Rethinking Environment: The Ethics of a Constructionist View of Our Relation to Nature
Abstract
In this thesis I argue that the constructionist theory of the relation between organism and environment has several important implications for ethics. Chapter 1 lays the groundwork for later chapters by elucidating the concepts and terms used in later discussions and providing the motivation for the project. In Chapter 2 I introduce the constructionist theory of the relation between organism and environment. In Chapter 3 I argue that the constructionist theory can be used to criticize exemplars of individualism and holism in ethics and to criticize the idea that individualism and holism are incompatible. In Chapter 4 I turn to climate change and geoengineering, arguing that a class of objection to geoengineering cannot be sustained in light of the theory of the constructed niche. In Chapter 5 I argue that the constructionist theory provides reason to recognize moral obligations to environments, providing a convincing answer to a central theoretical problem in environmental ethics.
Description
Keywords
Philosophy
Citation
Jankunis, F. (2016). Rethinking Environment: The Ethics of a Constructionist View of Our Relation to Nature (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27658