ABOUT THIS BOOK

This important book brings together leading environmental thinkers to debate a central conflict within environmental philosophy: should we appreciate nature mainly for its ability to advance our interests or should we respect it as having a good of its own, apart from any contribution to human well-being? Specifically, the fourteen essays collected here discuss the “convergence hypothesis” put forth by Bryan Norton—a controversial thesis in environmental ethics about the policy implications of moral arguments for environmental protection. Historically influential essays are joined with newly-commissioned essays to provide the first sustained attempt to reconcile two long-opposed positions. Bryan Norton himself offers the book’s closing essay.

This seminal volume contains contributions from some of the most respected scholars in the field, including Donald Brown, J. Baird Callicott, Andrew Light, Holmes Rolston III, Laura Westra, and many others. Although Nature in Common? will be especially useful for students and professionals studying environmental ethics and philosophy, it will engage any reader who is concerned about the philosophies underlying contemporary environmental policies.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Ben A. Minteer is Assistant Professor of Environmental Ethics and Policy in the School of Life Sciences and affiliated Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University. He is author of The Landscape of Reform: Civic Pragmatism and Environmental Thought in America.

REVIEWS

“Nature in Common? brings together leading environmental philosophers to sharpen and clarify the divisions and critically examine the strengths and limits of moving environmentalists toward an agenda with which most can agree. This is an important and unique collection of essays. Minteer’s introductory framing is excellent, and each of the chapters, are clear and forceful. This volume is a major contribution and deserves to be read widely. “—Jan Dizard, Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of American Culture and the Pick Professor of Environmental Studies, Amherst College

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

PART I Introduction
1. Unity among Environmentalists? Debating the Values-Policy Link in Environmental Ethics

PART II The Convergence Hypothesis Debate in Environmental Ethics: The First Wave
2. Contextualism and Norton’s Convergence Hypothesis
3. Convergence and Contextualism: Some Clarifications and a Reply to Steverson
4. Why Norton’s Approach Is Insufficient for Environmental Ethics
5. Convergence in Environmental Values: An Empirical and Conceptual Defense
6. The Relevance of Environmental Ethical Theories for Policy Making

PART III Expanding the Discussion: The Convergence Hypothesis Debate Today
7. Converging versus Reconstituting Environmental Ethics
8. Environmental Ethics and Future Generations
9. The Convergence Hypothesis Falsified: Implicit Intrinsic Value, Operational Rights, and De Facto Standing in the Endangered Species Act
10. Convergence in an Agrarian Key
11. Convergence and Ecological Restoration: A Counterexample
12. Does a Public Environmental Philosophy Need a Convergence Hypothesis?
13. The Importance of Creating an Applied Environmental Ethics: Lessons Learned from Climate Change
14. Who Is Converging with Whom? An Open Letter to Professor Bryan Norton from a Policy Wonk

PART IV Reply by Bryan G. Norton
15. Convergence and Divergence: The Convergence Hypothesis Twenty Years Later

Contributors
Notes
Index

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