Environmental Ethics What Really Matters, What Really Works

by Schmidtz, David; Willott, Elizabeth

• ISBN13: 9780199793518
• ISBN10: 0199793514
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-11-18
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Extensively revised and expanded in this second edition, Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, What Really Works examines morality from an environmental perspective. Featuring seventy-one accessible selections - from classic articles to examples of cutting-edge original research - itaddresses both theory and practice. Asking what really matters, the first section of the book explores the abstract ideas of human value and value in nature. The second section turns to the question of what it would take to solve our real-world environmental problems. Moving beyond the "hype," it presents authoritative essays onapplying environmental ethics to the issues that matter right now. The book is enhanced by chapter introductions ("Questions for Reflection and Discussion") that offer brief summaries and questions for further analysis and class discussion.

Author Biography

David Schmidtz is Kendrick Professor of Philosophy and joint Professor of Economics at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Person, Polis, Planet (2008), Elements of Justice (2006), and Rational Choice and Moral Agency (1995), and coauthor of A Brief History of Liberty (2010).

Elizabeth Willott is a Principal Research Specialist in the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona, where she is a primary investigator on a National Science Foundation grant researching mosquito ecology in Tucson. She is also Curator of Butterfly Magic at Tucson Botanical Gardens, where she oversees the running of the butterfly display and education relative to it.

