ABSTRACT
Thus far in this book, in criticising both broadly utilitarian approaches to environmental value and the mainstream responses to these in environmental ethics, we have defended two central claims. First, we have argued for a form of pluralism about values – one that is sceptical about attempts to force ethical reflection into the mould of scientific theories with a few ethical primitives from which our moral obligations can be derived. Those approaches impoverish the language that we bring to ethical reflection, and fail to acknowledge the real and difficult conflicts that ethical life involves. Ethical reflection needs to begin from the thick and rich ethical vocabulary we find in our everyday encounters with the environments which matter to us. Second, we have argued for the importance of history and narrative in environmental valuation. We have argued that many environmental goods we value are valued as spatio-temporal particulars. What matters are particular beings and places constituted by their particular histories.
