In this article I distill a trio of lessons for Christian environmental ethics from the stewardship model’s detractors and rivals. I begin by delineating stewardship and explaining the model’s initial prevalence as Christians’ primary response to widespread recognition of environmental crisis and their faith’s alleged culpability for it. I then distinguish two waves of criticism that, by denouncing stewardship’s substance and method, thoroughly discredited the model among Christian ethicists. Yet, as stewardship was being rejected for (...) its susceptibility to anthropocentrism, one of its chief competitors—the land ethic—was being repudiated for its liability to misanthropy. I argue that these developments give Christians cause to (1) affirm a hierarchical non-anthropocentrism that prioritizes human interests; (2) premise such priority in part on human embrace of non-anthropocentrism; and (3) interpret environmental ethics as more than a matter of models like stewardship. (shrink)

Jesus’ teachings on neighborliness, frugality, support for the poor, and nonviolence should become more central to Christian environmental ethics. His actionoriented teachings do not explicitly mention nature, yet should have a beneficial collateral effect on environments when practiced by Christian communities. This issue affects Christian economics, simple causality models of environmental beliefs and impacts, and “love of nature” theology.

Adults in the United States are having fewer biological children in part due to worries about climate change and population growth, yet Christian environmental ethicists frequently avoid or dismiss these “eco-reproductive” concerns. I argue that these avoidances lead to important limitations in the literature, which I address by employing a pragmatic approach for religious ethics. Learning from environmentalists who are critically engaging with their Christian inheritances, I find that informants draw upon religious repertoires to “kinnovate.” Namely, (...) they expand notions of family beyond biological lineage by taking up vocations as godparents, youth mentors, foster parents, or chosen kin. I claim that these practices of Christian kinnovation are significant because they help to advance creative moral responses to eco-reproductive concerns in religious contexts—interventions that currently remain underdeveloped in relevant ethical and theological literatures. (shrink)

This book explores the moral, social, and spiritual dimensions of ecological restoration. Gretel Van Wieren, a religion scholar, builds on the work of both critics and advocates of restoration to develop a balanced and well-informed approach to a controversial topic in environmental ethics. Ultimately she finds much value in restoration, as much for its ability to help build human community as for its contributions to ecological well-being. Restoration, she summarizes, is “the attempt to heal and make the human (...) relationship to nature whole” (2).While she holds a generally positive view of restoration, Van Wieren consistently faces the ambivalence inherent in human efforts to recreate wild habitats. Restorationists are faced, as she explains, with “the simultaneous realities that they are in some sense making up nature as they go… and that natural processes are in some sense other than and beyond the human mind” (20). By keeping both these dimensions in mind, Van Wieren presents a balan. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Political Theology of Climate Change by Michael S. Northcott, and: Restored to Earth: Christianity, Environmental Ethics, and Ecological Restoration by Gretel Van WierenKevin J. O’BrienA Political Theology of Climate Change Michael S. Northcott grand rapids, mi: eerdmans, 2013. 335 pp. $30.00Restored to Earth: Christianity, Environmental Ethics, and Ecological Restoration Gretel Van Wieren washington, dc: georgetown university press, 2013. 208 pp. $29.95These two excellent (...) books, A Political Theology of Climate Change by Michael S. Northcott and Restored to Earth by Gretel Van Wieren, offer distinct directions for Christian environmental ethics: Northcott develops a rigorous analysis of climate change as a failure of enlightenment rationality and politics, while Van Wieren argues that those who care about the earth can connect with it through the practice of ecological restoration. Northcott theologically defines a complex global problem; Van Wieren theologically engages a community-based solution. Each book advances Christian environmental ethics in important ways; considered together, they have much to teach about the content and methods of the field.Northcott’s A Political Theology of Climate Change argues that climate change is a “cosmopolitical crisis” and that Christians should embrace a more ecological and theological politics in response. Theologians and ethicists have long argued that environmental degradation has cosmological roots: The belief that human beings are separate from nature makes global-scale degradation and pollution acceptable. Northcott adds a nuanced political analysis, noting that modern politics is based on a denial “that the weather is political, or that politics influences the climate” (46). Enlightenment thinkers who laid the groundwork for contemporary political structures insisted that storms and floods were not divine responses to human behavior, so modern nation-states are premised on an ideological separation from nature. Climate change reveals the failure of such thinking, so the facts of climate change pose an inherently political challenge.Thus, failures to act on climate change are political failures. Mainstream politics cannot consider that economic growth is unsustainable because it is premised on ignorance about nature. Nations cannot collaborate to solve the problem because they have no common moral agreement “about the ends and goals of human life” (245). Any response to climate change that simply extends [End Page 198] the enlightenment project—by ascribing “rights” to the natural world, or by trusting existing secular political structures—is doomed to failure. Instead, climate change calls for a different cosmology and a different politics.Northcott argues that both can be found in the Christian tradition. Natural law thinking respects the relationship between human beings and external moral standards “set into the structure of the cosmos,” demanding careful accounting for the atmospheric consequences of human action (246). Virtue ethics teaches the ideal of politics as a “community of friendship and love,” nurturing practices of participation in the good life, lived with less consumption and less destructive energy (200).Northcott hopes that small-scale communities inspired by Christian cosmology and Christian politics will transition away from destructive practices and thereby demonstrate a new way of life to the world. His book concludes by reasserting that because climate change is a political problem, it is fundamentally a theological problem, calling human communities to “re-create the historic and customary connections between nature and culture, land and life, love for neighbour and nature which are central to the Jewish and Christian messianism of empire-challenging love” (316).In contrast to Northcott’s focus on political and philosophical failures, Gretel Van Wieren’s Restored to Earth seeks a “more positive, solution-oriented” approach to Christian ethics (viii). The book is about reconnecting humans with the natural world through ecological restoration, “the science and art of repairing ecosystems that have been damaged by human activities” (2), and it argues that restoration models moral life by creating physical, intellectual, emotional, communal, and spiritual connections with the natural world.Van Wieren begins with an interdisciplinary definition of ecological restoration and argues that views on the practice depend upon varied definitions of nature. She then moves to a nuanced account of restoration ecology as a spiritual practice (chapter 3) of community formation (chapter 4). Evocatively recounting a controlled prairie burn in Illinois on Maundy Thursday, Van Wieren... (shrink)

