IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/env/journl/ev25ev2506.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Trouble with Environmental Values

Author

Listed:
  • Simon P. James

Abstract

If we are to assess whether our attitudes towards nature are morally, aesthetically or in any other way appropriate or inappropriate, then we will need to know what those attitudes are. Drawing on the works of Katie McShane, Alan Holland and Christine Swanton, I challenge the common assumption that to love, respect, honour, cherish or adopt any other sort of pro-attitude towards any natural X simply is to value X in some way and to some degree. Depending on how one interprets 'value', that assumption is, I contend, either false or vacuous. I argue that to assess the appropriateness of a person's pro-attitudes towards a natural entity one must in some cases appeal to the concepts of status and/or bond, and not just that of value. To develop my argument, I appeal to the works of two nature writers - Robert Macfarlane and J. A. Baker.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon P. James, 2016. "The Trouble with Environmental Values," Environmental Values, White Horse Press, vol. 25(2), pages 131-144, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:env:journl:ev25:ev2506
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/whp/ev/2016/00000025/00000002/art00003
    Download Restriction: downloads of articles require payment or registration of paid subscription
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental ethics; value; pro-attitudes; respect; love;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D46 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Value Theory
    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:env:journl:ev25:ev2506. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Andrew Johnson (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.whpress.co.uk .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.