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Commentary on: “There is no such thing as environmental ethics” (P.A. Vesilind)

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References and notes

  1. Chorover, S.L. (1978)From Genesis to Genocide: The Meaning of Human Nature and the Power of Behavior Control, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

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  2. Chorover, S.L. (1987) Paradigms Lost and Regained, In: Greenberg, G. and Tobach, E. eds., Changing Beliefs, Values and Practices in Neuropsychology. InTheories of the Evolution of Knowing (Proceedings of the Fourth Biennial T.C. Schneirla Symposium (1987); pp. 87–106; Chorover, S.L. (1991) Systems Humanecology: Toward a New Paradigm, In: Vliavianos-Arvanitis, E. ed.,Biopolitics—The International University of the Bio-Environment, Athens, Greece, 1991, pp. 305–323; Chorover, S.L. (1993) Environmental Science and Consciousness: An Experiential Perspective, International Symposium III — Science and Consciousness, Olympia, Greece; Chorover, S.L. (1995)HomeWork: An Environmental Literacy Primer, Collaborative Learning Systems, Cambridge, MA.

  3. Oppenheimer, J.R. (1950) The Age of Science 1900–1950,Scientific American 183 (September): 20–23. This brief essay by “the father of the atomic bomb” argues the “inapplicability of causal, Newtonian physics to problems of individual atomic systems” and the likely relevance of Bohr’s principle of complementarity to the study of human systems at the biological, psychological and sociocultural levels of organization as well. On the relations of post-modern Western physics and traditional Eastern mysticism, see also Capra, F. (1975)The Tao of Physics, Shambala, Boulder, CO. Capra’s thesis is that both traditions point towards a view of the world not as a machine consisting of myriad discreet objects, but rather as a harmonious composite “organic” unity, whose parts are determined by and in turn determine the texture of the whole.

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  4. Toulmin, S. (1982) Death of the Spectator (pp. 237–254), In:The Return to Cosmology, Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature, The University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, p. 231.

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  5. Wheeler, J.A. (1981) Bohr, Einstein, and the Strange Lesson of the Quantum, In: Elvee, R.Q. ed.Mind in Nature, Harper & Row, New York, pp. 1–30 (pp. 17–18).

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  6. Oppenheimer (1950) cited above

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  7. Heisenberg, W. (1958)Physics and Philosophy, Harper Torchbooks, New York; p. 107; quoted in, and additional remarks borrowed from Capra, F. (1975)The Tao of Physics, Shambala, Boulder, CO, p. 264.

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  8. Oppenheimer, J.R. (1950) cited above.

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  9. Planck, M. (1933)Where Is Science going?, p. 44.

  10. Oppenheimer, J.R. (1950) cited above. For an extensive discussion of the links between contemporary western physics and traditional eastern mysticism; see also Capra (1974) cited above.

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  11. I have elsewhere identified some of the methodological issues that any field test of differing paradigms would have to address. See Chorover (1991 and 1995) cited above for a more detailed account.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 02139, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Stephan L. Chorover Ph.D. (Professor)

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  1. Stephan L. Chorover Ph.D.
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Vesilind, P.A. (1996) There Is No Such Thing As Environmental Ethics.Science and Engineering Ethics 2:307–318.

The author is a neuropsychologist with interests in history and polities of science, the social and ethical implications of psychosurgery, mental testing, sociobiology and other aspects of psychotechnology.

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Chorover, S.L. Commentary on: “There is no such thing as environmental ethics” (P.A. Vesilind). Sci Eng Ethics 2, 319–324 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02583917

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