The Intrinsic Value of Nature

The Intrinsic Value of Nature PDF Author: Leena Vilkka
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900449510X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
What is intrinsic value? What is the origin of value? Are people always superior to nature? This book is a philosophical analysis of the human relationship to the non-human world. It is a pioneering study of the philosophy of nature-conservation in relation to the discussion of intrinsic value. Vilkka develops a naturalistic or naturocentric theory of value that is based on ethical extensionism and pluralism. Vilkka analyzes natural values and environmental attitudes: zoocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism. This book forms a taxonomy for nature having intrinsic value. The theory of intrinsic value is based on naturocentric and naturogenic values. The book questions the thesis of weak anthropocentrism that denies the existence of naturogenic values. In Vilkka's theory, animals and nature are the origin of value. She defends the existence of zoogenic and biogenic values in the non-human world and discusses the possibility of ecogenic value, nature as a whole having value independent of human or animal minds. Vilkka analyzes the goodness and rights of nature, the problem of priorities, and ecological humanism. A naturocentric recommendation is that the well-being of animals and nature should have priority over human values at least in some real decision contexts. Ecological humanism recommends an attitude of respect for people, animals, and nature. The book includes an extensive glossary, index, and bibliography.

The Intrinsic Value of Nature

The Intrinsic Value of Nature PDF Author: Leena Vilkka
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900449510X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Get Book Here

Book Description
What is intrinsic value? What is the origin of value? Are people always superior to nature? This book is a philosophical analysis of the human relationship to the non-human world. It is a pioneering study of the philosophy of nature-conservation in relation to the discussion of intrinsic value. Vilkka develops a naturalistic or naturocentric theory of value that is based on ethical extensionism and pluralism. Vilkka analyzes natural values and environmental attitudes: zoocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism. This book forms a taxonomy for nature having intrinsic value. The theory of intrinsic value is based on naturocentric and naturogenic values. The book questions the thesis of weak anthropocentrism that denies the existence of naturogenic values. In Vilkka's theory, animals and nature are the origin of value. She defends the existence of zoogenic and biogenic values in the non-human world and discusses the possibility of ecogenic value, nature as a whole having value independent of human or animal minds. Vilkka analyzes the goodness and rights of nature, the problem of priorities, and ecological humanism. A naturocentric recommendation is that the well-being of animals and nature should have priority over human values at least in some real decision contexts. Ecological humanism recommends an attitude of respect for people, animals, and nature. The book includes an extensive glossary, index, and bibliography.

Ecohumanism

Ecohumanism PDF Author: Robert B. Tapp
Publisher: Humanism Today
ISBN: 9781573929370
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Humanists are sometimes accused of being so focused on the human race that they ignore the environment and other species. This book is designed to address these criticisms. The contributors, all humanists in the naturalistic tradition, show that in fact humanism as a worldview has much to offer environmentalism. Since humanists are committed to working for a global community in which all humans can flourish, they are as concerned about ecological degradation as environmentalists. But in regard to what should be done about environmental problems, humanists do not hesitate to use the best scientific information and technology to reclaim the natural world while ensuring the welfare of all human beings. Humanists stress that science and technology must be used responsibly and that human beings must learn to give up destructive ideological fantasies, whether political or religious. The contributors are Vern L. Bullough, Gwen Whitehead Brewer, Richard Gilbert, Michael J. Kami, Gerald Larue, Timothy J. Madigan, Sarah Oelberg, Don Page, Howard B. Radest, Philip J. Regal, Andreas Rosenberg, Harvey Sarles, David Schafer, John M. Swomley, Robert B. Tapp, Michael Werner, and Carol Wintermute.

Global Overshoot

Global Overshoot PDF Author: doug cocks
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461462657
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
Global Overshoot is a multidisciplinary analysis (including history and pre-history) from an ecological and evolutionary perspective of the contemporary world system. This book compares and critiques attitudes held by people with different world views to the hypothetical prospect of large widespread falls in quality of life. It also draws insights from these two analyses to develop and suggest a philosophy of Ecohumanism to people of good will who want to think constructively about the world’s converging problems, i.e. think altruistically and ‘think like an evolving ecosystem.’

Humanistic Perspectives on Contemporary Counseling Issues

Humanistic Perspectives on Contemporary Counseling Issues PDF Author: Mark B. Scholl
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136876545
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
Humanism is considered by many to be the foundation for the values and practices of counseling. This book explores and presents current counseling issues from a humanistic perspective, providing a valuable resource for counselors and therapists seeking effective approaches, founded on humanistic principles, to use in their practice. Each chapter describes the significance of a specific counseling issue, reviews the humanistic literature on this issue, discusses the theoretical model provided by a humanistic perspective, and concludes with applications and implications for practitioners. Situations considered include, among others, marital/couples counseling, multicultural counseling, and healing trauma, all of which have been shown to benefit from the use of humanistic approaches. Applications in educational settings, such as addressing school violence, working with at-risk youth, and counseling in college and university settings, are also discussed. The book concludes with a section on uses of humanistic approaches in counselor education and training. After reading this book, practitioners will be inspired to advocate for counseling’s holistic and empowering approach to helping all individuals across the lifespan.

