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201. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 13 > Issue: 4
Kristin Shrader-Frechette Ethical Dilemmas and Radioactive Waste: A Survey of the Issues
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The accidents at Three Mile Island and Chemobyl have slowed the development of commercial nuclear fission in most industrialized countries , although nuclear proponents are trying to develop smaller, allegedly “fail-safe” reactors. Regardless of whether or not they succeed, we will face the problem of radioactive wastes for the next million years. After a brief, “revisionist” history of the radwaste problem, Isurvey some of the major epistemological and ethical difficulties with storing nuclear wastes and outline four ethical dilemmas common to many technological and environmental controversies. I suggest two solutions to these ethical dilemmas and show why they are also economical and realistic proposals.
202. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 13 > Issue: 4
INDEX
203. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 1
Gary E. Varner Overtapped Oasis: Reform or Revolution for Western Water
204. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 1
NEWS AND NOTES
205. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 1
NEWS AND NOTES
206. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 1
NEWS AND NOTES
207. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 1
Elizabeth M. Harlow The Human Face of Nature: Environmental Values and the Limits of Nonanthropocentrism
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While some form of nonanthropocentrism is a defining feature of environmental ethics, there are at least four senses in which the value of nature might be said to be humanly independent, and these are often conflated. I argue that the strongest of these four (Roiston’s “autonomous intrinsic value”) may require classic ontological commitments which are no longer historically open to uso However, if we take seriously the language dependent view of nature suggested by post-Wittgensteinian epistemology, we find paradoxically that this kind of anthropocentrism can ground a genuine sense in which nature is valuable in its own right, yet as part of human good. In this context, Roiston’s distinction between “autonomous intrinsic value” and “anthropogenic intrinsic value” becomes a distinction without a difference.
208. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 1
Lloyd H. Steffen In Defense of Dominion
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The biblical notion of dominion has often been cited as the source and sanction for Western attitudes of environmental disregard. An analysis of the Genesis passage in which dominion (radah) is mentioned reveals a curious misreading of the text: dominion is actually an ideal of human-divine intimacy and peacefulness-as one ought to expect in a paradise creation story. I analyze Genesis dominion not only as areligious concept, but also as a philosophical notion manifesting the Hebrew self-understanding of its contemporary experience with the natural world. Being a verb, radah is also an action concept that connotes an ethic of environmental responsibility. Dominion authorizes a philosophical critique of Western attitudes and practices of environmental exploitation. I defend it here as an intentional expression of the Western religious consciousness that could, if it were understood as an ideal of responsible action rather than as an authorization for callous disregard of the natural world, actually promote interreligious dialogue on environmental issues.
209. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 1
Douglas E. Booth The Economics and Ethics of Old-Growth Forests
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An intense debate is currently underway in the Pacific Northwest over whether remnant old-growth forests should be preserved or harvested. Old-growth forests can be viewed (1) as objects used instrumentally to serve human welfare or (2) as entities that possess value in themselves and are thus worthy of moral consideration. I compare the instrumental view suggested by economic analysis with the biocentric and ecocentric alternatives and suggest a reconciliation of these approaches in the context of old-growth preservation.
210. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 1
Richard A. Watson Misanthropy, Humanity, and the Eco-Warriors
211. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 1
Holmes Rolston, III South African Environments into the 21st Century
212. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 1
Susan P. Bratton Loving Nature: Eros or Agape?
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Christian ethics are usually based on a theology of love. In the case of Christian relationships to nature, Christian environmental writers have either suggested eros as a primary source for Christian love, without dealing with traditional Christian arguments against eros, or have assumed agape (spiritual love or sacrificial love) is the appropriate mode, without defining how agape should function in human relationships with the nonhuman portion of the universe. I demonstrate that God’s love for nature has the same form and characteristics as God’s love for human beings, and that because agape is self-giving, it is preferable to eros in relationships with the environment. Agape concerning nature (I) is spontaneous and unmotivated, (2) is indifferent to value, (3) creates value, (4) initiates relationships with the divine, (5) recognizes individuality, (6) provides freedom, and (7) produces action and suffering. Agape might best be defined, not as Platonic ascent above the world, but as completely self-giving engagement with the world. Human love for nature is often limited by a human inability to accept love, including divine love, from nature. Flowing from God, agape cannot require reciprocity; yet agape understands what “the other has to give and can offer it complete valuation. Agape is the ideal form of human interaction with nature, because agape does not require equal status or ability, or common goals or needs. Love between humans and members of the land (or sea) community can be sacrificial, and should be distinguished by a loss of self-regard and a willingness to suffer. Further philosophical and theological discussion of the role of reciprocity and sacrifice in love for nature is highly desirable.
213. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 1
Harold Fromm Environmentalism and the Future of Progressive Politics
214. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 2
J. Baird Callicott Rolston on Intrinsic Value: A Deconstruction
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Central to Holmes Rolston’s Environmental Ethics is the theoretical quest of most enviromnental philosophers for a defensible concept of intrinsic value for nonhuman natural entities and nature as a whole. Rolston’s theory is similar to Paul Taylor’s in rooting intrinsic value in conation, but dissimilar in assigning value bonuses to consciousness and self-consciousness and value dividends to organic wholes andelemental nature. I argue that such a theory of intrinsic value flies in the face of the subject/object and fact/value dichotomies of the metaphysical foundations of modem science—a problem Rolston never directly confronts. The modern scientific world view is obsolete. A post-modem scientific world view provides for a range of potential values in nature actualizable upon interaction with consciousness. The bestthat a modem scientific world view can provide are subject-generated—though not necessarily subject-centered—values in nature.
215. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 2
NEWS AND NOTES
216. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 2
NEWS AND NOTES
217. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 2
Robert C. Fuller American Pragmatism Reconsidered: William James’ Ecological Ethic
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In this paper, I argue that pragmatism, at least in its formulation by William James, squarely addresses the metaethical and normative issues at the heart of our present crisis in moral justification. James gives ethics an empirical foundation that permits the natural and social sciences a clear role in defining our obligation to the wider environment. Importantly, James’ pragmatism also addresses the psychological and cultural factors that help elicit our willingness to adopt an ethical posture toward life.
218. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 2
Lawrence E. Johnson Toward the Moral Considerability of Species and Ecosystems
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I develop the thesis that species and ecosystems are living entities with morally significant interests in their own right and defend it against leading objections. Contrary to certain claims, it is possible to individuate such entities sufficiently well. Indeed, there is a sense in which such entities define their own nature. I also consider and reject the argument that species and ecosystems cannot have interests or even traits in their own right because evolution does not proceed on that level. Although evolution proceeds on the level of the genotype, those selected are able to cooperate in entities of various higher orders—including species and ecosystems. Having their own nature and interests, species and ecosystems can meaningfully be said to have moral standing.
219. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 2
J. Douglas Rabb From Triangles to Tripods: Polycentrism in Environmental Ethics
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Callicott’s basic mistake in his much regretted paper ”Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair” is to think of the anthropocentric, zoocentric, and biocentric perspectives as mutually exclusive alternatives. An environmental ethics requires, instead, a polycentric perspective that accommodates and does justice to all three positions in question. I explain the polycentric perspective in terms of an analogy derived from the pioneering work of Canadian philosopher Rupert C. Lodge and distinguish it from both pragmatism and moral pluralism.
220. Environmental Ethics: Volume > 14 > Issue: 2
NEWS AND NOTES