According to JD, which is more responsible for environmental destruction, population growth or consumption patterns? JD says that sustainable development will require a reduction of consumption as well as more efficient use and slowing growth in human numbers. How feasible or likely do you think this is? What are aims of sustainable development? Summarize the thinking of the ecological economist Herman Daly: What does sustainable [steady state] economics require? JD concludes the chapter with Mark Sagoff’s view about the dangers of basing environmentalism on a concern about scarcity. What is his basic concern in this regared? What does Sagoff suggest, instead, the way to replace an emphasis on scarcity and overconsumption with a approach? How you respond to the questions posed on 91-92? Key Terms: psychological egoism, ecological economics Ch 5: Responsibilities to the Natural World: from anthropocentric to ethics (94-118) What is LD50 testing? What is involved in the production of veal. Did you know? According to JD, do Western philosophical and theological traditions direct responsibilities to the natural environment? RENE DESCARTES What is his philosophy, and that of his progeny called, what is the criterion for moral standing with such views)? What are the criteria most often used to establish moral standing in western philosophical ethics? LYNN WHITE What did Lynn White say about Western theological traditions? JEREMY BENTHAM Who was the philosopher whose views have provided a basis for animal liberationist philosophies, and what sort of philosophy was it?
intervention, as our environment-related moral goal? How might complexity/chaos theory lead to differing environmental ethics? (170) Does JD think, once we have incorporated the latest/best ecological paradigms, that this will resolve our approach to environmental ethics and policies? 7.6 Varieties of Holism What is metaphysical holism, and what examples of it have we already seen? What is Callicott’s ‘ontological primacy’? What is methodological/epistemological holism? What is ethical holism and a particularly good expression of it, according to JD? Think about how your thinking has changed, become clearer, or more confused, as you review and try to incorporate a rudimentary understanding of how ecological understandings (ecological paradigms), have changed over the past 150 years (since Darwin published On the Origin of the Species (1859). Key Terms: ecocentric, holism, Puritan model, Lockean model, romantic model, naturalistic fallacy Ch 8: The Land Ethic, 180-99 A quote from Leopold that anyone with the contemporary environmental facts will understand viscerally: Why for most people does the word “predator,” and that for which it stands, have a negative connotation? What are some of the animals that it has been official US policy to dramatically reduce in numbers (and in some exterminate)? Among what group of people did attitudes toward predators first, according to JD, begin to change? How was this change related to the organic, climax model of ecology? And how was this change related to the idea of carrying capacity? What similarity exists between the S-shaped “logistic curve” of a population described on 177 and in the Limits to Growth charts presented in class? What does the U.S. Endangered Species Act require of the federal government? What is the difference between a “re-established species” (as defined in endangered species law) and “re-introduced” species? How are these different groups treated differently under such law?
According to JD, what distinguishes Deep Ecology as a philosophical approach—i.e. what are its diagnoses and prescriptions (including religious/spiritual implications)? According to JD, who are some of the ‘precursors’ to deep ecology? Can you think of others? According to the entry on “Deep Ecology” in the ERN, what are some of the characteristics of the deep ecology movement (its thinking and practices) that are religious or resemble religions? Adding some thoughts from the article on “Radical Environmentalism” and “Earth First”, what are some of the additional religious (or religion-resembling) dimensions to the environmental radicalism? From the entries on “Radical Environmentalism” and “Deep Ecology” in the ERN, complemented if you will from the JD text, why does radical environmentalism draw on and have affinity with deep ecology? From the entries on “Radical Environmentalism” and “Deep Ecology” in the ERN, what are the ‘good’ associations in the ‘binary associations’ typical of radical environmentalism’? Circle the ones you think are central to deep ecology, don’t circle the ones that you think are not. From the entry on “Radical Environmentalism” in the ERN, list and be sure you have a basic understanding of the ‘shades’ of radical environmentalism that are discussed. From the “Earth First!” entry in the ERN, identify Dave Foreman and Edward Abbey, and their key contributions to such environmental radicalism. What were some of the early perspectives and tensions in the movement. 9.2 The Deep Ecology Platform According to JD, what view are deep ecologists committed to? What two directions does DEEP ECOLOGY proceed toward on this commitment? What does mean by the term ecophilosophy and what is an ecosophy? Be familiar and able to identify the 8 parts of the deep ecology platform (no need to write them in your study guide unless you want to); see 206-7. Try to summarize these points in one sentence: 9.3 Ecology and Ecophilosophy Leopold and Naess both used the science of ecology to argue for what sort of character traits and what type of approach to environmental change? How do ecology and conservation biology produce ‘statements of ignorance,’ and for Naess what does this imply to people proposing policies that intervene in natural environment?