The Goat-stag and the Sphinx: The Place of the Virtues in Environmental Ethics

Abstract

Standard virtue ethics approach to environmental issues do not go far enough because they often lack significant attachment to local environments. Place provides the necessary link that enlarges the arena of moral action by joining human well-being to a place-based goal of wildness (Thoreau) or biotic harmony (Leopold). Place defines a niche for human activity as part of nature. Virtuous action, then, is understood as deliberation from a position of being in and of the natural world; respect and gratitude are examples of this type of deliberation.

A global analysis of factors predicting conservationists' values

“…There are three ways in which this result can be understood. First, through theories on the place‐based nature of environmental values (Chapman, 2002; Norton & Hannon, 1997; O'Neill et al, 2008), which posit that values are not always placeless abstractions; rather, they emerge from the various relationships that exist between particular places and the people who live, work, visit or otherwise experience them. As such, it is by living and working in these places that certain values arise.…”

How to Think about Environmental Studies

“…On the other hand, place is a deliberate constructive exchange (interplay) between informed human action and environment, an area where human and natural history connect, interpenetrate and define each other; a region where human heritage is meaningless outside its natural context. In short, place is an area touched by feelings, continuous with overlapping narratives, described qualitatively and sustained by respect for the bewildering complexities, incalculable potentialities, enchanting diversity and, overall, those systemic processes necessary for the existence of culture (see Chapman 1999Chapman , 2002Chapman , 2004b.…”

Gratitude to Nature

“…My refutations of both lines of reasoning have implications for debates in moral philosophy beyond the question of gratitude to nature, and in the final two sections of this article I highlight 1. These include, among others, Karen Bardsley (2013), Patrick Boleyn-Fitzgerald (2016), Philip Cafaro (2005, Robert Chapman (2002), Thomas Hill (1983, Rosalind Hursthouse (2007) and and Sean McAleer (2004, 2012. Hill (1983: 224) argues that we should be grateful to nature because insofar as we are not, this may indicate a morally problematic deficiency in or the absence of an important character trait.…”