Ecological Ethics
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 June 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 June 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199830060-0154
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 June 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 June 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199830060-0154
Introduction
Scientists have long created new knowledge through methods and approaches with significant social and environmental implications. Ethics is the branch of philosophy that examines moral concepts of right and wrong behavior, and researchers have used applied ethics to think through the ramifications of their work. Fields of applied ethics proliferated in the 1970s in light of novel technologies and changing research standards. The concept of bioethics is used primarily in medicine to guide ethical research design and informed consent for patients. Environmental ethics addresses humans’ moral relationship with and responsibility to the natural world and develops arguments for protecting wilderness and endangered species. It has not historically engaged with particular ethical dilemmas raised by research and management practices in ecology and conservation biology. Recently, conservation scientists who find both bioethics and environmental ethics inadequate frameworks for ethical fieldwork have proposed the term ecological ethics to shape professional ecological and conservation management in a morally complex world. Its most recent proponents define it as distinct from (though an outgrowth of) both bioethics and environmental ethics.
General Overviews
Some solid introductory philosophical treatments on the broader field of environmental ethics include Callicott 2000, Curry 2011, and Schmidtz and Willott 2002. The edited volumes Bekoff 2013 and Minteer 2012, focus on applications of both environmental and ecological ethics to conservation (see Applications of Ecological Ethics to Conservation). Madigan 2012 details a holistic conception of ethics that goes beyond the dualisms of biocentrism and anthropocentrism. Leopold 1987 is the touchstone for most treatments of both environmental and ecological ethics. Though Rolston 1975 used the term “ecological ethic” in his title, he subsequently used the term “environmental ethics” within philosophy. Both Callicott and Rolston are central figures in developing environmental ethics (see Introduction).
Bekoff, M., ed. 2013. Ignoring nature no more: The case for compassionate conservation. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Using the framework of “compassionate conservation,” contributors explore the moral and ethical aspects of wildlife conservation. Topics include the costs and benefits of conservation, media coverage, conservation psychology, and local to global conservation.
Bryant, J. A., Linda Baggott la Velle, and John Searle, ed. 2002. Bioethics for scientists. New York: Wiley.
Presents an introduction to ethics for the modern life sciences. Along with the usual medical issues, this text addresses environmental subjects such as global warming and bioengineered crops. Explores scientists’ responsibilities both within and outside their profession.
Callicott, J. B. 2000. Environmental ethics: An overview. The Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale.
A brief essay on the roots of environmental ethics, the development of various green ideologies and their expansion into environmental philosophy.
Curry, Patrick. 2011. Ecological ethics: An introduction. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK, and Malden, MA: Polity.
An introductory philosophy textbook that surveys anthropocentric and so-called ecological ethics (though it is more akin to environmental ethics), using the metaphor of light green, mid-green, and dark green ethics. He addresses Aldo Leopold’s “The Land Ethic,” James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis and deep ecology, as well as climate change and sustainability.
Leopold, Aldo. 1987. A sand county almanac, and sketches here and there. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Leopold’s chapter “The Land Ethic” is the single most important articulation of environmental ethics by a non-philosopher. “The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.” (p. 171) Rather than a conqueror of nature, man is but another citizen of an integrated community.
Madigan, Tim. 2012. Ecological ethics. Philosophy Now 88 (January/February).
Suggests that environmental sustainability requires an evolutionary understanding of life that recognizes the interconnectedness and fragility of life, and that it would be good to rise above the dualisms of “biocentrism” and “anthropocentrism.”
Minteer, Ben A. 2012. Refounding environmental ethics: Pragmatism, principle, and practice. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press.
Argues for a more interactive and interdisciplinary relationship to nature in order to address mounting challenges in ecological research such as invasive species, biodiversity loss, protected area management, and conservation under global climate change. Excellent introduction.
Rolston, Holmes. 1975. Is there an ecological ethic? Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy 18.2: 93–109.
DOI: 10.1086/291944
Credited with launching environmental ethics as a legitimate branch of philosophical inquiry. Challenged the idea that nature is value-free and that all values stem from human perspectives. Rolston later cofounded the journal Environmental Ethics (see Journals).
