We live in a world confronted by mounting environmental problems; increasing global deforestation and desertification, loss of species diversity, pollution and global warming. In everyday life people mourn the loss of valued landscapes and urban spaces. Underlying these problems are conflicting priorities and values. Yet dominant approaches to policy-making seem ill-equipped to capture the various ways in which the environment matters to us. Environmental Values introduces readers to these issues by presenting, and then challenging, two dominant approaches to environmental decision-making, one from environmental economics, the other from environmental philosophy. The authors present a sustained case for questioning the underlying ethical theories of both of these traditions. They defend a pluralistic alternative rooted in the rich everyday relations of humans to the environments they inhabit, providing a path for integrating human needs with environmental protection through an understanding of the narrative and history of particular places. The book examines the implications of this approach for policy issues such as biodiversity conservation and sustainability.Written in a clear and accessible style for an interdisciplinary audience, this volume will be ideal for student use in environmental courses in geography, economics, philosophy, politics and sociology.
How should we value the environments we inhabit?
What ethical resources exist to better appreciate the world around us?
In this book three of the leading writers on environmental philosophy in the US and UK offer an introduction and rigorous assessment of the ways in which the natural and cultural environments we inhabit are valued. The book is written in a clear and accessible style and is aimed at a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, politics, economics, geography, environmental studies and social theory, as well as the general reader concerned with our current environmental problems. [[It does not require antecedent familiarity with the literature in ethical theory or environmental philosophy.]]
The book develops powerful criticisms of existing approaches to environmental valuation, both those developed in environmental economics and policy-making, and the alternatives that are offered in much mainstream environmental philosophy. The authors defend an account of environmental values which recognises the centrality of human relations with and responses to the environments in which we live, while rejecting attempts to reduce such relations and responses to preferences that can be captured by monetary values. Topics include: human welfare and the natural world, consequentialist approaches to environmental choice, environmental equity and justice, value pluralism, intrinsic value, the role of history and narrative in environmental valuation, biodiversity and sustainability.
This volume offers a distinctive perspective on environmental ethics and policy-making that is sensitive to the real practical conflicts and dilemmas involved in environmental decisionmaking. The result is a book that will be invaluable to those concerned with grappling with the hard choices that face us as the scope and importance of environmental problems becomes more pressing and more global.
