Toward Unity among Environmentalists
Abstract
Today, six out of ten Americans describe themselves as "active" environmentalists or as "sympathetic" to the movement's concerns. The movement, in turn, reflects this millions-strong support in its diversity, encompassing a wide spectrum of causes, groups, and sometimes conflicting special interests. For far-sighted activists and policy makers, the question is how this diversity affects the ability to achieve key goals in the battle against pollution, erosion, and out-of-control growth. This insightful book offers an overview of the movement -- its past as well as its present -- and issues the most persuasive call yet for a unified approach to solving environmental problems. Focusing on examples from resource use, pollution control, protection of species and habitats, and land use, the author shows how the dynamics of diversity have actually hindered environmentalists in the past, but also how a convergence of these interests around forward-looking policies can be effected, despite variance in value systems espoused. The book is thus not only an assessment of today's movement, but a blueprint for action that can help pull together many different concerns under a common banner. Anyone interested in environmental issues and active approaches to their solution will find the author's observations both astute and creative.
... We have reason to believe that both environmental ethical justifications matter. Norton (1995) argues that non-anthropocentric justifications slow the policy process by alienating anthropocentricists. Thus, one should expect that anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric evaluations of nature gradually converge (Steverson 1995). ...
... Such findings indicate that policy makers and governments might be able to directly justify conservation policies on behalf of nonanthropocentrism rather than reformulating the policy's aim into anthropocentrism. Norton and fellow pragmatists once argued that anthropocentric arguments would expedite policy making because these justifications would lead to similar enough environmental outcomes without alienating those who primarily valued nature for instrumental human reasons (Norton 1995). However, this study indicates that the public might be more accepting of policies passed on behalf of nature, and thus, to utilize anthropocentric justifications for policies with obvious conservation aims may not be necessary to garner public support. ...
We conduct a survey experiment testing the causal link between ethical justifications and acceptability towards two environmental policies: conservation area expansion and wildlife infrastructure. In a 2 × 3 experiment with American participants (n = 1604), we test two ethical justifications – anthropocentric justification (nature as instrumentally valuable) and a non-anthropocentric justification (nature as intrinsically valuable) compared to a control group. We find partial support that non-anthropocentric justification increases policy acceptability compared to no justification. Contrary to expectations, non-anthropocentric justification leads to higher policy acceptability than anthropocentric justification. These results are robust to individual differences in political orientation and environmental concern. Additionally, participants in the non-anthropocentric experimental condition respond that similar conservation policies generally are, and should be, passed to benefit wildlife and ecosystems compared to control group participants. Likewise, participants given the anthropocentric justification report that similar policies are, and should be, passed for humans and society compared to the control group.
... We have made a case that conservation's meaning, purpose, and relationship to the rest of society are inadequately understood. While many people believe that an infi rm ethical foundation is no impediment to conservation (Norton 1994), there are many examples to the contrary, for example: ...
... Another form of Consequentialism that is especially infl uential among conservation professionals is Pragmatism (Norton 1994;Katz and Light 1996;Minteer and Collins 2005;Lockwood and Reiners 2009). The essential tenet of Pragmatism is that truth or meaning ought to be judged by practical consequences. ...
... Estas son conocidas como perspectivas antropocéntricas "fuertes" y "débiles", respectivamente. Otra forma de estas perspectivas antropocéntricas "fuertes" y "débiles" se refiere al espectro de valoración instrumental de la naturaleza: solo para usos humanos de consumo o para una gama más amplia de usos que trascienden al de consumo, tales como los valores de uso estético, recreacional o espiritual (Norton 1993). ...
