Biocentric individualism, the position that all life has intrinsic value, is of no practical help in policy-making contexts. Examples commonly used in discussions of biocentric individualism are themselves alienating and threaten to make environmental philosophy appear irrelevant to policy decisions. Hence, both biocentric individualism and typical discussions of it are problematic for those wishing to make environmental philosophy useful in policy. A recent article by Jason Kawall, in which he attempts to defend biocentric individualism, demonstrates these points.

The politics of food illustrates an enduring tension within environmental ethics and green political theory: the oft-assumed division between those thinkers for whom humanitarian goals remain prominent but who situate them within a normative framework stressing environmental sustainability and those thinkers who reject any distinctively humanitarian interests as untenably anthropocentric. In posing the problem as a moral dilemma between feeding people and saving nature, light and dark green value theories are made to appear in stark contrast, with the former prescribing the delivery of food aid to relieve hunger-related suffering, and the latter rejecting that call. This supposed dilemma between feeding people and saving nature is a false one. The real problem is a moral elitism on the part of developed countries where an insidious form of selfishness overemphasizes the role of population and obscures the roles of highly variable rates of consumption upon current environmental ills. An examination of theexemplary case of food politics shows that the exaggerated differences in policy implications of these two value theories can be diminished and that there is potential for common cause.

As mechanical devices become lighter, sleeker, and cheaper, the issue of technology in wilderness becomes an increasingly more important ethical concern because many high-tech luxuries or devices stand to separate the backcountry traveler from the very goals he or she hopes to actualize by recreating in wilderness. As recreationists, we need to determine which items are essential and which aredistracting, separating important “equipment” from needless “devices,” and exercising the self-control to carry only what we need. This process can be called “responsible simplicity.” It is in the backcountry traveler’s best interest to exercise responsible simplicity, to choose only the devices necessary to actualize the telos, or goal, of one’s wilderness experience. A critique of the appropriateness of technology in the backcountry should entail examining devices in their context and also by their relationship to other technologies brought into the backcountry. From a virtue ethics standpoint, responsible simplicity can promote the integrity of wilderness recreation by providing oversight with regard to what goods are internal to the practice. It can also allow room for “wilderness” in our everyday lives in association with David Strong’s notion of “counterbalancing” and Albert Borgmann’s notions of “eloquent reality” and “focal practices.”

Any mediation of the humanity-nature divide driven by environmental concern must satisfactorily account for ecologically destructive human behavior. Holmes Rolston, III argues that human cultures should “follow nature” when interacting with nature. Yet he understands culture to necessarily degrade ecosystems, and allows that purely cultural values could legitimate the destruction of nature itself. Edward O. Wilson, meanwhile, argues that culture’s evolutionary function is to fit humanity to its niche; culture necessarily follows “epigenetic rules” naturally selected for this purpose. However, because humanity cannot but follow these rules, any human behavior—even (post)modern societies’ ecologically catastrophic behavior—is entirely natural. Therefore, Rolston’s reconciliation is too weak and Wilson’s too strong. Yet the two can be mutually modifying. Rolston’s “pure” culture should follow the natural value of human nature; yet, humans must be free to disobey (at their peril) Wilson’s epigenetic rules. Humanity thus becomesreconciled to nature by freely following its own nature, which is violated when the wider natural world is treated unnaturally.

The humanity-nature divide is a modern Western construction based on the notion that matter (nature) is dead, while consciousness (humanity) is alive, rational, and positioned to use matter (nature) to achieve its ends. In contrast, in the world views of the indigenous Maμori of New Zealand and Aborigines of Australia, nature is not separate from humanity and all is infused with consciousness. The ecofeminist and Goddess movements which emerged in the last decades of the twentieth-century, share with many indigenous religions the perception that all of nature is alive and that human beings must respect other beings within the web of life. Yet these are postmodern rather than premodern movements with an explicit critique of the assumptions of modernity. Process philosophy, especially when understood through the “feminist process paradigm” proposed here, is a postmodern philosophical system that affirms the insights of indigenous peoples, as well as Goddess and ecofeminists, that humanity must situate itself within the web of life. At the same time, process philosophy provides the tools for reconciling “premodern” insights with the findings (but not the assumptions) of modern science. Each of these resources can help us to provide alternatives to the humanity-nature divide.

