Skip to main content

Ecological Objects for Environmental Ethics

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Changing World

Part of the book series: Ecology and Ethics ((ECET,volume 1))

Abstract

The emergence of theoretical ecology during the twentieth century advanced our understanding of what kinds of things exist in our world, such as ecological communities and ecosystems. Accordingly ecology offered a new set of things we might care about or care for, and that development has both stimulated and challenged environmental ethics. Here, I consider how ecological objects may serve as objects of moral concern. I argue that while questions remain about ecological objects, environmental ethics does not require objects more robust than those ecology already offers.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 219.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 279.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Significantly more detailed analysis can be found in Eliot (2007, 2011), and Hagen (1988).

  2. 2.

    For further analysis of Gleason’s theory see Eliot (2011) and Nicolson (1990).

  3. 3.

    Lockwood (2011) independently arrives at a similar conclusion and provides useful analysis of insect communities.

References

  • Callicott JB (1996) Do deconstructive ecology and sociobiology undermine Leopold’s land ethic? Environ Ethics 18:353–372

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Callicott JB (1999) Beyond the land ethic. State University of New York Press, Albany

    Google Scholar 

  • Clements FE (1907) Plant physiology and ecology. Henry Holt, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Clements FE (1916) Plant succession: an analysis of the development of vegetation. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Eliot C (2007) Method and metaphysics in Clements’s and Gleason’s ecological explanations. Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci 38(1):85–109

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Eliot C (2011) The legend of order and chaos: communities and early community ecology. In: deLaplante K, Brown B, Peacock K (eds) Philosophy of ecology. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 49–108

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gleason HA (1936a) Is the synusia an association? Ecology 17(3):444–451

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gleason HA (1936b) Twenty-five years of ecology, 1910–1935. Brooklyn Bot Gard Mem 4:41–49

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodpaster KE (1978) On being morally considerable. J Philos 75(6):308–325

    Google Scholar 

  • Hagen JB (1988) Organism and environment: Frederic Clements’s vision of a unified physiological ecology. In: Rainger R, Benson KR, Maienschein J (eds) The American development of biology. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick

    Google Scholar 

  • Isenberg AC (2001) The destruction of the bison: an environmental history, 1750–1920. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Lockwood JA (2011) The ontology of biological groups: do grasshoppers form assemblages, communities, guilds, populations, or something else? Psyche, pp 1–9

    Google Scholar 

  • Mikkelson GM (2004) Biological diversity, ecological stability, and downward causation. In: Oksanen M, Pietarinen J (eds) Philosophy and biodiversity. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 119–132

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell SD (2009) Unsimple truths: science, complexity, and policy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Nicolson M (1990) Henry A. Gleason and the individualistic hypothesis: the structure of a botanist’s career. Bot Rev 56:97–161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Odenbaugh J (2007) Seeing the forest and the trees: realism about communities and ecosystems. Philos Sci 74(5):628–641

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sterelny K (2006) Local ecological communities. Philos Sci 73:215–231

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sutter PS (2002) Driven wild: how the fight against automobiles launched the modern wilderness movement. University of Washington Press, Seattle

    Google Scholar 

  • Tobey R (1981) Saving the prairies: the life cycle of the founding school of American plant ecology, 1895–1955. University of California Press, Berkeley

    Google Scholar 

  • Worster D (1990) The ecology of order and chaos. Environ Hist Rev 14:1–18

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christopher H. Eliot .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Eliot, C.H. (2013). Ecological Objects for Environmental Ethics. In: Rozzi, R., Pickett, S., Palmer, C., Armesto, J., Callicott, J. (eds) Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Changing World. Ecology and Ethics, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7470-4_18

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics