scholarly journals Review: Ecopiety: Green Media and the Dilemma of Environmental Virtue

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (45) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Laberge
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Virtue

Reading Nature Religiously

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-188
Author(s):  
Nancy Menning
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Lectio Divina ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Essential Aspect ◽  
Environmental Virtue ◽  
To Come ◽  
Spiritual Reading

Our ability to live well depends not only on what we do, but also on who we are. With respect to human-land relationships, we need to become more virtuous. And virtue is cultivated through practice. This paper transforms classical spiritual reading practices into a means of cultivating environmental virtue. Lectio divina is a longstanding practice for reading scripture religiously, motivated by a desire to come to a deeper understanding of and richer relationship with the sacred dimensions of experience. I describe an adaptation of lectio divina suitable for reading nature religiously and offer two illustrations. By reading nature religiously, we may develop environmental virtues, becoming more attentive, more thoughtful, more committed, more reverent, and more humble as we encounter the natural world. This model of a practice for cultivating environmental virtue enriches an essential aspect of environmental ethics, enhancing our prospects for attaining human and ecological flourishing.

Relationality, Reciprocity, and Flourishing in an African Landscape

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hannis ◽  
Sian Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Environmental Virtue ◽  
Environmental Virtue Ethics

The chapter considers the environmental ethics underlying certain practices and beliefs observed in the course of field research with primarily ||Khao-a Dama people in west Namibia. ||Khao-a Dama perspectives embody a type of “relational environmental ethics” that refracts anthropocentric/ecocentric dichotomies, and is characterized by respect for, and reciprocity with, agency and intentionality as located in entities beyond the human (ancestors, spirits, animals, healing plants and rain). The chapter connects this worldview with contemporary environmental virtue ethics, arguing that it is compatible with a theoretical framework of “ecological eudaimonism” as a fitting response to a complex contemporary world of “wicked” environmental problems.

Transforming Genius into Practical Power

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Russell C. Powell ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
The Political ◽  
John Muir ◽  
The Public ◽  
Personal Character ◽  
Environmental Virtue ◽  
Similar Strategy ◽  
Environmental Virtue Ethics ◽  
Positive Outlook

John Muir can be interpreted to have employed a similar strategy in his earliest conservation advocacy writings as the strategy Ralph Waldo Emerson employed to overcome the public futility of his personal ideals. Like Emerson, Muir came to offset the despair he felt at the political impotence of his conscience with a positive outlook on his potential to embody his subjective ideals both in his personal character and in his contributions to concrete forms of social practice. Muir thus can be shown to have standing in the environmental virtue ethics tradition by dint of his appreciation for the necessity of virtuous political participation in movements for social reform.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document