Environmental Ethics Today

Description

Environmental Ethics Today is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of the environment, our species, and species diversity. This wide-ranging introduction to major issues and questions in environmental ethics employs an accessible, journalistic style--featuring current facts, real controversies, individual stories, and a vivid narrative--that engages readers and gives meaning to abstract philosophical concepts. Topics discussed include pollution permits for corporations, medical experimentation on animals, genetic engineering, economic globalization, biodiversity, and much more. Theories and methods such as utilitarianism, contractarianism, and hermeneutics are introduced as needed to help readers understand and attempt to resolve environmental conflicts. The book considers the views of many thinkers including Father Thomas Berry, Wendell Berry, J. Baird Callicott, Jane Goodall, Garrett Hardin, David Korten, Aldo Leopold, Arne Naess, Val Plumwood, Daniel Quinn, Tom Regan, Holmes Rolston III, Vandana Shiva, Julian Simon, Peter Singer, and Karen Warren. An exceptional primary text for courses in environmental ethics and environmental values, Environmental Ethics Today is also excellent reading for general courses in moral problems, business ethics, environmental studies, and women's studies.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
What Is Environmental Ethics?
Environmental Ethics Under Attack
Disturbing Trends in Human Health
Future Generations
World Trade
Population Growth and Obligations to the World's Poor
Obligations to Nonhumans
Preview of Chapters
PART I: ANTHROPOCENTRISM
1. Overpopulation, Markets, and Human Rights
Overpopulation and Scarcity
What Are Free Markets?
Cornucopian Economics
The Tragedy of the Commons
Public Goods, Externalities, and Government Coercion
Trading Pollution Permits
A Market Approach to Overpopulation
Lifeboat Ethics
Psychological Egoism and the Possibility of Sharing
Human Rights
2. Energy, Economics, and Future Generations
Global Warming and Future Generations
Human Rights and the Futurity Problem
Fair Contracts and Future Generations
Environmental Tradeoffs and Cost-Benefit Analysis
CBA and Increasing Scarcity
CBA and Political Equality
CBA and Future Generations
3. Competing Human-Centered Values
Environmental Hazards in the Third World
How Much Money Is a Human Life Worth?
Should Prostitution Be Legalized?
Non-economic vs. Economic Anthropocentrism
Aesthetic Values
National Heritage
Transformative Values and Future Generations
Moral Pluralism
Moral Relativism
PART II: NONANTHROPOCENTRISM
4. Animal Liberation and Utilitarianism
Cruelty to Animals
Utilitarianism
Speciesism
Animal Husbandry
Vegetarianism
Rodeos and Bullfights
The Replacement Argument
Against Hedonism
Preference Utilitarianism
5. Animal Rights and Medical Research
Introduction
The Nature of Rights
Immortal Souls and Rights
Language, Abstract Thinking, and Rights
Moral Personality and Rights
Contracts and Rights
An Animal's Right to Life
The Benefits of Experiments on Animals
Animal Rights vs. Animal Research
Limited Animal Rights in Reflective Equilibrium
Animal Research in Reflective Equilibrium
6. Species Diversity and Gaia
Massive Extinction of Species
Causes of Extinction
Why Do We Protect Endangered Species?
Animal Rights vs. Species Preservation
Species as Individual Living Things
The Gaia Hypothesis
From Science to Metaphor
Metaphors and Moral Implications
Mechanical and Organic Metaphors for Nature
7. The Land Ethic
Hunting Animals to Preserve Ecosystems
The Nature of Ecosystems
Does Hunting Help or Hurt Ecosystems?
Why Value Ecosystems?
Conflicting Moral Commitments
Tigers and Elephants in the Third World
PART III: ENVIRONMENTAL SYNERGISM
8. Human Rights, Agriculture, and Biodiversity
Poverty, Efficiency, and Human Rights
Environmental Synergism
The Benefits of High-tech Agriculture
Specialization Leads to Preoccupation with Money
Fouling Our Own Nest
Sustainability Problems
The Green Revolution
Biodiversity and Human Welfare
Anthropocentrism or Synergism?
9. Ecofeminism and Environmental Justice
From Feminism to Ecofeminism
Women as Subordinate
Indigenous People as Subordinate
Nature as Subordinate
Women and Nature
Subordination of Minorities Encourages Pollution
Subordination of Women, Environmental Degradation, and Overpopulation
Subordination of Native Peoples Reduces Biodiversity
10. Religion and Nature
Should People "Play God?"
The Master Interpretation of Christianity
Hermeneutics and the Constitution
Hermeneutics and the Bible
Narratives, Grand Narratives, and Worldviews
Naess' Deep Ecology
Native American Religions
The Stewardship Interpretation of Christianity
The Citizenship Interpretation of Christianity
PART IV: APPLICATIONS
11. Personal Choices, Consumerism, and Human Nature
Consumerism vs. Synergism
Justifications of Economic Growth
High Consumption and Human Welfare
Marketing Discontent
Extrinsic Motivations and Their Limits
Some Instrinsic Motivations
Looking for Love
Your Money or Your Life
12. Public Policies, Efficiency, and Globalization
The Need for Collective Action
Subsidizing Inefficiency
More Efficient Transportation
Agricultural Policies
Corporate Welfare and Campaign Finance Reform
The Promise of Globalization
Globalization and Human Misery
The World Trade Organization, Environmental Protection, and Democracy
Final Reflections--Is Optimism Justified?
Conflicting Trends
Fragmenting Societies
We Are the World
Value Nature and Limit Human Power
Glossary
Notes
Index
Each chapter ends with a section on "Judgment Calls"