Description
Book SynopsisWhat if wilderness is bad for wildlife? This question motivates the philosophical investigation in Wilderness, Morality, and Value. Environmentalists aim to protect wilderness, and for good reasons, but wilderness entails unremittent, incalculable suffering for its non-human habitants. Given that it will become increasingly possible to augment nature in ways that ameliorates some of this suffering, the morality of wilderness preservation is itself in question. Joshua S. Duclos argues that the technological and ethical reality of the Anthropocene warrants a fundamental reassessment of the value of wilderness. After exposing the moral ambiguity of wilderness preservation, he explores the value of wilderness itself by engaging with anthropocentricism and nonanthropocentrism; sentientism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism; and instrumental value and intrinsic value. Duclos argues that the value of wilderness is a narrow form of anthropocentric intrinsic value, one with a religio-spiritual dimension. By integrating scholarship from bioethics on the norms of engineering human nature with debates in environmental ethics concerning the prospect of engineering non-human nature, Wilderness, Morality, and Value sets the stage for wilderness ethics—or wilderness faith—in the Anthropocene.
Trade ReviewJoshua Duclos presents a provocative challenge to all sides in the philosophical debate over the meaning and ethics of wilderness preservation. Firmly rooted in the fifty-year history of academic environmental ethics, his argument is based on the idea that a concern for the welfare of non-human natural beings is a reason to oppose the preservation of wilderness and a reason for beneficent human interference into natural systems. Accordingly, a defense of wilderness in and of itself will require a different kind of argument, perhaps one based on spiritual values. This book will interest students and teachers of environmental ethics and environmental policy, who will find much to consider, question, and debate.
-- Eric Katz, professor emeritus, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Joshua Duclos’s clearly written, well-argued book Wilderness, Morality, and Value (henceforth referred to as WMV) analyzes the incredibly important and, until recently, almost entirely neglected problem of wild animal suffering. Though it is the second traditionally published moral philosophy book on this subject, and though a third such book is currently forthcoming, WMV is unique… Duclos’ book is specifically about the relationship between the value of wild animals’ welfare and the value of wilderness. By focusing his book in this way, Duclos accomplishes two goals. First, he provides an account of wilderness’s value that doesn’t rely either on rosy assumptions about wild animals’ welfare levels, or on pessimistic assumptions about the effects of beneficent intervention. Second, he sheds light on some important grounds underlying one of the main intuitions against intervening to help wild animals—namely, the intuition that we should leave natural areas (wilderness areas) as they are.
* Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
If human beings could responsibly create new habitats where other creatures would suffer less than they do now, would it be a good idea to do so, even if it meant eradicating wild places previously untouched by our activity? Joshua S. Duclos’s Wilderness, Morality, and Value investigates that question provocatively and thoughtfully, building on decades of philosophical analysis… [I] see this book’s central question as important enough to deserve more and wider consideration, with a much broader range of sources. Wilderness, Morality, and Value will help readers to think about what it means to live responsibly in the Anthropocene and should be part of many broader and broadening conversations.
* Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture *
