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A groundbreaking contribution to a central debate in environmentalism
List of contents
Acknowledgments
PART I Introduction
1. Unity among Environmentalists? Debating the Values-Policy Link in Environmental Ethics
PART II The Convergence Hypothesis Debate in Environmental Ethics: The First Wave
2. Contextualism and Norton’s Convergence Hypothesis
3. Convergence and Contextualism: Some Clarifications and a Reply to Steverson
4. Why Norton’s Approach Is Insufficient for Environmental Ethics
5. Convergence in Environmental Values: An Empirical and Conceptual Defense
6. The Relevance of Environmental Ethical Theories for Policy Making
PART III Expanding the Discussion: The Convergence Hypothesis Debate Today
7. Converging versus Reconstituting Environmental Ethics
8. Environmental Ethics and Future Generations
9. The Convergence Hypothesis Falsified: Implicit Intrinsic Value, Operational Rights, and De Facto Standing in the Endangered Species Act
10. Convergence in an Agrarian Key
11. Convergence and Ecological Restoration: A Counterexample
12. Does a Public Environmental Philosophy Need a Convergence Hypothesis?
13. The Importance of Creating an Applied Environmental Ethics: Lessons Learned from Climate Change
14. Who Is Converging with Whom? An Open Letter to Professor Bryan Norton from a Policy Wonk
PART IV Reply by Bryan G. Norton
15. Convergence and Divergence: The Convergence Hypothesis Twenty Years Later
Contributors
Notes
Index
About the author
Ben A. Minteer is Assistant Professor of Environmental Ethics and Policy in the School of Life Sciences and affiliated Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University. He is author of The Landscape of Reform: Civic Pragmatism and Environmental Thought in America.
Summary
Brings together leading environmental thinkers to debate a central conflict within environmental philosophy: Should we appreciate nature mainly for its ability to advance our interests or should we respect it as having a good of its own, apart from any contribution to human well being?