THIS ESSAY SEEKS TO REDRESS THE SHORTCOMINGS OF CHRISTIAN ENVIronmental ethics by proposing Franciscan environmental ethics drawn from the affective and embodied experience of Francis of Assisi plus the Franciscan theological tradition that he inspired, as exemplified by Bonaventure and John Duns Scotus. Drawing its inspiration from the love Francis of Assisi had for nature, the Franciscan tradition holds that creation bursts with religious significance. This tradition interprets Francis' affective and direct sensory experience of the (...) natural world with theological concepts creatively reworked from scripture and patristic sources, especially the Incarnation and theTrinity.The Franciscan understanding of the Incarnation emphasizes continuity between humanity, creatures, and elements. The Franciscan vision of Trinity as community-ofpersons, inspired by Francis's Canticle of Creatures, supports a more inclusive vision of the moral community. Franciscan environmental ethics can inspire an enhanced moral imagination and the praxis of an ethic of care. (shrink)

The nine essays in this volume explore the foundations of environmental ethics in the Western philosophy, as well as from the perspectives of Christianity, Islam, Daoism, and Buddhism.

Simon P. James' Zen Buddhism and Environmental Ethics offers an engaging, sophisticated, and well-argued defence of the notion that Zen Buddhism has something positive to offer the environmental movement. James' goal is two-fold: first, dispel criticism that Zen (by virtue of its anti-philosophical stance) lacks an ethical program (because it shuns conventional morality), has no concern for the environment at large (because it adopts a thoroughly anthropocentric stance), and deprives living entities of any intrinsic worth (because it (...) operates from the standpoint of the doctrine of emptiness); second, to argue that Zen's quietist stance in fact fosters the development of certain character traits (compassion, non-violence, selflessness, etc.) that in turn lead to having an enlightened attitude toward the environment. (shrink)