The influential account of contractualist moral theory offered recently by T. M. Scanlon in What We Owe to Each Other is not intended to account for all the various moral commitments that people have; it covers only a narrow—though important—range of properly moral concerns and claims. Scanlon focuses on what he calls the morality of right and wrong or, as he puts it in his title, what we owe to each other. The question arises as to whether nonhuman animals can be wronged in the narrow sense of a moral wrong with which contractualism is concerned. Can we owe things to nonhuman animals? Scanlon is sensitive to the importance of this question, but he ultimately favors an account in which the perspectives of nonhuman animals are not explicitly included in contractualist theorizing. Nevertheless, it appears that contractualism, largely as Scanlon conceives it, can accommodate duties to nonhuman animals. Moreover, if contractualism cannot make this accommodation, then its status as a theory that answers to important common-sense moral intuitions becomes questionable in ways that extend beyond its failure to live up to intuitions many share about the status of nonhuman animals.

A policy turn in environmental philosophy means a shift from philosophers writing philosophy essays for other philosophers to doing interdisciplinary research and working on projects with public agencies, policy makers, and the private sector. Despite some steps in this direction, a policy turn remains largely unrealized within the community of environmental philosophers. Completing this shift can contribute to better decision making, help discover new areas for philosophic investigation at the intersection of philosophy and policy, and identify new employment prospects for philosophy graduates.

While much of Arne Naess’s ecosophy underscores the importance of understanding one’s ecological Self, his analyses of gestaltism are significant in that they center less on questions of the self than on questions of nature and what is other-than-human. Rather than the realization of a more expansive Self, gestalt ontology calls for a “gestalt shift” in our thinking about nature, one that allows for its intrinsic value to emerge clearly. Taking such a gestalt shift as a central task enables Naess to avoid some common criticisms of his view.

Alfred North Whitehead’s metaphysics provides a means for overcoming the dualism embedded in J. Baird Callicott’s “postmodern” axiology. Indeed, the lessons Callicott draws from the new physics and ecology imply Whitehead’s position. While Callicott holds that subjectivity and valuing require consciousness, Whitehead argues that subjectivity and valuing characterize all metaphysically basic entities, conscious and non-conscious. Removing the constraint that valuing requires consciousness is a slight shift, but it makes all the difference. By jettisoning this constraint, we can develop a robust account of intrinsic value that overcomes Callicott’s duality, while retaining his insights that valuing requires a valuer and fluent energy is more fundamental than discrete entities.

Environmentalists can make individuals more eco-friendly by dispelling many of the myths and misconceptions about the natural world. By learning what in nature is and is not dangerous, and in what contexts the danger is real, individuals can come to aesthetically appreciate seemingly unappreciable nature. Since aesthetic attraction can be an extremely valuable tool for environmentalists, with potentialbeyond that of scientific education, the quest for an eco-friendly is neither unnecessary nor redundant. Rather, an eco-friendly aesthetic ought to be pursued in conjunction with other efforts to protect nature.

Hume’s projectivist theory of value suggests that (environmental) values are either individually or culturally relative and that intrinsic value ascriptions are incoherent. Previous attempts to avert these implications have typically relied on modified Humean accounts that either universalize human sensitivity to the value of the more-than-human world or that adapt the concept of intrinsic value to suit a world in which all values are projected. While there are merits to these approaches, there is another alternative. Hume’s own moral theory promises to be an even richer source for environmental ethical discourse than previously thought, and this richness is owed in large part to the robustness of Hume’s theory of virtue.