bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Re-enchanting Conservation Work: Reflections on the Australian Experience
Authors: Mulligan Martin
Published: June 2007

The Australian nature conservation movement is effectively entering its second century of existence and this transition has prompted a degree of reflection about the strategies used hitherto. After going through boom years – as part of a broader environmental movement – from the 1970s until the early 1990s, a more difficult political environment in the second half of the 1990s has sparked a semi-public discussion about priorities and future strategies. This article argues that the debate about future conservation strategies needs to tackle two important legacies that have become increasingly problematic: a lingering ‘frontier mentality’ that fosters a separation between people and ‘pristine nature’; and a heavy reliance on scientific expertise and rational arguments for conservation. This dual legacy has blinded the movement to the aesthetic appeal of the romantic philosophical tradition in ecology and the importance of sensuous, embodied experiences of the ‘more than human’ world. In rethinking the legacy of the romantic philosopher Henry David Thoreau, the article argues for a shift of emphasis from wilderness to wildness in order to bring conservation home to more people. It suggests that we can learn from the ability of Australian Aborigines to listen to the land in order to ‘sing up’ the stories that are embedded in landscapes. Learning to read and create landscape stories provides creative ways of building more affective bonds between people and the land. Non-rational approaches to nature conservation can help to re-enchant conservation ‘work’.
How to Prepare for the Unknown? On the Significance of Future Generations and Future Studies in Environmental Policy
Authors: Boersema Jan J.
Published: June 2007

The core question of this article is: how can we take account of the future and future generations if our knowledge of the future is so sparse? The importance of the future is discussed within the framework of our (linear) concept of time. After that it is argued that future generations do not constitute a new, let alone unique, element in the debate on the future. Two different routes to acquire knowledge about the future and prepare for the future are described. Both reflect facts and values of the present and the past instead of giving an accurate picture of the future. Finally the view is defended that future-focused activity should be based to a greater extent on durable principles. Some of these durable principles are presented and discussed.
Lost for Words? Gadamer and Benjamin on the Nature of Language and the ‘Language’ of Nature
Authors: Smith Mick
Published: June 2007

Language is commonly regarded as an exclusively human attribute and the possession of the word ( logos) has long served to demarcate culture from nature. This is often taken to imply that nature is incapable of meaningful expression, that any meaning it acquires is merely bestowed upon it by humanity. This anthropic logocentrism seriously undermines those forms of ‘environmental advocacy’ which claim to find and speak of the meaning and value of nature per se. However, shorn of their own anthropocentric presuppositions, the expressivist hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Walter Benjamin might offer an alternative understanding of the nature of language and the language of nature.
What Silence Knows – Planning, Public Participation and Environmental Values
Authors: Davies Anna
Published: June 2007

While fraught with ambiguities, support for greater public participation in environmental policy making is experiencing a renaissance amongst sections of government and academia, particularly within the field of land-use planning. There is concern within this cohort that the planning system silences public voices through its current mechanisms for community involvement. Proponents of participation often presuppose that more public participation will produce both ‘better’ decisions and environmental benefits, but to date research has focused on the front-end, or ‘processes’, of participation rather than the ‘products’ that result. While procedural aspects of public participation are important it is imperative that critical consideration is also given to what emerges from the participation that is being exalted. This paper addresses this concern by focusing on the products of a public participation exercise conducted in Luton, South-east England in order to consider what it is that ‘silence knows’.
Strangers in a Strange Land: The Problem of Exotic Species
Authors: Woods Mark , Moriarty Paul Veatch
Published: June 2007

Environmentalists consider invasions by exotic species of plants and animals to be one of the most serious environmental problems we face today, as well as one of the leading causes of biodiversity loss. We argue that in order to develop and enact sensible policies, it is crucial to consider two philosophical questions: (1) What exactly makes a species native or exotic, and (2) What values are at stake? We focus on the first of these two questions, and offer some preliminary suggestions with regard to the second. Through a series of case studies, we show that it is not always clear whether a species is native or exotic. We identify five possible criteria that could be used for distinguishing natives from exotics. Rather than identifying one of these criteria as the ‘correct’ one, we suggest that the concepts of ‘native’ and ‘exotic’ function more like what some philosophers have called cluster concepts. That is, there are several characteristics that are typical of native species, and a corresponding set of characteristics that are typical of exotic species. None of these characteristics is either necessary or sufficient for identifying a species as either native or exotic. We then identify several of the values that are at stake in dealing with exotic species, and we suggest that policies need to avoid being overly simplistic.
Insuring the Future
Authors: Lynch Tony , Wells David
Published: June 2007