El término co-habitante alude a compartir el hábitat. Tiene un sentido análogo al concepto de compañera o compañero que alude a compartir el pan (del latín, cum = con; panis = pan). La vida se comparte con el hábitat y con el pan. La comprensión de que compartimos los hábitats y que nuestra especie Homo sapiens forma parte
de los ecosistemas está implícita en el origen etimológico de la palabra humano, que proviene del latín humus, que significa tierra. Esta comprensión ecosistémica que se encuentra en los orígenes de la civilización occidental es corroborada hoy por las ciencias biogeoquímicas que demuestran que la constitución molecular de los cuerpos humanos tiene una composición química similar al humus o materia orgánica del suelo. Es notable que esta comprensión también se encuentra en los orígenes de la tradición judeo-cristiana. En el Génesis, el nombre del primer ser
humano es Adán, que deriva del hebreo adamah, que también significa tierra. Tanto el nombre como el origen material del primer ser humano se asocian con el suelo, con la naturaleza: “Entonces Dios formó al hombre (adam) del polvo de la tierra (adamah), sopló en su nariz aliento de vida y fue el hombre un ser viviente”. La cultura popular arraigada en el campo chileno también evoca la práctica cotidiana de cohabitar con la tierra. En su cuento “Tierra Ajena”, el poeta chileno Oscar Castro se refiere a cómo un campesino cohabita con cada planta y la tierra que trabaja a diario: “Lisandro siente la tierra. La besa con los ojos y con los pies… cada yuyito humilde, cada surco de la tierra”. El concepto de co-habitante –compartir la tierra, el hábitat– brota desde múltiples raíces culturales, ancestrales y actuales, y en el marco de la ética biocultural nos recuerda que los humanos constituimos una parte indisociable de la tierra y que no somos los únicos actores relevantes en el planeta. Por lo tanto, las áreas protegidas no deben ni pueden ser concebidas en aislamiento.
... A noção de paradigma foi ampliada porPirages e Ehrlich (1974) que apuseram o conceito do "paradigma social dominante" para designar o conjunto de crenças, normas, valores e hábitos que instituem a visão de mundo compartilhada pelo senso comum em uma determinada cultura. O paradigma social dominante se configura então, como generalizações simbólicas amplamente aceitas por membros de uma determinada comunidade, modelos de relacionamento entre objetos de interesse e critérios de apreciações em ajuizamentos.Como as distintas visões pré-analíticas são internacionalizadas, podem por muitas vezes permanecer não questionadas (RIFKIN;HOWARD, 1980), moldando a forma como os indivíduos percebem a sua realidade(NORTON, 1991). Nesse sentido, os paradigmas ambientais se referem ao modo como os homens compreendem a natureza e agem sobre ela. ...
In the last decades, due to social, governmental and market pressures, the interest of
organizations in adopting business management that contemplates the social and environmental dimensions in their decision-making processes has intensified. Sectors associated with ecological impacts, such as industry and agriculture are constantly being charged for the adoption of sustainable practices that can guarantee the reduction of negative impacts caused by their productive activities. From this context and seeking to assist organizations in the feasibility of adopting Corporate Sustainability, the Strategic Planning for Corporate Sustainability (PEPSE) model emerges to combine traditional Strategic Planning (PE) models and environmental models in a single methodology, proposing a detailed analysis of the sustainability variables and with the differential of the information of the strategic diagnosis for the elaboration of sustainable strategies, besides the definition of the most adequate tools for its implementation. Considering the relevance of the PEPSE model, this study aims to analyze which factors of business sustainability are adopted in the process of strategic diagnosis of the agricultural sector in the light of the Strategic Planning for Business Sustainability (PEPSE) model. To achieve the proposed objective, the study will use as a basis the PEPSE model applied to the multicriteria decision tool Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The aim will be to
apply the AHP methodology to identify which variables in the PEPSE model act as the most important in the process of strategic diagnosis according to the managers. As a result, Environmental Certification, Fauna and Flora Inventory, Dissemination of Good Practices, Construction of a Positive Image and Hiring of local labor were identified as priority strategies for the farm’s decision-making process.
In this article, I show how the Hmong religion can provide the basis of a novel version of non-human-centered environmentalism. I do this by outlining some of the core doctrines in the Hmong religion and showing what they imply about the value of nature. I then situate the view that is implied by these doctrines into the traditional Western environmental ethics literature on the value of nature. In particular, I argue that the Hmong religion provides a view in environmental ethics that is non-anthropocentric, individualistic, non-egalitarian, and non-biocentric.
This paper argues that a specifically environmental ethic is neither needed nor perhaps desirable for effecting the change in values for which many environmentalists have rightly called. Rather, familiar values such as beauty and excellence, and especially an outlook that regards those values as central aspects of a good life, may be all that is needed. The requisite ethic of appreciation is already embedded to some degree in a wide range of cultures, so no radical shift in values is called for, nor convergence on a tendentious moral framework. But this outlook meets with skepticism from the dominant public ethos, as embodied for instance in mainstream economics. While this paper does not offer a full-blooded defense of an aesthetic grounding for environmental concern, it does suggest that the skepticism about such a grounding is considerably overblown.
