Bringing together ecology, evolutionary moral psychology, and environmental ethics, J. Baird Callicott counters the narrative of blame and despair that prevails in contemporary discussions of climate ethics and offers a fresh, more optimistic approach. Whereas other environmental ethicists limit themselves to what Callicott calls Rational Individualism in discussing the problem of climate change only to conclude that, essentially, there is little hope that anything will be done in the face of its "perfect moral storm" (in Stephen Gardiner's words), Callicott refuses to accept this view. Instead, he encourages us to look to the Earth itself, and consider the crisis on grander spatial and temporal scales, as we have failed to in the past. Callicott supports this theory by exploring and enhancing Aldo Leopold's faint sketch of an Earth ethic in "Some Fundamentals of Conservation in the Southwest," a seldom-studied text from the early days of environmental ethics that was written in 1923 but not published until 1979 after the environmental movement gathered strength.
"Baird Callicott's magisterial book brings together science and philosophy in a fascinating search for an ethic that truly responds to the global-scale reality of today's most pressing environmental concerns. Highly recommended."--James Gustave Speth, author of America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy, and former dean, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
"Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic was one of the great philosophical (and practical) developments of the 20th century, and Now J. Baird Callicott manages to extend its scale dramatically. Trenchant and fascinating!"--Bill McKibben, author of Oil and Honey: The Making of an Unlikely Activist
"An innovative, pioneering, and powerful synthesis of Aldo Leopold's ethics. Callicott broadens Leopold's well-known land ethic by identifying within his writings a comprehensive Earth ethic that is global in scope. Together the two ethics entail sentient community insights and planetary visions. Anyone who seeks a moral grounding for current conservation, resource, and environmental actions will want to read this book."--Carolyn Merchant, Professor of Environmental History, Philosophy, and Ethics at University of California Berkeley and author of The Death of Nature; Ecological Revolutions; and Reinventing Eden
"Over the last four decades no one has done more to construct the intellectual framework of modern environmental ethics than J. Baird Callicott. Now, in this sweeping synthesis, Callicott draws upon an extraordinary breadth of insights from Western and non-Western philosophy, political theory, ecocriticism, religious studies, environmental history, the history of science, evolutionary biology, ecology, and earth science to provide the fullest development of his ideas. If we are to find our way forward in the 'Age of Consequences,' humanity will need to think anew about our history and our values, our prospects and our place in time. Callicott is an indispensable and challenging guide as we continue in this necessary task."--Curt Meine, Senior Fellow, The Aldo Leopold Foundation and author of Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work