Environmental politics needs more than piecemeal institutional efforts and more than calls for a set of ‘new’ values. It needs a realistic, comprehensive, and effective policy programme. Such a programme can be derived from a conjunction of Hardin's work on the ‘tragedy of the commons’ and Beck's analysis of the ‘risk society’, and involves exploiting the possibilities for the internalisation of risk provided by the insurance and reinsurance industries. Such exploitation requires tailored changes to the politico-legal environment, enforcing strict liability for the production of risk, permitting any and all agents adversely effected by such negative externalities to initiate action for damages. The aim is not to clog up social and economic life with endless legal disputation, but through such a threat to ensure that environmentally significant investment and productive strategies are actively constrained by actuarially calculated strategies for risk internalisation.
A Humean Argument for the Land Ethic?
Authors: Lo Y. S.
Published: June 2007

This article examines an allegedly Humean solution provided by J. Baird Callicott to the problem of the is/ought dichotomy. It also examines an allegedly Humean argument provided by him for the land ethic's summary moral precept. It concludes that neither the solution nor the argument is Humean or cogent.
The Pragmatic Power and Promise of Theoretical Environmental Ethics: Forging a New Discourse
Authors: Callicott J.B.
Published: June 2007

Pragmatist environmental philosophers have (erroneously) assumed that environmental ethics has made little impact on environmental policy because environmental ethics has been absorbed with arcane theoretical controversies, mostly centred on the question of intrinsic value in nature. Positions on this question generate the allegedly divisive categories of anthropocentrism/nonanthropocentrism, shallow/deep ecology, and individualism/holism. The locus classicus for the objectivist concept of intrinsic value is traceable to Kant, and modifications of the Kantian form of ethical theory terminate in biocentrism. A subjectivist approach to the affirmation of intrinsic value in nature has also been explored. Because of the academic debate about intrinsic value in nature, the concept of intrinsic value in nature has begun to penetrate and reshape the discourse of environmental activists and environmental agency personnel. In environmental ethics, the concept of intrinsic value in nature functions similarly to way the concept of human rights functions in social ethics. Human rights has had enormous pragmatic efficacy in social ethics and policy. The prospective adoption of the Earth Charter by the General Assembly of the United Nations may have an impact on governmental environmental policy and performance similar to the impact on governmental social policy and behaviour of the adoption by the same body in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Belatedly, but at last, the most strident Pragmatist critics of the concept of intrinsic value in nature now acknowledge its pragmatic power and promise.
Cost-Benefit Analysis, Incommensurability and Rough Equality
Authors: Aldred Jonathan
Published: June 2007

A recurring question about cost-benefit analysis (CBA) concerns its scope. CBA is a decision-making method frequently employed in environmental policy-making, in which things which have no market price are treated as if they were commodities. They are given a monetary value, a form of price. But it is widely held that some things cannot be meaningfully priced, thus substantially limiting the scope of CBA. The aim of this paper is to test some aspects of this broad claim, focusing on problems of incomparability and incommensurability. In particular, the role of rough equality as a putative form of comparison is investigated. I argue that while an assessment of the full significance of rough equality for practical decision-making awaits resolution of a number of important technical questions, it does not provide a strong enough form of comparison to support CBA.
Specifying Speciesism
Authors: Fjellstrom Roger
Published: June 2007

Many philosophers consider favouritism toward humans in the context of moral choice to be a prejudice. Several terms are used for it – ‘speciesism’, ‘human chauvinism’, ‘human racism’, and ‘anthropocentrism’ – with somewhat varying and often blurred meanings, which brings confusion to the issue. This essay suggests that only one term, ‘speciesism’, be used, and it attempts a conceptual clarification. To this end it proposes a set of conditions of adequacy for a concept that would be acceptable to the parties of the controversy. Through an examination of various forms of alleged speciesism it eventually proposes a rather precise concept. On this definition some positions believed not to be speciesist perhaps should be so called, and some positions believed to be speciesist perhaps should not be so called. The latter would better be referred to as ‘humanistic ethics’ or ‘non-speciesist humanism’.
Valuing Birds in the Bush: For Pluralism in Environmental Risk Assessment
Authors: Lucas Peter
Published: June 2007

It is now widely acknowledged that social theorists can make an important contribution to our understanding of environmental risk. There is however a danger that the current ascendancy of social theory will encourage a tendency to assimilate issues around environmental risk to those at stake in entrenched debates between realist and constructivist social theorists. I begin by citing a recent example of this trend, before going on to argue that framing the issues in terms of a monism/pluralism dichotomy would make for a more informative analysis. Noting that realists and constructivists can make common cause against risk monism, I turn, in the second half of the paper, to setting out a positive case for risk pluralism. Citing some fictional examples of risk behaviour, I show how different individuals might rationally adopt different perspectives on the same risk. I conclude by exploring some implications of the truth of risk pluralism for two current approaches to environmental decision-making (which I term, respectively, the ‘teleological-pluralistic’ approach, and the ‘economic-monistic’ approach). I argue that the importance of risk pluralism lies in its capacity to highlight the shortcomings of the latter approach.
Resisting Development, Reinventing Modernity: Rural Electrification in the United States before World War II
Authors: Kline Ronald R.
Published: June 2007

