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PRIVATE PROPERTY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS:
Author(s) -
HALE BENJAMIN
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
metaphilosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1467-9973
pISSN - 0026-1068
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9973.2008.00550.x
Subject(s) - property (philosophy) , headway , value (mathematics) , private property , sociology , epistemology , work (physics) , law and economics , information ethics , applied ethics , environmental ethics , political science , law , computer science , engineering , philosophy , mechanical engineering , machine learning , simulation
This article argues that teachers of environmental ethics must more aggressively entertain questions of private property in their work and in their teaching. To make this case, it first introduces the three primary positions on property: occupation arguments, labor theory of value arguments, and efficiency arguments. It then contextualizes these arguments in light of the contemporary U.S. wise‐use movement, in an attempt to make sense of the concerns that motivate wise‐use activists, and also to demonstrate how intrinsic value arguments miss the mark. Finally, it offers some suggestions about further directions for environmental ethics, reasoning that there is a good deal of headway to be gained for environmental ethics by accepting that nature can be owned as property, but nevertheless engaging the idea of private property critically.