ABSTRACT
The readings in this section are concerned with the ways in which environmental issues and ecological thinking have had an impact upon the mainstream traditions of Western social and political thought, liberalism and conservatism. Like all labels, each conceals considerable variety, so it is also open to question whether a branch of each tradition is more or less well equipped to respond to ecological concerns-such as the differences between consequentialist or utilitarian accounts of the outcomes of human activities and the deontological approaches which focus upon the emergence of sets of rules which organize the social and political order. Indeed, these differences have already been outlined in Section 3 in the readings by Singer and Regan. These differences are outlined and discussed in Reading 5.1 where Mark Sagoff explores how they have interacted with environmentalism (which Sagoff defines broadly to include ecological approaches as well as human-centred forms of environmentalism). More specifically, Sagoff raises questions about whether the aims of environmentalists are compatible with a liberal social and political order.
