Curren and Metzger's work makes a bold, normative claim: The moral goal of sustainability is human flourishing. Their eudaimonic theory has as its summum bonum 'living well' according to the fundamental psychological needs and potentials of our species. With this, Curren and Metzger implicitly affirm precisely what, today, many theoretical ethicists strain to deny -a stable human nature. (Or what Marx, emphasizing humanity's sociality, termed 'species-being') Relatedly, Curren and Metzger's work stands in clear opposition to the 'deep ecology' tradition as well. For deep ecology criticizes any special focus on human need as an illicit 'speciesism' and instrumentalization of nature. Though the authors do not engage with deep ecology specifically, their contrast (and surprising confluence) with this school of thought is well worth exploring. For the meta-ethical assumptions on either side of this humanist/biocentric divide have real import for how sustainable policies are conceived and crafted.Curren and Metzger approach environmental ethics with a refreshing theoretical seriousness in a field dominated by casuistry. According to them, their overall argument leads 'not to a specific set of policy recommendations, but to a broad conceptualization of the normative principles that should inform such recommendations ' (2017, p. 238). Their project also seeks to make use of timeless facets of human nature in filling out these normative strictures. Indeed, one dominant feature of their ethic of sustainability is an unapologetic focus on 'the human' as the locus of moral concern. As such, they outline a 'eudaimonic theory of justice' , concerned with a flourishing of the human collectivity, undergirded by an imperative to 'respect others as rationally self-determining persons ' (2017, pp. 232).In this, Curren and Metzger appear diametrically opposed to another strongly speculative approach within environmental ethics, that of Deep Ecology. Though a diverse tradition, Deep Ecology is marked by a rejection of anthropocentrism in favor of 'biocentric egalitarianism' , or the equal inherent value of each living thing. A second grounding principle, that of 'holistic ontology' , emphasizes the interconnectedness of all biological life on Earth (Taylor, 1986).Prima facie, Curren and Metzger's stance has a pragmatic advantage over Deep Ecology. As has been pointed out in the literature, the Deep Ecologist is ill-equipped to offer any specific moral or policy guidance, owing to their unwillingness to prioritize some life forms

Should the state teach ethics? There is widespread disagreement on whether (and how) secular states should be in the business of promoting a particular moral viewpoint. This article attempts to schematize, and evaluate, these stances. It does so by posing three, simple questions: (1) Should the state explicitly promote certain ethical values over others? (2) Should the state have ultimate justifications for the values it promotes? (3) Should the state compel its citizens to accept these ultimate justifications? Logically, each question in this series is a prerequisite for considering those questions further down the list. The result is that responses can be categorized into one of four possible permutations or ‘camps.’ These are: (1) The Libertarian (“No” to all three questions) (2) The Pluralist (“Yes” to question 1; “No” to questions 2 and 3) (3) The Rationalist Republican (“Yes” to questions 1 and 2; “No” to question 3) (4) The Rigorous Republican (“Yes” to all three questions) It will be shown that just one of these positions, the ‘rationalist republican,’ stands out from all the rest. For only the rationalist republican can account for a normative politics while also safeguarding the individual’s freedom of conscience.

This paper will set out in plain language the basic ontology of “Deleuze’s Spinoza”; it will then critically examine whether such a Spinoza has, or indeed could have, ever truly existed. In this, it will be shown that Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza involves the imposition of three interlocking, formal principles. These are (1) Necessitarianism, (2) Immanence, and (3) Univocity. The uncovering of Deleuze’s use of these three principles, how they relate to one another, and what they jointly imply in terms of ontology, will occupy Part 1 of this paper. The critique of these principles from a Spinozist perspective, i.e. that their use by Deleuze is incompatible with Spinoza’s own metaphysics, will occupy Part 2 of this paper.

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‘Universal benevolence’ may be defined as the goal of promoting the welfare of every individual, however remote, to the best of one’s ability. Currently, the commonest model of universal benevolence is that of ‘impartiality,’ the notion promoted by Peter Singer, Roderick Firth, and others, that every individual (including oneself) is of equal intrinsic worth. This paper contends that the impartialist model is seriously flawed. Specifically, it is demonstrated that impartialist accounts of benevolence (1) attempt to draw positive moral conclusions from negative premises, (2) draw actual conclusions from merely counterfactual premises, (3) fail to live up to stated claims of naturalism, and (4) give no compelling account of moral motivation. By contrast, I propose an alternate model of universal benevolence, grounded in the Stoic, cosmopolitan theory of oikeiôsis, i.e. ‘appropriation.’ Such a model, in contradistinction to impartiality, would see benevolence as the positive identification between moral agent and moral patient, rather than a charitable sacrifice of oneself for a distinct but equal other. An ethics of oikeiôsis has the further benefit of avoiding each of the four abovementioned conceptual pitfalls common to impartialist theories.