•  667
    Environmental ethics
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
    Environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman contents. This entry covers: (1) the challenge of environmental ethics to the anthropocentrism (i.e., humancenteredness) embedded in traditional western ethical thinking; (2) the early development of the discipline in the 1960s and 1970s; (3) the connection of deep ecology, feminist environmental ethics, and social e…Read more
  •  253
    The Moral Standing of Natural Objects
    Environmental Ethics 6 (1): 35-56. 1984.
    Human beings are, as far as we know, the only animals to have moral concerns and to adopt moralities, but it would be a mistake to be misled by this fact into thinking that humans are also the only proper objects of moral consideration. I argue that we ought to allow even nonliving things a significant moral status, thus denying the condusion of much contemporary moral thinking. First, I consider the possibilityof giving moral consideration to nonliving things. Second, I put forward grounds whic…Read more
  •  240
    Personal identity and personal survival
    Analysis 42 (January): 44-50. 1982.
    Parfit argues that survival, Not identity, Is the important thing in cases of personal resurrection, Fission, Etc. I argue that parfit's and dennett's well known cases--And fantasies about cloning and telecloning--Suggest a distinction between type and token persons, Memories, Intentions, Etc. Parfit is wrong, I suggest, To think survival more determinate than identity; with quine I hold that there is no objective matter to be right or wrong about
  •  232
    Discontinuity and identity
    Noûs 21 (2): 241-60. 1987.
  •  160
    Addressing many topics in epistemology and metaphysics, this treatise sets out a new theory of the unity of objects, and discusses personal identity, the metaphysics of possible worlds, the continuity in space time, and the nature of philosophical theorizing
  •  156
    Survival and importance
    Analysis 47 (October): 225-30. 1987.
  •  134
    Necessary and sufficient conditions
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
    Describes the received theory of necessary and sufficient conditions, explains some standard objections to it, and lays out alternative ways of thinking about conditions and conditionals.
  •  98
    Politics of Nature (review)
    Environmental Ethics 28 (2): 221-224. 2006.
  •  85
    Survival
    Synthese 59 (June): 339-62. 1984.
  •  71
    Best candidates and theories of identity
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 29 (1-4): 423-438. 1986.
    Attacks on ?closest continuer? and ?best candidate? theories of identity have something correct in them while still failing to discredit the theories they oppose. What follows from Noonan's and Wiggins's objections to such theories is that they need to be so formulated as not to deny the necessity of identity. The best metaphysics for best?candidate theories to adopt is one in which everyday objects are taken to transcend, in a certain sense, their life histories in given worlds. This metaphysic…Read more
  •  63
    Globalization, environmental policy and the ethics of place
    Ethics, Place and Environment 9 (2). 2006.
    Globalization is hailed by its advocates as a means of spreading cosmopolitan values, ideals of sustainability and better standards of living all around the world. Its critics, however, see globalization as a new form of colonialism imposed by rich countries and transnational corporations on the rest of the world, a process in which the rhetoric of sustainability and equality does not match the realities of exploitation and impoverishment of people and nature. This paper endorses neither view. G…Read more
  •  47
    The birth of modern science: culture, mentalities and scientific innovation
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 35 (2): 199-225. 2004.
    In a recent paper, Luc Faucher and others have argued for the existence of deep cultural differences between ‘Chinese’ and ‘East Asian’ ways of understanding the world and those of ‘ancient Greeks’ and ‘Americans’. Rejecting Alison Gopnik’s speculation that the development of modern science was driven by the increasing availability of leisure and information in the late Renaissance, they claim instead—following Richard Nisbett—that the birth of mathematical science was aided by ‘Greek’, or ‘West…Read more
  •  40
    Ecology – unlike astronomy, physics, or chemistry – is a science with an associated political and ethical movement: the Green Movement. As a result, the ecological position is often accompanied by appeals to holism, and by a mystical quasi-religious conception of the ecosystem. In this title, first published in 1988, Andrew Brennan argues that we can reduce much of the mysticism surrounding ecological discussions by placing them within a larger context, and illustrating that our individual inter…Read more
  •  38
    Poverty, Puritanism and Environmental Conflict
    Environmental Values 7 (3): 305-331. 1998.
