philosophy

In this obituary Freya Mathews discusses Val Plumwood’s life and her contributions to environmental philosophy.

In this posthumously published paper Val Plumwood reflects on two personal encounters with death, being seized as prey by a crocodile and burying her son in a country cemetery with a flourishing botanic community.

In his essay, Paul M. Keeling tries to answer the question if the idea of wilderness needs a defence.

Jay Appleton addresses the apparent difficulty experienced by philosophers in applying the methodology of art criticism to the aesthetics of nature and uses the idea of “narrative” to explore it.

David Russell narrates the exploration of trees and woods.

Jonah H. Peretti questions nativist trends in Conservation Biology that have made environmentalists biased against alien species.

Ronald Hepburn discusses the aesthetic appreciation of nature, arguing that not all humanising falsifies, and that we can respect nature as well as annex its forms and expressive qualities in our aesthetic appreciation.

Robyn Eckersley discusses the concepts of “human racism” and ecocentricm in relation to Tony Lynch and David Wells’ argument that any attempt to develop a non-anthropocentric morality must invariably slide back to either anthropocentrism (either weak or strong) or a highly repugnant misanthropy in cases of direct conflict between the survival needs of humans and nonhuman species.

This article comments on Norton’s conception on convergence, noninstrumental value and the semantics of “love.”

In this essay, Freya Mathews argues that the moral point of view involves a feeling for the inner reality of others and explains the consequences of this idea for other-than-human life forms and systems.