The essay examines local resistance to the New Deal rural electrification program in the United States before World War II as a crucial aspect of socio-technical change. Large numbers of farm men and women opposed the introduction of the new technology, did not purchase a full complement of electrical appliances, and did not use electric lights and appliances in the manner prescribed by the goverment modernisers (the Rural Electrification Administration) and manufacturers. These acts of ‘transformative resistance’ helped to shape artefacts and social practices.
Animality and Morality: Human Reason as an Animal Activity
Authors: Preston Christopher J.
Published: June 2007

Those in animal and environmental ethics wishing to extend moral considerability beyond the human community have at some point all had to counter the claim that it is reason that makes human distinct. Detailed arguments against the significance of reason have been rare due to the lack of any good empirical accounts of what reason actually is. Contemporary studies of the embodied mind are now able to fill this gap and show why reason is a poor choice for a criterion to distinguish us from non-human animals. I use studies of the embodied mind to show that rationality is integrally connected to our animal and animate nature and hence not a significant point of departure between human and non-human animals.
Species Conservation and Minority Rights: The Case of Springtime Bird Hunting in Åland
Authors: Aaltola Elisa , Oksanen Markku
Published: June 2007

The article examines the case of springtime bird hunting in Åland from a moral point of view. In Åland springtime hunting has been a cultural practice for centuries but is now under investigation due to the EU Directive on the protection of birds. The main question of the article is whether restrictions on bird hunting have a sound basis. We approach this question by analysing three principles: The animal rights principle states that if hunting is not necessary for survival, it cannot be morally justified. Therefore hunting merely to engage in a cultural custom is morally suspect. In the light of the species conservation principle the hunting is questionable due to the fact that it seems to have a diminishing effect on the species populations. The formal principle of justice makes up a more difficult question since the special position of the minorities in regard to the use of natural resources is generally recognised so that they have the right to maintain their cultural practices. We claim, however, that even though cultural practices have substantial value and can be the object of special rights, they should be coherent with other principles. The springtime bird hunt in Åland does not accord with the relevant moral principles and for this reason we conclude that the basis for its continuation is weak.
Values, Advocacy and Conservation Biology
Authors: Odenbaugh Jay
Published: June 2007

In this essay, I examine the controversy concerning the advocacy of ethical values in conservation biology. First, I argue, as others have, that conservation biology is a science laden with values both ethical and non-ethical. Second, after clarifying the notion of advocacy at work, I contend that conservation biologists should advocate the preservation of biological diversity. Third, I explore what ethical grounds should be used for advocating the preservation of ecological systems by conservation biologists. I argue that conservation biologists should defend their preservationist positions on instrumentalist grounds alone if the context of discussion and debate is a scientific one.
Aquaphobia, Tulipmania, Biophilia: A Moral Geography of the Dutch Landscape
Authors: Zwart Hub
Published: June 2007

In Genesis (1:9–10) we are told that God gathered the waters into one place, in order to let the dry land appear, which He called earth, while the waters were called seas. In the Netherlands, this process took more than a single day, and it was the work of man. Gradually, a cultivated landscape emerged out of diffuse nature. In the course of centuries, the Dutch determined the conditions that allowed different aspects of nature to present themselves. This process is described as a moral geography in the sense that different types of landscape are read as a manifestations (or materialisations) of different moral attitudes towards nature, whereas concrete landscape interventions are interpreted as instances of moral criticism directed towards the activities and values of previous generations. At present, this process (the genesis of the Dutch landscape) is being reversed, as diffuse, wetland nature is experiencing a come-back.
When ‘The Environment’ Comes to Visit: Local Environmental Knowledge in the Far North of Russia
Authors: Karjalainen Timo Pauli , Habeck Joachim Otto
Published: June 2007

