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The Move From Is To Good In Environmental Ethics, John Nolt Jul 2009

The Move From Is To Good In Environmental Ethics, John Nolt

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Philosophy

Moves from is to good—that is, principles that link fact to value—are fundamental to environmental ethics. The upshot is fourfold: (1) for nonanthropogenic goods, only those moves from is to good are defensible which conceive goodness as goodness for biotic entities; (2) goodness for nonsentient biotic entities is contribution to their autopoietic functioning; (3) biotic entities also function “exopoietically” to benefit related entities, and these exopoietic benefits are on average greater than their own goods; and (4) the most general is-to-good principles that are defensible (and hence the ones of greatest importance for environmental ethics) concern a realm of nonanthropogenic …


The Move From Is To Good In Environmental Ethics, John Nolt Jan 2009

The Move From Is To Good In Environmental Ethics, John Nolt

John Nolt

Moves from is to good—that is, principles that link fact to value—are fundamental to environmental ethics. The upshot is fourfold: (1) for nonanthropogenic goods, only those moves from is to good are defensible which conceive goodness as goodness for biotic entities; (2) goodness for nonsentient biotic entities is contribution to their autopoietic functioning; (3) biotic entities also function “exopoietically” to benefit related entities, and these exopoietic benefits are on average greater than their own goods; and (4) the most general is-to-good principles that are defensible (and hence the ones of greatest importance for environmental ethics) concern a realm of nonanthropogenic …