List of environmental philosophers

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A list of environmental philosophers, ordered alphabetically, which includes living or recently deceased individuals who have published in the field of environmental ethics/philosophy (most of whom have PhDs in Philosophy, and are employed as philosophy professors), and those who are commonly regarded as precursors to the field.

Environmental philosophy has been impacted by individuals with a range of backgrounds, reminiscent of the approach of the natural philosophy, [1] natural religion, and natural history traditions. [2]

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Related Research Articles

In environmental philosophy, environmental ethics is an established field of practical philosophy "which reconstructs the essential types of argumentation that can be made for protecting natural entities and the sustainable use of natural resources." The main competing paradigms are anthropocentrism, physiocentrism, and theocentrism. Environmental ethics exerts influence on a large range of disciplines including environmental law, environmental sociology, ecotheology, ecological economics, ecology and environmental geography.

A land ethic is a philosophy or theoretical framework about how, ethically, humans should regard the land. The term was coined by Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) in his A Sand County Almanac (1949), a classic text of the environmental movement. There he argues that there is a critical need for a "new ethic", an "ethic dealing with human's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aldo Leopold</span> American conservationist (1887–1948)

Aldo Leopold was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac (1949), which has been translated into fourteen languages and has sold more than two million copies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. L. Mackie</span> Australian philosopher (1917–1981)

John Leslie Mackie was an Australian philosopher. He made significant contributions to ethics, the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language. Mackie had influential views on metaethics, including his defence of moral scepticism and his sophisticated defence of atheism. He wrote six books. His most widely known, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977), opens by boldly stating, "There are no objective values." It goes on to argue that because of this, ethics must be invented rather than discovered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Midgley</span> English philosopher (1919–2018)

Mary Beatrice Midgley was a British philosopher. A senior lecturer in philosophy at Newcastle University, she was known for her work on science, ethics and animal rights. She wrote her first book, Beast and Man (1978), when she was in her late fifties, and went on to write over 15 more, including Animals and Why They Matter (1983), Wickedness (1984), The Ethical Primate (1994), Evolution as a Religion (1985), and Science as Salvation (1992). She was awarded honorary doctorates by Durham and Newcastle universities. Her autobiography, The Owl of Minerva, was published in 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Baird Callicott</span> American philosopher

J. Baird Callicott is an American philosopher whose work has been at the forefront of the new field of environmental philosophy and ethics. He is a University Distinguished Research Professor and a member of the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies and the Institute of Applied Sciences at the University of North Texas. Callicott held the position of Professor of Philosophy and Natural Resources at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point from 1969 to 1995, where he taught the world's first course in environmental ethics in 1971. From 1994 to 2000, he served as vice president then president of the International Society for Environmental Ethics. Other distinguished positions include visiting professor of philosophy at Yale University; the University of California, Santa Barbara; the University of Hawaiʻi; and the University of Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holmes Rolston III</span> American philosopher

Holmes Rolston III is a philosopher who is University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University. He is best known for his contributions to environmental ethics and the relationship between science and religion. Among other honors, Rolston won the 2003 Templeton Prize, awarded by Prince Philip in Buckingham Palace. He gave the Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburgh, 1997–1998. He also serves on the Advisory Council of METI.

Agricultural philosophy is, roughly and approximately, a discipline devoted to the systematic critique of the philosophical frameworks that are the foundation for decisions regarding agriculture. Many of these views are also used to guide decisions dealing with land use in general. In everyday usage, it can also be defined as the love of, search after, and wisdom associated with agriculture, as one of humanity's founding components of civilization. However, this view is more aptly known as agrarianism. In actuality, agrarianism is only one philosophy or normative framework out of many that people use to guide their decisions regarding agriculture on an everyday basis. The most prevalent of these philosophies will be briefly defined below.

<i>A Sand County Almanac</i> Book by Aldo Leopold

A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There is a 1949 non-fiction book by American ecologist, forester, and environmentalist Aldo Leopold. Describing the land around the author's home in Sauk County, Wisconsin, the collection of essays advocate Leopold's idea of a "land ethic", or a responsible relationship existing between people and the land they inhabit. Edited and published by his son, Luna, a year after Leopold's death, the book is considered a landmark in the American conservation movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ricardo Rozzi</span> Chilean ecologist and philosopher (born 1960)

Ricardo Rozzi is a Chilean ecologist and philosopher who is professor at the University of North Texas and the Universidad de Magallanes (UMAG). His research combines the two disciplines through the study of the interrelations between the ways of knowing and inhabiting the natural world, proposing a dynamic continuous reciprocal feedback between both domains.

Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that promotes the inherent worth of all living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, and argues that modern human societies should be restructured in accordance with such ideas.

Biocentrism, in a political and ecological sense, as well as literally, is an ethical point of view that extends inherent value to all living things. It is an understanding of how the earth works, particularly as it relates to its biosphere or biodiversity. It stands in contrast to anthropocentrism, which centers on the value of humans. The related ecocentrism extends inherent value to the whole of nature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael P. Nelson</span> American environmental scholar

Michael Paul Nelson is an American environmental scholar, writer, teacher, speaker, consultant, and Professor of environmental philosophy and ethics at Oregon State University. Nelson is also the philosopher in residence of the Isle Royale Wolf-Moose Project, a senior fellow with the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written word, and the director of the Center for the Future of Forests and Society. From 2012 to 2022 he served as the Lead Principal Investigator for the H.J. Andrews Long-Term Ecological Research Program and held the Ruth H. Spaniol Chair in Renewable Resources at Oregon State.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul B. Thompson (philosopher)</span> American philosopher

Paul B. Thompson is Professor Emeritus at Michigan State University, where he held the W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural Food and Community Ethics before retiring in 2022. Thompson was born in 1951 in Springfield, Missouri. He earned his B.A. at Emory University before going on to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He formerly taught at Texas A&M University and Purdue University before joining MSU, where he continues to do research on ethical and philosophical questions dealing with agriculture and food and especially the development of agricultural techno-science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Weston</span> American logician

Anthony Weston is an American writer, teacher, and philosopher. He is an author of widely used primers in critical thinking and ethical practice and of a variety of unconventional books and essays on philosophical topics.

Clare Palmer is a British philosopher, theologian and scholar of environmental and religious studies. She is known for her work on environmental and animal ethics. She was appointed as a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Texas A&M University in 2010. She had previously held academic appointments at the Universities of Greenwich, Stirling, and Lancaster in the United Kingdom, and Washington University in St. Louis in the United States, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philosophy of ecology</span> Branch of philosophy

Philosophy of ecology is a concept under the philosophy of science, which is a subfield of philosophy. Its main concerns centre on the practice and application of ecology, its moral issues, and the intersectionality between the position of humans and other entities. This topic also overlaps with metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, for example, as it attempts to answer metaphysical, epistemic and moral issues surrounding environmental ethics and public policy.

Michael Paul Tutton Leahy was an English conservative philosopher and opponent of animal rights and vegetarianism.

References

  1. Environmental Ethics Journal website. Retrieved 2014-05-30.
  2. Association for the Study of Literature & Environment website. Archived 2014-05-31 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2014-05-30.
  3. "The Land Ethic". The Aldo Leopold Foundation. Archived from the original on 2007-10-28. Retrieved 2007-11-10.
  4. "Authors: Mary Midgley". Gifford Lecture Series. Retrieved 2007-11-10.