Ethics and Environmental Policy: Theory Meets Practice

by Frederick Ferré (Editor), Peter Hartel (Editor)

In this collection of essays, leading environmentalists and philosophers explore the relationship between environmental ethics and policy, both in theory and practice. The first section of the book focuses on four approaches to change in ethical ecological science, feminist metaphysics, Chinese philosophy, and holistic postmodern technology. In subsequent sections the contributors emphasize the need for nontraditional solutions and attempt to expand awareness of the most pressing practical problems. Among the topics discussed are the possibilities of real international cooperation, the inequitable but economically intractable issue of global gasses, the political and ethical challenges of city planning, and the growing evidence of fundamental inappropriateness in treating land as legal private property.

This volume is based on essays presented in 1992 at the Second International Conference on Ethics and Environmental Policy. The conference was held in response to the increasing need for a new ethics that would counter the traditional human-centered, dominantly individualistic approach of the industrial world toward the environment.

304 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1994

About the author

Frederick Pond Ferré was Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at The University of Georgia. He was a past president of the Metaphysical Society of America. Much of his work concerned how metaphysics is entwined with practical questions about how we live our life, including the ethical dimensions of life.