Environmental ethics (Philosophy) (Philosophy)

Health care is ubiquitous in the lives of industrialized people. Yet, every medical development, technique, and procedure impact the environment. Green Bioethics synthesizes environmental ethics and biomedical ethics, thus creating an interdisciplinary approach to sustainable health care. Notably, Green Bioethics addresses, not the structure of environmental sustainability in health care institutions, but the sustainability of individual health care offerings.

Green Bioethics parallels traditional biomedical ethics by providing four principles for ethical guidance. Through these four principles, Green Bioethics presents a coherent framework for evaluating the sustainability of medical developments, techniques, and procedures. The principles of Green Bioethics are:
- Distributive Justice (Allocate Basic Medical Resources before Special Interest Access)
- Resource Conservation (Provide Health Care Needs before Health Care Wants)
- Simplicity (Reduce Dependence on Medical Interventions)
- Ethical Economics (Humanistic Health Care Instead of Financial Profit)

The future of our world may very well depend on how effectively we halt ecological destruction and conserve our resources. The principles of Green Bioethics, in tandem with the concrete examples given in this book, will support sustainability in health care.

Even though anthropogenic climate change is largely caused by industrialized nations, its burden is distributed unevenly with poor developing countries suffering the most. A common response to livelihood insecurities and destruction is migration. Using Peter Singer's ‘historical principle’, this paper argues that a morally just evaluation requires taking causality between climate change and migration under consideration. The historical principle is employed to emphasize shortcomings in commonly made philosophical arguments to oppose immigration. The article concludes that none of these arguments is able to override the moral responsibility of industrialized countries to compensate for harms that their actions have caused.

ABSTRACT: Anthropocentrism has been claimed to be the root of the global environmental crisis. Based on a multidisciplinary (e.g. environmental philosophy, animal ethics, anthro - pology, law) and multilingual (English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese) literature review, this article proposes a conceptual analysis of ‘anthropocentrism’ and reconstructs the often implicit argument that links anthropocentrism to the environmental crisis. The variety of usages of the concept of ‘anthropocentrism’ described in this article reveals many underlying disagreements under the apparent unanimity of the calls to reject anthropocentrism, both regarding what exactly is the root of the problem, and the nature of the possible solutions. It highlights the limitations of the argument of anthropocentrism as the scapegoat of the environmental crisis and identifies two main challenges faced by attempts to go beyond anthropocentrism: an epistemological challenge regarding knowledge and the place of sciences, and a metaethical challenge related to values and cultural pluralism. Beyond the issue of an anthropocentric point of view, the core of the problem might be an intertwinement of views and as sumptions that work together to undermine attempts to protect the environment from the greed of some humans, such as the human−nature dichotomy, capitalism, consumerism, industrialism, etc. Finally, this article suggests that making the nuances and the presuppositions that underlie various versions of the anti-anthropocentric rhetoric explicit is necessary to foster constructive dialogue among different anti anthropocentrism proponents, as well as with their detractors.
KEY WORDS: Anthropocentrism · Non-anthropocentrism · Values of nature · Environmental ethics · Cultural pluralism · Intrinsic value

