Contrary to what many scholars hold, a case can be made for human population reduction (the practice of artificially decreasing the number of human beings on the Earth). Robin Attfield's, Paul Taylor's, Arne Næss's and J. Baird Callicott's theories are considered for justifying human population reduction; however, only Næss's actually justifies reduction. Another argument for human population reduction is developed, based on rectification: humans have unjustly harmed other living entities and themselves, and they should provide rectification for the harm done. Human population reduction is a way in which this rectification can be given.

Hong Kong is searching for an environmental ethic that asks us to live not as mere exploiters and consumers of natural resources, but responsibly and as if we saw the nature, supporting all of our activities and needs, as our home. In the years throughout its history, Hong Kong has struggled to understand the city and the people's relationship with the local environment, hindering efforts to move the city towards a more environmentally viable future. Without a systematic and holistic investigation into the traits, roots, and potentials of this relationship, efforts to salvage the city's worsening environmental conditions will remain scattered and in vain. In Hong Kong, the concept of environmental responsibility is largely absent among the people. The culture, economically driven and characterized primarily by materialistic values, together with a top-down and centralized management of local environmental issues, paves way for individuals to self-sanction their avoidance or disengagement from their responsibilities as moral agents. An exploration of the worldviews -- that is, the beliefs about interactions between the self, the society and the universe -- that predominated in Hong Kong's culture throughout different stages of its environmental history, reveals the root of our predicament as resting on the continuation of societal norms that ignore the necessity of individuals taking responsibility for their environmental attitudes and behaviours. Greater effort should hence be invested in restoring the feeling of personal responsibility for environmental wellbeing as the societal norm. I advocate two courses of action for invigorating a sense of environmental responsibility in Hongkongers. In the short run, drawing on existing research concerning normative social influence and the construction of personal and societal norms, techniques in marketing and advertising, and to some extent propaganda, can encourage behaviour that is more environmentally conscious. In the long run, I suggest we change the way our youth are being educated, about the environment and about ways to value. The local education system and content must be reoriented so that the teaching of environmental knowledge, and the creating of values that support environmental responsibility, are brought to the center stage. The progress toward an environmentally responsible ethic in Hong Kong has remained stagnant for far too long. If there is a time to take action and make a change, that time is now. / published_or_final_version / Philosophy / Master / Master of Philosophy

This thesis investigates the concept of environmental justice (EJ) by tracing its origins, the process of its shaping and reshaping, and its adoption in Taiwan. EJ addresses the phenomenon of disproportionate distribution of environmental risks among social groups. As no one can actually “see” how risks are distributed, one has no choice but to rely on scientific (or other) techniques to visualise and then conceptualise these risks. After so doing, EJ has been turned into specific indicators to gauge EJ/injustice and the technical methods to measure it, even though the scope of these concerns is much broader and goes far beyond the technical. Using detailed historical exposition in tandem with interviews, this thesis seeks to demonstrate the processes that have led to the dominant constructions of environmental justice. The main argument of this thesis is that the phenomenon of EJ/injustice is a condensation of power relations/struggle, and the discourses that describe and the measures that gauge it are an expression of this struggle. Specifically, in this thesis I attempt to show that EJ is being constructed through the very process of debate among EJ supporters and with their challengers. Seen from this angle, this thesis shows that the conceptions of EJ differ and are mutable. To say that these conceptions change is not to deny that there is environmental injustice, but to recognise that the key characteristics can be categorised or explained differently. This research discloses that claims about EJ can be framed in much greater variety in terms of identity, difference, territory and governance. This thesis suggests that although understanding EJ through specific indicators and some sorts of techniques are necessary, a just society cannot be achieved through scientific research alone. The question of how much or what sort of data is sufficient to prove the existence of (in)justice is not a scientific one, but a social one. Our research could become much more meaningful if we recognise the specificity and limitations of the dominant approach and if the phenomenon of EJ/injustice is put in context. To achieve this, our intellectual endeavours should be properly conceived as being about a theory of endless political struggles over the issue, rather than simply about “discovering” EJ.

The thesis deals with the problem of Buddhist approach to plants through its history and all its lands. Scientific literature and translations of primary sources translated into western languages are the main sources I use. I particularly focus on the question whether Buddhism considers plants as sentient beings and ascribes them the ability to achieve enlightenment. I also deal with pre-Buddhist ideas concerning plants in each particular region. In the case of India I especially focus on Jainism, the historical companion of Buddhism. Furthermore, I put these facts into a broader frame of Buddhist environmental ethics and Buddhist treatment of the natural world. Thus, this paper should also contribute to the discussion about how ecological Buddhism is. In the pre-Buddhist India, plants were believed to be sentient beings and were involved in the cycle of rebirths. This view was accepted by Jains, but Buddhism chose another way. Whereas early parts of the Pali cannon contain rules prohibiting harming plants, later texts explicitly exclude them from the realm of sentience beings. The topic was further dealt mainly by Eastern Buddhism and, on the contrary, mainly overlooked in other regions. Eastern Buddhism, especially in Japan, again ascribed to plants the ability to attain Buddhahood. This doctrine...

