Book Prospectus for

Natural Sentiments: Adam Smith and Environmental Ethics

by Patrick R. Frierson

      This book offers a detailed application of Adam Smith’s moral philosophy to environmental ethics.  I show how Smith’s sentimentalist moral theory in A Theory of Moral Sentiments provides a compelling basis for an (ecocentric) environmental ethic.[1]  My project requires showing the distinctiveness of Smith’s sympathy-based account of propriety, and in particular showing how, from the standpoint of environmental ethics, Smith’s account is different from and superior to Hume’s.  Throughout, I avoid the temptation to look simply Smith’s explicit views about animals, nature, or the environment, although I am attentive to these explicit views.  Instead, I develop a Smithian environmental ethic from the ground up, using his Theory of Moral Sentiments to show how Smith’s emphasis on human attitudes as the primary object of moral evaluation and his specific sympathy-based approach to evaluating those attitudes provides a new and rich foundation for environmental ethics.  I illustrate this new approach with discussions of the nature of Smithian environmental ethics in general, Smithian resources for responding to concerns about relativism in (environmental) ethics, a Smithian notion of intrinsic value, and other areas.  Finally, in the last three chapters of the book, I turn from Smith’s moral theory in A Theory of Moral Sentiments to his Wealth of Nations.  Rather than rehashing the traditional “Adam Smith problem,” I apply insights from The Wealth of Nations to help transform the environmental ethic developed in the first part of the book into specific advice about environmentally responsible economic and political behavior.

This book fits into three growing trends in contemporary philosophy.  First, there is a growing interest in alternatives to traditional deontological and utilitarian approaches in ethical theory.  With his prioritizing of virtue and sentiment over rational principles, and with his moral particularism, Adam Smith fits into several of the most promising trends in contemporary ethics.[2]  Second, Adam Smith has experienced a recent revival in moral philosophy.[3]  Finally, environmental philosophy is becoming an increasingly important sub-field in philosophy, both for sociopolitical reasons – because environmental problems are getting more acute – and for philosophical ones – because philosophical discourse in environmental ethics is becoming more nuanced and sophisticated.[4]

But this work also stands in a class all its own.  Within mainstream normative ethics, environmental issues are beginning to enter more prominently as illustrations and concerns, but they are still not dominant foci of new approaches to ethical theory.  Within Adam Smith scholarship, environmental concerns enter, if at all, only in the context of Smithian economic models and their relation to environmental politics.  And with the possible exceptions of Spinoza and Deep Ecology: Challenging Traditional Approaches to Environmentalism (Eccy de Jonge, Ashgate Publishing: 2004), there have been few books in environmental ethics that explicitly look to detailed examination of the history of ethics as a substantial project within environmental ethics.[5]  One result of this triple-blindness is that no one has developed an account of environmental ethics that has the distinctive features of the Smithian account developed here.  By putting a detailed scholarly study of Adam Smith to use for the development of an environmental ethic, I develop a unique environmental ethic, one that (for example) utilizes sympathy in a way hitherto unknown within environmental ethics.  And I have opened scholarly avenues of Smith study that other Smith scholars have not explored, such as an account of the wide domain of sympathy in Smith and a Smithian account of intrinsic value.  Natural Sentiments provides new perspectives for both environmental philosophers and Smith scholars, all the while articulating and defending a distinctive and compelling new approach in normative ethics generally.

 

Book Outline

1.  Introduction.  The introduction lays out the importance of environmental ethics in the world today and puts this book in a broader context of the value of turning to the history of ethics for resources in developing normative backgrounds for contemporary ethical problems.  I introduce Smith, first by showing why he is an unlikely candidate for environmental ethics – his human-centeredness, his pro-growth economic theory, etc. – but then by briefly highlighting some of the features of his theory that are particularly valuable for environmental ethics.  I briefly situate the theory to be developed in the book in the context of other theories in environmental ethics, and I provide a brief outline of the book as a whole.

2.  Towards a Smithian Environmental Ethic.  This chapter summarizes Adam Smith’s moral theory, as that theory is articulated in A Theory of Moral Sentiments.  I focus on those features of the theory that are most relevant to developing an ethical approach to the environment, and I use Thomas Hill’s “Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving the Natural Environment”[6] to provide a framework for showing how Smith enables a rich and robust account of proper environmental attitudes (or virtues).  Here I highlight the distinction between Hume’s ethics and Smith’s.  In particular, I show that the most natural way to develop a Humean environmental ethic would involve extending sympathy beyond human beings.  For Smith, by contrast, one need not extend sympathy beyond humans to judge certain attitudes towards nature as improper, and this frees Smith’s environmental ethics from difficult challenges that face broadly Humean approaches to environmental ethics (such as Callicott’s).  This chapter also highlights Smith’s particularism, the role of the impartial spectator, Smith’s emphasis on attitudes, and some of the nuances of his account.  Throughout, I emphasize how these features support environmental ethics.

3Enriching Smith’s Environmental Ethic: Custom and General Rules.  In this chapter, I turn to two additional features of Smith’s moral theory, his discussion of the role of custom and his account of general rules.  Both of these features are part of a broader Smithian articulation of the nature of the impartial spectator, but they appear here in order to help me address the important potential problem of ethical relativism.  First, Smith’s discussion of the role of custom is used to show how differences of opinion between people about environmental ethics do not preclude the possibility of a Smithian ethic.  In this context, I apply Smith’s account of custom to thinking about debates over whether eating meat is morally acceptable, and I argue that while Smith does not give a straightforward algorithm for solving these sorts of debates, he carefully lays a series of considerations to be taken into account and some general strategies for resolving disagreement.  Second, Smith’s discussion of general rules helps address potential conflicts between the sentiments of self-deceived “persons principally concerned” and the more universal sentiments of impartial spectators.  Showing how general rules help correct for the influence of self-deception in deliberation about humans’ involvement with nature not only makes Smith a stronger resource for environmental ethics, but it highlights the advantages of Smith’s innovative union of universal deontological rules with a particularist virtue ethics focused on proper feelings and attitudes.

4Sympathy with Nature.  Chapters two and three develop the overall framework of a Smithian account according to which certain attitudes towards nature are morally proper and others are not.  Importantly, that account does not depend upon nature having relevant interests, nor upon any human capacity to sympathize with nature.  Nonetheless, a Smithian environmental ethic will be richer if sympathy with nature is possible.  This is especially important because duties of justice towards others depend in part upon the capacity for a spectator to feel sympathy with those others.  Thus duties of justice to nature depend upon sympathy with nature.  This chapter argues for both the importance of sympathy with nature and the possibility of that sympathy.  With respect to the latter, I appeal to Smith’s account of sympathy with the dead to develop a general theory of the domain of Smithian sympathy, according to which it is possible to feel sympathy with things – including nature itself – that do not themselves have feelings of any kind.

5.  Smithian Intrinsic Value and the Value of Nature.  In this chapter, I turn to one of the hot-button issues in environmental ethics, the role of intrinsic value.  The arguments of chapters two through four did not depend upon ascribing intrinsic value to nature.  Rather, I showed that Smith provides a way of morally evaluating attitudes towards nature directly.  Here, however, I show how one can go from this normative account of attitudes to a compelling account of intrinsic value.  This approach to intrinsic value (with important parallels in Kant, Brentano, and – more recently – philosophers such as Korsgaard, Nussbaum, and Darwall) makes claims about intrinsic value derivative from claims about the propriety of human attitudes.  It thus provides a way to bridge recent divides between environmental pragmatists such as Lori Gruen and Gary Norton, who want to focus on human actions and attitudes, and intrinsic value theorists such as J. Baird Callicott and Holmes Rolston III, who want an account of intrinsic value in nature.

6.  Meta-standards in Adam Smith and Environmental Ethics.  This chapter looks to Smith’s account of the relationship between his non-utilitarian ethical theory and various utilitarian justifications of that theory.  I show how Smith can both free ethical judgments themselves from utilitarianism and at the same time give utilitarian considerations an important meta-role in his ethics.  Because Smith’s utilitarianism is anthropocentrist (or at least focused solely on sentient beings) but his ethical theory is not (as argued in chapters one through five), this integration of utilitarian meta-standards provides a Smithian way of reconciling anthropocentric arguments with an environmental ethic that is broadly ecocentric.  I illustrate the value of this approach in the context of the “land ethic” defended by Aldo Leopold and J. Baird Callicott.