Based on field research in villages and towns in the Komi Republic (northeastern European Russia), this article compares the perception of the environment with environmental knowledge, and examines their interrelations in local contexts. An individual's perception of the environment is embedded in his/her everyday engagement with the surroundings (‘the environment’ as seen from within). Environmental knowledge is of more cognitive character: it originates mainly from outside the context of everyday life and is imparted via various forms of communication (‘The Environment’ as seen from the outside). From the interplay of these two levels arises what we call local environmental knowledge, a kind of knowledge which has its own moral and symbolic dimension within the social, cultural and political setting. Similarly, the concept of environmentalism is increasingly recognised as a wide diversity of ‘green’ views and actions rather than as a single project of a globally consistent normative character; thus there is a need to examine the contextuality of environmental concern. Our findings explain the failure of the ‘information deficit’ model, according to which the dissemination of scientific knowledge about environmental problems should result in local inhabitants changing their attitudes towards ‘The Environment’. Instead, our findings support the insight that, rather than accepting environmental knowledge from external sources as a factual given, individuals restate it in terms of their everyday life contexts and local discourses about socio-political issues.
The Lack of Clarity in the Precautionary Principle
Authors: Turner Derek , Hartzell Lauren
Published: June 2007

The precautionary principle states, roughly, that it is better to take precautionary measures now than to deal with serious harms to the environment or human health later on. This paper builds on the work of Neil A. Manson in order to show that the precautionary principle, in all of its forms, is fraught with vagueness and ambiguity. We examine the version of the precautionary principle that was formulated at the Wingspread Conference sponsored by the Science and Environmental Health Network in 1998. That version fails to indicate who must bear the cost of precaution; what constitutes a threat of harm; how much precaution is too much; and what should be done when environmental concerns and concern for human health pull in different directions. Whether this vagueness is a strength or weakness of the principle depends on what purpose(s) the precautionary principle is supposed to serve.
Operationalising Strong Sustainability: Definitions, Methodologies and Outcomes
Authors: Özkaynak Begüm , Devine Pat , Rigby Dan
Published: June 2007

While acknowledging the absence of a single definition or theory of sustainability, this paper argues that a discussion of sustainability which refers only to definitions is pointless without an understanding of how the definitions are operationalised. In this context, the paper considers the operationalisation of strong sustainability.

The definitions and operationalisation of strong sustainability most closely associated with (i) neoclassical environmental economics and (ii) ecological economics are discussed and compared. This analysis raises questions about the extent to which ecological economics has been able to influence real-world decisions and policy. The paper ends by considering whether the economic and political power structure taken as given by ecological economics is compatible with its policy perspective.
Some Theoretical Foundations for Radical Green Politics
Authors: Carter Alan
Published: June 2007

On the basis of our apparent obligations to future generations, it would seem that we are morally obliged to reduce the risk our environmentally destructive behaviour poses for their well-being. But if, rather than choosing to destroy the environment, we are in fact driven to do so, then any obligation to reduce our environmental impact requires an understanding of the mechanism driving our behaviour. This article argues that the State-Primacy Theory provides a plausible explanation for the nature of that mechanism, and concludes that the most common strategies offered as a response to our environmental impact are most likely to be insufficiently radical to meet our seeming obligations effectively.
Shifting Forest Value Orientations in the United States, 1980–2001: A Computer Content Analysis
Authors: Bengston David N. , Webb Trevor J. , Fan David P.
Published: June 2007

This paper examines three forest value orientations – clusters of interrelated values and basic beliefs about forests – that emerged from an analysis of the public discourse about forest planning, management, and policy in the United States. The value orientations include anthropocentric, biocentric, and moral/spiritual/aesthetic orientations toward forests. Computer coded content analysis was used to identify shifts in the relative importance of these value orientations over the period 1980 through 2001. The share of expressions of anthropocentric forest value orientations declined over this period, while the share of biocentric value expressions increased. Moral/spiritual/aesthetic value expressions remained constant over time. The observed shifts in forest value orientations have implications for identifying appropriate goals for public forest management and policy, developing socially acceptable means for accomplishing those goals, and dealing with inevitable conflict over forest management.
Industrial Ecology for Sustainable Development: Six Controversies in Theory Building
Authors: Korhonen Jouni
Published: June 2007

This article is building the theory for the scientific field of industrial ecology. For this, the industrial ecosystem (IE) concept is used. IE uses the model of sustainable ecosystems in unsustainable industrial systems for making progress towards the vision of the industrial ecosystem. Six controversies are revealed and identified as research challenges. I invite all those who are interested in industrial ecology to respond to this contribution.
Learning in Sustainable Agriculture: Food Miles and Missing Objects
Authors: Iles Alastair
Published: June 2007

Industrial production imposes geographical, economic and cultural distances between producers and consumers. The concept of constituting ‘missing objects’ can help shrink these distances by enabling actors to engage in discourses and practices about contexts beyond what is materially present. Since the mid-1990s, food miles have emerged as an example of missing objects, representing the distance that agricultural products travel from the farm to the dining table, and the environmental effects of transportation. I analyse how consumers, farmers, activists, industry and policy-makers in the United States and Europe are building agency in making and using food miles.
Care for the Wild: An Integrative View on Wild and Domesticated Animals
Authors: Swart Jac A.A.
Published: June 2007