Environmental management in Indonesia has undergone various policy changes, in addition to overlapping interrelated legal regulations. Environmental management in addition to dealing with aspects of nature conservation, is also related to economic aspects, investment, and sustainable development. On the one hand there is an interest in preserving nature and protecting nature as it should be, but on the other hand there is a shift in interests, especially with regard to investment and economic interests. This study aims to analyze the political direction of environmental management law in Indonesia.
Video games have the potential to be a tool for communicating pro-environmental values. The present study examines the correlation between players’ environmental attitudes and their interaction with virtual natural resources. This study constructs Bayesian ordinal logistic models to analyze survey data of 640 Animal Crossing: New Horizon (ACNH) players from 29 countries. Results show that the frequency of catching in-game animals (fish and insects) is positively correlated with the level of human centeredness in environmental attitudes. In addition, less anthropocentric players tend to use more sustainable methods to collect woods in ACNH. Such a particular way of interacting with in-game animals and trees based on their species may be attributable to players’ environmental attitudes and game designs. This paper discusses how game design can play a role in promoting pro-environmental behaviors and highlights the moral implications of interactions with non-human beings.
Faut- il que la nature soit vierge ou intacte pour se voir reconnaître une valeur ? C’est l’idée que les premières philosophies environnementales, apparues dans les années 1970 et centrées sur la nature sauvage ou la notion de wilderness, semblaient conforter. Ce faisant, elles laissaient penser que, sur les terres habitées ou transformées par les hommes - qui couvrent la majorité de la surface de la planète -, il fallait renoncer à penser la nature. Dépassant cette approche dualiste opposant préservationnistes et modernistes, l’auteur explore une voie médiane : contre l’idée que la nature résiderait seulement dans quelques lieux remarquables, il propose d’appréhender la gamme différenciée de nos rapports à la nature quotidienne. Car il y a bien de la nature dans les sociétés humaines et, en regard, nous faisons société avec elle. C’est en immersion dans les mondes agricoles et en avançant une description des pratiques multiples qui, dans les champs, les friches et les jardins, nous mettent en relation avec des partenaires non humains, que cet ouvrage propose donc l’élaboration d’une éthique de la nature ordinaire.
This book examines the role of ethics and philosophy in biodiversity conservation.
The objective of this book is two-fold: on the one hand it offers a detailed and systematic account of central normative concepts often used, but rarely explicated nor justified, within conservation biology. Such concepts include ‘values’ (both intrinsic, instrumental, and, more recently, relational), ‘rights’, and ‘duties’. The second objective is to emphasize to environmental philosophers and applied ethicists the many interesting decision-making challenges of biodiversity conservation. The book argues that a nuanced account of instrumental values provides a powerful tool for reasoning about the values of biodiversity. It also scrutinizes relational values, the concept of rights of nature, and risk, and show how moral philosophy proves indispensable for these concepts. Consequently, it engages with recent suggestions on normative aspects of biodiversity conservation, and show the need for moral philosophy in biodiversity conservation. The overriding aim of this book is to provide conservation biologists and policy-makers with a systematic overview of concepts and assessments of the reasons for reaching prescriptive conclusions about biodiversity conservation. This will prove instrumental in clarifying the role of applied ethics and a refined understanding of the tools it can provide.
This title will be of interest to students and scholars of conservation biology, conservation policy, environmental ethics and environmental philosophy.
This chapter introduces some core issues in environmental ethics (EE) from a multidisciplinary perspective. This approach's primary purpose is to make explicit the richness and complexity of the subject, where arguments coming from natural sciences, politics, philosophy, economics, or psychology often intertwine. Moreover, although it is risky, the diversity of views tries to engage interested readers from different fields and non-specialists. After the introduction, the chapter focuses on the characteristics of the different views on non-anthropocentric EE. Next, five of the main ethical frameworks are presented. This is followed by some specific points of view, which are capital in the subject (intergenerational ethics, precautionary principle, deep ecology, environmental justice, indigenous peoples, and feminism). An exploration of consumption and population follows. Finally, some key points on sustainability and human development precede the conclusion of the chapter.
