Environmental virtue ethics
With the advance of environmental ethics and virtues since the 1970s,
Thoreau has regained attention from philosophers who have been
distracted by utilitarianism which is in most cases the source of the
problem of the global commons such as climate change (Cafaro, 2001).
Thoreau gives intrinsic value to nature in his famous Walden and lists
virtues for good life such as health, freedom, joy, friendship,
experience, knowledge (of oneself, nature and God), personal culture and
satisfaction. Thoreau reformulates economy as contrary to classical
utilitarianism in his central passage of Walden as “. . . to front only
the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to
teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. . . .
I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow out of life . . . to know
it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next
excursion.”11Thoreau, H. D. (1908). Walden, or, Life in the
woods. London: J.M. Dent. pp. 81-82.. The direction of value is from
human individuals as the source and towards wilderness as the locus of
value.
Shaw (Shaw, 1997) recommends the environmental virtue ethics approach
based on both the philosophical but also the scientific writings of Aldo
Leopold during his profession as an ecologist. Leopold includes the
existence of biotic and abiotic systems as the locus of value together
with their instrumental value for humans. The land community is both the
source and the locus of value depending on relations between humans and
the environment as humans constitute a part of this community. To
protect the harmony in the relations of humans with their biotic
communities, Leopold adopts virtues based on humility and respect
towards nature and recommends a paradigm shift moving bearer and locus
of value from humans to the biotic community writing “When we see land
as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and
respect. There is no other way for land to survive the impact of
mechanized man, nor for us to reap from it the esthetic harvest it is
capable, under science, of contributing to culture.”22Leopold,
Aldo (1970). A Sand County Almanac with Essays on Conservation
from Round River . New York: Ballantine Books. pp. xviii–xix..
Rachel Carson includes wonder towards nature in addition to humility and
is considered one of the founders of environmental activism (Stein,
2012). The problem of intangibility and difficulty to assign moral
obligations towards nature is solved by Carson by observing and writing
essays on the wonders of nature and disseminating these to children who
would most appreciate them. The curiosity of children towards nature
provides unforgettable events and puts wonder as a prior environmental
virtue as Carson writes “It is our misfortune that for most of us that
clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and
awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I
had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the
christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in
the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last
throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and
disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with
artificial things, and alienation from the sources of our
strength.”33Carson, R., Kelsh, N., & Lear, L. J. (1998).The sense of wonder . New York: HarperCollins Publishers. pp.
42-43..