Abstract

This dissertation explores environmental ethics from a virtue ethics perspective. Its thesis is that positive relationships to nature are necessary to a good human life, while negative relationships stunt and limit us. It develops this thesis through a consideration of the writings of Henry David Thoreau, focusing on his analyses of two important areas of our lives: economic activity and the pursuit of knowledge. It brings Thoreau into current environmental debates with the goal of furthering the creation of a strong environmental virtue ethics, arguing that an enlightened self-interest demands environmental protection and the presentation of wild nature. ;Part one outlines a theory of virtue ethics and develops a position on the nature and limits of ethical justification. It then explores Thoreau's method of ethical theorizing, a blend of analysis, experiment, exhortation and story-telling. ;Part two presents Thoreau's economic philosophy and argues for its contemporary relevance. Treating economics within the context of virtue ethics, Thoreau argues that the real importance of our economic lives lies in what sorts of people they make us, and in how they relate us to other people and to nature. Because modern economic theory takes a narrower view of the purpose of economic life, these chapters challenge both our economic lives and currently accepted ways of understanding them. ;Part three considers the role of the search for knowledge in a good life. One chapter explores Thoreau's career as a naturalist and argues that the study of natural history is an important avenue for personal growth and fulfillment. A second considers Thoreau's ambivalent yet lasting interest in natural science and his contributions to the nascent science of ecology. Building on recent insights into the importance of narrative to virtue ethics, it discusses the stories that individual scientists may tell about their activities, and the stories that we may tell of science itself, as the career of humanity knowing nature. This dissertation argues that stories which include loving and respectful relationships to nature are superior to those which promote its control and domination