Anthropocentrism and Speciesism in the Context of Environmental Studies. A Synoptic Introduction
This is a guide to writing management plans for nature conservation. It is an update on all my previous publications on management planning. It introduces an ADAPTIVE approach to management.
The planning process that I describe can be applied to any place which is managed entirely, or in part, for wildlife. It is appropriate to both large-scale wildling initiatives, where the outcome is dictated by natural processes, and situations where the desired outcome is specified, for example, meadows and most other managed grasslands. It is equally relevant to nature reserves, where conservation is the primary land use, and country parks, where wildlife management may be a secondary interest. It can be applied to the management of species or habitats in any circumstance, regardless of any site designation. It is as relevant at a landscape scale as it is on a small local nature reserve.
The goal of this article is to propose a radical reform of the today’s financial accounting system of businesses accompanied by a corresponding reform of the system of national accounts. It transforms them into genuine ecological and human systems of accounts that can systematically conserve the three main types of capitals which are necessary for the functioning of any economic system. This is a radical means of overcoming the dramatic ecological and human crisis in which the humanity is buried today. This can be done by applying traditional weapons of capital conservation, invented at the end of the Middle Ages by big capitalists for the protection of their financial investments, to human and natural capital. We notably use the famous double entry accounting depicted by Werner Sombart and Max Weber like certain martial arts use the force of the adversary against him. As a result, we come to a complete redefinition of the main concepts of the economics, especially the concepts of capital, profit and market, and to the possibility of a new type of firm management that allows us to get out of the capitalist system.
This chapter provides a critique of the strong (arrogant) version of anthropocentrism on the account that the exclusive defense of human interests it promotes cannot secure the preservation of ecosystems on which humanity depends to thrive and survive in the context of the Anthropocene. This is why the shift to a post-anthropocentrism which takes into account the macroscopic and interrelated conditions of human life, is also desirable from a humanist standpoint. Post-anthropocentrism is grounded in the belief that human life can only endure through the protection of the whole Eco-biosphere and that humanity cannot isolate itself from the destiny of Earth community and its nonhuman subjects (as opposed to nonhuman ‘objects’). That involves seeing a meaning also in nature and considering our lives as set in a larger context than the one exclusively given by human societies. This chapter calls for an alliance between ecocentric and weak anthropocentric views, that is, between the defense of the intrinsic value of nature and the promotion of an ‘ecological ethics of use’ for the natural world. It makes a strong case for the integration of the intrinsic value of nature in political and legal governance, i.e., the introduction of Earth Jurisprudence in the judicial system. It particularly focuses on the legal, constitutional and political defense of the independent rights that could be ascribed to natural entities and especially ecosystems in order to ensure the maintenance, self-regulation and protection of Earth systems (hydrosphere, geosphere, atmosphere and biosphere), and by extension, to human and non-human life.
The goal of this article is to show how today’s financial accounting system, notably the IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) and the related National accounts (primarily the famous GDP, Gross Domestic Product), are the main causes of today’s human and ecological crisis. This assertion is justified on the basis of an historical survey of the development of capitalist accounting since the end of the Middles Age, the time of its foundation. We prove that, in the form it was invented by big capitalists at that time (and used until today), the concept of capital-debt to be conserved has nothing to do with the one used by economists of either classical, neoclassical, or marxist schools and that it is a very dangerous weapon against the interests of the mankind and ecology.
Environmental philosophers and ethicists who have advocated for “environmental pragmatism” have been right to insist on the importance of pluralism in environmental debates and on the utility of pragmatism in navigating them. But they have tended to rest their claims too heavily on the premise that consensus is a necessary, and readily achievable, condition of pragmatic thought and action. Recent developments within environmental studies and sciences (ESS) suggest a similar trend. What the pragmatist tradition requires, by contrast, is a commitment to the disagreement that necessarily accompanies ideological diversity and to the conservation of the conditions, structures, and institutions within which that disagreement can exist and even thrive. Ultimately, pragmatism prioritizes dissent as the basis for a healthy and rigorously democratic community. With environmental problems, this prerogative becomes even more pronounced, given their invariably complex social, political, and scientific dimensions, which require intellectually and ideologically diverse responses. Environmental discourse, education, and politics would benefit from the recognition that conflict among pluralistic constituencies, when considered through the lens of pragmatism, becomes not a problem to be solved but a fact to be lived with, and a tool to be used.
