Meat?eating as a human practice has been under ethical attack from philosophers such as Peter Singer and Tom Regan on both utilitarian and deontological grounds. An organicist ethic, on the other hand, recognizes that all life other than the primary producers, the plants, must feed on life. This essay affirms, with many environmental ethicists, the moralconsiderability of biota other than the human, but denies that this enlargement of the moral community beyond Homo sapiens necessarily precludes our eating of meat. First, (...) absolute deontological arguments against meat?eating are disputed, then utilitarian?hedonistic arguments are shown not to be sufficient to require ethical vegetarianism. Both sorts of arguments have strengths, however, that set us on guard against current abuses in the meat?raising and slaughtering industries. If the principle of ?due respect? for beings with different degrees of intrinsic value is honored, then moderate meat?eating under reformed social practices can be seen as licit. Two final problems then require investigation: the problem of dietary justice for poor humans and the problem of ?speciesism?. Dealing with the latter requires discussion of cannibalism and the ethics of humans being eaten by still higher ?aliens? (shrink)

The first half of the book concentrates on key definitions and epistemological issues, including an overview of philosophy as applied to technology, a definition of technology, and an examination of technology as it relates to practical and ...

This book shows the vital relationship between human life and the philosophical placement of value, emphasizing the now-occurring transition from the old mechanical world view to the postmodern alternative inspired by ecology.

There is a dilemma facing mainstream environmental ethicists. One of our leading spokesmen, Holmes Rolston, III, offers a rich ethical position, but one that lacks internal connections between principles relevant to the environment and principles relevant to human society. These principles are just different; thus no higher-order guidance is available to cope with cases of conflict between them. A second major spokesman, Baird Callicott, recommends a "land ethics" that is internally coherent but sadly inadequate for addressing many distinctly human ethical (...) concerns. To escape this dilemma I advocate an alternative worldview, "Personalistic Organicism." On this view, inspired by Alfred North Whitehead, a continuum of values, pervading the universe, can undergird a unified ethics in which human persons are recognized as especially valuable without rupturing the continuities that bind humanity to the rest of the living (and nonliving) environment. (shrink)

There is a dilemma facing mainstream environmental ethicists. One of our leading spokesmen, Holmes Rolston, III, offers a rich ethical position, but one that lacks internal connections between principles relevant to the environment and principles relevant to human society. These principles are just different; thus no higher-order guidance is available to cope with cases of conflict between them. A second major spokesman, Baird Callicott, recommends a "land ethics" that is internally coherent but sadly inadequate for addressing many distinctly human ethical (...) concerns. To escape this dilemma I advocate an alternative worldview, "Personalistic Organicism." On this view, inspired by Alfred North Whitehead, a continuum of values, pervading the universe, can undergird a unified ethics in which human persons are recognized as especially valuable without rupturing the continuities that bind humanity to the rest of the living environment. (shrink)

Many environmental thinkers are torn in two opposing directions at once. For good reasons we are appalled by the damage that has been done to the earth by the ethos of heedless anthropocentric individualism, which has achieved its colossal feats of exploitation, encouraged to selfishness by its world view—of relation-free atoms—while chanting ‘reduction’ as its mantra. But also for good reasons we are repelled, at the other extreme, by environmentally correct images of mindless biocentric collectivisms in which precious personal values (...) are overridden for the good of some healthy beehive ‘whole’. (shrink)

What is this about “the practicality of metaphysics?” Everyone knows that on a scale from “practical” to “theoretical,” metaphysics stands as far toward the “theoretical” pole as one can get, except perhaps for pure mathematics; but mathematics is not about anything, unless you count numbers as “something”—which is a metaphysical question that outflanks, encompasses, and overtakes even mathematics on the theory scale. This capacity to encompass and devour other fields illustrates the unlimited comprehensiveness of metaphysics, tottering dangerously at one extreme, (...) the most theoretical of all theory. (shrink)

Offers a postmodern theory of knowledge based on an ecological worldview that stresses real relations and the pervasiveness of values.

This book provides a reasoned, comprehensive understanding of what religion is as well as a clear and critical assessment of whether, in the light of modern developments in philosophy, contemporary thinking people can responsibly maintain religious belief in God. The book is divided into three major sections: the first deals with what all religions may be said to have in common; the second discusses theistic religion and the issue of intellectually responsible belief in God; the third examines current developments within (...) a particular theistic religion, Christianity. Originally published in 1968, the book is basic, both in the nature of the issues it discusses and in the clarity and comprehensiveness of its presentation; it is varied in the arguments and perspectives dealt with; it provides an introduction to philosophical thinking through the problems of philosophy of religion; and it deals seriously with controversial movements in theology. (shrink)

Based on an ecologically inspired wordview, defends ethics against skepticism and irrealism.

