The Ethics of the Environment

by Attfield,Robin; Attfield,Robin

• ISBN13: 9780754627869
• ISBN10: 0754627861
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-12-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This book brings together over thirty leading contributions to environmental ethics, from pioneering papers to recent work at the cutting edge of thought in this field. The introduction links together these articles and also appraises their strengths and weaknesses and presents a distinctive overview of the subject.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Values and the Environment

Is there a need for a new, an environmental, ethic?

Is there an ecological ethic?

Anthropocentrism, atomism, and environmental ethics

Postmodernism, value, and objectivity

Why environmental ethics shouldn't give up on intrinsic value

Nature - every last drop of it - is good

The Land Ethic and Deep Ecology

The land ethic

The shallow and the deep, long range ecology movement: a summary

Hume's Is/Ought dichotomy and the relation of ecology to Leopold's land ethic

The land ethic and Callicott's ethical system (1980-2001): an overview and critique

The inadequacy of Callicott's ecological communitarianism

Radical American environmentalism and wilderness preservation: a 3rd World critique

Nature, self and gender; feminism, environmental philosophy and the critique of rationalism

Beasts versus the biosphere?

Biocentric Approaches

On being morally considerable

The ethics of respect for nature

The nature and possibility of an environmental ethic

Biocentric individualism

A biocentrist strikes back

Virtue Ethics and Human Values

Ideals of human excellence and preserving natural environments

Environmental ethics and weak anthropocentrism

Must a concern for the environment be centred on human beings?

When utilitarians should be virtue theorists

Equity and the Future

Nuclear energy and obligations to the future

Why care about the future?

Global environment and international inequality

Adaptation, mitigation and justice

Giving a voice to posterity - deliberative democracy and representation of future people

Preservation, Development and Sustainability

Feeding people versus saving nature?

Saving nature and feeding people

Distributive justice and environmental sustainability

Making a Difference

The ethicist conception of environmental problems

Can environmental ethics make a difference?

Name index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

This book brings together over thirty of the foremost contributions to environmental ethics, from pioneering papers to recent work at the cutting edge of thought in this field. It also unites them through an innovative introductory essay which appraises both strengths and weaknesses and presents a distinctive view of the subject.