The loss of biological diversity is a global issue that has attracted widespread attention. Urbanization and rural construction are two major land developments in current social development, and they have changed the original land surface and considerably affect organisms. The impact of urbanization on biodiversity has been studied in detail, but few works have focused on investigating the effects of rural construction on rural biodiversity. As such, the impacts of land use change and effects of conservation measures in rural landscape construction must be studied. The rural environment is an important habitat for living things. With the construction of landscapes in rural areas, rural land use, agricultural activities, and residential area construction have undergone great changes. These changes have potential threats to the survival of existing organisms. Biodiversity is the foundation of human development, and biodiversity conservation technology should be supported for rural landscape construction. This chapter introduced five measures: rural landscape layout design, development of ecological agriculture, protection of diverse habitats, establishment of ecological parks and ecological corridors, and construction of life-rich rural culture. During the process, the design of rural landscape layout divides reasonable areas, protects diverse biological habitats, establishes ecological corridors, and forms rural ecological parks and ecological agricultural landscapes, and combines rural cultural construction to conserve biodiversity.
This chapter will discuss Bachelor level students’ perceptions of social (environmental) and ecological justice. Social justice concerns the fairness of distribution procedures, based on individual moral convictions of fairness and the willingness to obey the demands of authorities (Hegtvedt in Justice. Advances in group processes. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bingley, p. 371, 2008: ix–x). Social justice focuses on equalizing power relationship and access to natural resources among different social groups. While in some definitions environmental justice may encompass ecological justice (Schlosberg in Defining environmental justice: theories, movements, and nature. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007), most commonly it is associated with fairness in the distribution of environmental risks and benefits among human groups (Kopnina in Earth Perspectives 1:8, 2014a).
This paper argues that biodiversity should be understood as a normative concept constrained by a set of adequacy conditions that reflect scientific explications of diversity. That there is a normative aspect to biodiversity has long been recognized by environmental philosophers though there is no consensus on the question of what, precisely, biodiversity is supposed to be. There is also disagreement amongst these philosophers as well as amongst conservationists about whether the operative norms should view biodiversity as a global heritage or as embodying local values. After critically analyzing and rejecting the first alternative, this paper gives precedence to local values in defining biodiversity but then notes many problems associated with this move. The adequacy conditions to constrain all natural features from being dubbed as biodiversity include a restriction to biotic elements, attention to variability, and to taxonomic spread, as well as measurability. The biotic elements could be taxa, community types, or even non-standard land cover units such as sacred groves. This approach to biodiversity is intended to explicate its use within the conservation sciences which is the context in which the concept (and term) was first introduced in the late 1980s. It differs from approaches that also attempt to capture the co-option of the term in other fields such as systematics.
The paper examines connections between ontology and finance. The ontological debates concerning the role of finance are examined between two opposing schools of thought that can be labelled, very broadly, ‘instrumentalist’ and ‘realist’ (analytic-interpretivist). These two schools of thought have had momentous repercussions in understanding what is a good society. Each school defines Nature in particular ways which can be explored using ontology and philosophical insight. Our theoretical investigation aims to accommodate Nature in community financial deliberations. A positive role for government is advocated to finance environmental infrastructure initiatives. For example, precautionary strategies to address climate change must be funded. New roles for finance and government are proposed to align human relationships with Nature. Environmental precautionary principles must be developed in conjunction with finance theory to maintain decent standards of living for all. Reliance on impersonal market forces will not be enough to save the planet given the power of some over the many in the neoliberal arena.
Wildness is a term playing a key role in modern environmentalism. Wild entities, understood as self-organizing and self-willed, while pursuing their own unique forms of flourishing, can be disruptive with respect to human interests and desires. However, so defined wildness can be seen to have its own good, and as such it demands of us respect and even admiration of its own forms of self-realization. This is a most obvious preservationist way of understanding the role of ecological discomforts in human life. However, an alternative is proposed, which refers to the fundamental features of human meaning-making. Human search for meaning is dependent upon encountering an external world independent from us. An entity is determined as truly external only when it has the potential to negate our search for meaning. In as much as a significant element of ecological discomforts is connected to the capacity of wild nature to negate our desires, it is only such potentially discomforting nature that can be considered truly external. Consequently, it is proposed that in the context of the Anthropocene, it is only the potentially disruptive nature that can become truly meaningful element of human lives.
