Vinay Lal raises doubts about Gandhi’s status as an environmentalist but argues that Gandhi had “a profoundly ecological view of life.” I take issue with Lal’s claims and, to set the record straight, describe Gandhi’s contributions to environmental though and action. When we look at the aims of contemporary environmental spokespersons and activists, Gandhian themes are dominant. Gandhian biocentrism and Gandhi’s recommendation not to harm even nonsentient life unnecessarily are familiar in contemporary environmental thinking. Gandhian non-violence is both a technique (...) of environmental activists and, for some, one of the constituents of the world for which they struggle. Gandhi emphasized simple living, an important theme for many who are concerned about looming ecological crises. Taking a broader perspective, Gandhi criticized what we today call globalization and encouraged, in its place, the decentralization of economic activities. Gandhi’s emphasis on decentralization and local economic self-reliance led to the Chipko movement in India. Gandhi’s emphasis on small-scale economies, on self-reliant communities, and on appropriate technology paved the way for the “small is beautiful” approach. Gandhi’s recommendation that we live in self-reliant rural communities, if implemented, would significantly decrease that consumption which is causing climate change and straining the capacity of the planet. (shrink)

In this paper I describe Gandhi’s vision for a way of life that would be an essential part of any sustainable solution to worldwide problems of unemployment, societal breakdown and ecological degradation. Gandhi’s vision included a communitarian lifestyle of simplicity and non-accumulation in which agriculture would be supported by cottage industries using appropriate technologies (e.g., spinning). Assuming obligations to future generations, Gandhi’s proposal highlights the degree to which our First-World lifestyle is morally impermissible. One objection to this criticism of our (...) First-World lifestyles is that we can solve the problem of ecological degradation by exporting only appropriate technologies to the Third World and supplementing our use of consumptive technologies with technological cleanups. This suggestion is not only irresponsible and unjust, but also hopeless, for our resource consumptive standards are already the model for development worldwide. To counteract this destructive model we must begin to recreate, in the First World, sustainable lifestyles that others will want to emulate. Part of this task involves the inner work that has been a casualty of the ideologies of modernity, and Gandhi’s vision is a blueprintfor both the outer and inner work that are essential to recreate a sustainable society. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: The Tragedy of 9/11 Security Terrorism Foreseeable Consequences versus Actual Consequences Chauvinistic Consequentialism The Nonmilitary Context of the War against Terrorism The Invasion of Afghanistan The Invasion of Iraq An Alternative to the Invasion of Afghanistan An Alternative to the Invasion of Iraq Further Nonmilitary Steps to Stop Terrorism From Chauvinistic Consequentialism to Utilitarianism Another Foreseeable Consequence of the Invasions Haven't I Forgotten that the World is Better Off without Saddam Hussein? The Purpose of this (...) Assessment. (shrink)

Most philosophers believe that humans have far greater moral worth than nonhuman animals. This consensus position invites the following question: What characteristic or group of characteristics of human beings differentiates us from nonhuman animals so that we have greater moral worth than nonhuman animals? Philosophers have offered a number of characteristics that allegedly show human beings to be superior to nonhuman animals. At the top of the list we find thinking and the ability to be rational. Further down the list (...) we find more subtle abilities, for example, such as the ability to be self- conscious. Neither of these nor a host of other prospects provide an adequate ground for the claim of greater human worth.1 But philosophers attribute one ability to humans, or to most humans, that seems immune to the usual criticisms: the ability to be moral. In this essay I want to explore whether the ability to be moral plausibly makes humans more valuable than nonhuman animals. (shrink)

According to Utilitarian Generalization an act is right or wrong depending on what would happen if everyone were to do acts of that kind. One chief difficulty in applying UG is to determine which acts share the same relevant properties and are therefore acts of the same kind. In focusing on this problem I first examine the criteria of relevance proposed by Jonathan Harrison and by David Lyons. I show that each of their proposals is inadequate because each allows us (...) to designate as relevant some properties we noncontroversially take to be irrelevant. I next propose a criterion which not only allows us to designate as irrelevant every property that we noncontroversially take to be irrelevant, but which also expresses the underlying causal and generalization features of UG. Since the acid test of any such proposal will be its response to the highly controversial issue of whether the behavior of others is relevant for applications of UG, I turn to this important issue. (shrink)