The Oxford Handbook of Humanism

The Oxford Handbook of Humanism PDF Author: Anthony B. Pinn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190921560
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 825

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Book Description
While humanist sensibilities have played a formative role in the advancement of our species, critical attention to humanism as a field of study is a more recent development. As a system of thought that values human needs and experiences over supernatural concerns, humanism has gained greater attention amid the rapidly shifting demographics of religious communities, especially in Europe and North America. This outlook on the world has taken on global dimensions as well, with activists, artists, and thinkers forming a humanistic response not only to traditional religion, but to the pressing social and political issues of the 21st century. With in-depth, scholarly chapters, The Oxford Handbook of Humanism aims to cover the subject by analyzing its history, its philosophical development, its influence on culture, and its engagement with social and political issues. In order to expand the field beyond more Western-focused works, the Handook discusses humanism as a worldwide phenomenon, with regional surveys that explore how the concept has developed in particular contexts. The Handbook also approaches humanism as both an opponent to traditional religion as well as a philosophy that some religions have explicitly adopted. By both synthesizing the field, and discussing how it continues to grow and develop, the Handbook promises to be a landmark volume, relevant to both humanism and the rapidly changing religious landscape.

Field Environmental Philosophy

Field Environmental Philosophy PDF Author: Ricardo Rozzi
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031233689
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 613

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Book Description
This fifth volume in the Ecology and Ethics series integrates key concepts of the previous four volumes by addressing biocultural conservation through novel educational methods. In Field Environmental Philosophy (FEP), the authors undertake two complementary tasks. First, they address a problematic facet of education as an indirect driver of a global change and biocultural homogenization. Second, they contribute to solve the former problems by introducing the FEP method as well as other educational approaches from around the world that value and foster conservation of biological and cultural diversity. A particular emphasis is therefore on the integration of sciences, arts, humanities, and ethics into educational practices that involve the participation of local communities with their diverse forms of ecological knowledge and practices. The book is divided into four parts. Part I introduces FEP concepts and practices that involve a 4-step cycle of transdisciplinary research, poetic communication through composition of metaphors, design of field activities guided with an ecological and ethical orientation, and participation in biocultural conservation activities. Part II exposes problems as well as solutions in formal education (from preschool to higher education) and non-formal education to respect biocultural diversity. Parts III & IV provide case studies developed at long-term socio-ecological research (LTSER) sites, botanical gardens, and other platforms for non-formal education that contribute to biocultural conservation. This book supports a paradigm shift addressing still understudied indirect drivers of global change to foster the conservation of biological and cultural diversity. It is a valuable asset for scientists and practitioners in science and humanities education.

The Ecocentrists

The Ecocentrists PDF Author: Keith Makoto Woodhouse
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547153
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 543

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Book Description
Disenchanted with the mainstream environmental movement, a new, more radical kind of environmental activist emerged in the 1980s. Radical environmentalists used direct action, from blockades and tree-sits to industrial sabotage, to save a wild nature that they believed to be in a state of crisis. Questioning the premises of liberal humanism, they subscribed to an ecocentric philosophy that attributed as much value to nature as to people. Although critics dismissed them as marginal, radicals posed a vital question that mainstream groups too often ignored: Is environmentalism a matter of common sense or a fundamental critique of the modern world? In The Ecocentrists, Keith Makoto Woodhouse offers a nuanced history of radical environmental thought and action in the late-twentieth-century United States. Focusing especially on the group Earth First!, Woodhouse explores how radical environmentalism responded to both postwar affluence and a growing sense of physical limits. While radicals challenged the material and philosophical basis of industrial civilization, they glossed over the ways economic inequality and social difference defined people’s different relationships to the nonhuman world. Woodhouse discusses how such views increasingly set Earth First! at odds with movements focused on social justice and examines the implications of ecocentrism’s sweeping critique of human society for the future of environmental protection. A groundbreaking intellectual history of environmental politics in the United States, The Ecocentrists is a timely study that considers humanism and individualism in an environmental age and makes a case for skepticism and doubt in environmental thought.

Ecologies of Gender

Ecologies of Gender PDF Author: Susanne Lettow
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000544427
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Ecologies of Gender: Contemporary Nature Relations and the Nonhuman Turn examines the role of gender in recent debates about the nonhuman turn in the humanities, and critically explores the implications for a contemporary theory of gender and nature relations. The interdisciplinary contributions in this volume each provides theoretical reflections based on an analysis of specific naturecultural processes. They reveal how "ecologies of gender" are constructed through aesthetic, epistemological, political, technological and economic practices that shape multispecies and material interrelations as well as spatial and temporal orderings. The volume includes contributions from cultural anthropology, cultural studies, film studies, literary studies, media studies, philosophy and theatre studies. The essays are organized around four key dimensions of an "ecological" understanding of gender: "creatures", "materials", "spaces" and "temporalities". The overall aim of the volume Ecologies of Gender: Contemporary Nature Relations and the Nonhuman Turn is to explore the potentialities and limitations of the nonhuman turn for a critical analysis and theory of ecologies of gender, and thereby make an original contribution to both the environmental humanities and gender studies. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students from the interdisciplinary field of the environmental humanities and environmental studies more broadly, as well as from gender studies and cultural theory.

