Download or read book Environmental Ethics A Very Short Introduction written by Robin Attfield and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental ethics is a relatively new branch of philosophy, which studies the values and principles involved in combatting environmental problems such as pollution, loss of species and habitats, and climate change. As our environment faces evermore threats from human activities these core issues are becoming increasingly important. In this Very Short Introduction Robin Attfield traces the origins of environmental ethics as a discipline, and considers how it defends the independent value of living creatures, and the need to make decisions informed by the needs and interests of future generations. Exploring the diverse approaches to ethical decisions and judgements, he highlights the importance of making processes of production and consumption sustainable and of addressing human population levels, together with policies for preserving species, sub-species, and their habitats. Along the way Attfield discusses different movements such as Deep Ecology, Social Ecology, the Environmental Justice movement and the Green movement, and also considers the attitudes to the environment of the world's religions, including the approach from the major religions and the contributions of the indigenous religions of Asia, Africa and North America. Analysing the current threat of climate change, and proposals for climate engineering, he demonstrates how responsibility for the environment ultimately lies with us all, from states and corporations to individuals, and emphasises how concerted action is required to manage our environment ethically and sustainably. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Environmental Ethics written by Robin Attfield and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2018-12-13 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduces environmental ethics, exploring the values involved in issues such as pollution, habitat loss, and climate change, and considering the different groups involved, including the attitudes of the world's religions to environmental stewardship
Download or read book Being Good written by Simon Blackburn and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2002-03-14 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is not only in our dark hours that scepticism, relativism, hypocrisy, and nihilism dog ethics. Whether it is a matter of giving to charity, or sticking to duty, or insisting on our rights, we can be confused, or be paralysed by the fear that our principles are groundless. Many are afraid that in a Godless world science has unmasked us as creatures fated by our genes to be selfish and tribalistic, or competitive and aggressive. Simon Blackburn, author of the best-selling Think, structures this short introduction around these and other threats to ethics. Confronting seven different objections to our self-image as moral, well-behaved creatures, he charts a course through the philosophical quicksands that often engulf us. Then, turning to problems of life and death, he shows how we should think about the meaning of life, and how we should mistrust the sound-bite sized absolutes that often dominate moral debates. Finally he offers a critical tour of the ways the philosophical tradition has tried to provide foundations for ethics, from Plato and Aristotle through to contemporary debates.
Download or read book Environmental Law written by Elizabeth Fisher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Although environmental laws are rarely able to provide the simple solutions that people want from them, they are essential for the future of our planet. This book explores how legal responses are shaped in response to the problems facing the environment today, and the socio-political conflicts facing environmental legislation."--Publisher's description.
Download or read book Environmental Ethics written by Gregory Bassham and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-04 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental Ethics provides an accessible, lively, and up-to-date introduction to the central issues and controversies in environmental ethics. Requiring no previous knowledge of philosophy or ethical theory, the book will be of interest to students, environmental scientists, environmental policy makers, and anyone curious to know what philosophers are saying today about the urgent environmental challenges we face. The book is divided into two parts.Part One deals with theoretical issues in environmental philosophy, examining a variety of ethical and environmental theories that provide diverse and thought-provoking perspectives on critical ecological issues. Part Two turns to applied environmental ethics, addressing current debates on topics such as climate change, biodiversity loss, wilderness preservation, responsibilities to future generations, population growth, overconsumption, food ethics, and ecological activism. Features include: Clear explanations of key concepts and theories that lie at the heart of current debates in environmental ethics. A mix of theory of practice that permits readers to apply diverse theoretical perspectives to key environmental debates. A wealth of pedagogical aids, including chapter summaries, discussion questions, suggested readings, and a glossary of important terms.
Download or read book Environmental Economics A Very Short Introduction written by Stephen Smith and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-09-22 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If environmental protection is costly, how much should we spend on pollution control? Is it worth reducing pollution to zero, or should we accept some level of pollution because of the economic benefits associated with it? How can we assess the benefits that people get from a less-polluted atmosphere? In broad terms, environmental economics looks at how economic activity and policy affect the environment in which we live. Some production generates pollution, such as power station emissions causing acid rain and contributing to global warming, but household consumption decisions also affect the environment, where more consumption can mean more waste sent to polluting incinerators. However, pollution is not an inevitable consequence of economic activity - environmental policies can require polluting firms to clean up their emissions, and can encourage people to change their behaviour, through environmental taxes on polluting goods, for example. Generally, though, these measures will involve some costs, such as installing pollution control equipment. So there's a trade-off: a cleaner environment, but economic costs. In recent years, many economists have argued for greater use of incentive in the form of pollution charges and emissions trading rather than more traditional direct regulation of polluters. In this Very Short Introduction, Stephen Smith discusses environmental issues including pollution control, reducing environmental damage, and global climate change policies, answering questions about how we should balance environmental and economic considerations, and what form government policies should take. Including many illustrative case studies and examples he shows that this is an exciting field of economics, and one that is at the heart of many public debates and controversies. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Medical Ethics written by Michael Dunn and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dealing with some of the thorniest problems in medicine, from euthanasia to the distribution of health care resources, this book introduces the reasoning we can use to approach medical ethics. Exploring how medical ethics supports health professionals' work, it also considers the impact of the media, pressure groups, and legal judgments.
