Minteer, Ben A. “No Experience Necessary? Foundationalism and the Retreat from Culture in Environmental Ethics.” Environmental Values 7, no. 3 (1998): 333–48. doi:10.3197/096327198129341618.
Many of the leading contributors to the field of environmental ethics demonstrate a preference for foundationalist approaches in their theoretical justifications of environmentalism. In this paper, I criticize this tendency as it figures in the work of Holmes Rolston III, J. Baird Callicott, and Eric Katz. I illustrate how these writers’ desire for philosophical absolutes leads them to reject the moral resources present within human culture; a move that carries with it a number of troubling philosophical and political problems. I conclude that environmental theorists would be better served by taking a more contextual, social, and pragmatic approach to justifying their moral projects regarding nature, and that this mode of inquiry will ultimately lead toward a more philosophically sound and democratically authentic environmental ethics. (Source: The White Horse Press)
© 1998 The White Horse Press. Republished with permission..