7.  The Wealth of Nations and Free Market Environmentalism.  In chapter seven, I turn from A Theory of Moral Sentiments to The Wealth of Nations.  First, against some recent attempts (e.g. Fleischacker and Evensky) to downplay Smith’s emphasis on the free market, I briefly defend the traditional view of Smith as a free market economist.  I then argue that free market economics, rather than being a hindrance to environmental ethics, presents resources that can facilitate environmental preservation.  However, there are several problems with the free market, problems that lead markets to systematically undervalue nature.  I argue in this chapter that Smith confronted similar market failures in The Wealth of Nations, and I show – now bringing Smith closer to the accounts of Fleischacker and Evensky – how his proposed solutions to these problems can provide valuable models for refining free market environmentalism.

8.  The Land Ethic in The Wealth of Nations.  This chapter starts from the fact that Smith’s Wealth of Nations, although it continually refers to the wealth of nations as flowing from “the land and labor of a nation,” focuses almost entirely on the role of labor (see, e.g., II.iii.32).  The chapter discusses those passages in which Smith does emphasize the role of the land and a responsible relationship to it, including, for example, his account of the deterioration of land in the American colonies (I.xi.l), his treatment of fisheries and mines (e.g. I.xi.m), his preference for small scale agriculture over other forms of economic development (II.v.12, IV.ii.21, cf. IV.ix), and his discussions of entails, in which Smith endorses “an equal right to the earth” of “every successive generation” (III.ii.6).  Starting from these explicit discussions, I turn to Smith’s identification of “labourers and labouring cattle” as equally worthy of “wages” in a market economy (I.vi.11) as a springboard into a Smithian (though not Smith’s) account of “natural capital” that would take the long term productivity of the land as of equal importance as increasing the productivity of labor.  This approach gives rise to a robust Smithian account of sustainable development, one that could be made even more conservation-friendly by applying Smith’s account of education – a non-market-driven good for laborers – as a model for preserving some sort of non-market-driven goods for land.

9Smithian Rhetoric and the Science of Ecology.  This chapter turns to Smith’s rhetoric and philosophy of science, attending to his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres and histories of astronomy and physics, but focusing on the way his rhetoric and scientific method actually plays out in The Wealth of Nations.  I argue that Smith’s approach in The Wealth of Nations provides an excellent model for a scientifically rigorous but ethically responsible approach to the science of ecology.  Kristin Schrader-Frechette has pointed out the tension between ecology’s “two main methodological branches (quantitative and deductive, or ‘hard’ ecology, and qualitative or ‘soft’ ecology).”[7]  I suggest that Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations provides a model for a particularly successful way of bridging these branches.  Drawing especially from Samuel Fleischacker, I show how the “highly literate narrative form” of the Wealth of Nations – its softness – works together with its presentation of “just the facts”– a deliberate hardness – towards a deep moral purpose.[8]  I show how Smith’s promotes moral consciousness through direct moral exhortation (rare but explicit), appeals to self-interest on the part of the powerful (frequent and explicit), and especially through a sort of indirect appeals to benevolence by means of vivid imaginative description of the life of the poor (frequent and subtle).  I show how all three modes of moral analysis, but especially the last two, provide valuable models for a scientifically respectable but also morally efficacious ecology, bridging the gap between soft and hard.

10.  Conclusion.  I draw the book to a close with some final observations about implications and limitations of the account I have presented here and suggestions about further directions to take this Smithian approach to environmental ethics.  I also use this conclusion to reiterate the value of turning to the history of ethics for guidance in applied ethics.  Though the book focuses on Adam Smith and environmental ethics, this sort of rapprochement would prove valuable with different moral philosophers (Stoics, Bishop Butler, Mencius, or Kierkegaard) and different areas of applied ethics (medical, business, engineering, etc.).  This book, it is my hope, will be a model for similar studies in the future.

