ABSTRACT

One might expect the field of environmental ethics, which has developed, to have much to say to landscape architects, environmental planners and all those, such as foresters, engineers, land managers and developers, whose professional practice has often very direct impacts upon land and environment. This chapter shows that new lines of thought from pragmatism, continental philosophy and virtue ethics are taking the subject in promising new directions. Environmental philosophers have been quick to identify ethically problematic features of life in the Anthropocene. Some philosophers, notably Steven Vogel, have drawn upon Continental Philosophy to critique the view that nature is foundational, that it represents a stable pre-human world, a sort of sub-stratum which both supports and can be contrasted with the human world. The ethical theories which attribute moral standing and intrinsic worth to non-human entities can be described as non-anthropocentric; and in the early development of environmental ethics, the majority of environmental philosophers identified themselves as non-anthropocentrists.