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Agrarian Philosophy and Ecological Ethics

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Abstract

Mainstream environmental ethics grew out of an approach to value that was rooted in a particular conception of rationality and rational choice. As weaknesses in this approach have become more evident, environmental philosophers have experimented with both virtue ethics and with pragmatism as alternative starting points for developing a more truly ecological orientation to environmental philosophy. However, it is possible to see both virtue ethics and pragmatism as emerging from older philosophical traditions that are here characterized as “agrarian.” Agrarian philosophy stresses the role of nature, soil and climate in the formation of moral character as well as social and political institutions. As such, reaching back to the agrarian tradition may provide a way to move forward with both virtue oriented themes as well as pragmatist themes in developing ecological ethics.

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Notes

  1. ‘Agrarianism’ is not a wholly foreign term in the contemporary environmental lexicon, but it cannot have a particularly robust meaning for very many people. Readers who wish an adequate introduction to this philosophical school are urged to peruse the dozens of websites dedicated to discussions of agrarianism or to consult excellent book-length treatments by Montmarquet [9], Smith [10] or Freyfogle [11].

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Thompson, P.B. Agrarian Philosophy and Ecological Ethics. Sci Eng Ethics 14, 527–544 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-008-9094-1

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