Schmidtz, David, and Elizabeth Willott. 2002. Environmental ethics: What really matters, what really works. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
A compilation of essays on the values of nature on such topics as animal liberation, “The Land Ethic,” whether rights should be extended to nature, wildness in nature, ecofeminism, human ecology, and environmental policy.
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Article
- Accounting for Ecological Capital
- Adaptive Radiation
- Agroecology
- Allelopathy
- Allocation of Reproductive Resources in Plants
- Animals, Functional Morphology of
- Animals, Reproductive Allocation in
- Animals, Thermoregulation in
- Antarctic Environments and Ecology
- Anthropocentrism
- Applied Ecology
- Approaches and Issues in Historical Ecology
- Aquatic Conservation
- Aquatic Nutrient Cycling
- Archaea, Ecology of
- Assembly Models
- Autecology
- Bacterial Diversity in Freshwater
- Benthic Ecology
- Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning
- Biodiversity, Dimensionality of
- Biodiversity, Marine
- Biodiversity Patterns in Agricultural Systms
- Biofuels
- Biogeochemistry
- Biological Chaos and Complex Dynamics
- Biological Rhythms
- Biome, Alpine
- Biome, Boreal
- Biome, Desert
- Biome, Grassland
- Biome, Savanna
- Biome, Tundra
- Biomes, African
- Biomes, East Asian
- Biomes, Mountain
- Biomes, North American
- Biomes, South Asian
- Biophilia
- Braun, E. Lucy
- Bryophyte Ecology
- Butterfly Ecology
- Carson, Rachel
- Chemical Ecology
- Classification Analysis
- Coastal Dune Habitats
- Coevolution
- Communicating Ecology
- Communities and Ecosystems, Indirect Effects in
- Communities, Top-Down and Bottom-Up Regulation of
- Community Concept, The
- Community Ecology
- Community Genetics
- Community Phenology
- Competition and Coexistence in Animal Communities
- Competition in Plant Communities
- Complexity Theory
- Conservation Biology
- Conservation Genetics
- Coral Reefs
- Darwin, Charles
- Dead Wood in Forest Ecosystems
- Decomposition
- De-Glaciation, Ecology of
- Dendroecology
- Disease Ecology
- Dispersal
- Drought as a Disturbance in Forests
- Early Explorers, The
- Earth’s Climate, The
- Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics
- Ecological Dynamics in Fragmented Landscapes
- Ecological Education
- Ecological Engineering
- Ecological Forecasting
- Ecological Informatics
- Ecological Relevance of Speciation
- Ecology, Introductory Sources in
- Ecology, Microbial (Community)
- Ecology of Emerging Zoonotic Viruses
- Ecology of the Atlantic Forest
- Ecology, Stochastic Processes in
- Ecosystem Ecology
- Ecosystem Engineers
- Ecosystem Multifunctionality
- Ecosystem Services
- Ecosystem Services, Conservation of
- Ecotourism
- Elton, Charles
- Endophytes, Fungal
- Energy Flow
- Environmental Anthropology
- Environmental Justice
- Environments, Extreme
- Ethics, Ecological
- European Natural History Tradition
- Evolutionarily Stable Strategies
- Facilitation and the Organization of Communities
- Fern and Lycophyte Ecology
- Fire Ecology
- Fishes, Climate Change Effects on
- Flood Ecology
- Food Webs
- Foraging Behavior, Implications of
- Foraging, Optimal
- Forests, Temperate Coniferous
- Forests, Temperate Deciduous
- Freshwater Invertebrate Ecology
- Genetic Considerations in Plant Ecological Restoration
- Genomics, Ecological
- Geoecology
- Geographic Range
- Gleason, Henry
- Grazer Ecology
- Greig-Smith, Peter
- Gymnosperm Ecology
- Habitat Selection
- Harper, John L.
