Research & Publs
Samples from A Theory of General Ethics: Human Relationships, Nature, and the Built Environment (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006).
This chapter introduces the idea of a General Ethics, by which I mean a single integrated approach to ethics that encompasses the realms of interhuman ethics, the ethics of the natural environment, and the ethics of the human-constructed (or built) environment, and explains why we need such an ethics.
This chapter provides an overview of what I see as the outstanding problems for interhuman ethics, the ethics of the natural environment, and the ethics of the human-constructed (or built) environment - and, thus, for a General Ethics. Please note for referencing purposes that this version of Chapter 2 is taken from a slightly - but only slightly - modifed self-contained version that was published as "Human Relationships, Nature, and the Built Environment: Problems that Any General Ethics Must Be Able to Address", in Jules Pretty, Andrew Ball, Ted Benton, Julia Guivant, David Lee, David Orr, Max Pfeffer and Hugh Ward, eds. Sage Handbook on Environment and Society (London: Sage, 2007), pp. 107-123.
Sample papers on (a) more recent work on General Ethics and the theory of reponsive cohesion, (b) some general environmental philosophical matters, and (c) some earlier work on Deep Ecology
(a) More recent work on General Ethics and the theory of reponsive cohesion
Warwick Fox, "The New Ethics: Ethics in a Gaian Context," in Jules Pretty, ed., Environment Vol. 1: Thinking and Knowing about the Environment and Nature, "Key Issues for the Twenty-First Century" series (London: Sage, 2006), pp. 82-95. [HERE]
Warwick Fox, "Responsive Cohesion: Thinking in Context," Resurgence (No. 241) March/April 2007, pp. 22-25. [HERE]
Warwick Fox, "Ethics, Architecture, Responsive Cohesion, and the Transition to a More Habitable Future," Paper presented to the "Ethics and the Built Environment 2009" conference, Nottingham University, 9-11 September 2009. [HERE]
Warwick Fox, "Foundations of a General Ethics: Selves, Sentient Beings, and Other Responsively Cohesive Structures," in Anthony O'Hear, ed., Philosophy and the Environment, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement: 69 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 47-66. [HERE]
(b) Some general environmental philosophical matters
Warwick Fox, "What Does the Recognition of Intrinsic Value Entail?" The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy 10 (1993): 101. [HERE]
Warwick Fox, "Human Empire," Resurgence, September/October 1997, pp. 10-12. [HERE]
Warwick Fox, "Environmental Ethics," in The Encyclopedia of Population, eds., Paul Demeny and Geoffrey McNicoll (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2003) pp. 292-96. [HERE]
Warwick Fox, "Do We Need Nature? Getting to Grips with a Doubly Misleading Question," Think, Summer, 2005, pp. 79-85. [HERE]
Warwick Fox, "Architecture Ethics," in Jan-Kyrre Berg Olsen, Stig Andur Pedersen, and Vincent F. Hendricks, eds., A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), pp. 387-91. [HERE]
(c) Some earlier work on Deep Ecology
You'll find my main statement on deep ecology in my book Toward a Transpersonal Ecology: Developing New Foundations for Environmentalism (US reprint edition: New York: The State University of New York Press, 1995; UK and European reprint edition: Totnes, Devon: Green Books, 1995). Since I do not have much in the way of pdfs of published versions of my papers from this earlier period of my work (which, in its intense form, covers roughly 1984-1995), I'm afraid you'll have to locate these in the journals, edited collections, and encyclopedias listed in my full list of publications.
That said, I can offer a couple of things here. First, you'll find an analysis (which you won't find in Toward a Transpersonal Ecology) of the intellectual origins of the depth theme in Arne Naess's work - and, thus, a deeper look at where the "deep" bit comes from in Naess's notion of "deep ecology" - in the following paper:
Warwick Fox, "Intellectual Origins of the 'Depth' Theme in the Philosophy of Arne Naess." The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy 9 (1992): 68-73. [HERE]
And you'll find a short summary take on deep ecology in the following, which, as it happens, derives from a talk I gave to a general audience in glorious spring sunshine on the actual site of Plato's Academy in Athens back in 1998 (ah, what a day):
Warwick Fox, "Deep Ecology and Virtue Ethics," Philosophy Now, April-May 2000, pp. 24-26. [HERE]
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