#green philosophy

[blackswaneuroparedux]

In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught.

- Dame Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall is a renowned primatologist and conservationist who is best known for her groundbreaking research on chimpanzees in Tanzania and her advocacy for animal welfare and conservation where shel has been a vocal advocate for animal welfare and conservation throughout her career.

She has also raised awareness about the plight of endangered species and worked to protect habitats and ecosystems. She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, which works to protect chimpanzees and their habitats, and she has been involved in numerous other conservation organisations and initiatives.

She’s also been a big champion for the promotion of science education and has worked to inspire the next generation of scientists and conservationists. She has founded numerous educational programs and initiatives, such as Roots & Shoots, which encourages young people to take action on environmental issues in their communities.

[omegaphilosophia]

The Philosophy of Environmental Philosophy

Environmental philosophy is the branch of philosophy that explores the ethical, metaphysical, and epistemological dimensions of the relationship between humans and the natural world. It questions our place within nature, our responsibilities toward it, and how we should live in relation to the planet and its ecosystems.

Core Questions and Concerns:

1. What is the value of nature? One of the central concerns is whether nature has intrinsic value (value in itself) or instrumental value (value only in relation to human needs). Environmental philosophers challenge anthropocentric (human-centered) worldviews and explore ecocentric or biocentric alternatives that place ecosystems or all life forms at the center of moral concern.

2. How should humans relate to the environment? This question leads to various ethical positions, including:

Deep ecology, which emphasizes the interconnectedness of all living beings and advocates a radical shift in human consciousness.

Ecofeminism, which links environmental degradation with the oppression of women and other marginalized groups.

Land ethics, inspired by Aldo Leopold, which encourages seeing humans as members of a broader biotic community.

3. What responsibilities do we have toward future generations? Environmental philosophy tackles intergenerational justice, asking what duties we have to those who will live after us, especially in the context of climate change, resource depletion, and biodiversity loss.

4. How do culture, language, and economics affect our treatment of nature? Environmental thinkers explore how ideologies, capitalist structures, and industrial paradigms influence environmental degradation. They also analyze how language shapes our perception of nature—whether as "resource," "wilderness," or "home."

5. Can we truly separate humans from nature? Some philosophers argue that seeing humans as separate from nature is part of the problem. Environmental philosophy encourages a rethinking of this dualism, viewing humans as embedded within and dependent on ecological systems.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Conservatism and conservation are two aspects of a single long-term policy, which is that of husbanding resources and ensuring their renewal. These resources include the social capital embodied in laws, customs and institutions; they also include the material capital contained in the environment, and the economic capital contained in a free but law-governed economy. According to this view, the purpose of politics is not to rearrange society in the interests of some over-arching vision or ideal, such as equality, liberty or fraternity. It is to maintain a vigilant resistance to the entropic forces that threaten our social and ecological equilibrium. The goal is to pass on to future generations, and meanwhile to maintain and enhance, the order of which we are the temporary trustees.

- Sir Roger Scruton, Green Philosophy: How to think seriously about the planet    

[wholesomeobsessive]

Architecture is not like poetry, music or painting - an art that belongs in the world of leisure and luxury. It survives regardless of its aesthetic merit, and is only rarely the expression of creative genius. There are great works of architecture and often, like the churches of Mansart or Borromini, they are the work of a single person. But most works of architecture are not great and should not aspire to be so, any more than ordinary people should lay claim to the privileges of genius when conversing with their neighbours.

Green Philosophy by Roger Scruton

[wholesomeobsessive]

The assumption that beauty is subjective has a certain function in a democratic culture. It helps you to avoid giving offence to the one whose taste differs from yours. Your neighbour likes garden gnomes, illuminated Christmas displays, Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas' and a thousand other things that give you the creeps, but that's his taste, and he is entitled to it. Leave him to enjoy it and he will leave you to get on with listening to Beethoven quartets, collecting antiques and designing your house in the style of Palladio, which he in turn finds weird. Both of you are motivated by oikophilia: both are building a home, a place of comfort and nurture. But somehow the critical feature of the home - its identity as a place of sharing and hospitality - has failed to materialize. Each year his illuminated Christmas display increases in size, gets brighter and more obtrusive, and lasts longer. Eventually his house is a year-round Christmas tree, with Santa protruding from the chimney and glowing reindeer on the lawn. The sight entirely spoils the view from your window. You retaliate by playing Wagner late at night, only to receive blasts of Bing in the early hours. Here is the democratic culture at work - on its way to atomization.

Green Philosophy by Roger Scruton

[wholesomeobsessive]

Beauty stands above the artist in an attitude of judgement. We have been habituated by the self-advertising art of recent times to see beauty as a form of self-expression; but true beauty is equally a form of self-denial. It is a tribute that we pay to our common habitat, and the way in which we achieve a right to display ourselves in a world that we share. But if that is so, then the assumption that beauty is merely subjective begins to fall away. Beauty begins to take on another character, as one of the instruments in our consensus-building strategies, one of the values through which we construct and belong to a mutually consoling world. In short, it is part of building a home.

Green Philosophy by Roger Scruton

[wholesomeobsessive]

They seek possession of the human soul, and they do this by colonizing the human habitat. We experience them as ugly because they are the avatars of the thing that is destroying us - the habit of remaking the world and everything in it as an object of consumption. The aesthetic attitude is one refuge against consumerism, one all-important way of restoring the world to a sphere of intrinsic values, and therefore a place where we are spiritually and morally at home. It is a prophylactic against the desire to pillage, and the environment's greatest friend.

Green Philosophy by Roger Scruton

[wholesomeobsessive]

We must recognize the difference between a religion directed towards salvation, and a religion that is focused on the immediate presence of the sacred, as this is revealed in the here and now. The two may be combined in a single faith; but they are surely very different as motives. And while the hunger for salvation may spill over into the environmental movement with damaging effect, the love and care for sacred places is a real obstacle to destruction.

Green Philosophy by Roger Scruton