Outstanding Features List

The book is the first of its kind.  It is at once a scholarly work on Adam Smith’s moral philosophy and an original theory in environmental ethics.  My account of Adam Smith’s moral philosophy is relatively straightforward, although my emphasis on applying Adam Smith to environmental ethics is both original in its own right and leads to innovative readings of Smith, such as the claim that Smith can allow for proper sympathy with non-sentient creatures (vs. Griswold), the development (for the first time) of a detailed Smithian account of intrinsic value, and unprecedented attention to the role of the land in Smith’s Wealth of Nations.  Because I draw from a resource in the history of ethics that has not been previously applied to environmental ethics,[9] my account also represents a new direction in environmental ethics.  Smith provides a rigorous foundation for a sophisticated environmental virtue ethic; a much-needed middle ground between intrinsic value theorists and environmental pragmatists; a nuanced, pragmatic, and ethically responsible free market approach to environmental problems; and potential inspiration for a scientifically credible and morally inspiring methodology in ecology.

Apparatus

I do not plan to include photographs, line drawings, glossaries, or appendices in the book.  Cases, questions, and problems arise in the context of the argument, but will not be set apart in any special sections.  I plan to have references in footnotes and a detailed bibliography at the end of the book.

Competition

As noted above, there is no direct competition for this book.  To the best of my knowledge, there are no books that apply Adam Smith’s philosophy to environmental ethics, and virtually none that apply scholarly studies of the history of ethics to applied ethics.  That said, there are two general areas in which this book will compete with others: Adam Smith scholarship and contemporary environmental ethics.

Within Smith scholarship, there have been a series of recent book-length studies of Smith, including Charles Griswold, Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge: 1999); Athol Fitzgibbons, Adam Smith’s System of Liberty, Wealth, and Virtue (Oxford: 1995), Samuel Fleischacker, On Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (Princeton: 2004); Vivienne Brown, Adam Smith’s Discourse (Routledge: 1994); Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments (Harvard: 2001); and James Otteson, Adam Smith’s Marketplace of Life (Cambridge: 2002).  All of these are very good books, both in terms of explaining Smith’s views and defending them.  But in all cases, they suffer to some degree from the fact that Smith’s own moral theory, as articulated in A Theory of Moral Sentiments, is so rich and clear.  This makes virtually all secondary sources on Smith (even, to some extent, my own) pale by comparison with Smith’s own work in terms of richness of detail and elegance of argument.  This is not to deny the importance of these books, and all do articulate and defend new and important ideas about Smith.  But my book has an important advantage over these recent treatments in that I am not simply trying to explain Smith’s moral (and political/economic) theory for a contemporary audience.  I apply Smith’s ideas to a central set of problems that Smith did not consider (at least not in any detail), those involving humans’ relationship to nature.  This allows (even forces) me to explore subjects that might not otherwise arise in Smith, such as how far one can take the propriety of sympathy with the dead that is an important part of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, or the role of the “land” in the “land and labor of a nation.”  The result is that, even from the standpoint of Smith scholarship, my account of Smith makes a new, unique, and (I think) compelling contribution to understanding the meaning of Smith’s position in his own day and its relevance in ours.

Within environmental philosophy, it is difficult to predict which single book or set of books will most compete with my own.   Gary Varner’s In Nature’s Interests (Oxford: 1998), J. Baird Callicott’s work (including In Defense of the Land Ethic and Beyond the Land Ethic), John O’Neill’s Ecology, Policy, and Politics (Routledge: 1993), and literally dozens of other works will compete with this one.  The Smithian account of environmental ethics that I develop is perhaps closest to those of J. Baird Callicott.  By focusing on Adam Smith in particular, however, and especially by showing how he provides a better resource for environmental ethics than Hume, my approach to the environment ends up diverging substantially from Callicott’s, not least by putting issues of intrinsic value – which take center stage in Callicott’s work – at the periphery of my own account.  Moreover, although Callicott makes extensive use of historical antecedents to the land ethic he develops, Callicott is not a historian of philosophy, and my book, in contrast to his work, will mark a new high point in the application to environmental ethics of the best recent scholarship in the history of philosophy.