Download or read book Buddhist Ethics A Very Short Introduction written by Damien Keown and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-06-23 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed a growing interest in Buddhism, and it continues to capture the imagination of many in the West who see it as either an alternative or a supplement to their own religious beliefs. Numerous introductory books have appeared in recent years to cater for this growing interest, but almost none devotes attention to the specifically ethical dimension of the tradition. For complex cultural and historical reasons, ethics has not received as much attention in traditional Buddhist thought as it has in the West, and publications on the subject are few and far between. Here, Damien Keown, author of Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction , illustrates how Buddhism might approach a range of fascinating moral issues ranging from abortion and suicide to cloning. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Environmental Ethics written by David R. Keller and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a series of multidisciplinary readings, Environmental Ethics: The Big Questions contextualizes environmental ethics within the history of Western intellectual tradition and traces the development of theory since the 1970s. Includes an extended introduction that provides an historical and thematic introduction to the field of environmental ethics Features a selection of brief original essays on why to study environmental ethics by leaders in the field Contextualizes environmental ethics within the history of the Western intellectual tradition by exploring anthropocentric (human-centered) and nonanthropocentric precedents Offers an interdisciplinary approach to the field by featuring seminal work from eminent philosophers, biologists, ecologists, historians, economists, sociologists, anthropologists, nature writers, business writers, and others Designed to be used with a web-site which contains a continuously updated archive of case studies: environmentalethics.info
Download or read book Ecology a Very Short Introduction written by Jaboury Ghazoul and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-07-09 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding how our living environment works is essentially a study of ecological systems. Ecology is the science of how organisms interact with each other and with their environment, and how such interactions create self-organising communities and ecosystems. This science touches us all. The food we eat, the water we drink, the natural resources we use, our physical and mental health, and much of our cultural heritage are to a large degree products of ecological interactions of organisms and their environment. This Very Short Introduction celebrates the centrality of ecology in our lives. Jaboury Ghazoul explores how ecology has evolved rapidly from natural history to become a predictive science that explains how the natural world works, and which guides environmental policy and management decisions. Drawing on a range of examples, he shows how ecological science can be applied to management and conservation, including the extent to which theory has shaped practice. Ecological science has also shaped social and cultural perspectives on the environment, a process that influences politics of the environment. Ghazoul concludes by considering the future of ecology, particularly in the light of current and future environmental challenges. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Environmental Ethics written by Bob Jickling and published by African Sun Media. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This well-constructed, and highly original, sourcebook integrates educational materials for teaching environmental ethics with theoretical reflections. The book is set to contribute immensely to its aim of taking ethics out of philosophy departments and putting it into the streets, into villages, and on the Earth—to make ethics an everyday activity, not something left to experts and specialists. Context-based activities are presented in almost every chapter. While it acknowledges foundational theories in environmental ethics, and the work that they continue to do, it wholeheartedly embraces a growing body of literature that emphasises contextual, process-oriented, and place-based approaches to ethical reflection, deliberation, and action. It walks on the ground and isn’t afraid to get a little dirty or to seek joy in earthly relationships. And it ultimately breaks with much Western academic tradition by framing “ethics in a storied world”, thus making room to move beyond Euro-American perspectives in environmental issues. This work will be of interest to school teachers and other non-formal and informal educators, teacher educators, college instructors, university professors, and other professionals who wish to bring environmental ethics to the forefront of their pedagogical practices.
