Ethics of Environment and Development: Global Challenge, International Response - Hardcover

9780816511839: Ethics of Environment and Development: Global Challenge, International Response

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0816511837 ISBN 13: 9780816511839

Publisher: University of Arizona Press, 1990

The purpose of this book is to cast the current debates about environmental conservation and economic development within an ethical framework. Using the concept of sustainability, the distinguished editors, following a broad-ranging survey of the nature and practice of ethical ideas in approaching problems and conflicts in environmental and development issues, have invited scholars from a wide range of cultural, political, religious and philosophical backgrounds to review what constitutes the major ethical issues within their own fields. Contributions from the perspectives of the western liberal democratic societies, the eastern command economies, Japan, Latin America, and Africa provide illuminating and sometimes surprising models for ethical ways of environmental thinking. The final important section invites contributions from each of the major world religions to address the moral and pholosophical standpoints their faths offer for reconciling human stewardship of the natural world with providing the essentials of life for the human community.

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Review:

"Voices from around the world speak here about values needed if we are to build more sustainable societies. Western authors who develop criteria for long-term sustainability are joined by writers on Buddhist and Islamic environmental ethics, traditional African land ethics, related ideas in socialist humanism, and more. . . . One is left, after reading the book, with the sense that much of what Westerners call a 'new' environmental ethic would be called the 'old' pre-Western land ethic by an African, a Buddhist, or a Taoist. This realization may be essential if 'sustainable development' efforts are to avoid layering over traditional societies with yet one more Western-conceived version of progress. . . . the book [performs] an important service in bringing so many different voices, and land ethics, together in one place. The juxtaposition of perspectives invites stretching one's mind." --Earth Ethics"A landmark book in bringing together contributors...to focus on development as primarily an ethical issue. . . . an important book that deserves to be read and considered by all those involved in developmental decision-making." --Agriculture and Human Values"A pathbreaking effort to point out the importance of ethics for the construction of a new paradigm of sustainable development. . . . a timely piece of work." --Global Environmental Change

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