Environmental ethics has to deal with the challenge of reconciling contrasting ecocentric and animal-centric perspectives. Two classic attempts at this reconciliation, which both adopted the metaphor of concentric circles, are discussed. It is concluded that the relationship between the animal and its environment, whether the latter is human or natural, should be a pivotal element of such reconciliation. An alternative approach is presented, inspired by care ethics, which proposes that caring for wild animals implies caring for their relationship to the natural environment and thus taking action to maintain wildlife habitat. This type of care is labelled non-specific care because it is not directed towards the individual wild animal and its specific individual needs. In contrast, caring for domestic animals is called specific care because it is much more directed towards the individual animal's needs.
Conflicting Perspectives on Water in a Swedish Railway Tunnel Project
Authors: Sjölander-lindqvist Annelie
Published: June 2007

The building of a railway tunnel through the Hallandsås ridge in the southwest of Sweden resulted in sinking groundwater levels and a toxic spill for the local community. As a result, this highly technological project expanded from the addressing of technological and economic issues of rail traffic and tunnel building to include issues of environmental harm and how to assess and manage the geology of the ridge. A central concern for local residents as well as for the developer has been how to view and interpret the resource of groundwater. This article focuses on groundwater as a boundary object, bordering the domains of the technologists and the local community. In this situation, technological understanding and knowledge confronts an experience-based understanding and a symbolic interpretation of the water resource.
The Values of Ecologists
Authors: Lautensach Alexander K.
Published: June 2007

The popular stereotype of ecologists appears somewhat at odds with the ideal of the objective, detached, morally disinterested researcher. Ecologists tend to subscribe to this ideal, as do most natural scientists. This puts the stereotype into question. To what extent and in what respects can ecologists be regarded as motivated by environmentalist values? What other values might contribute to their motivations? The answers to those questions have bearing on how policy makers perceive the input they receive from ecologists and it has long-term implications for the funding of ecological research. To obtain some answers I analysed over fifty randomly selected publications of ecologists for explicit and implicit value statements. The analysis revealed an abundance of value statements. However, no bias was evident towards a conservationist or ecocentric environmental ethic such as suggested by the stereotype. I will suggest some explanations and ramifications of these results that take into account the ecologist's professional situation.
Wildness as a Critical Border Concept: Nietzsche and the Debate on Wilderness Restoration
Authors: Drenthen Martin
Published: June 2007

How can environmental philosophy benefit from Friedrich Nietzsche's radical critique of morality? In this paper, it is argued that Nietzsche's account of nature provides us with a challenging diagnosis of the modern crisis in our relationship with nature. Moreover, his interpretation of wildness can elucidate our concern with the value of wilderness as a place of value beyond the sphere of human intervention. For Nietzsche, wild nature is a realm where moral valuations are out of order. In his work, however, we can discern a paradoxical moral concern with this wildness. Wildness is a critical moral concept that reminds us of the fact that our moral world of human meanings and goals ultimately rests on a much grander, all-encompassing natural world. Nietzsche's concept of wildness acknowledges the value of that which cannot be morally appropriated. Wild nature confronts us with the limits of human valuing. Wildness as a concept thus introduces the ‘beyond’ of culture into the cultural arena of values.
Can Merleau-Ponty's Notion of ‘Flesh’ Inform or even Transform Environmental Thinking?
Authors: Brook Isis
Published: June 2007

Reference to Merleau-Ponty's ideas surfaces in environmental thinking from time to time. This paper examines whether, and in what way, his ideas could be helpful to that thinking. In order to arrive at a conclusion I examine in detail and attempt to clarify the notions of ‘Flesh’ and ‘Earth’ in order to see if they can carry the meanings that commentators sometimes attribute to them. With a clearer outline of what he was saying in place, I suggest that the new ontology that Merleau-Ponty introduces could help to transform environmental thinking, but that careful argumentation is required to show this.
Nature Connoisseurship
Authors: Greenbaum Allan
Published: June 2007

Environmentalists who seek to protect wild nature, biodiversity and so on for its own sake manifest a disposition to value the interesting at least on par with the useful. This disposition toward the interesting, which provides the affective and cognitive context for the discovery of intrinsic values in nature and the elaboration of ecocentric ethics, does not arise simply from learning about nature but is part of a more general socially inculcated cultural system. Nature connoisseurship exhibits formal parallels with art connoisseurship. The abstraction-oriented cultural system which prizes ‘disinterested interest’ is characteristic of culturally rich fractions (or subdivisions) of the middle class in modern Western societies. Valuing nature for its own sake (like valuing, for its own sake, the domination of nature) is not a ‘natural’ response to nature but a disciplined cultural accomplishment.
Heidegger on Nature
Authors: Cooper David E.
Published: June 2007