- Harvesting Alternative Water Resources (US West)
- Heavy Metal Tolerance
- Heterogeneity
- Himalaya, Ecology of the
- Host-Parasitoid Interactions
- Human Ecology
- Human Ecology of the Andes
- Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence
- Hutchinson, G. Evelyn
- Indigenous Ecologies
- Industrial Ecology
- Insect Ecology, Terrestrial
- Invasive Species
- Island Biogeography Theory
- Island Biology
- Keystone Species
- Kin Selection
- Landscape Dynamics
- Landscape Ecology
- Laws, Ecological
- Legume-Rhizobium Symbiosis, The
- Leopold, Aldo
- Lichen Ecology
- Life History
- Limnology
- Literature, Ecology and
- MacArthur, Robert H.
- Mangrove Zone Ecology
- Marine Fisheries Management
- Marine Subsidies
- Mass Effects
- Mathematical Ecology
- Mating Systems
- Maximum Sustainable Yield
- Metabolic Scaling Theory
- Metacommunity Dynamics
- Metapopulations and Spatial Population Processes
- Microclimate Ecology
- Mimicry
- Movement Ecology, Modeling and Data Analysis in
- Multiple Stable States and Catastrophic Shifts in Ecosyste...
- Mutualisms and Symbioses
- Mycorrhizal Ecology
- Natural History Tradition, The
- Networks, Ecological
- Niche Versus Neutral Models of Community Organization
- Niches
- Nutrient Foraging in Plants
- Ocean Sprawl
- Oceanography, Microbial
- Odum, Eugene and Howard
- Old Fields
- Ordination Analysis
- Organic Agriculture, Ecology of
- Paleoecology
- Paleolimnology
- Parental Care, Evolution of
- Pastures and Pastoralism
- Patch Dynamics
- Patrick, Ruth
- Peatlands
- Phenotypic Plasticity
- Phenotypic Selection
- Philosophy, Ecological
- Phylogenetics and Comparative Methods
- Physics, Ecology and
- Physiological Ecology of Nutrient Acquisition in Animals
- Physiological Ecology of Photosynthesis
- Physiological Ecology of Water Balance in Terrestrial Anim...
- Physiological Ecology of Water Balance in Terrestrial Plan...
- Plant Blindness
- Plant Disease Epidemiology
- Plant Ecological Responses to Extreme Climatic Events
- Plant-Insect Interactions
- Polar Regions
- Pollination Ecology
- Population Dynamics, Density-Dependence and Single-Species
- Population Dynamics, Methods in
- Population Ecology, Animal
- Population Ecology, Plant
- Population Fluctuations and Cycles
- Population Genetics
- Population Viability Analysis
- Populations and Communities, Dynamics of Age- and Stage-St...
- Predation and Community Organization
- Predation, Sublethal
- Predator-Prey Interactions
- Radioecology
- Reductionism Versus Holism
- Religion and Ecology
- Remote Sensing
- Restoration Ecology
- Rewilding
- Ricketts, Edward Flanders Robb
- Sclerochronology
- Secondary Production
- Seed Ecology
- Senescence
- Serpentine Soils
- Shelford, Victor
- Simulation Modeling
- Socioecology
- Soil Biogeochemistry
- Soil Ecology
- Spatial Pattern Analysis
- Spatial Patterns of Species Biodiversity in Terrestrial En...
- Spatial Scale and Biodiversity
- Species Distribution Modeling
- Species Extinctions
- Species Responses to Climate Change
- Species-Area Relationships
- Stability and Ecosystem Resilience, A Below-Ground Perspec...
- Stoichiometry, Ecological
- Stream Ecology
- Succession
- Sustainable Development
- Systematic Conservation Planning
- Systems Ecology
- Tansley, Sir Arthur
- Terrestrial Nitrogen Cycle
- Terrestrial Resource Limitation
- Territoriality
- Theory and Practice of Biological Control
- Thermal Ecology of Animals
- Tragedy of the Commons
- Transient Dynamics
- Trophic Levels
- Tropical Humid Forest Biome
- Urban Ecology
- Urban Forest Ecology
- Vegetation Classification
- Vegetation Dynamics, Remote Sensing of
- Vegetation Mapping
- Vicariance Biogeography
- Weed Ecology
- Wetland Ecology
- Whittaker, Robert H.
- Wildlife Ecology