ABSTRACT
This chapter first discusses the characterizations of virtue ethics and environmental ethics by glancing at some main episodes in their development within Western moral thought. Then, it provides a basis for drawing comparisons, between Western and Buddhist traditions. Socrates, Plato and their Sophist rivals all discussed the virtues, but the first classic statement of a relatively systematic virtue ethical position was Aristotle's. The chapter concentrates on his views and those of the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers of hellenistic Greece and of Rome. It soon became apparent that the project of developing such an ethic went against the grain of traditional Western accounts of the relation between humans and the natural world. Finally, the chapter identifies affinities that Buddhist virtue ethics is distinctive, its self-conscious applicability to environmental concerns. For some thinkers, virtue ethics is unable to provide a foundation for environmental ethics because it is unable to address practical, policy-orientated questions pertaining to real-world environmental issues.