Though broadly philosophical reflections on nature and our place within it can be tracked to antiquity, the development of the field of environmental ethics as a distinct sub-discipline within contemporary academic philosophy has a far shorter history. Its landmark moments include the 1968 publication of Lynn White Jr’s influential critique of Christianity’s environmental record “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” J. Baird Callicott’s teaching of the world’s first course in environmental ethics in 1971 at (...) the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, the pathfinding papers “Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental, Ethic?” and “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary” by the.. (shrink)

Contemporary ecological crises require a reevaluation of how humans understand themselves in relationship to the rest of the natural world, including a reassessment of the role religion has played in the history of ecological degradation. This article introduces the Earth Bible Project, the work of an international team of biblical scholars in conversation with scholars from other disciplines, especially ecologists, that engages in such a reevaluation of the Christian Bible. This reevaluation has led to the conclusion that the (...) class='Hi'>Christian Bible contains both historic roots that have contributed to the ecological crisis as well as ecological wisdom that should be retrieved so that humans may reimagine their relationship to the environment in ways that contribute to environmental ethics. (shrink)

In recent years, corporate environmental policies have become urgently needed, demanded by influential environmentalist groups and launched by an increasing number of companies. Those demands and efforts, however, often lack an ethical underpinning. This paper deals with some basic ethical issues and outlines three perspectives for further investigation: (1) How can we take into account ethical pluralism that characterizes most contemporary societies?; (2) What is the content of environmental ethics viewed from a Christian perspective, taken as (...) an example of various existent doctrines in the pluralistic world?; and (3) What relevance may this "Christian environmental stewardship" have for the understanding of corporate environmental responsibility? (shrink)

Mainstream currents within Christianity havelong insisted that humans, among all creatures, areneither fully identified with their physical bodiesnor fully at home on earth. This essay outlines theparticular characteristics of Christian notions ofhuman nature and the implications of this separationfor environmental ethics. It then examines recentefforts to correct some damaging aspects oftraditional Christian understandings of humanity''splace in nature, especially the notions of physicalembodiment and human embeddedment in earth. Theprimary goal of the essay is not to offer acomprehensive (...) evaluation of Christian thinking aboutnature but rather to identify theological anthropologyas a crucial dimension of, and problem for, Christianenvironmental ethics. (shrink)

As the title suggests, this collection addresses the very topical subject matter of environmental ethics by bringing together a host of unique voices. In the editor’s words, ‘[t]he essays collected here represent a joint effort in dealing with this problem [of global environmental conservation and protection]. All contributors to this volume agree that what we urgently need now is global awareness of the environmental crisis we are facing’ (9). While a thread of consensus weaves throughout, what (...) is more striking is the diverse and colorful tapestry of approaches these essays yield on a single theme. The first four essays articulate the ethical injunction to conserve and protect the natural environment in terms of various axiological and methodological commitments: normative, biocentric, aesthetic and empirical. In the final five essays, the thematic emphasis shifts ever so slightly. A plurality of perspectives on environmental conservation and protection emerges from different theological commitments, at times reflecting and at other times transcending individual—Christian/Western, Islamic/Middle Eastern, Buddhist/Eastern, and (in the final two essays) Daoist/Eastern—cultures. (shrink)

CHRISTIAN ECOLOGICAL ETHICISTS INCREASINGLY RECOGNIZE THAT MORAL response to contemporary problems such as mass extinction and climate change must incorporate and build upon established movements for social justice. This essay contributes to that work by learning from the twentieth-century union organizer César Chávez and his advocacy for justice and environmental health among farm workers. I argue that understanding key themes of Chávez's morality in his context, particularly the universality of human dignity and the importance of personal and collective (...) sacrifice, can contribute to a Christian ecological ethics with a program for social change and justice. (shrink)