Table of Contents

*=New to this Edition
Preface
Rules, Principles, and Integrity: A General Introduction
PART I. WHAT REALLY MATTERS? ESSAYS ON VALUE IN NATURE
Chapter 1. Where We Are and How We Got Here: The Roots of Crisis
Questions for Reflection and Discussion: Guilt
Lynn White, Jr., The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis
J. Baird Callicott, Environmental Philosophy Is Environmental Activism: The Most Radical and Effective Kind
* Shepard Krech, III, Pleistocene Extinctions
Howard F. Lyman with Glen Merzer, Mad Cowboy: The Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat
* Michael Pollan, The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity
* Bill McKibben, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
Chapter 2. Respect for Nature
Introduction: The Last Man and the Search for Objective Value
Respect for Animals
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Peter Singer, All Animals Are Equal
Mark Sagoff, Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Bad Marriage, Quick Divorce
Holmes Rolston, III, Values in and Duties to the Natural World
Ian John Whyte, The Elephant Management Dilemma
Respect for Life
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Christopher D. Stone, Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects
Gary Varner, Biocentric Individualism
Equal Respect
Jennifer Zamzow, guest editor
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Paul W. Taylor, The Ethics of Respect for Nature
David Schmidtz, Are All Species Equal?
Chapter 3. Holistic Ethics
Michael Bukoski, guest editor
Questions for Reflection and Discussion: The Land
Aldo Leopold, The Land Ethic
* Arne Naess, The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary
Elliott Sober, Philosophical Problems for Environmentalism
Ramachandra Guha, Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique
Chapter 4. Ecofeminism
Daniel Silvermint, guest editor
Questions for Reflection and Discussion: Three Models of Oppression
Kristen Hessler and Elizabeth Willott, Feminism and Ecofeminism
Karen J. Warren, The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism
* Greta Gaard and Lori Gruen, Ecofeminism: Toward Global Justice and Planetary Health
Gita Sen, Women, Poverty, and Population: Issues for the Concerned Environmentalist
V. Rukmini Rao, Women Farmers of India's Deccan Plateau: Ecofeminists Challenge World Elites
Chapter 5. Environmental Justice
John Thrasher, guest editor
Questions for Reflection and Discussion: Justice to Win
* Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming Democracy
* Vandana Shiva, Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit
David Schmidtz, Natural Enemies: An Anatomy of Environmental Conflict
Chapter 6. How Wild Does Nature Have to Be?
Questions for Reflection and Discussion: An Allegory
* John Muir, Hetch Hetchy Valley
Martin H. Krieger, What's Wrong with Plastic Trees?
* Elizabeth Willott, Restoring Nature, Without Mosquitoes?
* David Pitcher and Jennifer Welchman, Can an Environmental Paradise be Regained? The Hetch Hetchy Valley Question
Chapter 7. Finding Our Place in Nature
Dominating Nature
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
* Val Plumwood, Being Prey
Freya Mathews, Letting the World Grow Old: An Ethos of Countermodernity
* Michelle Nijhuis, Bonfire of the Superweeds
Learning to Belong
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
* Ronald Sandler, Environmental Virtue Ethics
Thomas E. Hill Jr., Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments
The Simple Life
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Mark Sagoff, Do We Consume Too Much?
* Joshua Colt Gambrel and Philip Cafaro, The Virtue of Simplicity
* Paul Schwennesen, On the Ethics of Ranching
PART II. WHAT REALLY WORKS? ESSAYS ON HUMAN ECOLOGY
Chapter 8. Weighing Our Options
Questions for Reflection and Discussion: Optimal Pollution
Steven Kelman, Cost-Benefit Analysis: An Ethical Critique
Andrew Brennan, Moral Pluralism and the Environment
* Martha C. Nussbaum, The Costs of Tragedy: Some Moral Limits of Cost-Benefit Analysis
David Schmidtz, A Place for Cost-Benefit Analysis
Chapter 9. The Logic of Scarcity
Questions for Reflection and Discussion
Garrett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons
David Schmidtz, The Institution of Property
* Carol M. Rose, Liberty, Property, Environmentalism
* Dan C. Shahar, Free-Market Environmentalism Pace Environmentalism?
Chapter 10. What It Takes to Preserve Wilderness
Questions for Reflection and Discussion: South Africa
David Schmidtz, When Preservationism Doesn't Preserve
* David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willott, Reinventing the Commons: An African Case Study
* Lynn Scarlett, Choices, Consequences, and Cooperative Conservation: A New Environmentalism?
Chapter 11. Overpopulation and What to Do About It
Questions for Reflection and Discussion: The Population Bomb
Peter Singer, Famine, Affluence, and Morality
Garrett Hardin, Living on a Lifeboat
Holmes Rolston, III, Feeding People Versus Saving Nature
Henry Shue, Global Environment and International Inequality
Elizabeth Willott, Recent Population Trends
Chapter 12. Climate Change and What to Do About It
Dan C. Shahar, guest editor
Questions for Reflection and Discussion: Handing Down a Warmer World
* Dale Jamieson, Ethics, Public Policy, and Global Warming
* Stephen M. Gardiner, A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics, and the Problem of Corruption
* Andrew Light, Climate Ethics for Climate Action
* John Christy, Testimony, U.S. House Ways and Means Committee
Chapter 13. Cities and What to Do About Them
Questions for Reflection and Discussion: Taking Scarcity Seriously
Jessica Woolliams, Designing Cities and Buildings as if They Were Ethical Choices
Lynn Scarlett, Making Waste Management Pay
Robert Glennon, Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What to Do About It
* Garland D. Cox, Energy
* Tom Fournier, Air Pollution Abatement Strategies
Chapter 14. Technology and What to Do About It
Scott Boocher, guest editor
Questions for Reflection and Discussion: Innovation and Risk Management
* Gary Comstock, Ethics and Genetically Modified Foods
* Paul B. Thompson and William Hannah, Novel and Normal Risk: Where Does Nanotechnology Fit In?
* Joshua Colt Gambrel, Virtue Theory and Genetically Modified Crops
Chapter 15. Environmentalism in Practice
Questions for Reflection and Discussion: The Ethics of Confrontation
Bryan G. Norton, The Environmentalists' Dilemma: Dollars and Sand Dollars
Bryan G. Norton, Fragile Freedoms
Paul Watson, Tora! Tora! Tora!
Kate Rawles, The Missing Shade of Green
Andrew Light, Taking Environmental Ethics Public