>Hi
>
>Firstly this is the first email group I have joined where I have been sent
>a formal welcome, both on and off the list. Thanks, Jim!
>
>I would also like some help in finding environmental ethics resources that
>may help in giving a lecture on the subject. I had a look at some web
>pages and there seems to be a lot of material out there. Since I can't
>afford to order all of it, can any of you recommend a good basic text on
>environmental ethics suitable for a non-philosopher? I would also be
>interested in any good books linking envrionmental ethics and/or animal
>rights with Christianity.
>
>Regards
>
>Michael Morris
Michael,
It depends what you're trying to teach your students. If you're trying to
"convert" them to deep ecology, say, then Warwick Fox's book is still the
best source out there. If you're looking for a more "objective" anthology,
the Zimmerman collection is one of the best--although at something like
thirty or thirty-five dollars American, students will complain that it is
too expensive. There are plenty of competitors in that latter category as
well.
For what it's worth, my opinion is that the single best book on
environmental ethics published in the last ten years, "suitable for a
non-philosopher," is Michael Pollan's book _Second Nature: A Gardener's
Education_. This is not a "text" book per se, which is in fact its
greatest virtue. It is well written; it is funny; and it helps counteract
the widespread tendency among environmentally committed students to see
nature in absolute terms, i.e. it's either "wilderness" or it isn't nature
and it isn't worth thinking about. We use it as an introductory text early
in the term, and it helps open up a wide variety of issues that we spend
the rest of the semester discussing. Students widely report that it is
their favorite book of the semester, one which they initially do not expect
they'll like given the gardening theme, but one which very few ever choose
to sell back to the campus store at the end of the course--and that's
saying something.
In terms of Christianity and environmental ethics, a quick search here
turned up the recently published books:
Ethics for a small planet : new horizons on population,consumption, and
ecology / Daniel C. Maguire and Larry L. Rasmussen ; with an introduction
by Rosemary Radford Ruether (Albany, N.Y. : State University of New York
Press, 1998) and
The environment and Christian ethics / Michael S. Northcott (New York :
Cambridge University Press, 1996).
I don't know either of these books. Let us know what you think if you do
get a hold of them. On animal rights and Christianity, Andrew Linzey's
stuff is fairly well known and (I think) widely respected. Hope this
helps. What are you trying to teach your students?
Jim
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