Introduction
PART 1: THE LAND ETHIC
1. A Sand County Almanac
1.1 The Author
1.2 The Provenance of the Book
1.3 The Unity of A Sand County Almanac-An Evolutionary-Ecological Worldview
1.4 The Argument of the Foreword-Toward Worldview Remediation
1.5 The Argument in Part I-The Inter-subjective Biotic Community-Introduced
1.6 The Argument of Part I-The Inter-subjective Biotic Community-Driven Home
1.7 The Argument in Part II-The Evolutionary Aspect: Time and Telos
1.8 The Argument in Part II-The Evolutionary Aspect: Beauty, Kinship, and Spirituality
1.9 The Argument of Part II-The Ecological Aspect
1.10 The Argument of Part II-The Pivotal Trope: "Thinking Like a Mountain"
1.11 Norton's Narrow Interpretation of Leopold's Worldview-remediation Project
1.12 The Argument of Part III-To "See" with the Ecologist's "Mental Eye"
1.13 The Argument of Part III-Axiological Implications of the Evolutionary-Ecological Worldview
1.14 The Argument of Part III-The Normative Implications of the Evolutionary-Ecological Worldview
1.15 The Persuasive Power of Leopold's Style of Writing
1.16 The New Shifting Paradigm in Ecology and the Evolutionary-Ecological Worldview
1.17 The Challenge Before Us
2. The Land Ethic: A Critical Account of Its Philosophical and Evolutionary Foundations
2.1 The Odysseus Vignette
2.2 Expansion of the Scope of Ethics Over Time (?)
2.3 Ethical Criteria/Norms/Ideals versus (un)Ethical Behavior/Practice
2.4 Ethics Ecologically (Biologically) Speaking
2.5 Darwin's Account of the Origin of Ethics by Natural Selection
2.6 Darwin's Account of the Extension of Ethics
2.7 The Community Concept in Ecology
2.8 The Humean Foundations of Darwin's Evolutionary Account of the Moral Sense
2.9 Universalism and Relativism: Hume and Darwin
2.10 How Hume Anticipates Darwin's Account of the Origin and Expansion of Ethics
2.11 Shades of the Social-Contract Theory of Ethics in "The Land Ethic"
2.12 Individualism in (Benthamic) Utilitarianism and (Kantian) Deontology
2.13 Holism in Hume's Moral Philosophy
2.14 Holism in "The Land Ethic"
2.15 The Land Ethic and the Problem of Ecofascism Resolved
2.16 Prioritizing Cross-community Duties and Obligations
2.17 Is The Land Ethic Anthropocentric or Non-anthropocentric?
3. The Land Ethic (an Ought): A Critical Account of Its Ecological Foundations (an Is)
3.1 Moore's Naturalistic Fallacy
3.2 Hume's Is/Ought Dichotomy and the Land Ethic
3.3 How Hume Bridges the Lacuna Between Is-statements and Ought-statements
3.4 How Kant Infers Ought-statements from Is-statements in Hypothetical Imperatives
3.5 The Specter of Hume's Is/Ought Dichotomy Finally Exorcised
3.6 The Roles of Reason and Feeling in Hume's Ethical Theory Generally and Leopold's Land Ethic Particularly
3.7 How the General Theory of Evolution Informs the Land Ethic
3.8 How Ecosystem Ecology Informs the Land Ethic-Beyond the Biota
3.9 How Ecosystem Ecology Informs the Land Ethic-A Fountain of Energy
3.10 How Organismic Ecology Informs the Land Ethic
3.11 How Mechanistic Ecology Informs the Land Ethic
3.12 How the Ecosystem Paradigm Returns Ecology to Its Organismic Roots
3.13 How Leopold Anticipates Hierarchy Theory in "The Land Ethic"
3.14 Ecological Ontology and the Community Paradigm in Ecology
3.15 Ecological Ontology and the Ecosystem Paradigm in Ecology
3.16 The "Flux of Nature" Paradigm Shift in Contemporary Ecology and "The Land Ethic"
3.17 A Revised Summary Moral Maxim for the Land Ethic
4. The Land Ethic and the Science of Ethics: From the Seventeenth through the Twentieth Centuries
4.1 Hobbes's Science of Ethics
4.2 Locke's Science of Ethics
4.3 Hume's Science of Ethics
4.4 Kant's Science of Ethics
4.5 The Utilitarian Science of Ethics
4.6 How Logical Positivism Cleaved Apart Science and Ethics
4.7 Ayer's Migration of a Science of Ethics from Philosophy to the Social Sciences
4.8 Kohlberg's Social Science of Ethics
4.9 Gilligan's Social Science of Ethics
4.10 Group Selection in Darwin's Science of Ethics
4.11 Group Selection in Wynne-Edwards's Evolutionary Biology
4.12 Williams's Attack on Group Selection
4.13 Huxley's and Williams's Anti-natural (and Anti-logical) View of Ethics
4.14 Sociobiology: Wilson's Neo-Darwinian Account of the Origin of Ethics
4.15 The Fallacies of Division and Composition in the Sociobiological Science of Ethics
4.16 Sociobiology and Biological Determinism
4.17 The Evolutionary Foundations of the Land Ethic in Light of the Modern and the New Syntheses in Evolutionary Biology
5. The Land Ethic and the Science of Ethics: In the Light of Evolutionary Moral Psychology
5.1 Singer's Response to the Evolutionary Account of Ethics
5.2 Rachels' Response to the Evolutionary Account of Ethics
5.3 Darwin's Alternative to Animal Ethics