Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics

We live during a crucial period of human history on Earth. Anthropogenic environmental changes are occurring on global scales at unprecedented rates. Despite a long history of environmental intervention, never before has the collective impact of human behaviors threatened all of the major bio-systems on the planet. Decisions we make today will have significant consequences for the basic conditions of all life into the indefinite future. What should we do? How shouldwe behave? In what ways ought we organize and respond? The future of the world as we know it depends on our actions today. A cutting-edge introduction to environmental ethics in a time of dramatic global environmental change, this collection contains forty-five newly commissioned articles, with contributions from well-established experts and emerging voices in the field. Chapters are arranged in topical sections: social contexts (history, science, economics, law, and the Anthropocene), who or what is of value (humanity, conscious animals, living individuals, and wild nature), the nature of value (truth andgoodness, practical reasons, hermeneutics, phenomenology, and aesthetics), how things ought to matter (consequences, duty and obligation, character traits, caring for others, and the sacred), essential concepts (responsibility, justice, gender, rights, ecological space, risk and precaution, citizenship,future generations, and sustainability), key issues (pollution, population, energy, food, water, mass extinction, technology, and ecosystem management), climate change (mitigation, adaptation, diplomacy, and geoengineering), and social change (conflict, pragmatism, sacrifice, and action). Each chapter explains the role played by central theories, ideas, issues, and concepts in contemporary environmental ethics, and their relevance for the challenges of the future.

Ultimately this handbook is a comprehensive exposition of the breadth and depth of the field of environmental ethics. It adeptly ranges over theoretical and practical aspects as well as various subtle challenges, both conceptual/philosophical and those that impede the ability to effect change. It can serve equally well as a reference or introductory groundwork. As a result, it would be a welcome addition to any environmental ethics library. Anyone from a curious beginning student to a teacher or other professional, in practical fields ranging from academia, or politics to environmental science, will be well served with this volume.

Stephen M. Gardiner is Professor of Philosophy and Ben Rabinowitz Endowed Professor of the Human Dimensions of the Environment at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is the author of A Perfect Moral Storm (Oxford, 2011), co-author of Debating Climate Ethics (Oxford, 2016), editor of Virtue Ethics, Old and New (Cornell, 2005), and co-editor of Climate Ethics: Essential Readings (Oxford, 2010). Hisresearch focuses on global environmental problems, future generations and virtue ethics.Allen Thompson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, and a Fellow with the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. He is co-editor of Ethical Adaptation to Climate Change: Human Virtues of the Future (MIT, 2012) and serves as an officer for the International Society for Environmental Ethics (Treasurer 2013-2015, Vice-President 2016-2018, and President2019-2021).