Moral metaphysics, moral revolutions, and environmental ethics

Roger Paden

Agriculture and Human Values, 1990, vol. 7, issue 3, 70-79

Abstract: Many philosophers and environmentalists have advocated the development of a revolutionary new moral paradigm that treats natural objects as “morally considerable” in-themselves, independently of their relation to human beings. Often it is claimed that we need to develop a radically new theory of value to underpin this new paradigm. In this paper, I argue against this position and in favor of a more critical approach to environmental ethics. Such a critical approach, I believe, is not only more politically sound, but it is not open to the kinds of objections that afflict “biocentric moral theories” that depend on a conception of the intrinsic worth of nature. In the first sections of the paper, I develop a set of these criticism. In the last part of the paper, I turn to examine the advantages of a critical approach to environmental ethics. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1990

Date: 1990
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DOI: 10.1007/BF01557312

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