Mathew Humphrey
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199242672
- eISBN:
- 9780191599514
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199242674.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
Environmental political philosophy has generally been framed around the differing axiologies of ecocentrism (nature‐centred) and anthropocentric (human‐centred) forms of ethics. This book seeks to ...
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Environmental political philosophy has generally been framed around the differing axiologies of ecocentrism (nature‐centred) and anthropocentric (human‐centred) forms of ethics. This book seeks to challenge the political relevance of this philosophical dispute with respect to the problem of nature preservation as public policy. A detailed analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of both ecocentric and ‘ecological humanist’ positions shows that the ‘embedded humanism’ within ecocentric arguments offers an opportunity to move beyond the ecocentric‐anthropocentric divide. Furthermore, a principle of ‘strong irreplaceability’ with regard to natural goods can provide the basis for a political argument for nature preservation that is compatible with both human‐centred and nature‐centred concerns.Less
Environmental political philosophy has generally been framed around the differing axiologies of ecocentrism (nature‐centred) and anthropocentric (human‐centred) forms of ethics. This book seeks to challenge the political relevance of this philosophical dispute with respect to the problem of nature preservation as public policy. A detailed analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of both ecocentric and ‘ecological humanist’ positions shows that the ‘embedded humanism’ within ecocentric arguments offers an opportunity to move beyond the ecocentric‐anthropocentric divide. Furthermore, a principle of ‘strong irreplaceability’ with regard to natural goods can provide the basis for a political argument for nature preservation that is compatible with both human‐centred and nature‐centred concerns.
Matt Price
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226136806
- eISBN:
- 9780226136820
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226136820.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter explores a specifically twentieth- (and now twenty-first) century conundrum: how to assess the value of nature and natural goods, and to weigh that value against other goods in a moral ...
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This chapter explores a specifically twentieth- (and now twenty-first) century conundrum: how to assess the value of nature and natural goods, and to weigh that value against other goods in a moral calculus. The contemporary obsession with nature's value reopens a question that John Locke thought he had solved in the seventeenth century. Indeed, modern economics begins with his all-but-categorical denial of the value of nature's works. The labor theory of value required it: Locke needed to show that human activity was the true source of all value, thereby grounding his theory of property, his liberal version of the social contract, and his arguments on political authority. If the lands untouched by human toil, and their value, had to be sacrificed on the altar of property, that was hardly controversial in an era when “wilderness” was a term of abuse. But ever since the hedonic theory of utilitarianism captured political economy from the dismal scientists, economists have rejected toil in favor of pleasure, and spaces once called wastelands are now more often named wetlands.Less
This chapter explores a specifically twentieth- (and now twenty-first) century conundrum: how to assess the value of nature and natural goods, and to weigh that value against other goods in a moral calculus. The contemporary obsession with nature's value reopens a question that John Locke thought he had solved in the seventeenth century. Indeed, modern economics begins with his all-but-categorical denial of the value of nature's works. The labor theory of value required it: Locke needed to show that human activity was the true source of all value, thereby grounding his theory of property, his liberal version of the social contract, and his arguments on political authority. If the lands untouched by human toil, and their value, had to be sacrificed on the altar of property, that was hardly controversial in an era when “wilderness” was a term of abuse. But ever since the hedonic theory of utilitarianism captured political economy from the dismal scientists, economists have rejected toil in favor of pleasure, and spaces once called wastelands are now more often named wetlands.
Christian Smith
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226231952
- eISBN:
- 9780226232003
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226232003.003.0009
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Theory
The conclusion goes over personalism, really asserting that persons are natural-goods seeking animals who live motivated lives and engage in motivated actions. It reiterates that social science ...
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The conclusion goes over personalism, really asserting that persons are natural-goods seeking animals who live motivated lives and engage in motivated actions. It reiterates that social science should rethink the concept of culture and approach cultural analyses in the light of the basic human goods and interests proposed above and the human teleological quest for eudaimonia. The chapter goes over the account given in the book, which is against reductionism and which views love as critical within the argument of the book. The kind of social and institutional contexts that nurture, challenge, and instill the virtues needed to achieve basic human goods involve love, even if it stands in the background. Indeed, love fosters trust, and such trust promotes human flourishing.Less
The conclusion goes over personalism, really asserting that persons are natural-goods seeking animals who live motivated lives and engage in motivated actions. It reiterates that social science should rethink the concept of culture and approach cultural analyses in the light of the basic human goods and interests proposed above and the human teleological quest for eudaimonia. The chapter goes over the account given in the book, which is against reductionism and which views love as critical within the argument of the book. The kind of social and institutional contexts that nurture, challenge, and instill the virtues needed to achieve basic human goods involve love, even if it stands in the background. Indeed, love fosters trust, and such trust promotes human flourishing.
Sylvia Berryman
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- April 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198835004
- eISBN:
- 9780191876561
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198835004.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Aristotle’s critique of attempts to ground ethics in metaphysical abstractions would be the logical place for him to have articulated the case for a naturalistic ethics, but he does not do so. ...
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Aristotle’s critique of attempts to ground ethics in metaphysical abstractions would be the logical place for him to have articulated the case for a naturalistic ethics, but he does not do so. Rather, we find, in Eudemian Ethics, a contrary case for a distinction between the natural good and the practical good. Given Aristotle’s well-known emphasis on the nature of action, and his practice of beginning normative treatises from the nature of action, we can see implicit in this focus an argument that, for rational agents, the fact that we aim at some good commits us to seeking the genuine or true good. This chapter argues that an apparent fallacy in the first sentence of Nicomachean Ethics yields—if properly understood—an insistence that rational agency requires consideration of the truly best goal.Less
Aristotle’s critique of attempts to ground ethics in metaphysical abstractions would be the logical place for him to have articulated the case for a naturalistic ethics, but he does not do so. Rather, we find, in Eudemian Ethics, a contrary case for a distinction between the natural good and the practical good. Given Aristotle’s well-known emphasis on the nature of action, and his practice of beginning normative treatises from the nature of action, we can see implicit in this focus an argument that, for rational agents, the fact that we aim at some good commits us to seeking the genuine or true good. This chapter argues that an apparent fallacy in the first sentence of Nicomachean Ethics yields—if properly understood—an insistence that rational agency requires consideration of the truly best goal.
