Environmental ethics: philosophy, ecology and other species

Pressure on the environment has increased in step with economic growth and the mass consumption that fueled rising gross domestic product throughout the twentieth century. Both growth and ecological crises have attained a global reach, challenging our established notions of cause and effect, and our framing of problems and solutions. Accordingly, global environmental politics has witnessed major changes and significant "rescaling" in its "locus, agency and scope" (Andonova and Mitchell2010: 257). Both dimensions of global environmental politics - politics and governance, and the ecological problems that are the subject matter of global environmental politics - are being reinterpreted due to increasing complexity, interconnectedness and interdependence. Accordingly, the range of actors and disciplines that infom1 global environmental politics and contribute to framing global environmental problems is widening, in an acknowledgment of inescapable pluralism.

Estética natural e ética ambiental, que relação?

This paper defends that environmental aesthetics provides a consistent basis for environmental philosophy, whereas aesthetic value plays an important role in the defense and preservation of natural areas. For several environmental philosophers the natural beauty is an inherent part of the ethical concern. Leopold states that “a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, the balance and the beauty of the biotic community”. Notwithstanding, aesthetic value is still not a central issue in the environmental debate. On the other hand, the “positive aesthetics” (Allen Carlson), which is a recent approach that reevaluates “positively” natural beauty in the ethical context, obtains a core of objections. This paper sketches a few arguments defending the contiguity between environmental aesthetics and environmental ethics: (i) the emotional perception of inclusiveness and engagement on the aesthetics appreciation of nature; (ii) the feelings of grace and love toward nature inherent to the nature’s aesthetic appreciation which according Kant announces the moral feeling; (iii) the ecological knowledge of natural beauty in order to understand the full meaning of it, and that includes some natural entities seen as not beautiful.

Campos de Deméter: da impossibilidade de separar a ciência, a ética e a estética na hermenêutica da paisagem

Central conceptual terms, such as ‘culture’, ‘environment’, ‘nature’ and ‘landscape’, are far from being neutral scientific objects. They are academic constructions which need to be understood in their emergence across their historic contexts. Morality is a cultural expression determined by social domination and historical context, which gives it a sectary character. We need a moral theory that can be universal, timeless and that is able to guide the individual conduct, science and political ideologies, without considering the man the zenith of Life. Life, with its biodiversity, is only the tip of a complex Cosmos evolution, but we don’t know if our species, born on planet Earth, are the final link in the Cosmos evolution. To answer all these questions, a new ethical perspective was born, a theory built upon the principles of meta-ethics and applicable to all human activities. Environmental ethics are supported by two principles – the critique against anthropocentrism and the critique against ethnocentrism, giving a universal answer to the macro moral problems of our era – environmental, social, economical and political crisis, war and weapons of mass destruction… And contributes towards rebuilding the human activities in all domains of individual and social life.

A natureza : solo de conjunção da ética e da estética : fundamentos para a perspectivação do valor estético da natureza na acção ambiental

Tese de doutoramento, Filosofia (Filosofia da Natureza e do Ambiente), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Letras, 2016