Earth's Insights A Survey of Ecological Ethics from the Mediterranean Basin to the Australian Outback

About this book

The environmental crisis is global in scope, yet contemporary environmental ethics is centered predominantly in Western philosophy and religion. Earth's Insights widens the scope of environmental ethics to include the ecological teachings embedded in non-Western worldviews. J. Baird Callicott ranges broadly, exploring the sacred texts of Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Zen Buddhism, as well as the oral traditions of Polynesia, North and South America, and Australia. He also documents the attempts of various peoples to put their environmental ethics into practice. Finally, he wrestles with a question of vital importance to all people sharing the fate of this small planet: How can the world's many and diverse environmental philosophies be brought together in a complementary and consistent whole?

Contents

- Preface
- Foreword, by Tom Hayden
- Introduction: The Notion of and Need for Environmental Ethics
- The Historical Roots of Western European Environmental Attitudes and Values
- Environmental Attitudes and Values in South asian Intellectual Traditions
- Traditional East Asian Deep Ecology
- Ecological Insights in East Asian Buddhism
- Far Western Environmental Ethics
- South American Eco-Eroticism
- African Biocommunitarianism and Australian Dreamtime
- A Postmodern Evolutional-Ecological Environmental Ethic
- Traditional Evironmental Ethics in Action

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Biography

J. Baird Callicott is Professor of Philosophy and Religion Studies at the Institute of Applied Sciences, University of North Texas, and author of In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (1989).