Holland, Alan. “Editorial: Unstable Cliffs.” Environmental Values 15, no. 4 (2006): 423–24. doi:10.3197/096327106779116087.
Doing the right thing by the environment might be more a matter of starting from the practice of a particular virtue - the avoiding of sentimentality - than a matter of signing up to some environmentalist principle. What I find congenial about this thought - but not I hope more congenial than I have reason to find it - is that it helps to resolve the vexed question of where an environmental philosopher’s priorities should lie. Is she or he a philosopher first, and an environmentalist second, or vice-versa? Well, a philosopher - a lover of wisdom and truth - must surely therefore be a hater, and avoider, of sentimentality. And if the avoidance of sentimentality, in turn, directs one into the path(s) of environmentalism, the vexed question receives a neat solution. An environmental philosopher is one who arrives at their environmentalism through their philosophy. I should not mind if there were a touch of idealism or even optimism about this thought. But if there is even a whiff of sentimentality about it - then perish the thought! (Source: The White Horse Press)
© 2006, The White Horse Press. Republished with permission.