Kari Väyrynen, Oulun yliopisto HYVEET YMPÄRISTÖETIIKASSA (luonnos, siteerattava alkuperäisen julkaisun pohjalta) Tarkastelen artikkelissani hyveitä ympäristöetiikassa kahdella tasolla. Esittelen aluksi ympäristötietoisen hyve-etiikan (environmental virtue ethics) muutamia keskeisiä ongelmia ja kytkentöjä yleisempiin ympäristöfilosofisiin teemoihin. Varsinkin angloamerikkalaisessa keskustelussa dominoinut kysymyksenasettelu ihmis-vs. luontokeskeisyydestä on värittänyt myös hyveiden analyysiä. Esitän omana kantanani, että keskeiset perinteiset hyveet eivät palaudu ihmiskeskeiseen arvomaailmaan kuten jotkut hyve-etiikan kriitikot (esimerkiksi Holmes Rolston III 2005) ovat väittäneet eikä toisaalta voida löytää erityisesti ympäristöarvoihin kytkeytyviä hyveitä. Perinteiset hyveet ovat tässä mielessä ihmiskeskeisyys/luontokeskeisyys -jaon kannalta neutraaleja, ne voidaan suuremmitta ongelmitta laajentaa ihmisyhteisöistä bioottisiin yhteisöihin. Esimerkiksi hyväntahtoisuus (benevolence) on tässä suhteessa kaikkea elollista koskeva hyve (Frasz 2005). Artikkelin lopussa tarkastelen ympäristöhyveiden antropologista perustaa, mikä on toki ympäristöfilosofisesti keskeinen kysymys mutta jota tähänastinen keskustelu ei ole vielä paljoakaan pohtinut. Erityisen tärkeä on hyveiden rooli tunteiden ja järjen moraalisten aspektien yhdistäjänä. Tämä perustelee yleisemminkin hyveiden erityisen merkityksellistä filosofista roolia. Louke van Wensveen toteaakin mainiosti: "Hyveiden kultivointi sallii ja rohkaisee meitä yhdistämään toisiinsa tunteita, ajatuksia ja tekoja. Näin se sopii yhteen kokonaispersoonallisuuden ihanteen kanssa, jonka monet ekologisesti valistuneet ihmiset ovat omaksuneet". (van Wensveen 2005, 19). Tähän liittyy myös kysymys hyveiden kontekstoinnista suhteessa luontoon. Lähden muun muassa Nicolai Hartmannin (Hartmann 1935) käsityksiä seuraten siitä, että sekä tunteet että järki välittävät ympäristöstä ja luonnosta merkittävää tietoa. Siksi myös tietyt moraaliset tunteet, erityisesti

It's hardly news that settler culture normalizes ecocide. Those of us raised as settlers who are nevertheless ecoconscious routinely blame ourselves for our failure to live up to our own best expectations when it comes to challenging the norms and practices of our culture. This leads us to overlook that we're also—and, I think, much more so—among its victims. I outline five manifestations of victimhood routinely exhibited by the ecoconscious settler activists, scholars, and students with whom I interact. I then consider how we can transition from being victims to survivors of our culture, which is vital for ending ecocide. These two concepts, victimhood and survivorship, are regularly juxtaposed when discussing recovery for those subject to abuse, violence, and other trauma-inducing phenomena. Together they provide the basis for a clearer understanding of how we ecoconscious settlers should engage in the ongoing fight for our lives and our futures. We are living in the liminal, standing at the threshold of changing our ways and complete annihilation. Which is it going to be? — Natasha Alvarez (2014)

The concept of reflection is common to a range of learning theories and therefore carries various meanings and differing significance. Within theories of adult education, reflection is predominantly conceptualized as the rational analytical process through which human beings extract knowledge from their experience. This article critiques this cognitive bias. However, the author argues that a perspective of embodied experiential learning should not give preference to the body over the mind as a source of knowledge. Nor should researchers reject reflection as an exclusively cognitive process. Reflective practices can facilitate a learning dialogue between our implicit embodied experience and conceptual aspects of our consciousness. The author illustrates this with the example of the theory and practice of Gendlin's Focusing. In conclusion, the author proposes a set of elements, characteristic of individual and collective human experiential learning, that can provide a framework for a more expansive and integrative conceptualization of reflection.

This work is Chapter 11 in the John M. Meyer and Jens M. Kersten edited volume "The Greening of Everyday Life" (Oxford University Press, 2016), pp.183-97. It builds in part upon my earlier work "Plumwood, Property, Selfhood and Sustainability" in trying to tease out the elements that are valuable in the Lockean tradition of property theory, which I identify with the idea of belonging, and distinguish these from and contrast them with the reductive and instrumentalizing aspects of that tradition, which I associate with notions of possession and the dynamics of self-validating reduction. I suggest that the predominance of the latter dynamics in modern Western lives creates what I call a "tragedy of the uncommon", in which healthy and fulfilling bonds of social belonging, experiential connection to the earth and to food production are steadily rendered distant and opaque. Against these tendencies, I set the transformative social potential of contemporary experiences of community gardens.