The present study seeks to introduce the European Christian community to the debate on environmental degradation while displaying its important role and theological perspectives in the resolution of the environmental crisis. The fundamental question authors have asked here is if Christianity supports pro-environmental attitudes compared to other religions, in a context where religion, in general, represents the ethical foundation of our civilization and, thus, an important behavior guide. The discussion becomes all the more interesting as many (...) voices have identified the Christian theological tradition as ecologically bankrupt, while others as a source for environmental ethics. In seeking to refute or to confirm the Lynne White’s thesis, firstly, we aimed to rediscover the biblical ecological consciousness and the theology of care. Secondly, following the literature evidence on relevant differences between countries and the influence that religion has on approaching environmental issues, we considered the religion-environmental correlation within a particular country context. For this, data from the European Values Study survey were used, by including 20 European countries. One novelty of this contribution is to highlight the influence of the legacy of the former political regime on pro-environmental attitude and religious practices. The study testifies that the search for a common language for environmental stewardship is a difficult task and fundamental to how we behave. Despite this, within this frame of discussion, we argue that Christianity, as a major social actor, co-exists with and can enhance the interest in and respect for nature. (shrink)

This article surveys and classifies the kinds of appeal to the Bible made in recent theological discussions of ecology and environmental ethics. These are, first, readings of `recovery', followed by two types of readings of `resistance'. The first of these modes of resistance entails the exercise of suspicion against the text, a willingness to resist it given a commitment to a particular (ethical) reading perspective. The second, by contrast, entails a resistance to the contemporary ethical agenda, given a (...) perceived commitment to the Bible. This initial typology and the various reading strategies surveyed are then subjected to criticism, as part of an attempt to begin to develop an ecological hermeneutic, a hermeneutic which operates between recovery and resistance with an approach that may be labelled `revision', `reformation' or `reconfiguration'. (shrink)

In environmental ethics, there has been too little attention to the question of why changes in environmental beliefs do not simply result in changes in behavior, given that this gap between belief and behavior is widespread. In this essay, I argue that two forms of inaction that exhibit this gap can be helpfully analyzed by reading them in terms of a Lutheran account of sin. To make the argument, I distinguish seven forms of and reasons for inaction, (...) from which I pull out two “privileged” forms of inaction that characterize people who could act and yet do not. Using psychological and sociological research, I interpret these two forms of inaction as, on the one hand, people’s attempts at securing righteousness and, on the other hand, people’s terrorized consciences in response to the complexity and gravity of climate change. I end suggesting a turn to justification within Christian environmental ethics. (shrink)

Introduction : points of departure -- A genealogy of the Christian colonial mindset : ex nihilo from disputed beginnings to orthodox origins -- Ex nihilo and the origin of an empire -- Ex nihilo, erasure and discovery? -- The cogito, ex nihilo, and the legacy of John Locke -- The creation ex nihilo of terra nullius lands : omnipotent nations and the logic of global-colonization -- From epistemologies of domination to grounded thinking -- Opening words about God onto creatio (...) continua -- Creatio continua "all the way down": a post-colonial, planetary understanding of continuing creation -- Conclusion : a brief thought after. (shrink)

Max Hallman has put forward an interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy according to which Nietzsche is a prototypical deep ecologist. In reply, I dispute Hallman’s main interpretive claim as well as its ethical and exegetical corollaries. I hold that Nietzsche is not a “biospheric egalitarian,” but rather an aristocratically individualistic “high humanist.” A consistently naturalistic transcendentalist, Nietzsche does submit a critique of modernity’s Christian-inflected anthropocentrism (pace Hallman), and yet—in his later work—he endorses exploitation in the quest for nobility (contra Hallman). (...) I conclude thatecophilosophers need to exercise hermeneutical caution in any attempt to appropriate Nietzsche for environmentally ethical designs, lest they illegitimately ventriloquize their own moral voices into an authoritative but alien mouthpiece. (shrink)

There is widespread understanding of the close connection between religion and the ecological crisis, and that in order to amend this crisis, theological resources are needed. This monograph seeks to contribute to this endeavor by engaging the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His theology is particularly suitable in this context, due to its open-ended nature, and to the prophetic and radical nature of the questions he was prepared to ask--that is why there are many other attempts to contextualize Bonhoeffer's theology in (...) areas that he himself has not directly written about. In this monograph, Steven van den Heuvel first of all addresses the question of how to translate Bonhoeffer's theology in a methodologically sound way. He settles on a modified form of the general method of correlation. Then, secondly, van den Heuvel sets out to describe five major concepts in Bonhoeffer's work, bringing these into critical interplay with discussions in environmental ethics and eco-theology. In making the correlations he thoroughly describes each concept, situating it in the historic and intellectual background of Bonhoeffer's time. He then transposes these concepts to contemporary environmental ethics, describing what contribution Bonhoeffer's theology can make. - back of book. (shrink)

