Paul Haught

In this dissertation I explore the relation of David Hume's moral philosophy to environmental ethics. J. Baird Callicott argues that Hume's moral sentimentalism provides a subjectivist framework for respecting the intrinsic value of species and ecosystems. I agree with Callicott's subjectivist reading of Hume, but I question his decision to deploy Hume's moral sentimentalism directly in terms of value theory. Remaining as faithful to Hume's theory as possible, I reconsider his moral philosophy in the context of environmental virtue ethics and provide a Humean account of the moral significance of the more-than-human world. After explicating specific elements of his virtue theory---Hume's disjunction between the useful and the agreeable, his account of practical rationality, and his consideration of characteristics specific to moral evaluation, most notably the love of truth---I establish its relevance to the environmental virtue ethics. A common worry about environmental virtue theories is that they are anthropocentric because they entail that the value of species or ecosystems, for instance, is determined by their instrumental role in supporting character judgments. I argue that this view rests on a false disjunction between instrumental and non-instrumental values that cannot hold for strictly human-centered ethics any more than it can for environmental ethics. Instead, I propose that Hume's virtue theory offers a rich and under-explored moral framework in which to consider human conduct in relation to the more-than-human world. By attending to the free expression that Hume gives to the full spectrum of human values in moral life, I argue that Hume's moral theory belongs not only in the conversation on environmental virtues but supports the conclusion that knowledge of the ecological impact of our conduct will have to factor into character evaluation

In this response, I unpack the implications of Kasperbauer’s focus on the passenger pigeon in his critique of de-extinction. While I accept his sentientist objections to de-extinction, I consider how a case for de-extinction can be developed using Ronald Sandler’s concept of integral value. In this vein, justification for bringing back the passenger pigeon is comparable to that supporting a recovery effort of an endangered species. However, as with a recovery plan, and possibly more so, de-extinction must reflect a sincere commitment to accommodate the resurrected species and provide the habitat in which it can thrive. In this vein, de-extinction should not proceed without environmental virtues of hospitality and neighborliness.

This essay reexamines Holmes Rolston’s evocative notion of “storied residence” and evaluates it for its fitness for environmental virtue ethics. Environmental virtue ethics (or EVE) continues to garner attention among environmental philosophers, and recently Brian Treanor has argued for the indispensability of narrative approaches as part of that discourse. In this paper, I endorse this indispensability thesis generally, but I argue that narrative environmental virtue ethics must be supplemented either by “storied residence” or a similar environmentally, scientifically, culturally, and historically rich concept of narrative. Rolston himself has criticized environmental virtue ethics for being too agent-centered. Fortunately, an adequate sense of storied-residence is precisely what is needed to avoid triggering the vicious anthropocentrism that concerns Rolston. More concretely, storied-residence makes place(s) central to environmental virtue ethics by giving expression to features of the more-than-human world that often become secondary considerations to agency in accounts of environmental virtue.

Environmental virtue ethics (EVE) can be applied to environmental justice. Environmental justice refers to the concern that many poor and nonwhite communities bear a disproportionate burden of risk of exposure to environmental hazards compared to white and/or economically higher-class communities. The most common applied ethical response to this concern—that is, to environmental injustice—is the call for an expanded application of human rights, such as requirements for clean air and water. The virtue-oriented approach can be made consistent with such calls, but there are broader applications as well that generate unique strategies for moral responsiveness and for expanding the role of moral philosophers in civic affairs.

This essay offers a critical assessment of environmental virtue ethics (EVE). Finding an environmental ethical analogy with Hume’s critique of the sensible knave, I argue that EVE is limited in much the same way as morality is on the Humean view. Advocates of nonanthropocentrism will find it difficult to engage those whose virtues comport them to anthropocentrism. Nonetheless, EVE is able to ground confidence in nonanthropocentric virtues by explicating specific key virtues, thereby holding open the possibility of bridging the motivational gap between anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism.

Hume’s projectivist theory of value suggests that (environmental) values are either individually or culturally relative and that intrinsic value ascriptions are incoherent. Previous attempts to avert these implications have typically relied on modified Humean accounts that either universalize human sensitivity to the value of the more-than-human world or that adapt the concept of intrinsic value to suit a world in which all values are projected. While there are merits to these approaches, there is another alternative. Hume’s own moral theory promises to be an even richer source for environmental ethical discourse than previously thought, and this richness is owed in large part to the robustness of Hume’s theory of virtue.