Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Problems
- 2 Causes
- 3 Solutions I: Voting and Pricing
- 4 Solutions II: Moral Theory
- 5 Animals
- 6 Life
- 7 Rivers, Species, Land
- 8 Deep Ecology
- 9 Value
- 10 Beauty
- 11 Human Beings
- Afterword
- Appendix A Deep Ecology: Central Texts
- Appendix B The Axiarchical View
- Appendix C Gaia
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - Deep Ecology
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Problems
- 2 Causes
- 3 Solutions I: Voting and Pricing
- 4 Solutions II: Moral Theory
- 5 Animals
- 6 Life
- 7 Rivers, Species, Land
- 8 Deep Ecology
- 9 Value
- 10 Beauty
- 11 Human Beings
- Afterword
- Appendix A Deep Ecology: Central Texts
- Appendix B The Axiarchical View
- Appendix C Gaia
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
My major concern has been with thinking straight. But for many, when faced with our current range of environmental problems, this is hardly enough. And deep ecologists, in particular, are committed not only to reflecting on what ought to be done, but to going ahead and doing it. They aim to change the world. While many are philosophers, others bring a range of different and sometimes competing influences. Diverging views are not unwelcome, with deep ecologists insisting not on a rigid programme but rather on an attitude or approach, which then expresses itself in various writings and in various ways. Some of those ways are obscure. Deep ecologists quite correctly believe that the traditional voice of academic philosophy is ill suited both in manner and substance to the active promotion of social and political change. The manner is wrong for obvious reasons – it is cautious, elitist and detached – but the substance is wrong as well, and much of this philosophy, it is claimed, is both a symptom and a cause of the attitudes that so much need revision. Deep ecology thus takes on a different, less familiar voice and with it puts forward what to many are unexpected and unwelcome views. In what follows I try to bring out some of what is central to that voice. Even if some deep ecologists will distance themselves from the characterization that follows, several others, or so I believe, will identify themselves with it.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Environmental Philosophy , pp. 179 - 204Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2001