Drawing on the five-fold revision of the concept of “worldview” offered by the issue editors, I investigate whether some nonreligious modes of cultural production might be profitably investigated using such a typology. In my comparative study of religious and secular sustainability-oriented social movements I offered skeletal definitions of the categories “religion” and “sustainability,” and suggested ways in which public deployments of such terms might offer fertile ground for collaboration between individuals and groups with different value sets. In more recent work among particular rock music and festival scenes, I have found it necessary to offer a dramatically different understanding of the category “religion.” In a sort of thought experiment, I imagine whether the revised concept of “worldview” might be applicable, and indeed whether it offers some advantage over the category “religion.” My conclusions are that in general, in some cases the category of worldview may have some advantages, but it may also gloss over or ignore important cultural contestations over terms such as religion, and at best underplay important affective activators of belonging and identity. The notion of “ways of life,” or “lifeways” may offer a term which avoids some ethnocentric impositions, but would require greater elaboration to be broadly useful to ethnographers.
With the consideration that the relationships between humans and nature are constitutive of the dynamics of the ecosystems, contemporary ecological conceptions point toward new stakes in nature conservation. The issue at stake is not any more to protect the nature in sanctuaries but to manage the local biodiversity by integrating human activities within its definition. This text explores these evolutions at the level of the modalities of management of natural reserves, through a case study (Regional Natural Park of Camargue, France). We highlight two pragmatic regimes of management, both of which illustrate the diversity of the relationships which are possible to establish with nature, depending upon the combinations realised between anthropic and natural disturbances and the normative or ethics supports underlying the relationships to the living entities. The conclusion addresses the renewal of the contemporary practices and issues in the management of nature.
Die Beschäftigung mit Fragen der Angewandten oder Bereichsspezifischen Ethik hat in den letzten Jahrzehnten deutlich zugenommen und auch das Profil der Ethik verändert. Ethik tritt nicht mehr allein als akademische Bemühung um die Reflexion von Begriffen, Prinzipien und Begründungsmöglichkeiten von Moral in Erscheinung. Vielmehr werden von der Ethik zunehmend Orientierungsleistungen in praktischen, gesellschaftlichen und politischen Fragen erwartet; immer häufiger werden auch Verfahren zur politischen Konsensbildung mit dem Etikett ›Ethik‹ belegt.
Die Beschäftigung mit Fragen der Angewandten oder Bereichsspezifischen Ethik hat in den letzten Jahrzehnten deutlich zugenommen und auch das Profil der Ethik verändert. Ethik tritt nicht mehr allein als akademische Bemühung um die Reflexion von Begriffen, Prinzipien und Begründungsmöglichkeiten von Moral in Erscheinung. Vielmehr werden von der Ethik zunehmend Orientierungsleistungen in praktischen, gesellschaftlichen und politischen Fragen erwartet; immer häufiger werden auch Verfahren zur politischen Konsensbildung mit dem Etikett ›Ethik‹ belegt.
Die Beschäftigung mit Fragen der Angewandten oder Bereichsspezifischen Ethik hat in den letzten Jahrzehnten deutlich zugenommen und auch das Profil der Ethik verändert. Ethik tritt nicht mehr allein als akademische Bemühung um die Reflexion von Begriffen, Prinzipien und Begründungsmöglichkeiten von Moral in Erscheinung. Vielmehr werden von der Ethik zunehmend Orientierungsleistungen in praktischen, gesellschaftlichen und politischen Fragen erwartet; immer häufiger werden auch Verfahren zur politischen Konsensbildung mit dem Etikett ›Ethik‹ belegt.
Science has shown humans’ abilities to affect the Earth in generations beyond their time. This awareness comes at a moment when massive social change pressures national and international speech within terministic screens (Burke, 1966, p. 45) that prioritize short-term economic growth and political needs. “Sustainability” and related terms restrain that way of thinking, prioritizing the long-term well-being of the environment, the economy, and society as they come into contact with one another. Even given this standard definition, though, the term is abstract enough to be manipulated. Some polluting corporations, for example, take advantage of it as a propagandistic buzzword. Even in more legitimate applications, the term is ambiguous. “Sustainability” sometimes denotes a field of arguments about justice within and across generations, while it also symbolizes a criterion for value judgments regarding present environmental claims and policy solutions. Groups and individuals attempt to find useful ideas of sustainability to solve entrenched problems facing societies. Yet they fail to account for the possibility that these global and intergenerational problems produce demands that cannot be addressed by existing models of communication. Just as Plato advocated philosophical dialogue as a model to combat the demagoguery of Athenian democracy, we contend that existing approaches to advocacy need to be re-envisioned for our present dilemma.