One of the major themes in environmental philosophy in the twenty-first century has broadly focused on how we experience and value the natural world. Along those lines, the driving question I take up in this project is if our ordinary experiences are seen as interpretations, what is the significance of this for our moral claims about the environment? Drawing on the hermeneutic philosophies of Hans Georg-Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, I examine environmental interpretation as it relates particularly to identity, meaningful action, and the mediating function of the imagination. These three interconnected aspects show both our capability for new understandings related to the natural world, as well as problem of conflicting, yet equally valid, views on environmental value. To explore this tension further I consider the relevance of hermeneutic conceptions of truth and translation for environmental ethics. A hermeneutic notion of truth highlights the difficulties in making strong normative claims about the environment, while a hermeneutic view of translation is helpful in thinking about the otherness of nature and what this means for ecological values. In this project I am particularly interested in the conflict of environmental interpretation and the implications that a hermeneutic frame has for the limits of environmental understanding and value. I argue that hermeneutics and narrative theory shows that we can argue for direct moral consideration of ecological others or the natural world only as merely possible interpretations among others.

In the wake of Lynne White's 1967 thesis contending Christianity is the historical root of our environmental crises, theologians have struggled to articulate an environmentally friendly theology. These efforts, while substantive, have proven insufficient to reorient Christian environmental ethics and practice en mass. Pope Francis argues in Laudato Si, that dogma, doctrine, and arguments are always insufficient for redeeming human relations and instead calls for an ecological conversion via a wild spirituality. I answer this call by offering a phenomenological theology of wilderness spirituality that grounds environmental ethics in the experience of encountering God in the wilderness. I use the existential phenomenology of American philosopher Henry Bugbee and Czech phenomenologist Erazim Kohák to map phenomenological practice as spiritual discipline. By engaging in lived, practical, and embodied practices bracketing one's intellectual and physical common-sense attitudes, the practitioner is opened to and made receptive to the redeeming work of God. This topology of phenomenology as spiritual discipline illustrates how wilderness functions in scripture. In conversation with Dietrich Bonhoeffer's reading of the Genesis 3 curse as both curse and promise I argue that wilderness functions by killing sicut-deus-humanity and thereby becomes the site of redemption, healing, and benediction. This spiritual and ethical function of wilderness is also evident in the early desert monks and grounds their praxis and ethical development. Ultimately, it is by being made vulnerable and receptive in the wilderness that the early desert monks were able to participate in the reestablishment of the paradisaical innocence. This suggests that redeemed relations between humanity and the non-human world is dependent upon the sanctifying experience of wilderness deconstruction and encounter and thus the efficacy of environmental ethics depends upon the invitation to practice a wilderness spirituality.

This thesis focuses on the relationship of various actors with wild animals, specifically wild predators protected by law, in rural and protected areas of south-central Chile (IX Araucanía Region). It is based on a 12 month period of ethnographic fieldwork, distributed in the Huerquehue National Park, a private protected area ('Cañi Sanctuary') and a small farm close to the Villarrica National Park. Participant observation was developed with park rangers, conservation researchers and small-scale farmers. Most of these were also interviewed through in-depth, semi structured approaches, as other key informants, mainly neighbouring local farmers and government officials. My aim is to understand anthropologically how humans and animals interact, considering various contexts, and contributing to Chilean academia in better understanding the situation of endangered species in the country. The main theoretical points I argue are that human-animal relations are inscribed in a broader environmental approach, regarding classifications about the natural world, humanity's place in it, and their separation. Thus, the study analyses participants' environmental engagements and their relations with wild protected predators and other animals, showing how practical engagements help to 'piece together' the surroundings and other creatures. Considering uncertainty and fuzzy boundaries regarding implied classifications and fleeting experiences with animals, the analysis then focuses on the interpretation of animal tracks and traces and tracking, as flexible and open ended engagements with the environment and its clues, connected to the semiotic concept of 'abduction'. Finally, I return to reflections concerning a fluctuating world, crossed by uncertainties and categories' limitations. Using the concept of 'the uncanny', I explore alternative interpretations of relations with animals and the environment, connected with strangeness and unpredictability, where regular knowledge and ontological assumptions are challenged. I finish by stressing the fertility of being open to complex knowledge, related with a fluctuating and uncanny world that resists well-defined categorisations.