“THIS BOOK is an attempt to fill the present striking need for an introduction to contemporary linguistic philosophy as it bears on theological discourse. Wherever I have gone, recently, among educated Christians in Britain and America, I have encountered profound curiosity—and a good deal of anxiety—concerning modern methods in philosophy as they relate to the logical nature and validity of theological affirmations. Similarly I have found many of my students in contemporary philosophy and in the philosophy of religion becoming deeply (...) absorbed in the issues raised by a critical examination of theological speech. From both groups, the intellectually alert Christians and the thoughtful graduate and undergraduate students of philosophy and religion, I have been heavily bombarded with appeals for direction to some book which would set forth the central issues and arguments concerning theological discourse for readers who have familiarity with traditional philosophy but who are relatively untrained in contemporary philosophical practices and place into perspective the present state of philosophical and theological discussion in this area of burgeoning interest. To my frustration, I have had to answer such requests with the admission that no such book exists and with the promise that I would try, some day, to provide that book myself. In preparing this volume, therefore, I have done my best to keep those promises in mind.”. (shrink)

An organismic viewpoint is a welcome alternative to modern mechanistic consciousness, with the latter’s excessive epistemic reliance on analysis, its ontological presumption of atomism, and its value commitments to competition, quantification, reduction, and predictability. These ideas have had negative social and environmental consequences and require replacement. Organismic ethics, grounded in the “wisdom of life”--especially the dialectical triad of creativity, homeostasis, and holism-is far healthier. But organicism alone has serious defects sometimes overlooked by environmental enthusiasts (earlier including this author): life’s creativity (...) wastes individual organisms, and life’s holism neglects the unique value of parts in favor of larger unities. Is it possible to work out a genuinely personalistic organicism? Traditional personalistic idealism will not do, but insights into essential personal qualities may enrich the concepts of creativity, homeostasis, and holism enough to offer a start toward a more adequate ethic. (shrink)

In this brief comment on Ted Schoen’s paper, I tend to agree more than I disagree. Methodological isolation has been widely and uncritically accepted by thinkers about religion and science, and Schoen’s dissipation of the isolationist discourse deserves positive notice. For too long, science has been the bully of the epistemic neighborhood, and religious thinkers have taken refuge in methodological isolation. As Schoen argues, neither religion nor science is isolated; rather, both are interacting in the same comprehensive and value-laden domain, (...) which also includes art, poetry, ethics and metaphysics. (shrink)

First Published in 1968. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this collection of essays, leading environmentalists and philosophers explore the relationship between environmental ethics and policy, both in theory and practice. The first section of the book focuses on four approaches to change in ethical theory: ecological science, feminist metaphysics, Chinese philosophy, and holistic postmodern technology. In subsequent sections the contributors emphasize the need for nontraditional solutions and attempt to expand awareness of the most pressing practical problems. Among the topics discussed are the possibilities of real international cooperation, the (...) inequitable but economically intractable issue of global gasses, the political and ethical challenges of city planning, and the growing evidence of fundamental inappropriateness in treating land as legal private property. This volume is based on essays presented in 1992 at the Second International Conference on Ethics and Environmental Policy. The conference was held in response to the increasing need for a new ethics that would counter the traditional human-centered, dominantly individualistic approach of the industrial world toward the environment. (shrink)

CHAPTER I Gyn/rocn uchort The most damaging evidence against our right to the full identification of what is most high and most real1 is the fact of evil. ...

Given this chance to express my general reflections on our collection of papers, I shall highlight the themes that are of greatest importance to me and make connections between my own views and the views of the other authors who have chosen to address the same themes. This exercise in triangulation on the logical map created by the collection has been illuminating for me; I hope the following may serve to make some of the major features of our common terrain (...) come into focus more clearly, thus underscoring which important issues concern many of us at present, despite our specific differences. (shrink)

Unger’s interests encompass both criticisms of the existing, dominant "liberal" order and constructive suggestions about nascent possibilities of postliberal alternatives. The richness and erudition of several hundred pages cannot possibly be suggested in the few paragraphs comprising this section of a review article; therefore, I shall sketch the main lines of the argument baldly, without attempting to reproduce the subtle expository network woven by Unger himself.

An organismic viewpoint is a welcome alternative to modern mechanistic consciousness, with the latter’s excessive epistemic reliance on analysis, its ontological presumption of atomism, and its value commitments to competition, quantification, reduction, and predictability. These ideas have had negative social and environmental consequences and require replacement. Organismic ethics, grounded in the “wisdom of life”--especially the dialectical triad of creativity, homeostasis, and holism-is far healthier. But organicism alone has serious defects sometimes overlooked by environmental enthusiasts : life’s creativity wastes individual organisms, (...) and life’s holism neglects the unique value of parts in favor of larger unities. Is it possible to work out a genuinely personalistic organicism? Traditional personalistic idealism will not do, but insights into essential personal qualities may enrich the concepts of creativity, homeostasis, and holism enough to offer a start toward a more adequate ethic. (shrink)