Wildlife Ethics A systematic account of the ethical issues related to wildlife management and conservation Wildlife Ethics is the first systematic, book-length discussion of the ethics of wildlife conservation and management, and examines the key ethical questions and controversies. Tackling both theory and practice, the text is divided into two parts. The first describes key concepts, ethical theories, and management models relating to wildlife; the second puts these concepts, theories, and models to work, illustrating their significance through (...) detailed case studies on controversies in wildlife management and conservation. The book explores pressing topics including human responsibilities due to climate change, tradeoffs when managing zoonotic disease risks, the ethics of the wildlife trade, culling non-native species, indigenous wildlife use, and zoo-based conservation programs. Readers are encouraged to explore different ways of valuing wild animals and their practical implications. This essential text: Explains and explores relationships between valuing biodiversity, human utility, ecosystems, species, and animal welfare Describes established approaches to wildlife management, such as sustainable use, and emerging concepts, such as compassionate conservation Discusses key ethical theories, including utilitarianism, ecocentrism, and animal rights Offers a practical model of how to analyze ethical issues in wildlife management and conservation Wildlife Ethics: The Ethics of Wildlife Management and Conservation is an accessible introduction to complex ethical issues, making the book an important resource for students in fields such as conservation biology, ecology, environmental science and policy, game management, public health and veterinary medicine. It will also be an invaluable tool for wildlife managers, conservationists, One Health practitioners, practicing veterinarians and animal rehabilitation staff, contemporary wildlife professionals and other stakeholders. (shrink)

Since a couple of decades, the notion of a precautionary principle plays a central and increasingly influential role in international as well as national policy and regulation regarding the environment and the use of technology. Urging society to take action in the face of potential risks of human activities in these areas, the recent focus on climate change has further sharpened the importance of this idea. However, the idea of a precautionary principle has also been problematised and criticised by scientists, (...) scholars and policy activists, and been accused of almost every intellectual sin imaginable: unclarity, impracticality, arbitrariness and moral as well as political unsoundness. In that light, the very idea of precaution as an ideal for policy making rather comes out as a dead end. On the basis of these contrasting starting points, Christian Munthe undertakes an innovative, in-depth philosophical analysis of what the idea of a precautionary principle is and should be about. A novel theory of the ethics of imposing risks is developed and used as a foundation for defending the idea of precaution in environmental and technological policy making against its critics, while at the same time avoiding a number of identified flaws. The theory is shown to have far-reaching consequences for areas such as bio-, information- and nuclear technology, and global environmental policy in areas such as climate change. The author argues that, while the price we pay for precaution must not be too high, we have to be prepared to pay it in order to act ethically defensible. A number of practical suggestions for precautionary regulation and policy making are made on the basis of this, and some challenges to basic ethical theory as well as consumerist societies, the global political order and liberal democracy are identified. (shrink)

The presented survey focused on moral challenges of Bavarian veterinary officers in their daily work and their expectations of an ethics module in their training program. The results suggest that Bavarian veterinary officers are confronted with morally challenging situations. However, they do not describe these challenges as dilemmas in which the veterinary officers do not know what the moral right choice would be. They are rather convinced to know what they should do from an ethical point of view but (...) see difficulties with the realization as the crucial moral challenge of their profession. The participants in the study do not only expect ethics to help them to find a morally justified way of dealing with moral challenges, but also to gain a better understanding of essential conflicts. In regard to a possible e-learning course on ethics, most veterinary officers were skeptical or highly critical because, from their perspective, ethics needs personal exchange, promoting a dialogue with colleagues, and this is best possible in a classroom-based seminar. Therefore, according to the participants in the survey, if e-learning tools are used, this should only be in combination with classroom-based events. (shrink)

