Idealism, the Common Good, and Environmental Virtues

Abstract

This chapter considers the limits of state action in supporting and promoting environmental virtues. It is both a contribution to the contemporary discussion and a debate on environmental citizenship. This chapter is also an attempt to locate the roots of a viable conception of environmental citizenship in the work of some of the British Idealists of the 19th and 20th centuries. To some extent I am following in the footsteps of those like John Rodman who saw potential in the application of T.H. Green’s ideas to green philosophy and practice (Rodman, 1973, 1983). In what follows, I write in a certain spirit rather than engaging in any form of critical exegesis, let alone comprehensive coverage of the work of the Idealists. Rodman took the view that one of the approaches to environmental ethics and politics lay in pursuing moral extensionism. For him, this view meant applying Green’s views to contemporary environmental concerns through a denial of Green’s overstated separation between humans and animals and the natural world, and the associated view of rights (which also led David Ritchie to deny the possibility of animal rights). However, it is not necessary to promote rights for nature and animals to argue that, as environmental citizens, we might freely assume duties and exercise associated virtues in pursuit of environmental goals. The conception of citizenship I sketch below is accordingly an ethical and activist one, with the duties and responsibilities of citizens at the fore.