The Flint water crisis was a preventable tragedy that has decimated an entire community. This crisis is particularly appalling because Flint is an Environmental Justice community –a community in which the majority of its residents are racial minorities, many of whom live below the poverty level, and bear the disproportionate burdens of environmental risks. As this vulnerable community continues to suffer, we at the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition are reminded of the Michigan Environmental Justice Plan, and how its implementation may have helped to prevent this catastrophe from happening.

"This paper examines what would be a fair distribution of the right to emit greenhouse gases. It distinguishes between views that treat the distribution of this right on its own (Isolationist Views) and those that treat it in conjunction with the distribution of other goods (Integrationist Views).

The most widely held view adopts an Isolationist approach and holds that emission rights should be distributed equally. This paper provides a critique of this 'equal per capita' view, and the isolationist assumptions on which it depends. It examines four arguments for this view, finding each wanting.

It then presents two general challenges to the 'equal per capita' view, and, indeed, any views which treat the distribution of greenhouse gas emissions in isolation from other goods.

It concludes by outlining and defending an alternative (Integrationist) approach to the distribution of rights to emit greenhouse gases"

Z destrukcyjnego wpływu niszczenia środowiska na człowieka zaczęto sobie zdawać sprawę dopiero na początku lat 60. XX wieku (D. Brower, R. Carson, G. Hardin). Wśród myślicieli, których refleksje bezpośrednio poprzedziły powstanie etyki środowiskowej jako samodzielnej dyscypliny filozoficznej, wymienić należy: H.D. Thoreau, J. Muira, A. Leopolda i A. Schweitzera. Etyka środowiskowa sensu stricto narodziła się w latach 70. XX wieku w USA. Należy tu wymienić wystąpienia następujących autorów: J. Cobb, W. Blackstone, J. Feinberg i Ch. Stone, A. Næss, R. Sylvan, J. Passmore, P. Singer, H. Rolston III, J. Rodman, G. Sessions, K.E. Goodpaster. Równolegle V. R. Potter II wypracował bioetykę globalną. W 1979 r. E. Hargrove założył pierwsze naukowe czasopismo tematyczne Environmental Ethics.
Dotychczas wykrystalizowały się trzy główne nurty etyki środowiskowej: antropocentryczny, biocentryczny i ekocentryczny. Różnice między nimi są uwarunkowane koncepcją przyrody oraz antropologią.

In an article titled “Robochop,” The Economist reported a practical problem and its technological solution. The problem was that swarms of jellyfish clogged up the pipes of a Swedish nuclear power plant on the Baltic Sea coast, forcing the plant’s temporary shutdown. The proposed solution involved utilizing an invention of “a fleet of killer robots that turn jellyfish into mush.” The devices known as JEROS (Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarms) are designed to follow a lead robot and work in formation: they can apparently chop up to 900 kilograms of jellyfish an hour.''

The report raises an irrepressible question: Is there not something wrong—even deeply disturbing—about this picture?

This paper argues that environmental virtue ethics requires the
adoption of an ethical ideal in order to guide the identification and
practice of virtues. I recommend friendship as one such ideal due to
emphasis such an ideal places upon the quality of the relationship
with nature rather than the evaluation of individual actions. After
describing the value of friendship as an ethical ideal, I respond to
some of the objections that have been raised against it in the context
of environmental virtue.

Apocalyptic fictions abound in contemporary culture, multiplying end-of-the-world fantasies of environmental collapse. Meanwhile, efforts toward global sustainability extrapolate from deep-past trends to predict and manage deep-future scenarios. These narratives converge in " eco-eschatologies, " which work as phantasms that construct our identities, our understanding of the world, and our sense of responsibility in the present. I critique eco-eschatology's reliance on an interpretation of deep time that treats every temporal moment as interchangeable and projects the future as a chronological extension of the past. This enacts what Jean-Luc Nancy calls the " catastrophe of equivalence " by domesticating the future and obscuring the incommensurability of what resists substitution, conversion, or exchange. By contrast, the renewal of our responsibility toward the future, without apocalypse or apotheosis, requires an intuition of deep time that respects the singular anachronicity of the present and refuses the framing of existence against a background of annihilation.

The uploaded version of the article is my PDF of the publication.
One of the new constellations which, in my opinion, will be much debated on in the post-pandemic time will be the theological interpretation of Creation and of the aims of Creation within the Christian tradition. In my view, this will represent a central subject within the theological debate, since this topic directly involves the goal as such of Creation, on the one hand, and the position, value, right, and duty of mankind within Creation, on the other. The related questions are whether God’s action of Creation is directed to affirming the pre-eminence of mankind and the right of domination of man over all other created entities, or whether God’s action of Creation includes all the created entities in an equal way without God designating superiority to any created entity over any other entity.
In my contribution, I am therefore going to deal with two mutually opposed interpretations of Creation and of the corresponding relations existing among God, mankind, and all the other creatures. The first interpretation could be synthesised in the formula Dominium Terrae of man over other creatures. The second interpretation could be described as God designating to humankind the stewardship of nature. The notions of the two interpretations of God’s Creation have consequences – for mankind’s attitudes and orientations towards nature – which are completely different from each other.
- The first interpretation, which has, as its central feature, foundation, and principle, the notion of man as the image of God, considers mankind as the centre of creation. This interpretation confers to mankind a position of absolute privilege over all of the other creatures; all of nature bows to mankind. The direction of God’s Creation is anthropocentric meaning all creatures and nature in its entirety are at the disposal of mankind, since mankind has received from the very word of God the legitimation for the dominion over nature. Nature is regarded as an object to be used and which can be used. It has no actual worth, no actual value as such; it has no independent position in reality.
- The second interpretation, which insists on the commonality among all creatures, assigns a common dignity to all creatures. God is seen as being present in all of Creation: through Creation, mankind is assigned the duty of stewardship over all of nature. The direction of God’s Creation is not anthropocentric. Mankind is assigned and has thus a precise responsibility towards nature. This responsibility outlines exact limits as regards the use which mankind can make of nature: mankind may exercise no dominion over nature.
Hence, the two interpretations of the Theology of Creation bring about different considerations of nature and of the relationships between mankind and nature. Furthermore, they express different conceptions of mankind as such. In my opinion, the debate on the interpretation of God’s relationship with the created entities and, within this general relationship, the mutual opposition between an anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric Creation will be more present than ever in the post-pandemic time due to its relevance for the general orientation of mankind towards nature. The Theology of Creation involves furthermore a general meditation on the aims and the limits of the technical power towards nature.
For my analysis, I shall concentrate my attention on some passages taken from Genesis, the Wisdom of Solomon, and from Paul the Apostle. To find ideas and suggestions for my analysis, I have referred to the books of Robin Attfield, Environmental Ethics: An Overview for the Twenty-First Century, and of Jürgen Moltmann, Ethik der Hoffnung.
I take full responsibility for the ideas expressed in the analysis.

Contemporary ideas of nature were largely shaped by schools of thought from Western cultural history and philosophy until the present-day concerns with environmental change and biodiversity conservation. There are many different ways of conceptualising nature in epistemological terms, reflecting the tensions between the polarities of humans as masters or protectors of nature and as part of or outside of nature.

The book shows how nature is today the focus of numerous debates, calling for an approach which goes beyond the merely technical or scientific. It adopts a threefold – critical, historical and cross-disciplinary – approach in order to summarise the current state of knowledge. It includes contributions informed by the humanities (especially history, literature and philosophy) and social sciences, concerned with the production and circulation of knowledge about "nature" across disciplines and across national and cultural spaces. The volume also demonstrates the ongoing reconfiguration of subject disciplines, as seen in the recent emergence of new interdisciplinary approaches and the popularity of the prefix "eco-" (e.g. ecocriticism, ecospirituality, ecosophy and ecofeminism, as well as subdivisions of ecology, including urban ecology, industrial ecology and ecosystem services). Each chapter provides a concise overview of its topic which will serve as a helpful introduction to students and a source of easy reference.　

This text is also valuable reading for researchers interested in philosophy, sociology, anthropology, geography, ecology, politics and all their respective environmentalist strands.

The analysis and argument of this paper questions the binary "anthropocentric" vs. "ecocentric" conceptions of environmental ethics, in particular by examining two of its underlying assumptions: (1) an intentionalist or subject-object paradigm; (2) a model of the good of moral life based on scarcity. In contrast, this paper proposes a conception of environmental ethics, such that benefitting the environment and benefitting humanity is possible, based on the ultimate unity of their interests.

Steven Vogel's philosophical musings in Thinking like a Mall: Environmental Philosophy after the End of Nature are a plea to his profession to recognize a " postnatural " world that he claims is forged out of the extinction of nature. He urges his discipline " to develop an environmental philosophy that would acknowledge and maybe even approve of nature's 'end'… " (p. 9). It is a bold plea that recasts the debate on nature within the humanities and challenges the mainstream environmental thinking that has long been committed to the enduring concept of nature. Ironically, Vogel is making this plea at a time when some on the opposite pole are observing the ushering in of a " posthuman " world (

This is a final draft of the article published in Environmental Ethics 11 (Fall 1989): 243-258. This assessment of  the Promethean dimension of Marx's thought is accurate, but though it mentions Marx's more dialectical side and its potential implications, this aspect is seriously neglected in the article . A more balanced assessment is presented in "Marx's Natures," a draft version of which can be found on this site. This article should be read in connection with the latter one.

John Stuart Mill is known as the first canonical Western philosopher to espouse a stationary state of economic growth, and as such he can be seen as an important totemic figure for reformist strategies in environmental ethics. However, his reputation among environmental thinkers has been rendered more ambiguous in recent years by increased attention to his essay "Nature". The "Nature" essay has been much used lately by critics to oppose claims (1) that independent nature may properly be seen as important in any way as an ethical guide or inspiration, and (2) that Mill's philosophy may feasibly be viewed as pro-environmentalist. This use of Mill's essay is mistaken, and has undermined appreciation of the potential significance of Mill's thought for environmental philosophy. When examining the most detailed of the critical treatments of the essay, reading "Nature" as an anti-environmentalist text badly distorts the essay's meaning by ripping it from the context of Mill's intentions as well as from the very specific and significant historical circumstances and biographical conditions of its production. Attending properly to these factors shows that the essay is unrepresentative of Mill's general position and rather philosophically weaker than its reputation. Reading the text as a definitive statement of Mill's supposed anti-naturalism is thus mistaken and fails to recognize different modes and significances in "following nature", some of which Mill supported. The "Nature" essay is an aberrant outlier in the Mill canon, and one which should no longer be allowed to undermine Mill's strong and important environmentalist credentials.

the most extensive overview of anarchist theory and practice yet to appear. His survey of the history of ecological thought is therefore quite welcome. Nature's Web is a valuable work for anyone concerned with ecological issues, and is essential reading for those interested in the relationship of ecology to anarchist and libertarian ideas. The study is noteworthy for the broad scope of its inquiry into the roots and development of ecological thought and values.

Summary
People became to be aware of the destructive influence of the environment degradation on themselves not before the early 60s of the twentieth century (D. Brower, R. Carson, G. Hardin). Among authors whose reflections directly preceded the birth of environmental ethics as a single philosophical discipline one should list: H.D. Thoreau, J. Muir, A. Leopold and A. Schweitzer. Environmental ethics sensu stricto appeared in the 70s of the last century in the USA. One should emphasize here the opinions of the following authors: J. Cobb, W. Blackstone, J. Feinberg, Ch. Stone, A. Næss, R. Sylvan, J. Passmore, P. Singer, H. Rolston III, J. Rodman, G. Sessions, K.E. Goodpaster. Simultaneously V. R. Potter II worked out the global bioethics. In 1979 E. Hargrove founded the first academic journal on the field, entitled Environmental Ethics.
Until now there have crystallized three key currents of environmental ethics: anthropocentric, biocentric and holistic (ecocentric). The differences between these branches are conditioned by the adopted model of nature and accepted anthropology. Environmental ethics should become more practical in resolving real ecological problems we face.

Streszczenie
Z destrukcyjnego wpływu niszczenia środowiska na człowieka zaczęto sobie zdawać sprawę dopiero na początku lat 60. XX wieku (D. Brower, R. Carson, G. Hardin). Wśród myślicieli, których refleksje bezpośrednio poprzedziły powstanie etyki środowiskowej jako samodzielnej dyscypliny filozoficznej, wymienić należy: H.D. Thoreau, J. Muira, A. Leopolda i A. Schweitzera. Etyka środowiskowa sensu stricto narodziła się w latach 70. XX wieku w USA. Należy tu wymienić wystąpienia następujących autorów: J. Cobb Dotychczas wykrystalizowały się trzy główne nurty etyki środowiskowej: antropocentryczny, biocentryczny i ekocentryczny. Różnice między nimi są uwarunkowane koncepcją przyrody oraz antropologią.

Enclosed is a philosophically oriented impassioned plea for a revolution in the way we think about the future in light of climate change. It was composed as a university and public presentation for the Institute for Culture and Society' series on Revolutions at my home institution, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Fall 2017. As I read it again now, I am impressed--though saddened--by the urgency of its commonsense message: we must act. We must act collectively, globally, and with deliberation to stem the growing tide of climate change catastrophe.

Yet, I fear we are moving just as swiftly--backwards.

Wendy Lynne Lee

The concepts dao and de in the Daodejing may be evoked to support a distinctive and plausible account of environmental holism. Dao refers to the totality of particulars, including the relations that hold between them, and the respective roles and functions of each within the whole. De refers to the distinctiveness of each particular, realized meaningfully only within the context of its interdependence with others, and its situatedness within the whole. Together, dao and de provide support for an ethical holism that avoids sacrificing individuals for the sake of the whole. The integrity and stability of the whole are important not because the whole is an end-in-itself but because those conditions assist in preserving the well-being of the constituent parts. In other words, the ethical holism supported in the Daodejing does not present individuals and wholes in mutually exclusive terms, but sees them in symbiotic relation, allowing for events to be mutually beneficial, or mutually obstructive, to both. In addition, two other Daoist concepts, wuwei (non-action) and ziran (spontaneity), provide further support for this construction of holism. If the distinctiveness of particular individuals is valued, then unilateral or reductive norms which obliterate such individuality are inappropriate.

In this regard, the methodology of wuwei allows for the idea of individuals developing spontaneously in relation to others. According to this view of holism, individuals manifest and realize their integrity in relation to others in the environmental context, achieving an outcome that is maximally co-possible within those limits, rather than one that is maximally beneficial only for particular
individuals.

A discourse on water ethics has emerged as a field linking practical water demands, social practices, and hydrological constraints to philosophic norms. The field arose parallel to growing, global understandings of the interconnected nature of water management and governance challenges. As such, it has been inflected with issues and contests across a range of policy concerns—from holistic and integrated water management to economics, justice, and human rights. The emerging water ethics discourse challenges both traditional environmental ethics and conventional approaches to resource management on issues of gender, power relations, and ecological concerns. It suggests an alternate, place-specific approach for linking shared water concerns to normative contests.
© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Environmental unsustainability is due to both structural features and historically specific characteristics of industrial
capitalism resulting in specific patterns of production and consumption, as well as population growth. Sustainability
literature criticises the established corporate and political power hegemonies, interested in maintaining economic growth,
as well as inability or unwillingness of citizen-consumers to counteract these hegemonic tendencies. Yet, official policies are
still targeted at social and economic ‘development’ as a panacea for unsustainability challenges. Instead, renewed accent on
social and economic objectives are outlined by a set of sustainable development goals (SDG) that include objectives of
fighting poverty, promoting better health, reducing mortality, and stimulating equitable economic growth. What is less
commonly critiqued is the underlying morality of unsustainability and ethical questions concerned with the ‘victims of
unsustainability’ outside of socioeconomic discourse. The achievement of SDG goals, as will be further elaborated on in this
article, is unlikely to lead to greater social equality and economic prosperity, but to a greater spread of unsustainable
production and consumption, continuous economic as well as population growth that has caused environmental problems in
the first place and further objectification of environment and its elements. This article argues that an invocation of ethical
duty toward environment and its elements is required in order to move beyond the current status quo. Such ethical approach
to unsustainability can effectively address the shortcomings of the mainstream sustainability discourse that is mainly
anthropocentric and therefore fails to identify the correct locus of unsustainability.