    The paper proposes two ideas: (1) The wilderness preservation movement has failed to identify key elements involved in situations of environmental conflict. (2) The same movement seems unaware of its location within a tradition which is both elitist and Puritan. Holmes Rolston's recent work on the apparent conflict between feeding people and saving nature appears to exemplify the two points. With respect to point (1), Rolston's treatment fails to address the institutional and structural features…Read more
  •  34
    Ecological Theory and Value in Nature
    Philosophical Inquiry 8 (1-2): 66-95. 1986.
  •  34
    Environmental Ethics
    In , Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. pp. 333-336. 1998.
    Environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies themoral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moralstatus of, the environment and its non-human contents. This entrycovers: the challenge of environmental ethics to theanthropocentrism embedded in traditionalwestern ethical thinking; the development of the discipline fromthe 1960s and 1970s; the connection of deep ecology, feministenvironmental ethics, animism and social ecology to politics; theattempt to apply …Read more
  •  32
    Asian traditions of knowledge: The disputed questions of science, nature and ecology
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 33 (4): 567-581. 2002.
    The search for 'ecological insights' in venerable Asian traditions of thought prompts questions about how such traditions understood humans in relation to nature. Answers which focus on philosophical and religious ideas may overlook culturally important understandings of people and places articulated within scientific and medical thinking. The paper tentatively explores the prospects for gleaning a form of ethics of place from the study of traditional Hindu and Chinese medical sources. Although …Read more
  •  31
    Environmental philosophy is one of the exciting new fields of philosophy to emerge in the last forty years. "Understanding Environmental Philosophy" presents a comprehensive, critical analysis of contemporary philosophical approaches to current ecological concerns. Key ideas are explained, placed in their broader cultural, religious, historical, political and philosophical context, and their environmental policy implications are outlined. Central ideas and concepts about environmental value, ind…Read more
  •  25
    Moral Pluralism and the Environment
    Environmental Values 1 (1). 1992.
    Cost-benefit analysis makes the assumption that everything from consumer goods to endangered species may in principle be given a value by which its worth can be compared with that of anything else, even though the actual measurement of such value may be difficult in practice. The assumption is shown to fail, even in simple cases, and the analysis to be incapable of taking into account the transformative value of new experiences. Several kinds of value are identified, by no means all commensurabl…Read more
  •  24
    The Ethics of the Environment
    Dartmouth Publishing Company. 1995.
    The International Research Library of Philosophy collects in book form a wide range of important and influential essays in philosophy, drawn predominantly from English-language journals. The present volume provides a comprehensive collection of some of the most interesting recent work in environmental ethics. The 33 essays are organized in six sections: intrinsic value and moral standing; species, ecosystems and interests; deep ecology and radical environmentalism; ecology and feminism; are huma…Read more
  •  23
    Conditions of Identity: A Study of Identity and Survival
    with James Van Cleve
    Philosophical Review 101 (2): 411. 1992.
  •  22
    The Ontological Turn. Studies in the Philosophy of Gustav Bergmann
    with M. S. Gram and E. D. Klemke
    Philosophical Quarterly 25 (99): 174. 1975.
  •  22
    Thinking About Nature: An Investigation of Nature, Value and Ecology
    with Jane M. Howarth
    Philosophical Quarterly 41 (162): 94. 1991.
    Ecology – unlike astronomy, physics, or chemistry – is a science with an associated political and ethical movement: the Green Movement. As a result, the ecological position is often accompanied by appeals to holism, and by a mystical quasi-religious conception of the ecosystem. In this title, first published in 1988, Andrew Brennan argues that we can reduce much of the mysticism surrounding ecological discussions by placing them within a larger context, and illustrating that our individual inter…Read more
  •  19
    Against Nature (review)
    Environmental Ethics 20 (2): 207-210. 1998.