument is limited by a narrow conception of how humans can benefit from nature. E. O. Wilson defends a more robust anthropocentric environmentalism based on a broader understanding of these benefits. At the center of his argument is the biophilia hypothesis according to which humans have an evolutionarily crafted, aesthetic and spiritual affinity for nature. However,the “biophilia hypothesis” covers a variety of claims, some modest and some more extreme. Insofar as we have significant evidence for biophilia, it favors modest versions which do not support a particularly robust anthropocentric environmental ethic. A significantly more robust environmental ethic requires the most extreme version of the biophilia hypothesis, for which there is the least evidence.
17. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 3
Karyn Lai Conceptual Foundations for Environmental Ethics: A Daoist Perspective
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The concepts dao and de in the Daodejing may be evoked to support a distinctive and plausible account of environmental holism. Dao refers to the totality of particulars, including the relations that hold between them, and the respective roles and functions of each within the whole. De refers to the distinctiveness of each particular, realized meaningfully only within the context of its interdependence with others, and its situatedness within the whole. Together, dao and de provide support for an ethical holism that avoids sacrificing individuals for the sake of the whole. The integrity and stability of the whole are important not because the whole is an end-in-itself but because those conditions assist in preserving the well-being of the constituent parts. In other words, the ethical holism supported in the Daodejing does not present individuals and wholes in mutually exclusive terms, but sees them in symbiotic relation, allowing for events to be mutually beneficial, or mutually obstructive, to both. In addition, two other Daoist concepts, wuwei (non-action) and ziran (spontaneity), provide further support for this construction of holism. If the distinctiveness of particular individuals is valued, then unilateral or reductive norms which obliterate such individuality are inappropriate. In this regard, the methodology of wuwei allows for the idea of individuals developing spontaneously in relation to others. According to this view of holism,individuals manifest and realize their integrity in relation to others in the environmental context, achieving an outcome that is maximally co-possible within those limits, rather than one that is maximally beneficial only for particular individuals.
discussion papers
18. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 3
Len Olson Contemplating the Intentions of Anglers: The Ethicist’s Challenge
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There are theoretical difficulties involving the intentions of anglers that must be faced by anyone who wants to argue that sport fishing is ethically impermissible. Recent arguments have focused on what might be called the sadistic argument. This argument is fatally flawed because sport fishing is not a sadistic activity.
19. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 3
Ronald Sandler The External Goods Approach to Environmental Virtue Ethics
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If virtue ethics are to provide a legitimate alternative for reasoning about environmental issues, they must meet the same conditions of adequacy as any other environmental ethic. One such condition that most environmental ethicists insist upon is that an adequate environmental ethic provides a theoretical platform for consistent and justified critique of environmentally unsustainable practices and policies. The external goods approach seeks to establish that any genuinely virtuous agent will be disposed to promote ecosystem sustainability on the grounds that ecosystem sustainability is a necessary external good for cultivating the virtues and/or human flourishing. At most the external goods approach is able to provide an environmental ethic that in most contexts will require that any genuinely virtuous agent will have the goal of promoting a weak environmental sustainability. A better approach may be the substantive approach, which incorporates environmental concern and practice into the substance of the virtues, rather than as a boundary condition for any prospective virtue.
20. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 25 > Issue: 3
Dan Nees, Valerie E. Green, Kim Treadway Activism, Objectivism, and Environmental Politics
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Environmental activism, like all great activisms, is fundamentally normative, its principal beliefs contestable, its most powerful arguments rebuttable on the grounds that they are subjective. Environmental activists, as political tacticians with complex goals, have become skilled at presenting objectified versions of their own motivations when trying to broaden support for specific policies or take advantage of regulatory or legal opportunities. While instrumentally tempting and often expedient, this practice of objectifying moral arguments is in some respects disingenuous, and its successes as well as its failures bring with them characteristic risks, short-term and long-term.