When it comes to animal ethics, a central and strongly discussed question deals with the possibility to measure up the stress inflictied to animals by testings and their general conditions against the profit man (and animal) can benefit from these testings. Departing from the opinion that this measuring is in priciple possible - and this is the opinion of most of present’s animal ethics and animal protection laws - the question has to be asked wether such a measuring shall be possible without any limits or only under certain constraints that put limits to a utilitarian measuring of infliction and prevention of further suffering which would correspond to the respect of basic rights of man. Can an absolute limit be established for the infliction of suffering to animals? To answer this question, it is important to discern between considerations on an “ideal” ethical level and considerations on a realistic level that takes into account the concrete circumstances of the measuring. Following the “ideal” consideration, an absolute limit can hardly be justified. It will be especially difficult to reason that inflicting suffering aktively is morally more questionable than tolerating passively an equally severe suffering, even if this suffering is not caused by man but by natural causes. But that does not predict that similar considerations are permitted on a realistic level where additionally the risk of errors in judgement, prejudices and uncertainties (e.g. regarding the subjective sensations of animals undergoing tests) have to be taken into account. Due to pragmatic reasons, a categorical elimination seems to be reasonable on the practical level, when it comes to testings that cause long lasting and severe pain or suffering.
Forest management practices have often been criticized for inadequate consideration of the public’s environmental concerns in the pursuit of economic resource use. With issues ranging from the preservation of such endangered species as the red-cockaded woodpecker to the siltation and pollution of rivers and lakes, and now including concerns about the long-term impact of global change on forests, resource managers face many new and difficult challenges in the management of public forest land. New tools and techniques will be needed to meet the multiple and apparently conflicting demands for the forest resource in facing these challenges. In particular, because the accumulated effects of localized management practices are manifested on increasingly larger scales, there is a need for a new approach to forest management that can account for both the multiple values and concerns of the public as well as the potentially large-scale impacts from forest management practices.
Policies to govern and regulate animal biotechnology are plagued by ethical problems in four areas: food safety, animal welfare, environmental impact, and social consequences. Although the problems of animal welfare and animal rights are probably of most interest to the readers of this book, the interaction between each of these four areas has a significant effect on the way welfare and animal rights policies are negotiated and administered. Each of these regulatory areas is typically controlled by distinct divisions of government, and each raises somewhat distinct ethical concerns. I will argue that consensus solutions are available for three of the four problem areas. Only social consequences appear to involve philosophical differences that pose insurmountable obstacles to political compromise. Yet the lack of consensus on social consequences precludes social progress in the three areas where policy solutions appear possible.
Integrating Earth Stewardship with Field Environmental Philosophy (FEP) addresses two major challenges. The first is to ensure that the economic view of land administration is self-limiting to make it compatible with Earth stewardship. The second is to link Latin American conceptual and methodological approaches to international initiatives. Toward these aims, this essay shows the contribution that hermeneutics provides to FEP and its integration of ecological sciences and ethics. The focus is the theoretical framework of the FEP methodological approach developed by Ricardo Rozzi and his students at the Chilean Network of Long Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER-Chile), and the integration of FEP’s methodology to the International Long Term Ecological Research (ILTER) network. The contributions of hermeneutics to FEP are shown by discussing the translations of the meanings of key concepts such as “Earth” or “soil” and the holistic concepts of “environment” or “biosphere.” The biophysical and symbolic-linguistic domains of these concepts are linked through these translations. The route to achieve this is to: (1) establish the need for a methodology that links contrasting economic, ecological, and ethical views of the Earth; (2) identify the role that FEP plays in the theoretical framework and the development of a methodological approach to integrate ecology and ethics; (3) introduce the hermeneutical steps supportive of the FEP methodology; and (4) illustrate the FEP and other Latin American transdisciplinary initiatives that can contribute to the integration of ethics and ecology in the ILTER network and the Earth Stewardship initiative.
