Ebook: The wild and the wicked: on nature and human nature

Many ethicists and political advocates believe that the argument for environmentalism is simple: demonstrate that nature is valuable and obligations to protect the environment will follow. This approach to environmentalism often appears as a kind of consequentialism. This work, though sympathetic with environmentalism, argues against this consequentialist approach. It takes as its initiating presupposition the opposite stance: that nature can at times be quite disvaluable. In assuming this stance, it aims to carve a sharp distinction between events and actions, fundamentally splitting open the idea that actions are taken for reasons.