De-domestication is the deliberate establishment of a population of domesticated animals or plants in the wild. In time, the population should be able to reproduce, becoming self-sustainable and incorporating ‘wild’ animals. Often de-domestication is part of a larger nature restoration scheme, aimed at creating landscapes anew, or re-creating former habitats. De-domestication is taken up in this paper because it both engages and raises questions about the major norms governing animals and nature. The debate here concerns whether animals undergoing de-domestication should (...) be looked upon as wild or non-wild and the effect this has on questions about how they should be treated. It also concerns the value of nature, and the kind and degree of nature management considered appropriate. The paper first describes actual de-domestication practices and considers the character of human duties to animals in process of de-domestication. Secondly, the paper explores the implications of de-domestication for nature management, focusing on notions of naturalness and wildness. Finally, because the current division of ethical topics, with its dependence upon whether animals and nature are domesticated, hampers rather than helps, a new perspective is offered on the issues raised by de-domestication. More ‘thinking outside the box’ with regard to animals and nature is recommended. (shrink)

Many environmentalists believe that the ethos of capitalism is a primary cause of environmental degradation, arguing that only a fundamental shift away from the materialism and competition of the marketplace will allow humans to live within the earth's carrying capacity. A different strand of contemporary thought, free market environmentalism, argues the opposite: private ownership, individual choice, and the creative forces of human ingenuity are the best available means to solve ecological problems. This essay considers how Christian ecological (...) class='Hi'>ethics should respond to free market environmentalism, identifying its moral claims and the theoretical questions it poses to our field while also critiquing the shortcomings that accompany its economic view of human nature and character. We advocate a pragmatic approach that engages in a mutually educative dialogue toward the shared goal of protecting the earth and all its inhabitants. (shrink)

In research on organizational environmentalism, there has been a repeated call for ways to go beyond the business case for sustainability frame. While the business case frame assumes that developing eco-friendly solutions can benefit firms financially, this article highlights the importance of challenging established understandings of sustainability. To this end, I introduce Deleuze’s distinction between morality and ethics. Morality involves passing judgements on the basis of values. Ethics provides an immanent evaluation of the principles by which specific solutions (...) are considered sustainable. Analysing interviews with architects, building engineers and business developers, the article shows how these actors reflect on the values that form the basis of their practice, but also try to imagine new ways of working with sustainability. In conclusion, the article suggests that an immanent ethics of organizational environmentalism can allow for the values that inform environmental efforts in organizations to be evaluated as well as alternative visions of sustainability to be created. (shrink)

This book explores how the mounting ecological crisis has religious, political, and economic roots that enable and promote social and environmental harm.

In recent years a principle for responsible risk-taking called "The Precautionarity Principle" (PP) has been put forward in several policy documents regarding risk-management of technological and environmental issues. PP involves two claims: 1. An ethical claim according to which it is irresponsible to, for example, use new technologies, regdless of how large benefits these are known to bring, unless it has been proven that they will not give rise to unacceptable long term risks. 2. An administrative/political claim according to (...) which the burden of supplying the proof spoken of in claim 1 is to be laid on the supplier of the new technology. This paper deals only with claim 1, which is the real "precautionarity claim". PP has produced much enthusiasm in different political circles, where it is often held out as a landmark for a new thinking in risk-management. However, while claim 2 is clear enough, it is rather obscure how the precautionarity claim is to be understood. In particular, it is not clear to what extent (if any) this claim implies anything new for risk-analysis. This is so since the precautionarity claim does not say anything about what is to be counted as a proof, or what constitutes an unacceptable risk. The paper explores different conlicting interpretations of the precautionarity claim and demonstrates how the choice between these actualise hard ethical issues. In particular, the issue of how much damage we are allowed to cause in order to pursue safety and certainty is discussed. This issue is actualized when new technologies with known beneficiary effects cannot be proven to be "safe enough" according to some interpretations of the precautionarity claim unless investigated for a rather long period of time, during which the technology is not allowed to be used to produce the beneficiary effects it can produce. This problem is structurally similar to a well known issue in medical ethics regarding the rsponsibility of continuing a controlled clinical trial of a drug known to cure when this means that half of the patients suffers extra agony and earlier death because they get a placebo instead of the new drug.. (shrink)