The primary purpose of the paper is the broadly exegetical one of explaining and connecting Heidegger's many remarks, made in several different contexts of enquiry, on nature. The three main contexts are those of ontology, scientific methodology, and technology. After showing how Heidegger's central theses in these contexts are related to one another, I argue, in the final section, that his observations on scientific method are pivotal. Unless these are secured, his further claims about ontology and technology lose their essential support.
Economic Stratification and Environmental Management: A Case Study of the New York City Catskill/Delaware Watershed
Authors: Hoffman Joan
Published: June 2007

Long run success in watershed management requires understanding of how economic stratification and social values affect water quality protection. Feedback effects on water quality are produced by three aspects of economic well-being: income levels, quality of life and inequality, including the effects of gender based inequality. In the US emphasis on individualistic values leads to reliance on local and private policy solutions to social problems. Analysis of the context of New York City's internationally famous watershed agreement with communities 120 miles distant provides a case study of these relationships. The nature of economic stratification in these upstate communities and the insufficient response of social policies were an impediment to achieving New York City's water quality goals. As a consequence the City's watershed agreement contains direct economic aid to Watershed communities. The Agreement does not address all stratification issues. Some call for solutions beyond the local level and an approach that benefits from the European emphasis on community. It is in the interest of watershed managers to broaden the scope of their concerns to understand and support state and national programs which address problems created by economic stratification. The expansion of the European Union increases the relevance of these lessons for Europe.
The Aesthetic Significance of Nature's Otherness
Authors: O'brien Marianne
Published: June 2007

In this article I consider and reflect upon the aesthetic significance of Simon Hail-wood's conception of nature as articulated in an earlier volume of this journal in his paper ‘The Value of Nature's Otherness’ (Hailwood 2000: 353–72). I provide a brief elucidation of Hailwood's conception of nature as other and I maintain that recognition of the value of nature's otherness and respect for nature's otherness requires as a necessary condition that one know and perceive that nature is other. I then go on to consider Hailwood's concerns over the possibility of locating nature's value as other in aesthetic responses to nature. I argue that such reservations are warranted insofar as they focus on an inadequate ‘subjectivist’ account of aesthetic experience but are not warranted for all accounts of aesthetic experience, in particular, I will argue that such reservations do not apply to the ‘cognitive’ model of aesthetic appreciation proposed by Allen Carlson as the ‘environmental model’ and developed in the work of Yuriko Saito. I conclude this paper by claiming that aesthetic value is a necessary component of otherness as a ground of nature's value and that this needs to be conceded if we are to be able to acknowledge the reality of something other than ourselves, to treat it appropriately and with respect.
Realms of Value: Conflicting Natural Resource Values and Incommensurability
Authors: Trainor Sarah Fleisher
Published: June 2007

Divergent values are often at the heart of natural resource conflict. Using discord over the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, U.S.A. as a case study, I propose that values are perceived as incommensurate because they reflect different realms, with which there exist distinct concepts of what it means to value and distinct, irreducible forms of value expression. I further argue that collaborative, discursive processes are one way to account for plural values in policy and decision making without requiring a common metric, yet they are not without theoretical and practical challenges.
Natura economica in Environmental Valuation
Authors: Soma Katrine
Published: June 2007

Cost-benefit analysis is widely acknowledged to be an appropriate tool for providing advice to policy makers on the optimal use and management of natural resources. However, a great deal of research has indicated that the assumptions made in cost-benefit analysis concerning the natural environment diverge from real world observations. In this paper I discuss these observed divergences. To do so, I introduce the concept of Natura economica. Natura economica is the environment as it is understood in economic analysis in general, and cost-benefit analysis in particular, namely as a bundle of commodities with potential market value. I argue that if this understanding of nature and its value is very different from what is generally observed, it reduces the value of the resulting policy recommendations. I then suggest four questions that policy makers should ask when they evaluate their choice of appraisal methods. If the answer is ‘yes’ to all of them, then cost-benefit analysis can provide valid information. However, if the answer to any of these questions is ‘no’, other methods, such as multicriteria analysis and participatory processes, should be considered in order to arrive at better-founded policy recommendations.
Finding Value in Nature
Authors: Hill Thomas
Published: June 2007