This chapter proposes that long-term organizational sustainability requires a firm’s deep commitment to sustainability and ethics. This commitment needs to be integrated in the organi-zation’s fabric, its climate. This climate is characterized by its commitment to ethics (ethical climate) and sustaincentrism (sustaincentric climate). The dimensions of the ethical and sustaincentric climates are described. Finally, suggestions are offered for future research.
Zhruba od 60. let minulého století je na poli environmentální etiky živý spor mezi antropocentrickou a neantropocentrickou perspektivou. Volba východiska, které ovlivňuje další formování postoje člověka (kultury) ke světu, je klíčové pro teorii, avšak z hlediska potřeb dnešní společnosti nemá jednoznačné dopady na praxi. Neatropocentrismus (zastoupený Klausem Meyer-Abichem a Holmesem Rolstonem III) i antropocentrismus (reprezentovaný Johnem Passmorem a Günterem Patzigem) se často překrývají ve výchozích motivacích i v návrzích konkrétních opatření. Od konce 80. let byly teoretické rozpory nově reflektovány, například v myšlení R. Attfielda, J. B. Callicotta, či V. Hösleho. Provizorním řešením otázky může být koncepce pokorného antropocentrismu, která člověka chápe jako poznávací epicentrum a zároveň jako subjekt schopný morální reflexe, jež přesahuje lidský horizont.
Ecological action requires some form of agreement among social actors. This does not exist at the level of principles: Values concerning the environment oppose anthropocentrist (the value attributed to nature is extrinsic) and ecocentrist (it is intrinsic) perspectives. In this case, nature may be valued for its individual components or at the level of the complex sets which compose it. The intrinsic value of natural things may be tied to the qualities they offer or to the individuals in their concrete individuality. The diversity of value does not prevent at least partial consensuses : Do not people who adhere to different systems share many values ? Consensus may rise from an overlapping effect. It may appear in pragmatic approaches, that stress concrete situations more than principles. The principle of vigilance is accepted by everyone, but does not completely prevent conflicts.
Hunters consider themselves conservationists, but they also think of themselves as hunters first. Some environmentalists perceive this as a paradox. This hunting-conservation paradox is typically reconciled in very similar ways across the hunting world, and for many they do so through associational life. Specifically, the sustainable hunting model of governance is promoted by hunters; proponents argue that revenue from hunting increases the funding, and therefore efficacy, of conservation efforts at various scales. While conservation worldwide has benefitted tremendously by this governance, there have been variations in the levels of success of different expected social and economic outcomes. Such variation could be explored through greater incorporation of sustainable hunting in global conservation dialogue, while simultaneously broadening conservation advocacy worldwide. However, this does not typically occur due to low levels of trust, stemming from divides in values and styles of reasoning among various environmentalists and hunting advocates. This paper provides insight into such limitations and, hopefully, informs and encourages further dialogue to improve sustainable hunting governance worldwide and expand the breadth of global conservation advocacy.
In practice, monetary valuation of biotic resources by the concept of total economic value (TEV) is a powerful tool for a rational treatment of this fraction of natural capital and for its conservation. Beyond methodological limits to monetarisation with regard to its marginal character there are also moral limits. Adopting the weakest and least controversial assumptions regarding both mankind’s dependence on biodiversity and environmental ethics, one is led to the conclusion that the impossibility of communicating with future generations forbids us to value biodiversity only in monetary terms. Fairness towards futurity demands that we consider conservation as a constraint on economic activity.
A discussion about ethics for professional foresters can begin with the philosophical foundations. Ethics has a long tradition in philosophy, and many philosophers have addressed the subject in general and as it relates specifically to professionals and to the environment. A comprehensive system of ethical rules is elusive, however; professionals must recognize the case-specific context of ethical decisions and gain experience in making good ethical decisions. Of special interest to foresters are the role of ethics and social groups in influencing objectivity of science, and the inclusion of nonutilitarian values in nature.
In a broader sense, sustainable development aims to enhance a state of harmony between human beings and between man and nature (CMED, 1988). Yes, but if studies on man and nature relationships are frequently conducted, those on harmony between human beings remain pretty rare. On a territory, how can we value this social harmony ? After a few recall of the notions of sustainable development, negotiation and conservation, the last part will present the Actor in 4 dimensions, a methodological proposition which aims to facilitate integrated and participatory management approaches toward natural resources.
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