Publication Date
Fall 2011
Description
Many committed and passionate environmental thinkers currently champion restoration as an appropriate and positive model for human-nature interaction and interdependence. Recent philosophical defenses of restoration sidestep the issues that have been raised about the possibility of restoring degraded nature to a state that is identical, ontologically or evaluatively, to some pre-degraded state. Informed by feminist theory, I expose and explore some problematic assumptions and associations found in common defenses of restoration and defend the thesis that preservation is the more promising avenue to character remediation and the forging of a harmonious human-nature culture. I allow that many restoration projects will be appropriate under a preservationist program; but insist that preservation should be the main approach endorsed.
Journal
Ethics and the Environment
Volume
16
Issue
2
First Page
95
Last Page
114
Department
Philosophy
Link to Published Version
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/ethicsenviro.16.2.95
DOI
DOI: 10.2979/ethicsenviro.16.2.95
Recommended Citation
Lintott, Sheila. "Preservation, Passivity, and Pessimism." Ethics and the Environment (2011) : 95-114.
Included in
Aesthetics Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Feminist Philosophy Commons, Other Philosophy Commons