This paper explores the idea that a proper valuing of natural environments is essential to (and not just a natural basis for) a broader human virtue that might be called ‘appreciation of the good’. This kind of valuing can explain, without any commitment to a metaphysics of intrinsic values, how and why it is good to value certain natural phenomena for their own sakes. The objection that such an approach is excessively human-centred is considered and rebutted.
Environmentalism, a Secular Faith
Authors: Dunlap Thomas R.
Published: June 2007

Much of American environmentalism's passion and political power, as well as shortcomings and tactical failures, have their origin in the movement's demands for new attitudes toward nature as well as new laws and policies. A full understanding of environmentalism requires seeing it as a secular faith, movement concerned with ultimate questions of humans’ place and purpose in the world. This perspective explains much about its development, its emphasis on individual action, the vehemence of its opposition, and its political failure in the last generation. Comparisons with other national environmental movements, not considered here, constitute an important topic for further research.
Response to Brady, Phillips and Rolston
Authors: Stewart Susan
Published: June 2007

A response to conference papers by Brady, Phillips, and Rolston on aesthetics and environmentalism, this essay argues that sound environmental policy might begin with basic questions about the purpose and extent of human life, for such policies shape human nature as they also shape the phenomenal world. Decisions based upon short-lived economic conditions cannot provide those long-term benefits necessary for the preservation of the environment. Aesthetic judgments, because they are reflective, help us anthropomorphise ourselves; along with scientific judgments, they might serve as foundational, rather than auxiliary, practices for determining the future of our finite planet.
Natural Subjects: Nature and Political Community
Authors: Smith Kimberly K.
Published: June 2007

Environmental political theory poses new challenges to our received political concepts and values. Increasingly, we are reconceptualising nature as a subject rather than solely an object of politics. On one front, we are being challenged to think of natural entities as subjects of justice – as bearers of rights or interests that the political system should accommodate. On a second front, we are being challenged to see nature as a subject of power, constructed and ordered through scientific and political practice. These reconceptualisations have significant implications for our political practices and institutions.
Darwinian Humanism: A Proposal for Environmental Philosophy
Authors: Kirkman Robert
Published: June 2007

There are two distinct strands within modern philosophical ethics that are relevant to environmental philosophy: an empiricist strand that seeks a naturalist account of human conduct and a humanist strand rooted in a conception of transcendent human freedom. Each strand has its appeal, but each also raises both strategic and theoretical problems for environmental philosophers. Based on a reading of Kant's critical solution to the antinomy of freedom and nature, I recommend that environmental philosophers consider the possibility of a Darwinian humanism, through which moral agents are understood as both free and causally intertwined with the natural world.
Darwinism and Human Dignity
Authors: Dixon Ben
Published: June 2007

James Rachels argued against the possibility of finding some moral capacity in humans that confers upon them a unique dignity. His argument contends that Darwinism challenges such attempts, because Darwinism predicts that any morally valuable capacity able to bestow a unique dignity is likely present to a degree within both humans and non-human animals alike. I make the case, however, that some of Darwin's own thoughts regarding the nature of conscience provide a springboard for criticising Rachels's claim here. Using Darwin's thoughts regarding conscience, I begin the project of grounding a revised account of human dignity in the human tendency to enshrine products of conscience within institutions. Specifically, I argue that this new account of human dignity is partly contingent upon humans creating institutions morally respectful of the values present within non-human nature.
Cultivating Carrots and Community: Local Organic Food and Sustainable Consumption
Authors: Seyfang Gill
Published: June 2007

This paper examines the social implications of sustainable consumption through an empirical study of a local organic food initiative. It sets out an analytical framework based upon Douglas's Cultural Theory to categorise the range of competing value perspectives on sustainable consumption into ‘hierarchical', ‘individualistic’ and ‘egalitarian’ worldviews, and considers how these various worldviews might each adopt locally-grown organic food as a sustainable consumption initiative. Tensions between the paradigms are evident when attention is turned to a case study of a local organic food producers’ cooperative. Research with both producers and consumers reveals that the values embedded in its practice are both partisan and pluralistic, but are principally ‘Egalitarian'. Its interactions with policy regimes and social and economic institutions are examined, to illustrate the value conflicts inherent, and understand the barriers it faces in operation and the institutional factors inhibiting the growth of grassroots ‘bottom-up’ sustainable food initiatives of this kind. In addition to addressing these barriers, the policy implications of these findings for sustainable consumption policy and practice are discussed.
Political Perception and Ensemble of Macro Objectives and Measures: The Paradox of the Index for Sustainable Economic Welfare
Authors: Ziegler Rafael
Published: June 2007

