Exemplarist Environmental Ethics
This article argues that environmental ethics can deemphasize environmental problem-solving in preference for a more exemplarist mode. This mode will renarrate what we admire in those we have long admired, in order to make them resonate with contemporary ethical needs. First, I outline a method prob...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
[2019]
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In: |
Journal of religious ethics
Year: 2019, Volume: 47, Issue: 3, Pages: 525-550 |
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Environmental ethics (motif)
/ Example
/ Religion
/ Ethics
/ Political activity
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RelBib Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism NCB Personal ethics NCD Political ethics NCG Environmental ethics; Creation ethics |
Further subjects: | B
Ethnography
B Environmental Ethics B Francis of Asissi B Henry David Thoreau B exemplarist ethics B Method B Virtue Ethics |
Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
Summary: | This article argues that environmental ethics can deemphasize environmental problem-solving in preference for a more exemplarist mode. This mode will renarrate what we admire in those we have long admired, in order to make them resonate with contemporary ethical needs. First, I outline a method problem that arose for me in ethnographic fieldwork, a problem that I call, far too reductively, "solution thinking." Second, I relate that method problem to movements against "quandary ethics" in ethical theory more broadly. Third, I discuss some interpretive work I am engaged in about Henry David Thoreau and how it bears on the methodological issues my fieldwork raised. I argue that some of the most important icons of right relation to environment, especially Francis of Assisi and Thoreau, should be envisioned as far more politically invested than they usually are. They demonstrate to scholars of religious ethics that an exemplarist ethic focused on character need not neglect politics. |
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ISSN: | 1467-9795 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religious ethics
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/jore.12275 |