This thesis explores how rally drivers in Scotland perceive environmental issues and the environments through which they drive. The overarching aim behind this is to think about a group of people who may be more hostile towards questions of environmental responsibility, and look at how such stakeholders reason round their behaviours and perceive environmental issues. I argue that due to the potentially farreaching impacts of contemporary environmental challenges, it is crucial to take seriously the viewpoints and values of those who are perhaps not so willing to engage with environmental issues. The work draws on several bodies of literature. First is work in environmental philosophy on the practical contribution of this sub-discipline, in particular environmental pragmatism. Second is thinking in sociology and human geography on responsibility, especially the interface between responsibility and care. Third is recent material in geography on the body and movement, in particular the burgeoning field of automobility. These issues are addressed through a three-fold research design. Ethnographic and participatory techniques are used to foster an understanding of what exactly ‘the environment’ might mean to rally drivers (and indeed other users of the forest with whom rallying may come into conflict) and how it is experienced. In-depth interviews and subsequent narrative analysis seek to delve further into participants’ narratives and life histories in order to get a handle on how rally driving sits in relation to broader life contexts. Finally, two small-scale participatory projects with rally organisers relating to environmentally-responsible practice look at how this all comes together when participants make practical responses to environmental challenges. The key conclusions arising from the empirical data are that environmental problems are experienced through a range of senses, with different groups using different sensory ‘evidence’ to make claims about environmental damage; that in some cases stakeholders’ views of environmental issues are based on perceived conflict with others as opposed to actual conflict; and that the values activities such as motor sport may represent are just as significant as their physical environmental impacts. In terms of the broader applicability of this research, I suggest two things. Firstly, that one of the key challenges in responding to contemporary environmental issues lies in thinking through how publics link up their everyday practices with much bigger discourses on global environmental change. Secondly, that careful and critical reflection on the rich narratives of place and people, and on the range of emotions shaped by embodied experience, can go some way to explaining why people may persist with more environmentally damaging practices in spite of ethical and environmental criticisms.

This dissertation examines anew the value of wilderness and arguments used in defense of its preservation. The rationale for the examination is the force of the moral argument against policies of preserving wilderness areas, based upon their negative impact on the welfare of sentient life. This argument is accordingly dubbed the ‘Objection from Welfare’ (OFW). The dissertation’s central contention is that an adequate defense of wilderness preservation must be grounded in a value possessed by wilderness areas that generates at least as strong a reason to protect them as the OFW generates to oppose them. At present, no such rational, secular defense exists. Chapter One rehabilitates the idea of wilderness as the natural world maximally free from human intervention, and then disarms five persistent objections to this idea, arguing that it poses no insurmountable philosophical difficulties. Chapter Two argues that concern for animal welfare generates a pro tanto moral reason to oppose wilderness (i.e., OFW), thus demonstrating that wilderness preservation is ethically more complicated than is typically allowed. Chapters Three and Four argue that no justifiable ascription of intrinsic value to wilderness supports a nonanthropocentric conception of its value and that, consequently, a defense of wilderness simply as wilderness (wilderness qua wilderness) must be anthropocentric. According to this argument, wilderness’ distinctive value qua wilderness is ironically the anthropocentric value of a worldly domain maximally other-than-human. Neglect of this value is, it is shown, a common shortcoming of philosophical arguments for wilderness preservation. Chapter Five considers the extent to which wilderness’ distinctive value generates reasons to dispute the OFW effectively. In this regard, an analogy is drawn between bioethics and environmental ethics, i.e., between Michael Sandel’s defense of the gifted character of human nature and a defense of wilderness qua wilderness. Yet, while the analogy with Sandel’s notion of giftedness enhances an anthropocentric valuation of wilderness, it does not yield reasons strong enough to reject the OFW. Finally, I suggest that a fundamental defense of wilderness may require a spiritual or religious valuation of wilderness such that the moral force of the OFW could be suspended without being rejected. / 2020-12-11T00:00:00Z

This thesis examines the connections between Arne Naess's Deep Ecology and Martin Heidegger's Phenomenology. The latter provides a philosophical basis for the former. Martin Heidegger's critique of traditional metaphysics and his call for an "event" ontology that is deeper than the traditional substance ontology opens a philosophical space in which a different conception of what it is to be emerges. Heidegger's view of humans also provides a basis for the wider and deeper conception of self Arne Naess seeks: one that gets rid of the presupposition that human beings are isolated subjects embedded in a framework of objects distinct from them. Both Heidegger and Naess illustrate how the substance-ontological dogma affects human culture, encouraging humans to live as if they were divorced from their environmental surroundings. When humans live according to an atomistic conception of themselves as independent from their context, alienation results, not only from each other, and not only of humans from the surrounding environment, but from themselves as well. This thesis focuses on Heidegger's employment of the conception of poiesis or self-bringing-forth as clarifying the "root" of such ecosystemic processes as growth, maturation, reproduction, and death. Thus, Heidegger's call to phenomenology -- "to the things themselves" -- is a call away from the objectifying dichotomies through which substance ontology articulates the world into isolated components. It is the purpose of this thesis to demonstrate not only the connections between the later Heidegger and Naess, but also to argue in favor of their claims that traditional philosophical perspectives regarding humans, the environment, and ethics need to be re-appropriated in a new way in order to avoid further ecological degradation and provide for the health and well being of the future generations that will inevitably inherit the effects of our present actions.