Natural Sentiments also has a great deal in common with the recently emerging trend towards environmental virtue ethics, best illustrated by the collection, Environmental Virtue Ethics (ed. Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro, Rowman & Littlefield: 2005).[10]  Environmental virtue ethics is still a very young approach in environmental ethics.  As Ronald Sandler says in his introduction to Environmental Virtue Ethics:

Although work on environmental virtue has become increasingly visible in recent years, environmental virtue ethics remains a relatively underappreciated and underdeveloped aspect of environmental ethics….  This collection is . . . intended . . . to provide an impetus and orientation for further work.  (12)

So far, the only book length attempt to work out an environmental virtue ethics is Philip Cafaro’s Thoreau’s Living Ethics: Walden and the Pursuit of Virtue (University of Georgia Press: 2004).  But Cafaro focuses on Thoreau, who is no doubt an obvious resource for environmental reflection, but one with a very different ethical theory from Smith’s.  The ethical theory developed in Natural Sentiments is thus a kind of environmental virtue ethics, but one that is substantially different from any recent approach to environmental ethics.  It will fit well into both the high level of interest in environmental ethics in general, and the increasing interest in environmental virtue ethics in particular.

At least as important as the specific substantive differences between the theory developed in my book and those of Cafaro, Callicott, and others, is my wholly different approach to seeking a rapprochement between environmental ethics and historical figures in ethics.  Rather than starting from well recognized environmentalists such as Thoreau (in the case of Cafaro) or Aldo Leopold (in the case of Callicott) and working back to a normative theory, I start with the philosophy of Adam Smith and work forward by thinking through the implications of this theory for humans’ relationships to nature.  This strategy of going from serious scholarly work in the history of ethics to concrete applications of ethical theory to contemporary problems is not unprecedented; Kantians such as Thomas Hill and Onora O’Neill, as well as Aristotelians such as Martha Nussbaum and Alasdair MacIntyre have been doing this for many years.  But this approach is virtually unknown within environmental ethics, and no one has seriously applied Adam Smith outside of the context of broadly socio-economic problems.  This book thus pushes the intersection of the history of ethics and applied ethics in a new and (I hope) inspiring way.

Market Considerations

The Primary Market

  1. This is primarily a scholarly book, intended for use by scholars in the history of ethics (especially Adam Smith), environmental philosophers, and philosophers studying ethics generally.  It will be particularly helpful for those seeking to see how a historical normative theory applies to contemporary applied ethics.  So far, I have already had one portion of the book accepted for a collection aimed at Adam Smith scholars – New Voices on Adam Smith (ed. Eric Schliesser and Leon Montes, Routledge: forthcoming) – and another accepted for publication in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, which suggests a broad appeal for this sort of work among philosophers.  I have presented most of chapters 2—4 at meetings of the International Society for Environmental Ethics, suggesting that the book will get a good reception among environmental ethicists.  And I presented most of chapters 2—3 at a History of Economics Society Meeting (where another press solicited me for a prospectus), suggesting that the book will have appeal among economists.  The book (especially chapter 9) is also likely to have appeal among conservation biologists and ecologists.  The book will likely have some popular appeal as well, for two reasons.  First, academic environmental ethics has long been of interest to non-academic environmentalists, and this book will be no exception.  Second, because of his role in the foundations of economics, and especially of classically liberal economic theory, Adam Smith has a substantial following and there continues to be popular interest in his ideas.  The idea of applying Smith’s economic theories to the environment will fit well with recent neo-liberal attempts to think through a free market approach to environmentalism.  An application of Smithian moral philosophy to the environment would be provocative and attract at least some popular attention.
  1. As noted, the book is not a textbook, but it would be suitable for upper level undergraduate or graduate seminars in environmental ethics, Adam Smith or the Scottish Enlightenment, and ethical theory more generally.  Because Adam Smith is taught in both economics and philosophy courses, this course might be used in seminars in either discipline as a creative application of Smith to contemporary problems.  Portions of the book might be licensed for use in environmental studies textbooks, and the book might even be used as a text (among others) in introductory environmental ethics courses.  At present, I am aware of at least one instructor (Monica Lee Garrek, at the University of Kansas) who has used draft versions of chapters 2-4 in her environmental ethics course at least twice, alongside readings by J. Baird Callicott, Holmes Rolston III, Stephen J. Gould, and Peter Singer.  As she said about the papers the second time that she used them, “Last semester the students really enjoyed your papers and wished we had read them earlier in the semester (we read them the last week of class and you know how that goes).  I think they fit in nicely with the Rolston papers and the Gould paper and are a good segue into animal ethics.  So, I appreciate your letting me use them.”  This bodes well for the future of the book in a classroom setting.
  1. The best way to reach the market for this scholarly book would be advertising in philosophy and economics journals (e.g. The Journal of Philosophy, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Environmental Ethics, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, etc.) and at related conferences (e.g., at the American Philosophical Association, the History of Economics Society, and meetings of the International Society of Environmental Ethics, at all of which conferences I have presented some of this material, as well as other conferences).   It will also be important to ensure that the book is reviewed widely, including especially at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews and in journals in philosophy (especially history of philosophy and ethics), environmental studies, economics, the history of economics, and 18th century studies.  My own presentation of material related to the book at relevant conferences – perhaps even in an “Author Meets Critics” session of the APA – will help raise publicity for the book.