Macroeconomic measures and objectives inform and structure political perception in large systems of governance. Herman Daly and John Cobb attack the objective and measure of economic growth in For the Common Good. However, their attack is paradoxical: 1) they are in favour of strong sustainability, but construct with the ISEW an index of weak sustainability, and 2) they describe humans as persons-in-community, but propose an index based on personal consumption. While the ISEW has attracted much attention, the same cannot be said about the person-in-community ontology developed at length and prominently in their work. This essay therefore aims to reconstruct Daly and Cobb's criticism of growth from the person-in-community approach. It defends the ISEW as a debunking index that is motivated by the person-in-community approach and the economy-ecology scale problem, and that also engages in the politics of scale. But this does not mean that the ISEW is also a measure of sustainable economic welfare. Critics expecting this kind of sustainability index are likely to see contradictions, but not the critical role the ISEW can play for democratic accountability. Understanding the latter makes it possible to see the ISEW as a step in the evolution of political perception and action. Accordingly the essay is also intended as a contribution to the understanding of this role in a situation where sustainability indices continue to be calculated, and renewed efforts at the measurement of welfare and happiness are made.
The Political Economy of Environmental Movements: U.S. Experience and Global Movements
Authors: Everett Michael D. , Peplies Robert
Published: June 2007

In 1972 a public choice model predicted that the incipient environmental movement in the United States would grow but encounter overwhelming industrial opposition. Twenty years later we find the model overstated this opposition. Environmental pressure groups were able to pass substantial legislation, resist counter forces, and reduce most targeted pollutants. A revised public choice model predicts that the success of the present global environmental movement depends on (1) information flows between scientists and the public on the potential costs of deterioration, and (2) means for reducing the costs of regulation such as relying more on market incentives.
Human Rights in an Ecological Era
Authors: Aiken William
Published: June 2007

After presenting a brief history of the idea of a human right to an adequate environment as it has evolved in the United Nations documents, I assess this approach to our moral responsibility with regard to the environment. I argue that although this rights approach has some substantial weaknesses, these are outweighed by such clear advantages as its action-guiding nature and its political potency.
Humankind and the Environment: An Anatomy of Surprise and Ignorance
Authors: Faber Malte , Manstetten Reiner , Proops John L.R.
Published: June 2007

This paper addresses the problem of ‘ignorance’ in philosophy and science, particularly with respect to the conceptualization, study and solution of environmental problems. We begin by distinguishing between ‘risk’, ‘uncertainty’ and ‘ignorance’. We then offer a categorization of ignorance, and use these categories to assess the role of science as a means of reducing ignorance. We note that to proceed with science, several ‘acts of faith’ are necessary. We conclude with a discussion of the importance of an attitude of openness in science and philosophy, especially regarding environmental problems. Throughout, we illustrate our discussion of ignorance, and the problems involved in its reduction, by reference to environmental issues.
The Common Heritage: What Heritage? Common to Whom?
Authors: Porritt Jonathon
Published: June 2007

Global commons are natural goods which transcend national boundaries. A brief glance at management of oceans and terrestrial commons is succeeded by fuller discussion of rainforests, over which nations claim property rights, yet which perform global services. Leasing out could effect a desirable transfer of funds from North to South. Sustainable development requires these or other large incentives towards environmental protection in developing countries, but land and institutional reform are crucial to success. In conclusion, the anthropocentric ethic implicit in all such solutions is contrasted with the ecocentric one which may be necessary to preserve the biosphere in the future.
Ecologically Sustainable Rural Development and the Difficulty of Social Change
Authors: Furze Brian
Published: June 2007

This article explores the importance of environmental perception in the context of alternative agrarian social relations. Because environmental perception is socially constructed, the article is concerned with how those with an alternative agenda for agrarian practice attempt change, and the likely difficulties faced due to the structural requirements and effects of the dominant paradigm of development. It explores the need for a clear model of change, both in its outcomes and its change strategies, and the difficulties that may be faced. The article draws on a case study of a rural landsharing collective in Australia to contextualize these broader issues, and considers some of the implications of the findings for instigating the broader concern of an ecologically sustainable agrarian practice based on permacultural design.
Economics, Ecology and Sustainable Development: Are They Compatible?
Authors: Friend Anthony M.
Published: June 2007

The prevailing economic paradigm, in which a closed circular flow of production and consumption can be described in terms of ‘natural laws’ of the equilibrium of market forces, is being challenged by our growing knowledge of complex systems, particularly ecosystems. It is increasingly apparent that neo-classical economics does not reflect social, economic and environmental realities in a world of limited resources. The best way to understand the problems implicit in the concept of ‘sustainable development’ is provided by Ecological Economics – a new synthesis in which the traditional virtue of thrift is justified using modern ideas from systems theory and thermodynamics.