The Land Ethic and the Earth Ethic(s). Issue 1 (2nd January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Callicott, J. Baird
• Is Part Of: Ethics, policy & environment. Volume 24:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 27
• Page End: 43
• Publication Date: 2021-01-02
• Subjects: Leopold -- anthropocene -- Holocene -- Hume -- Darwin; Environmental ethics -- Periodicals; Environmental policy -- Periodicals; 179.1
• DOI: 10.1080/21550085.2021.1904532
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2155-0085

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The Anthropocene and the Holocene are coeval. Preserving the Holocene/Anthropocene climate is the overarching concern of twenty-first-century environmental philosophy and ethics. The second wave of the environmental crisis—ozone thinning, biodiversity erosion, and climate change—crested in the mid-1980s and is global in scale. The land ethic is local in scale. Therefore, an earth ethic is needed. Leopold sketched several in 1923: a three-pronged virtue ethic, a care ethic for posterity, an ethic of respect for the living planet. An individualistic ethic for distant future generations falls afoul of the non-identity paradox. Fiduciary care for global civilization can serve as a surrogate.