Status of the Work

At present (January, 2006), the book is about 65% complete.  Chapter two and the first half of chapter three are complete in the form of an article forthcoming in New Voices on Adam Smith (ed. Eric Schliesser and Leon Montes, Routledge: 2006).  Chapter four is complete in the form of an article coming out in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly in 2006.  The second half of chapter three is complete in draft form.  I still need to revise these chapters (2—4) into part of a coherent whole, but this process will be relatively straightforward.  Chapters five and six are complete in draft form, and chapter six has been submitted to Environmental Ethics.  Chapter seven is about half finished, and I have begun research relating to chapters 8-10, but I have not yet begun to write these chapters.  Because I am on sabbatical through August of 2006, I anticipate being able to finish chapters seven through nine by the end of the summer of 2006.  By the end of 2006, I expect to have a complete manuscript.

 

I expect that the total length of the book will be approximately 200 pages, not including notes.  This will be broken down by chapters as follows: Chapter 1 (6,000 words, 2,000 for notes), Chapters 2-3 (15,000 words, 5,000 words for notes), Chapter 4 (15,000 words, 5,000 for notes), Chapter 5 (14,000/5,000), Chapter 6 (10,000/3,000), Chapter 7 (15,000/5,000), Chapter 8 (10,000/3,000), chapter 9 (10,000/3,000), Conclusion (4,000).

I do not plan to include photographs or line drawings.  (I may end up needing at least one or two graphs or charts for chapters 7-9, but I aim to avoid this.)

 

The only material I will use that requires permission is my own previously published work.  The journals and volumes in which I have had work published or to which I have submitted it have assured me that permission to reprint my own work in my own book will not be a problem, but I have not yet started the process of getting official permissions.

Sample Chapters

Chapter 4 of this book will appear in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly in the near future, and it is currently the most polished chapter of the book.  I have included a copy of that sample chapter.  I also include a rough draft of chapter 2, to which I still need to add a discussion of the normative force of Smith’s apparently descriptive account of moral sentiments.  I can make more material available upon request.

Reviews

Because my project crosses between Smith scholarship, contemporary ethical theory, and applied ethics, I would recommend having reviewers from each of these areas.  Stephen Darwall is an excellent contemporary ethical theorist with historical sensitivity, so would be a very good reviewer.  One might also look to philosophers such as Martha Nussbaum, Simon Blackburn, Elizabeth Anderson, or anyone on the editorial board of the journal Ethics for this perspective (though many will be less historically attuned than Darwall and Nussbaum).  Samuel Fleischacker is one of the top new Smith scholars in the country, but one might also look to Charles Griswold, Knud Haakonsen, James Otteson, Leon Montes, Vivienne Brown, Emma Rothschild, Jerry Evesky, or others for this perspective.  Finally, J. Baird Callicott is the environmental philosopher who most influences my approach to environmental ethics, so he would be particularly valuable as a reader, but one might also look to other environmental ethicists, such as Clare Palmer, John O’Neill, Gary Varner, Dale Jamieson, Holmes Rolston, III, or others.