The emotions of guilt and shame have an effect on how individuals feel and behave in relation to environmental crises, yet studies of the moral potential of these emotions remain limited. From a philosophical perspective, some scholars have defended using eco-guilt and eco-shame as morally constructive emotions due to their ability to evoke more pro-environmental behaviour. Meanwhile, others have posited that there are pitfalls to these emotions, claiming that they perpetuate a problematic individualised focus, which diverts attention from (...) the collective and structural conditions considered necessary for pro-environmental change. This paper critically examines these two differing perspectives on eco-guilt and eco-shame, applying insights from moral and political philosophy and the sociology of emotions. Through this exploration, we try to nuance the discussion concerning the moral potential of eco-guilt and eco-shame. We argue that if individuals are able to break their introspective, consumption-based loops of eco-guilt and eco-shame alleviation, the emotions may enforce an individual ethical demand to be more sustainable and foster an ethical and political pro-environmental drive. Furthermore, experiences of eco-guilt and eco-shame have the potential to spread socially and help catalyse emotional shifts within society, sparking a greater political and social pro-environmental movement. Therefore, eco-guilt and eco-shame may indeed transcend the purported introspective and individual-level focus and have the potential to influence broader collective and structural conditions and thus foster environmental change. (shrink)

Human beings are the cause of many current environmental problems. This poses the question of how to respond to these problems at the national and international level. However, many people ask themselves whether they should personally contribute to solving these problems and how they could (best) do so. This is the focus of this Special Issue on Individual Environmental Responsibility. The introduction proposes a way to structure this complex debate by distinguishing three broad clusters of arguments. The first (...) cluster tackles the kind of ethical theory we need to properly address different aspects of individual responsibility. The second cluster asks what individuals should do from an ethical point of view. The third cluster investigates the role of contextual factors and the limits of demandingness in individual obligations. This introduction presents the papers of the Special Issue and the interrelations between them using those clusters of arguments as reference. (shrink)

This essay questions the place of other-than-human animals in Levinas’s thought. After detailing how animals and animality figure in Levinas’s work, it is claimed that his ethical exclusion of animals is due to a conception of animals as wholly accountable for in terms of species-being, wholly within “naturalhistory.” It is then suggested that Levinas’s position is ill-founded, and at odds with his claims about the importance of suffering and the vulnerable body in the encounter with the other. The essay concludes (...) by arguing that speaking of other-than-human animal “faces” is not necessarily an unduly anthropocentricextension of thinking-of-the-other. (shrink)

"Applies Emmanuel Levinas's thought in approaching environmental philosophy from both humanistic and nonanthropocentric points of view, arguing that themes at the heart of his work--the significance of the ethical, responsibility, alterity, the vulnerability of the body, bearing witness, and politics--are important for thinking about many of our most pressing contemporary environmental questions" --Provided by publisher.

The environmental economic response to mainstream neo-classical economics’ disconnect from the natural world was to value external environmental costs and include those into decisions about human welfare. The ecological economic response, heavily influenced by systems ecology, brought the concept of ecological scale or carrying capacity, as a limit to human choice. The divisions between these two theories are not merely cosmetic as illustrated by the highpolitical stakes in recent economic and environmental debates. This article concerns itself specifically (...) with the question how Christian economists position themselves towards the unfolding ecological and economic crises. It is shown that the main positions taken in the policy debates on economy and ecology are closely mirrored in the broader Christian economic community, raising the question whether the Christian economic tradition does have anything particular to offer in response to the ecological and economic crises. We approach this question from two angles, first, reviewing the literature on an earlier debate by the Association of Christian Economists on what Christian economists should be doing and, second, reviewing the literature on the relationships between Christianity and environmental beliefs and behaviour. With reference to eco-theological literature on the varying theological views on the relationship between humanity and the rest of creation, and on different expectations of the eschaton, it is shown why such diverging positions are taken among Christian economists. Nevertheless, the objective reality of Jesus Christ demands a particular Christian ethics and behaviour, which in turn, kindles fertile questions for Christian economists in their practical engagement withthe economic and ecological sciences and with broader culture. (shrink)