This is Environmental Ethics: An Introduction

This is Environmental Ethics: An Introduction

by Wendy Lynne Lee, Steven D. Hales
Released August 2022
Publisher(s): Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9781119122708

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Book description

Provides students and scholars with a comprehensive introduction to the growing field of environmental philosophy and ethics

Mitigating the effects of climate change will require global cooperation and lasting commitment. Of the many disciplines addressing the ecological crisis, philosophy is perhaps best suited to develop the conceptual foundations of a viable and sustainable environmental ethic. This is Environmental Ethics provides an expansive overview of the key theories underpinning contemporary discussions of our moral responsibilities to non-human nature and living creatures.

Adopting a critical approach, author Wendy Lynne Lee closely examines major moral theories to discern which ethic provides the compass needed to navigate the social, political, and economic challenges of potentially catastrophic environmental transformation, not only, but especially the climate crisis. Lee argues that the ethic ultimately adopted must make the welfare of non-human animals and plant life a priority in our moral decision-making, recognizing that ecological conditions form the existential conditions of all life on the planet. Throughout the text, detailed yet accessible chapters demonstrate why philosophy is relevant and useful in the face of an uncertain environmental future.

  • Questions which environmental theory might best address the environmental challenges of climate change and the potential for recurring pandemic
  • Discusses how inequalities of race, sex, gender, economic status, geography, and species impact our understanding of environmental dilemmas
  • Explores the role of moral principles in making decisions to resolve real-world dilemmas
  • Incorporates extensive critiques of moral extensionist and ecocentric arguments
  • Introduces cutting-edge work done by radical “deep green” writers, animal rights theorists, eco-phenomenologists, and ecofeminists

