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1. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
NEWS AND NOTES
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features
2. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
Mick Smith Cheney and the Myth of Postmodernism
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I draw critical parallels between Jim Cheney’s work and various aspects of modernism, which he ignores or misrepresents. I argue, first, that Cheney’s history of ideas is appallingly crude. He amalgamates all past Western philosophical traditions, irrespective of their disparate backgrounds and complex interrelationships, under the single heading, modern. Then he posits a radical epistemological break between a deluded modernism—characterized as foundationalist, essentialist, colonizing, and totalizing—and a contextual postmodernism. He seems unaware both of the complex genealogy of postmodernism and of those aspects of modern traditions that prefigure his own thesis. Second, Cheney’s account of primitive peoples is both ethnocentric (though positively so) and inaccurate. Third, Cheneyreduces context or place to a concept of bioregionality. In this way, he reinstates a privileged foundationalism which, by his own definitions, makes his philosophy modernist. I develop these criticisms in order to suggest a less restricted contextual approach to environmental values.
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3. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
NEWS AND NOTES
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4. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
Mark Cowell Ecological Restoration and Environmental Ethics
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Restoration ecology has recently emerged as a branch of scientific ecology that challenges many of the traditional tenets of environmentalism. Because the restoration of ecosystems, “applied ecology,” has the potential to advance theoretical understanding to such an extent that scientists can extensively manipulate the environment, it encourages increasingly active human participation within ecosystemsand could inhibit the preservation of areas from human influences. Despite the environmentally dangerous possibilities that this form of science and technology present, restoration offers an attractive alternative for human interaction with the environment. I outline the primary claims that have been made for ecological restoration, examine inconsistencies with restorationists’ philosophical position,and propose a reassessment of the definition of restoration that may aid in the clarification and development of a system of environmental ethics that recognizes human relationships with the environment as potentially symbiotic and positive.
5. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
Mike Michael, Robin Grove-White Talking about Talking about Nature: Nurturing Ecological Consciousness
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The increasing effort, both lay and academic, to encourage a transition from an “I-It” to an “I-Thou” relation to nature is located within a typology of ways of “knowing nature.” This typology provides the context for a particular understanding of human conversation which sees the relation as a cyclical process of “immersion” and “realization” from which a model of the dialectic between “I-It” and “I-Thou” relations to nature can be developed. This model can be used to identify practical measures that can be taken as first steps toward a balance between these relations, both in general and in the context of science-oriented nature conservation organizations such as English Nature in Britain (formerly, the Nature Conservancy Council).
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6. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
NEWS AND NOTES
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discussion papers
7. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
Eric Katz, Lauren Oechsli Moving beyond Anthropocentrism: Environmental Ethics, Development, and the Amazon
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We argue for the rejection of an anthropocentric and instrumental system of normative ethics. Moral arguments for the preservation of the environment cannot be based on the promotion of human interests or goods. The failure of anthropocentric arguments is exemplified by the dilemma of Third World development policy, e.g., the controversy over the preservation of the Amazon rain forest. Considerationsof both utility and justice preclude a solution to the problems of Third World development from the restrictive framework of anthropocentric interests. A moral theory in which nature is considered to be morally considerable in itself can justify environmental policies of preservation, even in the Third World. Thus, a nonanthropocentric framework for environmental ethics should be adopted as the basis for policy decisions.
8. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
Peter S. Wenz Minimal, Moderate, and Extreme Moral Pluralism
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Concentrating on the views of Christopher Stone, who advocates moral pluralism, and J. Baird Callicott, who criticizes Stone’s views, I argue that the debate has been confused by a conflation of three different positions, here called minimal, moderate, and extreme moral pluralism. Minimal pluralism is uncontroversial because all known moral theories are minimally pluralistic. Extreme pluralism is defective in the ways that Callicott alleges and, moreover, is inconsistent with integrity in the moral life. However, moderate pluralism of the sort that I advance in Environmental Justice is distinct from extreme pluralism and free of its defects. It is also consistent with Callicott’s version of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, which is itself moderately pluralistic.
9. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
David Boonin-Vail The Vegetarian Savage: Rousseau’s Critique of Meat Eating
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Contemporary defenders of philosophical vegetarianism are too often unaware of their historical predecessors. In this paper, I contribute to the rectification of this neglect by focusing on the case of Rousseau. In part one, I identify and articulate an argument against meat eating that is implicitly present in Rousseau’s writings, although it is never explicitly developed. In part two, I consider and respond to two objections that might be made to the claim that this argument should be attributed to Rousseau. In part three, I consider how Rousseau’s argument might fit into a general typology of recent discussions of vegetarianism, and argue that the eclectic nature that is revealed in doing so shows that the argument is worthy of further consideration.
book reviews
10. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
Thomas Michael Power For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future
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11. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
Christopher McGrory Klyza Wilderness on the Rocks
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12. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 15 > Issue: 1
Susan Power Bratton Loving Nature: Ecological Integrity and Christian Responsibility
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