•  4
    Book Review: Ethics and the Environment: An Introduction (review)
    Environmental Values 19 (2): 258-262. 2010.
  •  13
  •  26
    Environmental Disobedience
    In Dale Jamieson (ed.), A Companion to Environmental Philosophy, Wiley-blackwell. 1991.
    This chapter contains sections titled: The possibility and need for justification Civil, militant, and revolutionary disobedience Worries about violence and letting the individual decide Justifications for militant environmental activism The critique of humans‐only democracy Implications for militant disobedience Conclusion.
  •  10
    Patenting Life: Biotechnology, Intellectual Property, and Environmental Ethics
    Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review 22 (2): 267. 1995.
  •  17
    Enhancing Natural Value?
    Human Ecology Review 3 (1): 8-11. 1996.
    There is widespread skepticism among those with deep commitments to the natural world about the idea that humans can improve upon nature. While it seems obvious that humans can alter nature to better serve human uses, it is far from clear that humans can improve nature in non-utilitarian ways. Can human beings enhance intrinsic natural value? Perhaps the strongest reason for skepticism about this possibility is the value that many see in the "wildness" of nature, understood as the extent to whic…Read more
  •  7
    Defining and evaluating exotic species: issues for Yellowstone park policy
    Western North American Naturalist 61 (3). 2001.
  • Book review of Peter Wenz, Environmental Ethics Today (review)
    Conservation Biology 18 (2): 587-588. 2004.
  •  1
    Defending Aesthetic Protectionism
    In David Schmidtz (ed.), Philosophy: Environmental Ethics, Macmillan. pp. 287-308. 2016.
    Aesthetic reasons should be significant factors in justifying decisions about both natural and humanized environments. Far from being trivial or mere tools to find serious considerations, aesthetic rationales are necessary for appropriate environmental protection. Aesthetic responses to environments should be construed broadly to include cognitive, expressive, and sense-of-place dimensions. Aesthetic justifications for environmental protection go beyond shallow and deep anthropocentric rationale…Read more
  •  1166
    Justifying intellectual property
    Philosophy and Public Affairs 18 (1): 31-52. 1989.
  •  78
    Without modification, Rolston’s environmental ethics is biased in favor of plants, since he gives them stronger protection than animals. Rolston can avoid this bias by extending his principle protecting plants (the principle of the nonloss of goods) to human interactions with animals. Were he to do so, however, he would risk undermining his acceptance of meat eating and certain types of hunting. I argue,nevertheless, that meat eating and hunting, properly conceived, are compatible with this exte…Read more
  •  48
    Naturalness, wild-animal suffering, and Palmer on laissez-faire
    Les Ateliers de l'Éthique / the Ethics Forum 13 (1): 65-84. 2018.
    NED HETTINGER | : This essay explores the tension between concern for the suffering of wild animals and concern about massive human influence on nature. It examines Clare Palmer’s animal ethics and its attempt to balance a commitment to the laissez-faire policy of nonintervention in nature with our obligations to animals. The paper contrasts her approach with an alternative defence of this laissez-faire intuition based on a significant and increasingly important environmental value: Respect for …Read more
  •  125
    Refocusing Ecocentrism
    Environmental Ethics 21 (1): 3-21. 1999.
    Traditional ecocentric ethics relies on an ecology that emphasizes the stability and integrity of ecosystems. Numerous ecologists now focus on natural systems that are less clearly characterized by these properties. We use the elimination and restoration of wolves in Yellowstone to illustrate troubles for traditional ecocentric ethics caused by ecological models emphasizing instability in natural systems. We identify several other problems for a stability-integrity based ecocentrism as well. We …Read more
  •  15
    The Sublime in Modern Philosophy: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Nature (review)
    Environmental Ethics 38 (2): 237-240. 2016.
  •  56
    “The Intrinsic Value of Nature,” The Monist (review)
    Environmental Ethics 18 (1): 99-104. 1996.
  •  59
    The problem of finding a positive role for humans in the natural world
    Ethics and the Environment 7 (1): 109-123. 2002.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 7.1 (2002) 109-123 [Access article in PDF] The Problem of Finding a Positive Role for Humans in the Natural World Ned Hettinger As necessary as it obviously is, the effort of "wilderness preservation" has too often implied that it is enough to save a series of islands of pristine and uninhabited wilderness in an otherwise exploited, damaged, and polluted land. And, further, that the pristine wilderness is the…Read more
  •  56
    Evaluating Positive Aesthetics
    Journal of Aesthetic Education 51 (3): 26-41. 2017.
    For in all natural things there is something marvelous.1 None of nature’s landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild.2 Positive aesthetics is the idea that all of nature is beautiful.3 The more qualified version supported here claims that nature—to the extent it is not influenced by humans—is specially and predominantly beautiful. Some of the most prominent figures in environmental aesthetics and ethics have defended PA. Holmes Rolston III was an early proponent: The Matterhorn leaves us in aw…Read more
  •  34
    Exotic Species, Naturalisation, and Biological Nativism
    Environmental Values 10 (2): 193-224. 2001.
    Contrary to frequent characterisations, exotic species should not be identified as damaging species, species introduced by humans, or species originating from some other geographical location. Exotics are best characterised ecologically as species that are foreign to an ecological assemblage in the sense that they have not significantly adapted with the biota constituting that assemblage or to the local abiotic conditions. Exotic species become natives when they have ecologically naturalised and…Read more
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    Evaluation of the contribution that Allen Carlson’s environmental aesthetics can make to environmental protection shows that Carlson’s positive aesthetics, his focus on the functionality of human environments for their proper aesthetic appreciation, and his integration of ethical concern with aesthetic appreciation all provide fruitful, though not unproblematic, avenues for an aesthetic defense of theenvironment.
  •  22
    Age of Man Environmentalism and Respect for an Independent Nature
    Ethics, Policy and Environment 24 (1): 75-87. 2021.
    The debate about a new geological epoch ‘The Anthropocene’ has helped spawn ‘Age of Man Environmentalism’ (AME). According to AME, humans’ planetary impact indicates that respect for independent nature can no longer serve as a guiding value for environmentalism. Traditional goals of nature preservation and restoration are grounded in the illusory ideal of pristine nature. Humans are now fully integrated into nature and must become responsible managers of an earth we have created, governing it by…Read more
  •  11
    Animals, Nature, and Ethics
    with Marc Bekoff
    Journal of Mammalogy 75 (1): 219-223. 1994.
    Recently, Howard argued for the defensibility of research on nonhuman animals. Unfortunately, his essay is unnecessarily combative, lacking in detail, unbalanced, and poorly argued. Howard unfairly and mistakenly stereotypes as biologically naive anyone who rejects his position that nature's poor treatment of wild animals justifies animal research. Those interested in the morality of animal research deserve better guidance than what Howard provides. Here, we analyze Howard's claims and their imp…Read more
  •  99
    Animal Beauty, Ethics, and Environmental Preservation
    Environmental Ethics 32 (2): 115-134. 2010.
    Animal beauty provides a significant aesthetic reason for protecting nature. Worries about aesthetic discrimination and the ugliness of predation might make one think otherwise. Although it has been argued that aesthetic merit is a trivial and morally objectionable basis for action, beauty is an important value and a legitimate basis for differential treatment, especially in the case of animals. While the suffering and death of animals due to predation are important disvalues that must be recogn…Read more
  •  1
    Environmental Ethics
    In Marc Bekoff & Carron A. Meaney (eds.), Encyclopedia of animal rights and animal welfare, Greenwood Press. pp. 159--161. 1998.