Abstract

This book is an important contribution to the contemporary ethical debate on environmental protection. Its primary goal is to present a universalist, positive, and practical concept of environmental virtue ethics. This type of ethics seeks to utilize ancient wisdom to analyze the moral dimension of the human–environment relationship. It distinguishes itself from previous accounts by examining this relationship from an aretological perspective. In this way, it complements earlier discussions with questions about the nature of moral subjects and their obligations to the natural environment. The book begins with a presentation of the environmental virtues involved in fulfilling human moral obligations toward the natural environment. The culminating point of this investigation is an outline of the author’s concept of environmental virtue ethics, which emphasizes the universality of virtues and their practical and positive character. The first part of the monograph analyzes the emergence of environmental virtue ethics in the context of the renaissance of virtue ethics in the mid-20th century. The rediscovery of the importance of virtues influenced philosophers studying environmental issues and led them to apply an aretological perspective to discussions of the natural environment. The second part of the book illustrates the three most important conceptions of environmental virtue ethics, developed by Henry David Thoreau, Ronald Sandler, and Brian Treanor. After a critical analysis of the views of these three American thinkers, the third part of the monograph focuses on the author’s own conception of environmental virtue ethics, which can serve as a complement to many other ethical theories. The author claims that the language of virtues should be renewed, using the term “virtue” more frequently as a substitute for words like “competence”, “attitude”, or “skill”. Appropriate moral education is also essential, with a particular emphasis on narrative as a tool for effectively shaping morality.