ABSTRACT
Moral philosophy has long relied on character traits and virtues to describe what is involved in being a good person. This chapter considers what our relationships with others and nature mean for doing environmental ethics. To understand our moral community in terms of our diverse relationships, it considers evidence from biology that empathy evolved in primates. The chapter focuses on three human cultures, each of which has a different sense of our relationship with animals. It assesses the claims of those promoting "deep ecology" as the only way to save life on earth and considers the arguments of ecofeminists for resisting the language of domination used to rationalize the mistreatment of women and nature. The chapter notes that the environmental standard of ecosystem integrity is now recognized by law as well as science.
