PLANET IN PERIL: ESSAYS IN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
By Dale Westphal and Fred Westphal
Ó1994 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
Fred Westphal taught Philosophy at the University of Miami(Florida) since 1965 and is now retired. He is the author of The Activity of Philosophy and At the Core: The Seeds of Love and Hope.
Dale Westphal developed one of the first courses in the United States in Environmental Ethics. He was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Western Michigan University and is now retired.
Environmental ethics is the discipline that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman contents. My Father (Fred Westphal), and my Uncle, (Dale (Westphal) compiled this book over 14 years ago and it is more relevant now than ever. With the current evidence of Climate Change we can see how we should have taken notice when these essays were written. Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, has awoken the public to the hazards surrounding Global Warming. Al Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, contributed the first essay in this book and It was originally printed for the New Republic magazine in 1989.
Authors Contributing to this book are:
Al Gore
Paul W. Taylor
Kenneth E. Goodpaster
Mark Sagoff
J. Baird Callicott
William Godfrey- Smith(William Grey)
Christopher D. Stone
Steven Kelman
William F. Baxter
Steven Kelman
Homes Rolton III
Peter Stinger
Tom Regan
J. Baird Callicott
Lilly-Marlene Russow
This book, Planet in Peril: Essays in Environmental Ethics, can still be found in new and used versions at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and several other sources on the Internet.
The current questioning of the relationship of human beings with the natural environment reflects on a widespread perception held in the 1960s. It was believed that the late 20th century would face a population crisis and serious environmental issues. This revolutionary type of thinking was the beginning of Environmental Ethics and was largely started with papers by Lynn White (Historical Roots of Ecological Crisis) and Garette Hardin (The Tragedy of Commons). These papers caught the attention of certain philosophers and a large amount of them became very involved with environmental groups. Questions arose such as, "Do people have obligations to nature?" and "Do Animals have rights?" It was only a matter of time that courses were being taught around the world concerning Environmental Ethics.
Throughout the 1970s environmental journals arose such as Inquiry, the main philosophical journal that dealt with environmental ethics . In the 1980s many books were written, including Paul Taylor's Respect for Nature. Also, Earth Ethics Quarterly was founded to provide information to a broader audience. The philosophical movement towards the environment had finally taken hold. By the 1990s the International Society for Environmental Ethics was founded.
Eric Westphal President, Blue Marble
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