 

Stephen Darwall

2227 Angell Hall

Department of Philosophy

University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1003
(734) 764-6285

sdarwall@umich.edu

 

Samuel Fleischacker

Department of Philosophy, M/C 267
1407 University Hall
University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL 60607

tel: (312) 413-1026

sfleisch@uic.edu

 

J. Baird Callicott

Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies
P.O. Box 310920
University of North Texas
Denton, TX 76203-0920
(940) 565 2266
callicott@unt.edu

 

Clare Palmer (President Elect of the International Society for Environmental Ethics)
Centre for Philosophy
Institute for Environment, Philosophy, and Public Policy
Furness College
Lancaster University
Lancaster, UK LA1 4YG

+44(0)1524 592501
Email: c.palmer@lancaster.ac.uk

Author Background

My CV is attached.  With respect to this book in particular, my primary strength is with respect to the history of ethics in general and Adam Smith in particular.  My first book – Freedom and Anthropology in Kant’s Moral Philosophy – is a detailed work in the history of ethics, and I currently serve on the editorial board of the journal Studies in the History of Ethics.  Although this first book is on Kant, I have also published works on the ethics of Descartes, Schleiermacher, and will soon publish two articles on Smith and environmental ethics.  The publication of these two articles – in very different contexts – bodes well for the reception of the book.  The fact that I have presented this material at meetings of the International Society of Environmental Ethics, the American Philosophical Association, the Northwest Philosophy Conference, and the History of Economics Society meeting speaks well both of the interest in this sort of project and in my competence to carry out the project well.  (Incidentally, shortly after delivering a version of chapter two of this book to the International Society of Environmental Ethics, I was invited to review (and did review) Environmental Virtue Ethics for the journal Environmental Values.  And immediately after presenting a version of the same chapter at the History of Economics Society, an editor from Edward Elgar approached me for a book prospectus.)



[1] That is, an environmental ethic that is not solely centered on the goods of human beings or other sentient creatures.

[2] For an emphasis on virtue and sentiment, see e.g. Rosalind Hurtshouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: 1999), Simon Blackburn, Ruling Passions (Oxford: 1998); Alan Gibbard Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (Harvard: 1990), and recent work by Stephen Darwall, Martha Nussbaum, and others.  For a recent turn to moral particularism, see Jonathan Dancy, Ethics without Principles (Oxford: 2004) and Moral Particularism (ed. Brad Hooker and Margaret Olivia Little (Oxford: 2001)

[3] Cf. Charles Griswold, Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge: 1999); Samuel Fleischacker, On Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (Princeton: 2004); Vivienne Brown, Adam Smith’s Discourse (Routledge: 1994); Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments (Harvard: 2001); and James Otteson, Adam Smith’s Marketplace of Life (Cambridge: 2002).

[4] Some evidence of this increasing importance is the rise in academic positions for those working on environmental ethics, as well as the rise in the number of academic journals devoted to environmental ethics (from none in 1979 to at least five today).  Book series at major presses, such as Oxford’s Environmental Ethics and Science Policy Series, are another sign of the increasing importance of academic environmental ethics.

[5] This is not to say that environmental ethicists do not derive inspiration from the history of ethics.  J. Baird Callicott appeals to and is inspired by Hume, Eugene Hargrove and John O’Neill draw from Aristotle, and Paul Taylor’s Respect for Nature is, at least very broadly, Kantian.  But these authors are at best inspired by their respective influences.  They are not really engaged in detailed scholarly study of the history of ethics in its own right, and thus their application of the history of ethics to environmental ethics does not reflect the full richness of the theories from which they draw, nor is it particularly appealing to historians of philosophy.

[6] In Environmental Ethics 5(1983): 211-24.

[7] Kristin Shrader-Frechette, “Ecology,” in A Companion to Environmental Philosophy, ed. Dale Jamieson (Blackwell: 2001), p. 304.

[8] Samuel Fleischacker, On Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (Princeton: 2004), pp. 49, 52, 198, 206f., 269-70 (quotes are from 270 and 52).  For one important contrasting view, cf. Vivienne Brown, Adam Smith’s Discourse (Routledge: 1994).  Brown reads Smith as much more amoral than Fleischacker does, and I follow Fleischacker here, offering further support for his reading and applying it to ecology.

[9] The only exceptions to this are J. Baird Callicott, whose appeals to Smith almost all conflate Smith’s moral theory with Hume’s, and one short essay by John Barkdull (“How Green is the Theory of Moral Sentiments?” in Land, Value, Community: Callicott and Environmental Philosophy.  Ed. Wayne Ouderkirk and Jim Hill, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002).

[10] See my review of this book forthcoming in Environmental Values.