1st Edition

A New Environmental Ethics The Next Millennium for Life on Earth

By Holmes Rolston III Copyright 2012
    254 Pages
    by Routledge

    No one looking ahead at the middle of the last century could have foreseen the extent and the importance of the ensuing environmental crises. Now, more than a decade into the next century, no one can ignore it.

    A New Environmental Ethics: the Next Millennium for Life on Earth offers clear, powerful, and oftentimes moving thoughts from one of the first and most respected philosophers to write on the environment. Rolston, an early and leading pioneer in studying the moral relationship between humans and the earth, surveys the full spectrum of approaches in the field of environmental ethics. This book, however, is not simply a judicious overview. Instead, it offers critical assessments of contemporary academic accounts and draws on a lifetime of research and experience to suggest an outlook for the future. As a result, this focused, forward-looking analysis will be a necessary complement to any balanced textbook or anthology in environmental ethics, and will teach its readers to be responsible global citizens, and residents of their landscape, helping ensure that the future we have will be the one we wish for.

    @contexts: Preface Acknowledgements  Chapter 1: The Environmental Turn  Chapter 2: Humans: People on Their Landscapes  Chapter 3: Animals: Beasts in Flesh and Blood  Chapter 4: Organisms: Respect for Life  Chapter 5: Species and Biodiversity: Lifelines in Jeopardy  Chapter 6: Ecosystems: The Land Ethic  Chapter 7: Earth: Ethics on the Home Planet  Index

    Biography

    Holmes Rolston III is University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

    "This is an introduction to environmental ethics that only Holmes Rolston could write- at once gut-wrenchingly direct and poetically-inspired, it will attract new generations to the field that he did so much to create." –Dale Jamieson, New York University

    "Holmes Rolston's A New Environmental Ethics is new in the best sense: an honest, fresh appraisal of where we are and where we are heading.  It likewise is old in the best sense. There comes a time to reflect on where we have been and why, what we have accomplished, and what we stand for. This is Rolston's time, and his is a voice that will be heard across generations."  David Schmidtz, University of Arizona

    "A succinct overview of the field from its most important thinker, this book is the indispensable introduction to environmental ethics." –Willis Jenkins, Yale University

    "With characteristic rigor, Rolston proves once again to be a moral explorer par excellence.  His new book not only surveys the existing terrain of environmental ethics literature, but it persuasively argues for following a greener, more life-respecting morality; it is an exemplary read for an environmental ethics course."

    –Ben Dixon, Stephen F. Austin State University

    "I would recommend Rolston’s book for any undergraduate course in environmental ethics, or even for an introductory ethics course with a substantial applied ethical component. The book’s plain language makes it easy to read yet philosophically challenging as only the work of a discipline’s founder could be."

    -International Society for Environmental Ethics Newsletter

    "The book's clear writing and relatively brief length should make it an easy read for students . . . . Probably its greatest value is that it is Rolston speaking to anyone who might be wise enough to listen. He covers all the important issues, including the various views of important--sometimes obscure--environmental philosophers; he also discusses US legislation and the state of life on Earth. Summing Up: Highly recommended."

    -Choice