Western Traditions, Nature’s Values, and Environmental Ethics
Author(s)
Passmore, John
Abstract
John Passmore argues that western traditions provide the best available resources for interpreting “man’s responsibility for nature,” while Richard Routley maintains that an adequate environmental ethics must replace the west’s human chauvinism. Agreeing with Routley that the intrinsic worth of nonhuman nature requires recognition, I defend Passmore’s thesis that western traditions contain the resources for this. Specifically, the moral principle of universal benevolence coupled with a reinterpretation of Plato’s form of the good in terms of ‘richness’ (in place of psychological interpretations of value in the Cartesian subtradition) provide the required grounds for an environmental ethic.
