Environmental Ethics 21 (3):227-245 (1999)
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Abstract |
I apply an agent-based virtue ethics to issues in environmental philosophy regarding our treatment of complex inorganic systems. I consider the ethics of terraforming: hypothetical planetary engineering on a vast scale which is aimed at producing habitable environments on otherwise “hostile” planets. I argue that the undertaking of such a project demonstrates at least two serious defects of moral character: an aesthetic insensitivity and the sin of hubris. Trying to change whole planets to suit our ends is arrogant vandalism. I maintain that these descriptions of character are coherent and important ethical concepts. Finally, I demonstrate how the arguments developed in opposition to terraforming, a somewhat farfetched example, can be used in cases closer to home to provide arguments against our use of recombinantDNA technologies and against the construction of tourist developments in wilderness areas
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Keywords | terraforming environmental ethics Virtue ethics planetary engineering |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
ISBN(s) | 0163-4275 |
DOI | 10.5840/enviroethics199921315 |
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Citations of this work BETA
Humans Should Not Colonize Mars.Ian Stoner - 2017 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 3 (3):334-353.
Starting a Flood to Stop a Fire? Some Moral Constraints on Solar Radiation Management.David R. Morrow - 2014 - Ethics, Policy and Environment 17 (2):123-138.
On the Moral Permissibility of Terraforming.James S. J. Schwartz - 2013 - Ethics and the Environment 18 (2):1-31.
The Ethics of Terraforming: A Critical Survey of Six Arguments.Ian Stoner - 2021 - In Martin Beech, Joseph Seckbach & Richard Gordon (eds.), Terraforming Mars. Salem, MA: Wiley-Scrivener. pp. 101-116.
What’s Wrong with Designing People to Serve?Bartek Chomanski - 2019 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 22 (4):993-1015.
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