Ecoaesthetics and Ecosophy in China

Ecoaesthetics and Ecosophy in China PDF Author: Cheng Xiangzhan
Publisher: Transnational Press London
ISBN: 1912997800
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
Chinese ecoaesthetics, which originated in 1994, has developed theoretically over the last 30 years. This branch of aesthetics, which is "based on ecology" and to "transform aesthetically towards the era of ecological civilization," uses ecological realism as its philosophical foundation and ecohumanism as its guiding principles. Its central aesthetic paradigm is known as the "body-mind-environment" model. Its main research object is "...ecological aesthetic appreciation," an exploration of how to appreciate aesthetics and ecology through "ecological beauty." Additionally, ecohumanism can be further improved by referring to principles of ecology and examining the aesthetic synergies between humans and the earth's ecosystem. Ultimately, ecohumanism is not only a method to aid in survival in an ecological crisis, but to elevate the human condition through assuming ecological responsibilities and promoting ecological civilization, leading to a more valuable and meaningful life. The theme of this book, Ecosophy C, can be summarized as "Moving toward the Aesthetics of Eternal Engendering". Its key phrase, "Creating life" corresponds to shengsheng (生生) in Chinese, literally implying a continuous cycle of reproduction. Philosophically, this concept translates to "eternal engendering". In essence, ecoaesthetics is the pursuit of the endless cycling of bio-engendering, which is the main goal of ecoaesthetics. "Cheng Xiangzhan is outstanding among Chinese environmental aestheticians in joining classical and contemporary Western environmental aesthetics with his original contributions to the more recent work by Chinese scholars. Cheng’s creative and integrative accomplishments are supported by a remarkable facility in English and reflected in his original and systematic consideration of the outstanding issues. While much can be debated, there is substantial material here, and this book makes a signal contribution to carrying the discussion forward." - Arnold Berleant, distinguished environmental aesthetician. His latest book, The Social Aesthetics of Human Environments, will appear in September 2023. Contents SECTION I - BASIC ISSUES IN ECOAESTHETICS CHAPTER 1. Ecohumanism and the Construction of Ecoaesthetics in China CHAPTER 2. The Four Keystones of Ecological Aesthetic Appreciation CHAPTER 3. An Ecoaesthetic Reflection on the Hazy Weather: The Naturalization of Nature CHAPTER 4. Ecological Civilization and Ecological Aesthetics in China SECTION Ⅱ - ECOLOGICAL AESTHETIC APPRECIATION AND ECOSOPHY C CHAPTER 5. Aesthetic Engagement, Ecosophy C, and Ecological Appreciation CHAPTER 7. The Archetype of Chinese Aesthetic Activity and a Construction of Everyday Aesthetics CHAPTER 8. Creating with Nature: Ecosophy C as an Ecological Rationality for Healing the Earth Community SECTION Ⅲ - ECOAESTHETICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL AESTHETICS CHAPTER 9. Arnold Berleant’s Environmental Aesthetics and Chinese Ecological Aesthetics CHAPTER 10. Some Critical Reflections on Berleantian Critique of Kantian Aesthetics from the Perspective of Ecoaesthetics CHAPTER 11. Critical Reflection on Arnold Berleant’s Ideas on Ecological Aesthetics SECTION Ⅳ - ECOAESTHETICS’ APPLICATION CHAPTER 12. Ecoaesthetics and Ecocriticism CHAPTER 13. Contribution of Ecological Aesthetics to Urban Planning CHAPTER 14. Urban Image and Urban Aesthetics: Urban Aesthetics in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Ecohumanism and the Ecological Culture

Ecohumanism and the Ecological Culture PDF Author: William J. Cohen
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 1439918287
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Lewis Mumford, one of the most respected public intellectuals of the twentieth century, speaking at a conference on the future environments of North America, said, “In order to secure human survival we must transition from a technological culture to an ecological culture.” In Ecohumanism and the Ecological Culture, William Cohen shows how Mumford’s conception of an educational philosophy was enacted by Mumford’s mentee, Ian McHarg, the renowned landscape architect and regional planner at the University of Pennsylvania. McHarg advanced a new way to achieve an ecological culture―through an educational curriculum based on fusing ecohumanism to the planning and design disciplines. Cohen explores Mumford’s important vision of ecohumanism—a synthesis of natural systems ecology with the myriad dimensions of human systems, or human ecology―and how McHarg actually formulated and made that vision happen. He considers the emergence of alternative energy systems and new approaches to planning and community development to achieve these goals. The ecohumanism graduate curriculum should become the basis to train the next generation of planners and designers to lead us into the ecological culture, thereby securing the educational legacy of both Lewis Mumford and Ian McHarg.