"Overall, Environmental Ethics: the big questions is an essential text for anyone looking to get to grips with key thinkers and their contributions to this new and burgeoning domain of ethics. Whilst challenging at times, the variety of papers in terms of both inter-disciplinary and difficulty is wide, allowing readers to effectively engage irrespective of background. Further, the layout is clear and general binding and page quality high to ensure this can remain an indispensable reference text for the future." (The Guardian, 26 November 2013)
"Overall, Environmental Ethics: the big questions is an essential text for anyone looking to get to grips with key thinkers and their contributions to this new and burgeoning domain of ethics. Whilst challenging at times, the variety of papers in terms of both inter-disciplinary and difficulty is wide, allowing readers to effectively engage irrespective of background. Further, the layout is clear and general binding and page quality high to ensure this can remain an indispensable reference text for many years to come." (Economics & Philosophy, 1 November 2013)
"The major strength of the book is the fact that it evolved from a classroom course on environmental ethics. The different texts are selected, put together and introduced by an experienced teacher. As such, the selection of text has already proven successful and instructive. The editor has put an enormous amount of effort into selecting the right texts, which took him, according to the preface, over four years." (Ethical Perspectives, 2011)
?Overall, Environmental Ethics: the big questions is an essential text for anyone looking to get to grips with key thinkers and their contributions to this new and burgeoning domain of ethics. Whilst challenging at times, the variety of papers in terms of both inter-disciplinary and difficulty is wide, allowing readers to effectively engage irrespective of background. Further, the layout is clear and general binding and page quality high to ensure this can remain an indispensable reference text for the future.? (The Guardian, 26 November 2013)
Featured in The Guardian - 26 November 2013
?Overall, Environmental Ethics: the big questionsis an essential text for anyone looking to get to grips with key thinkers and their contributions to this new and burgeoning domain of ethics. Whilst challenging at times, the variety of papers in terms of both inter-disciplinary and difficulty is wide, allowing readers to effectively engage irrespective of background. Further, the layout is clear and general binding and page quality high to ensure this can remain an indispensable reference text for many years to come.? (Economics & Philosophy, 1 November 2013)
"The major strength of the book is the fact that it evolved from a classroom course on environmental ethics. The different texts are selected, put together and introduced by an experienced teacher. As such, the selection of text has already proven successful and instructive. The editor has put an enormous amount of effort into selecting the right texts, which took him, according to the preface, over four years." (Ethical Perspectives, 2011) Review
"Environmental ethics emerged in the mid-1970s and has been exponentially growing in volume and scope ever since. As a new century and a new millennium dawn, environmental ethics is the philosophy of the future, looking outward to partner with social and life sciences, history, law, business, and literature to provide synthesis instead of the finer and finer analysis of arcane "puzzles" that characterized the inward-looking philosophy of the previous century. In the new spirit of the new philosophy of the new century, this new textbook provides a synoptic overview of the field. The pioneers, living and dead, are all represented along with the emerging voices of the present. Unique to this volume is commentary by the leading lights in the field about why environmental ethics is a worthwhile study. That section, along with Keller's historical and thematic overview of the field, the best yet in any textbook, is worth the price of admission to the book."
―J Baird Callicott, Regents Professor of Philosophy, Chair, Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies, University of North of Texas
From the Publisher
David R. Keller is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for the Study of Ethics at Utah Valley University. He is co-editor of The Philosophy of Ecology: From Science to Synthesis (with Frank Golley, 2000), and co-author of Ethics in Action (with Peggy Connolly, Becky Cox-White, and Martin G. Leever, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), a case-based approach to introducing ethics and environmental issues.
From the Inside Flap
Environmental ethics is a relatively new philosophical discipline that addresses the complex convergence of humans with the natural world and its nonhuman inhabitants. Environmental Ethics: The Big Questions presents a series of interdisciplinary readings that examine the moral dimensions of the delicate relationship between human beings and the environment. Carefully chosen selections drawn from philosophy, the social and life sciences, economics, history, legal studies, business, and literature are organized clearly around the history of anthropocentric (human-centered) and nonanthropocentric origins of environmental ethics. The readings serve as an investigation of the proper scope of moral considerations relating to the environment – one that includes humans, animals, living things, ecosystems, and the built environment. Other topics include political approaches to environmental ethics, the importance of ecological science, and contemporary public policy issues such as agriculture, sustainability, population, globalization, and injustice. Readers are also directed to an online archive of continually updated international case studies that serve to complement and explicate the theoretical discussions outlined in the text. Thought provoking and timely, Environmental Ethics: The Big Questions offers illuminating insights into an issue that is becoming more critical each year.
To view a growing archive of environmental ethics case studies, please visit: http://environmentalethics.info/.
From the Back Cover
Environmental ethics is a relatively new philosophical discipline that addresses the complex convergence of humans with the natural world and its nonhuman inhabitants. Environmental Ethics: The Big Questions presents a series of interdisciplinary readings that examine the moral dimensions of the delicate relationship between human beings and the environment. Carefully chosen selections drawn from philosophy, the social and life sciences, economics, history, legal studies, business, and literature are organized clearly around the history of anthropocentric (human-centered) and nonanthropocentric origins of environmental ethics. The readings serve as an investigation of the proper scope of moral considerations relating to the environment – one that includes humans, animals, living things, ecosystems, and the built environment. Other topics include political approaches to environmental ethics, the importance of ecological science, and contemporary public policy issues such as agriculture, sustainability, population, globalization, and injustice. Readers are also directed to an online archive of continually updated international case studies that serve to complement and explicate the theoretical discussions outlined in the text. Thought provoking and timely, Environmental Ethics: The Big Questions offers illuminating insights into an issue that is becoming more critical each year.
To view a growing archive of environmental ethics case studies, please visit: http://environmentalethics.info/.
About the Author
David R. Keller is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for the Study of Ethics at Utah Valley University. He is co-editor of The Philosophy of Ecology: From Science to Synthesis (with Frank Golley, 2000), and co-author of Ethics in Action (with Peggy Connolly, Becky Cox-White, and Martin G. Leever, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), a case-based approach to introducing ethics and environmental issues.