This is Environmental Ethics is essential reading for undergraduate students in courses on philosophy, geography, environmental studies, feminist theory, ecology, human and animal rights, and social justice, as well as an excellent graduate-level introduction to the key theories and thinkers of environmental philosophy.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Series page
  3. Title page
  4. Copyright
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. About the Companion Website
  7. Introduction: Environmental Ethics in the Era of Ecological Crisis
    1. One Planet, Many Worlds
    2. The Time Is Now
    3. Environmental Ethics Is about the Present and the Future
    4. The Climate Crisis Is the Greatest Moral Challenge Humanity Has Ever Faced
    5. We Can Change
    6. Seven Basic Premises
    7. Seven Key Objectives
    8. Summary and Questions
    9. Annotated Bibliography
    10. Online Resources
  8. 1 Moral Principles and the Life Worth Living
    1. 1.1 Philosophy and the Environment
      1. 1.1.1 Philosophy and the Life Worth Living
      2. 1.1.2 The Precautionary Principle
    2. 1.2 Human Chauvinism versus Responsible Human-Centeredness
      1. 1.2.1 Human-Centeredness: Taking Responsibility
      2. 1.2.2 The Desirable Future
    3. 1.3 An Aerial View of Moral Extensionism
      1. 1.3.1 Is Moral Extensionism a Good Idea?
      2. 1.3.2 The Problem of Sentience
      3. 1.3.3 What Counts as a Living Thing?
      4. 1.3.4 Summary and Questions
    4. Annotated Bibliography
    5. Online Resources
  9. 2 Two Examples of Moral Extensionism: Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and Their Critics
    1. 2.1 The Capacity to Suffer: The Utilitarian Extensionism of Peter Singer
      1. 2.1.1 What Is Moral Extensionism?
      2. 2.1.2 Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation and the Principle of Equality
      3. 2.1.3 Weighing Interests and Predicting Consequences
      4. 2.1.4 Moral Extensionism and the Climate Crisis
      5. 2.1.5 How Do I Know a Thing Can Suffer?
    2. 2.2 “Subject-of-a-life”: The Kantian Extensionism of Tom Regan
      1. 2.2.1 The Case for Animal Rights and Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative
      2. 2.2.2 A Subject-of-a-life
      3. 2.2.3 Whose Subject-of-a-life Matters?
      4. 2.2.4 Subjecthood, Intellectual Wherewithal— and Zombies
      5. 2.2.5 A Feminist Critique of the Subject-of-a-life Criterion for Moral Considerability
      6. 2.2.6 Summary and Questions
    3. Annotated Bibliography
    4. Online Resources
  10. 3 Two More Examples of Moral Extensionism: Christopher Stone, Holmes Rolston III, and Their Critics
    1. 3.1 The Rights of Trees: The “Moral Standing” Extensionism of Christopher Stone
      1. 3.1.1 Moral Extensionism, the Concept of “Wilderness,” and Human Chauvinism
      2. 3.1.2 Do Trees Have Rights? The Portability of Moral Standing
      3. 3.1.3 Moral Standing versus Consequences/Rights versus Goals: What Matters More?
      4. 3.1.4 Moral Standing and the Concept of the Future
      5. 3.1.5 The Interests and Rights of the Voiceless
    2. 3.2 Respect for Life: The “Good of Its Own” Extensionism of Holmes Rolston III
      1. 3.2.1 Respect for Life and an “Ethic for Species”
      2. 3.2.2 Valuing the Threat of Extinction over the Capacity for Suffering
      3. 3.2.3 Is a “Species Line” a Living System?
    3. 3.3 Summary and Questions
    4. Annotated Bibliography
    5. Online Resources
  11. 4 Two Examples of an Ecocentric Ethic: Aldo Leopold, Arne Naess, and Their Critics
    1. 4.1 Human-Centeredness, Human Chauvinism, and Ecocentrism
      1. 4.1.1 Ecocentrism and the Limits of Moral Extensionism
      2. 4.1.2 Ecocentrism as Psychic Transformation and Moral Paradigm Shift
    2. 4.2 Aldo Leopold, Ecological Conscience, and the “Plain Citizen”
      1. 4.2.1 The Role of Language in Ecocentric Thinking
      2. 4.2.2 Scientific Knowledge and the Ecocentric Disposition
      3. 4.2.3 Thinking Like a Mountain, or Not
      4. 4.2.4 Ecocentrism, the Principle of Utility, and the Patriarchal Social Order
    3. 4.3 Arne Naess: Deep Ecology and the Eight-point Platform
      1. 4.3.1 The Eight-point Platform
      2. 4.3.2 The Ecocentric Dichotomy
    4. 4.4 The Authoritarian Politics of the Eight-point Platform
      1. 4.4.1 Ecocentric Tyranny and Human Population Control
      2. 4.4.2 Does Environmental Crisis Justify Ecocentric Policies or Laws?
      3. 4.4.3 Summary and Questions
    5. Annotated Bibliography
    6. Online Resources
  12. 5 From the Ecocentric Endgame to Eco-phenomenology
    1. 5.1 The Radicalized Ecocentrism of Derrick Jensen
      1. 5.1.1 Blow up the Dams
      2. 5.1.2 The Environmentalism of the Civilized
      3. 5.1.3 The Ethics of Human Population, of Life and Death
    2. 5.2 Worth: A Value Intrinsic to Living Things or a Weapon of Consent?
      1. 5.2.1 “We Are at War.”
      2. 5.2.2 After the End
    3. 5.3 Why Experience Matters: John Dewey, David Wood, and Kath Weston
      1. 5.3.1 What Is Eco-phenomenology?
      2. 5.3.2 John Dewey and the Aesthetic in Experience
      3. 5.3.3 David Wood’s Eco-phenomenology
      4. 5.3.4 Kath Weston: The Feel of Experience versus the Force of Principle
      5. 5.3.5 Animate Planet and the Menace of Moral Relativism
    4. 5.4 Eco-phenomenology and the Problem of Pseudoscience: Why Ethics Must Be Rooted in Knowledge
    5. 5.5 Summary and Questions
    6. Annotated Bibliography
    7. Online Resources
  13. 6 Environmental Justice: Ecological Feminism, Social Justice, and Animal Rights
    1. 6.1 Climate Change and Environmental Justice
    2. 6.2 Ecological Feminism: Intersectional Analysis and Environmental Justice
      1. 6.2.1 Environmental Crisis and Structural Inequality
      2. 6.2.2 Threads of Moral Extensionism and of Ecocentrism
    3. 6.3 Groundbreaking Frameworks: Karen Warren and Carol Adams
      1. 6.3.1 Laying Bare the Logic of Domination
      2. 6.3.2 The Naturalized Fictions that Imperil Us
    4. 6.4 The Logic of Domination, Nostalgia, Resentment, and Privilege: Jordan Peterson
      1. 6.4.1 Antithesis of “The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living”
      2. 6.4.2 Sophism in Defense of Climate Change “Skepticism”
      3. 6.4.3 12 Rules for Life: Human Chauvinism, Speciesism, and Heteropatriarchy
    5. 6.5 Inseparable: Environmental Ethics and the Quest for Social and Economic Justice
      1. 6.5.1 The Deep Roots of the “Dominance Hierarchy”
      2. 6.5.2 Environmental Ethics and the Quest to De-naturalize the Logic of Domination
    6. 6.6 Human-Centeredness, the Aesthetic in Experience, and the Desirable Future
      1. 6.6.1 The Aesthetic Value of Natural Objects as a Vital Element of an Ecofeminist Ethic
      2. 6.6.2 The Standpoint of the Subjugated
      3. 6.6.3 We Must Do Better
    7. 6.7 Summary and Questions
    8. Annotated Bibliography
    9. Online Resources
  14. Index
  15. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: This is Environmental Ethics: An Introduction
  • Author(s): Wendy Lynne Lee, Steven D. Hales
  • Release date: August 2022
  • Publisher(s): Wiley-Blackwell
  • ISBN: 9781119122708