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54Developing Val Plumwood's dialogical ethical ontology and its consequences for a place-based ethicEthics and the Environment 14 (2). 2009.This essay attempts to develop the foundations of what Val Plumwood calls a "dialogical ethical ontology." I defend Plumwood's analysis situating the conceptual roots of the environmental crisis in dualistic thinking, but disagree that a solution is arrived at in an intentional, teleological conception of nature. Rather than arguing for a substantial union of mind and nature, I argue that a relational ontology ought to be adopted. This analysis is carried out by examining three aspects of Plumwo…Read more
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16Christian Diehm. Connection to Nature, Deep Ecology, and Conservation Social Science: Human-Nature Bonding and Protecting the Natural World (review)Environmental Ethics 43 (4): 379-382. 2021.
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52Being a Friend to Nature: Environmental Virtues and Ethical IdealsEthics, Policy and Environment 20 (1): 44-58. 2017.This paper argues that environmental virtue ethics requires the adoption of an ethical ideal in order to guide the identification and practice of virtues. I recommend friendship as one such ideal due to emphasis such an ideal places upon the quality of the relationship with nature rather than the evaluation of individual actions. After describing the value of friendship as an ethical ideal, I respond to some of the objections that have been raised against it in the context of environmental virtu…Read more
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1From Intrinsic Value to Compassion: A Place-Based EthicEnvironmental Ethics 35 (3): 259-278. 2013.If the value of intrinsic value accounts lies in the establishment of an impetus to accept duties with respect to nature and to make sense of specific feelings of attachment and affection toward nature, then these goals can be met equally well through the virtue of compassion. Compassion is an other-directed emotion, and is thus not anthropocentric when directed toward nature. It requires us to be capable of relating to and identifying suffering in another. However, basing an ethic on compassion…Read more
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17Re-Envisioning NatureEnvironmental Ethics 33 (4): 415-436. 2011.The discussion of environmental aesthetics as it relates to ethics has primarily been concerned with how to harmonize aesthetic judgments of nature’s beauty with ecological judgments of nature’s health. This discussion brings to our attention the need for new perceptual norms for the experience of nature. Hence, focusing exclusively on the question of whether a work of “environmental art” is good or bad for the ecological health of a system occludes the important role such works can play in form…Read more
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5Animals, Language, and LifeEnvironmental Philosophy 6 (1): 21-34. 2009.This essay elaborates the meaning of Merleau-Ponty’s conception of life as “a power to invent the visible” by differentiating it from Heidegger’s claim, in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, that the essence of humanity is to be world-forming. By considering how history and language influence conceptions of life, the essay argues that the various forms of animal life are structurally similar to human life, while at the same time are different insofar as different species exhibit distinct w…Read more
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12Resisting the Domination of NatureEnvironmental Philosophy 11 (2): 333-358. 2014.This essay uses Foucault’s views on time and ethics in order to reconceptualize the domination of nature in terms of the imposition of an inflexible order upon a place rather than in the more conventional sense in environmental studies of reducing nature to a use object for humanity. I then propose a means of resisting that domination by examining how friendship might be employed as an ethical ideal in our relationship to nature.
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53Re-Envisioning NatureEnvironmental Ethics 33 (4): 415-436. 2011.The discussion of environmental aesthetics as it relates to ethics has primarily been concerned with how to harmonize aesthetic judgments of nature’s beauty with ecological judgments of nature’s health. This discussion brings to our attention the need for new perceptual norms for the experience of nature. Hence, focusing exclusively on the question of whether a work of “environmental art” is good or bad for the ecological health of a system occludes the important role such works can play in form…Read more
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27From Intrinsic Value to Compassion: A Place-Based EthicEnvironmental Ethics 35 (3): 259-278. 2013.If the value of intrinsic value accounts lies in the establishment of an impetus to accept duties with respect to nature and to make sense of specific feelings of attachment and affection toward nature, then these goals can be met equally well through the virtue of compassion. Compassion is an other-directed emotion, and is thus not anthropocentric when directed toward nature. It requires us to be capable of relating to and identifying suffering in another. However, basing an ethic on compassion…Read more
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20Marratto, Scott., The Intercorporeal Self: Merleau-Ponty on SubjectivityReview of Metaphysics 67 (1): 178-180. 2013.
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446Reading the Living Signs: A Proposal for a Merleau-Pontian Concept of SpeciesChiasmi International 9 96-111. 2007.This paper seeks to propose a direction of research based upon the transformation of Merleau-Ponty's thinking with respect to animal life over the course of his writings. In his earlier works, Merleau-Ponty takes up the position that “life” does not mean the same thing when applied to an animal and a human being because of the manner in which the “human dialectic” alters the human being's relation to life. In his later works, particularly in his lectures on nature, this position softens so that …Read more
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31Resisting the Domination of Nature: Regarding Time as an Ethical ConceptEnvironmental Philosophy 11 (2): 333-358. 2014.This essay uses Foucault’s views on time and ethics in order to reconceptualize the domination of nature in terms of the imposition of an inflexible order upon a place rather than in the more conventional sense in environmental studies of reducing nature to a use object for humanity. I then propose a means of resisting that domination by examining how friendship might be employed as an ethical ideal in our relationship to nature
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5From Mastery to Mystery: A Phenomenological Foundation for an Environmental EthicOhio University Press. 2014._From Mastery to Mystery_ is an original and provocative contribution to the burgeoning field of ecophenomenology. Informed by current debates in environmental philosophy, Bannon critiques the conception of nature as?“substance” that he finds tacitly assumed by the major environmental theorists. Instead, this book reconsiders the basic goals of an environmental ethic by questioning the most basic presupposition that most environmentalists accept: that nature is in need of preservation. Beginning…Read more
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17Resumé: Lire Les signes vivants: proposition pour un concept merleau-pontien de l’especeChiasmi International 9 111-111. 2007.
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32Animals, Language, and LifeEnvironmental Philosophy 6 (1): 21-34. 2009.This essay elaborates the meaning of Merleau-Ponty’s conception of life as “a power to invent the visible” by differentiating it from Heidegger’s claim, in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, that the essence of humanity is to be world-forming. By considering how history and language influence conceptions of life, the essay argues that the various forms of animal life are structurally similar to human life, while at the same time are different insofar as different species exhibit distinct w…Read more
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16Levi R. Bryant, Onto-Cartography: An Ontology of Machines and Media (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2015. 2015.
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30Riassunto: Leggere i segni vi venti: proposta per un concetto merleau-pontiano di specieChiasmi International 9 111-111. 2007.
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149Flesh and Nature: Understanding Merleau-Ponty’s Relational OntologyResearch in Phenomenology 41 (3): 327-357. 2011.In this paper I attempt to develop several ways Merleau-Ponty's ontology might contribute to an environmental ethic through a redefinition of his concept of flesh in terms of a general theory of affectivity. Currently accepted interpretations of the concept such as those in Abram, Toadvine, Barbaras, and Dastur rely upon conceiving flesh as a perceptual experience. I contest this interpretation and argue that a more productive conception of flesh emerges when understood in terms of Heidegger's p…Read more
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University of North FloridaDepartment of Philosophy & Religious StudiesOther faculty (Postdoc, Visiting, etc)
Jacksonville, Florida, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
European Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Aesthetics |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
General Philosophy of Science |