Humankind’s failure to relate to Nature (which I define as that which is not constructed by humankind) with respect is shown by the environmental crisis. This crisis has been manifested since the industrial revolution by the massive exploitation and the destruction of Nature. The modern environmental movement arose in reaction to the environmental crisis, and the rise of this movement saw the creation of various environmental philosophies. In this thesis I shall construct such an environmental philosophy based on Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue, which I shall term Buberian Environmentalism. In Part One I shall demonstrate that Buber’s philosophy of dialogue is relevant for environmental ethics, hence demonstrating that Buberian Environmentalism is able to offer both an explanation of the environmental crisis as well as a way to resolve it. In Part Two I shall elaborate on my account of Buberian Environmentalism, locating its place in the metaethical world and within the umbrella of Deep Ecology. Finally, in Part Three, Buberian Environmentalism will be applied as a defence of vegetarianism.

The recent shift towards the interdisciplinary study of the human-environment relationship is largely driven by environmental justice debates. This article will distinguish four types of environmental justice and link them to questions of neoliberalism and altruism. First, environmental justice seeks to redress inequitable distribution of environmental burdens to vulnerable groups and economically disadvantaged populations. Second, environmental justice highlights the developed and developing countries’ unequal exposure to environmental risks and benefits.
Third, temporal environmental justice refers to the issues associated with intergenerational justice or concern for future generations of humans. In all three cases, environmental justice entails equitable distribution of burdens and benefits to different nations or social groups. By contrast, ecological justice involves biospheric egalitarianism or justice between species. This article will focus on ecological justice since the rights of non-human species lags behind social justice debates and discuss the implications of including biospheric egalitarianism in environmental justice debates.

Portrayals of the anthropocene period are often dystopian or post-apocalyptic narratives of climate crises that will leave humans in horrific science-fiction scenarios. Such narratives miss the populations of people, such as Indigenous peoples, who approach climate change having already been through transformations of their societies induced by colonial violence. This essay discusses how some Indigenous perspectives on climate change can situate the present time as already dystopian. Instead of dread of an impending crisis, Indigenous approaches to climate change are motivated through dialogic narratives with their descendants and ancestors. In some cases, these narratives are like science fiction in which Indigenous peoples work to empower their own protagonists to address contemporary challenges. Yet within literatures on climate change and the Anthropocene, Indigenous peoples often get placed in historical categories designed by non-Indigenous persons, such as the holocene. In some cases, these categories serve as the backdrop for allies’ narratives that privilege themselves as the protagonists who will save Indigenous peoples from colonial violence and the climate crisis. I speculate that this tendency among allies could possibly be related to their sometimes denying that they are living in times their ancestors would have likely fantasized about. I will show how this denial threatens allies’ capacities to build coalitions with Indigenous peoples. [open access @ http://journals.sagepub.com/toc/enea/0/0]

The relationship of human liberty to both external nature and human inner nature entails a complex knot of questions that have long been the subject of intense philosophical discussion. In the modern era, a strong dichotomy developed between these concepts in which human freedom was counterposed to an apparently determinate nature that existed as a valueless
res extensa. In this article, however, the author argues for the presence and vitality of an alternative concept of human liberty, one that relies not on the ownership of property but on nature as a point outside the system of human instrumental control and the hall of mirrors represented by collective solipsism. The author arrives at this point through careful study of the underresearched naturalistic scenes and elements in George Orwell’s highly
influential "1984", drawing out the complex interconnections of nature, liberty, and fulfillment found within them. This study illustrates the usefulness of the dystopian imagination to theorizing relationships between nature and humanity.

Environmental hermeneutics is a relatively recent stance within environmental philosophy and environmental ethics. The starting point of an environmental hermeneutics is the idea that the world that humans inhabit is always already interpreted and infused with meanings. Human understandings of and encounters with environments are informed and molded by preexisting narratives — individual and collective, factual and fictional accounts of (encounters with) environments and of memories thereof.
This chapter presents and discusses some key thoughts and ideas from philosophical hermeneutics and reflects on how these might bear on environmental philosophy.