Forms of Gaian Ethics

Environmental Ethics 9 (3):217-230 (1987)
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Abstract

James Lovelock’s “Gaia hypothesis”-the suggestion that life on Earth functions in essential ways as one organism, as a single living entity-is extraordinarily suggestive for environmental philosophy. What exactly it suggests, however, is not yet so clear. Although many of Lovelock’s own ethical conclusions are rather distressing for environmental ethics, there are other possible approaches to the Gaia Hypothesis. Ethical philosophers might take Gaia to be analogous to a “person” and thus to have the same sorts of values that more familiar sorts of persons have. Deep ecologists might find in the Gaia hypothesis a means by which to transform and reunderstand our concrete experience of the world. This essay canvasses some of the strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities of each approach.

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Anthony Weston
Elon University

Citations of this work

The moral status of non-human beings and their ecosystems.Michel Dion - 2000 - Ethics, Place and Environment 3 (2):221 – 229.
The moral status of non‐human beings and their ecosystems.Michel Dion - 2000 - Philosophy and Geography 3 (2):221-229.
A postmodern natural history of the world: eviscerating the GUTs from ecology and environmentalism.Alan Marshall - 1998 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 29 (1):137-164.

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