Shrader-Frechette and McCoy use examples related to preservation versus development, hunting versus animal rights, and controversies over pest control, to show that, because ecology is conceptually and theoretically underdetermined, environmental values often influence the practice of ecological science.

J. M. Howarth outlines how phenomenological enquiry can reveal and criticise modernist assumptions, while traditional phenomenological notions might form a more eco-friendly framework for the value bases of interactions within nature.

Alastair Macintosh uses Plato and Bacon as yardsticks to consider the British government’s White Paper on science together with government research council reports as a basis for critiquing current science policy and its intensifying orientation, British and worldwide, towards industrial and military development.

Tony Lynch discusses the relevance of seeing deep ecology as an aesthetic movement rather than as a moral ethic.