The narrative centers on a planet facing an urgent environmental crisis, emphasizing the critical need for immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It highlights the potential for positive change and the importance of collective efforts to avert impending disaster, underscoring a sense of hope amidst the urgency.
Philosophy has provided us with a wealth of moral and ethical theories. Applied ethics is the study of practical moral issues and our best philosophical theories, and how each can inform the other. Acclaimed philosopher and textbook author Robin Attfield invites students to reflect on the key problems of our time. Through lively case studies of topics related to health care, international development, the environment, abortion, punishment and more, he reveals how standard ethical theories can be tested on these real-life scenarios and, if necessary, revised or discarded. Students are encouraged to be their own philosophers, exploring and reaching coherent stances across a wide range of areas of everyday concern. Covering a typical applied ethics syllabus in a comprehensive and accessible manner, Applied Ethics will motivate philosophy students to engage with the most pressing moral issues of the twenty-first century.
Originally published in 1987 and re-issued in 2020 with a new Preface, this book presents and elaborates interrelated solutions to a number of problems in moral philosophy, from the location of intrinsic value and the nature of a worthwhile life, via the limits of obligation and the nature of justice, to the status of moral utterances.
Environmental thought has a rich and extensive history. Leading philosopher Robin Attfield guides readers through the key developments and debates that have defined the field from ancient times to the present. Attfield investigates ancient, medieval and early modern environmental contributions; Darwin and his successors; the debate in America involving Thoreau, Marsh, Muir and Pinchot; and the foundation of the science of ecology in the western world. He goes on to discuss the central themes of key environmentalist works of the 1970s and 1980s, along with the major debates in environmental philosophy, including Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis. Ultimately, he confronts the current environmental emergency and the crises of climate change, air pollution and biodiversity loss. Each chapter concludes with a list of recommended reading, selected to invite readers to explore the book’s fascinating topics in greater depth. A pivotal text in its field, Environmental Thought: A Short History will be of interest to students and scholars of history, philosophy, ethics, geography, religion, biology and environmental studies.