Chapman, Robert L. “The Goat-Stag and the Sphinx: The Place of the Virtues in Environmental Ethics.” Environmental Values 11, no. 2 (2002): 129–44. doi:10.3197/096327102129341019.
Standard virtue ethics approaches to environmental issues do not go far enough because they often lack significant attachment to local environments. Place provides the necessary link that enlarges the arena of moral action by joining human well-being to a place-based goal of wildness (Thoreau) or biotic harmony (Leopold). Place defines a niche for human activity as part of nature. Virtuous action, then, is understood as deliberation from a position of being in and of the natural world; respect and gratitude are examples of this type of deliberation. (Source: The White Horse Press)
© 2002 The White Horse Press. Republished with permission.