Download or read book Environmental Politics A Very Short Introduction written by Andrew Dobson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-28 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental politics has many faces and operates at multiple scales: it preoccupies individuals as well as governments, drives local agreements as well as international treaties, results in minor business changes as well as wholesale business decisions, and fluctuates between a politics of protest and one of accommodation. In this Very Short Introduction Andrew Dobson offers a lively and comprehensive commentary on the many facets of environmental politics today. Looking towards the future, he asks whether environmental politics will be comfortably accommodated by mainstream politics, or whether the advent of the Anthropocene - a whole new geological epoch driven by human impact on the environment - will herald a break with the politics of growth that has dominated social life since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Anthropocene A Very Short Introduction written by Erle C. Ellis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The proposal that the impact of humanity on the planet has left a distinct footprint, even on the scale of geological time, has recently gained much ground. Global climate change, shifting global cycles of the weather, widespread pollution, radioactive fallout, plastic accumulation, species invasions, the mass extinction of species - these are just some of the many indicators that we will leave a lasting record in rock, the scientific basis for recognizing new time intervals in Earth's history. The Anthropocene, as the proposed new epoch has been named, is regularly in the news. Even with such robust evidence, the proposal to formally recognize our current time as the Anthropocene remains controversial both inside and outside the scholarly world, kindling intense debates. The reason is clear. The Anthropocene represents far more than just another interval of geologic time. Instead, the Anthropocene has emerged as a powerful new narrative, a concept through which age-old questions about the meaning of nature and even the nature of humanity are being revisited and radically revised. This Very Short Introduction explains the science behind the Anthropocene and the many proposals about when to mark its beginning: the nuclear tests of the 1950s? The beginnings of agriculture? The origins of humans as a species? Erle Ellis considers the many ways that the Anthropocene's "evolving paradigm" is reshaping the sciences, stimulating the humanities, and foregrounding the politics of life on a planet transformed by humans. The Anthropocene remains a work in progress. Is this the story of an unprecedented planetary disaster? Or of newfound wisdom and redemption? Ellis offers an insightful discussion of our role in shaping the planet, and how this will influence our future on many fronts. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Ecological Ethics written by Patrick Curry and published by Polity. This book was released on 2011-08-29 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this thoroughly revised and updated second edition of the highly successful Ecological Ethics, Patrick Curry shows that a new and truly ecological ethic is both possible and urgently needed. With this distinctive proposition in mind, Curry introduces and discusses all the major concepts needed to understand the full range of ecological ethics. He discusses light green or anthropocentric ethics with the examples of stewardship, lifeboat ethics, and social ecology; the mid-green or intermediate ethics of animal liberation/rights; and dark or deep green ecocentric ethics. Particular attention is given to the Land Ethic, the Gaia Hypothesis and Deep Ecology and its offshoots: Deep Green Theory, Left Biocentrism and the Earth Manifesto. Ecofeminism is also considered and attention is paid to the close relationship between ecocentrism and virtue ethics. Other chapters discuss green ethics as post-secular, moral pluralism and pragmatism, green citizenship, and human population in the light of ecological ethics. In this new edition, all these have been updated and joined by discussions of climate change, sustainable economies, education, and food from an ecocentric perspective. This comprehensive and wide-ranging textbook offers a radical but critical introduction to the subject which puts ecocentrism and the critique of anthropocentrism back at the top of the ethical, intellectual and political agenda. It will be of great interest to students and activists, and to a wider public.
Download or read book Respect for Nature written by Paul W. Taylor and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-11 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What rational justification is there for conceiving of all living things as possessing inherent worth? In Respect for Nature, Paul Taylor draws on biology, moral philosophy, and environmental science to defend a biocentric environmental ethic in which all life has value. Without making claims for the moral rights of plants and animals, he offers a reasoned alternative to the prevailing anthropocentric view--that the natural environment and its wildlife are valued only as objects for human use or enjoyment. Respect for Nature provides both a full account of the biological conditions for life--human or otherwise--and a comprehensive view of the complex relationship between human beings and the whole of nature. This classic book remains a valuable resource for philosophers, biologists, and environmentalists alike--along with all those who care about the future of life on Earth. A new foreword by Dale Jamieson looks at how the original 1986 edition of Respect for Nature has shaped the study of environmental ethics, and shows why the work remains relevant to debates today.
Download or read book Environmental Ethics written by David Schmidtz and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Significantly revised in this third edition, Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, What Really Works examines morality from an environmental perspective. Featuring accessible selections--from classic articles to examples of cutting-edge original research--it addresses both theory and practice. Asking what really matters, the first section of the book explores the abstract ideas of human value and value in nature. The second section turns to the question of what really works--what it would take to solve our real-world environmental problems. Moving beyond the "hype," it presents authoritative essays on applying environmental ethics to the issues that matter right now. The selections present philosophical, biological, and socially scientific approaches to the major issues. Environmental Ethics also features first-hand descriptions from people who have actually been involved in wildlife and conservation initiatives.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy written by J. Baird Callicott and published by Macmillan Library Reference. This book was released on 2008 with total page 1127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents essays that cover topics in the fields of environmental philosophy and ethics, including green chemistry, urban environments, desertification, vegetarianism, animal ethics, and waste management.
