Holmes Rolston III
Colorado State University, Department of Philosophy, Faculty Member
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Bernard Rollin’s main concerns are domestic and research animals. Such animals have endured less suffering as a result of Rollin’s seminal work. Animals are of moral concern because they have conscious interests, or telos. Rollin’s use of... more
Bernard Rollin’s main concerns are domestic and research animals. Such animals have endured less suffering as a result of Rollin’s seminal work. Animals are of moral concern because they have conscious interests, or telos. Rollin’s use of telos is plausible though more specialized than usual. Rollin has theoretical or in-principle ideals that are unlikely to be accepted as current practice. In result he adopts more moderate moral principles. In the fair-contract, husbandry dimension of agriculture, the farmer takes care of the cows and pigs, recognizing their rights, and then eats them, or sells them to be eaten. He reaches a strange combination of kinship and chasm separating human and animal minds. Rollin’s account of any deeper environmental ethics for a biospheric Earth is unsatisfactory, any respect for life beyond sentience, especially his concepts of global ecosystems.
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Economics, Poverty, Consumption, Population Growth, Prosperity, and 3 moreAgenda, UNCED, and Sustainability
Events on Earth stand in marked contrast with events on other planets, such as the gases that swirl around Jupiter, or the winds that blow on Venus. On Earth, climatological and geomorphological processes continue in the Pleistocene... more
Events on Earth stand in marked contrast with events on other planets, such as the gases that swirl around Jupiter, or the winds that blow on Venus. On Earth, climatological and geomorphological processes continue in the Pleistocene period more or less like they did in the Precambrian. But Earth history is quite different because in biology — unlike physics, chemistry, geomorphology, or astronomy — something can be learned. Once upon a time, signals appeared! Where once there was matter, energy, and where these remain, there is information, symbolically encoding life. There is a new state of matter, neither liquid nor gaseous nor solid, but vital. With the passing of cold and warm fronts or the uplifting and eroding of mountains, there is no natural selection. Nothing is competing, nothing is surviving, reproducing, nothing has adapted fit. To come into being, to survive, an organism needs to gain, to use, to transmit relevant information. If we ourselves are to gain the information...
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The Christian faith is a religion for people. The twin commandments of biblical faith are to love God and neighbor, Israel is to be a holy people, a righteous nation; Jesus calls disciples to a more abundant life, who gather together into... more
The Christian faith is a religion for people. The twin commandments of biblical faith are to love God and neighbor, Israel is to be a holy people, a righteous nation; Jesus calls disciples to a more abundant life, who gather together into a church; and the principal focus of biblical faith is not nature, but culture. At the same time the Bible is full of constant reminders of the natural givens. The fauna is included within the covenant. "Behold I establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you" (Gen. 9.9-10). In modern terms, the covenant was both ecumenical and ecological. However, the ecological dimension is usually forgotten; recalling it is worth a sermon.
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The unfolding crises of mass extinction and climate change call for urgent action in response. To limit biodiversity losses and avert the worst effects of climate disruption, we must greatly expand nature protection while simultaneously... more
The unfolding crises of mass extinction and climate change call for urgent action in response. To limit biodiversity losses and avert the worst effects of climate disruption, we must greatly expand nature protection while simultaneously downsizing and transforming human systems. The conservation initiative Nature Needs Half (or Half Earth), calling for the conservation of half the Earth's land and seas, is commensurate with the enormous challenges we face. Critics have objected to this initiative as harboring hardship for people near protected areas and for failing to confront the growth economy as the main engine of global ecological destruction. In response to the first criticism, we affirm that conservation policies must be designed and implemented in collaboration with Indigenous and local communities. In response to the second criticism, we argue that protecting half the Earth needs to be complemented by downscaling and reforming economic life, humanely and gradually reduci...
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In Consecrating Science, Lisa Sideris argues that an anthropocentric and science‐based cosmology encourages human arrogance and diminishes a sense of wonder in human experience immersed in the natural world, as found in diverse cultural... more
In Consecrating Science, Lisa Sideris argues that an anthropocentric and science‐based cosmology encourages human arrogance and diminishes a sense of wonder in human experience immersed in the natural world, as found in diverse cultural and religious traditions. I agree with her that science elevated to a commanding worldview, scientism, is a common and contemporary mistake, to be deplored, a lame science. But I further argue that science has introduced us to the marvels of deep nature and vastly increased our human appreciation of nature as a wonderland at levels great and small. Sideris is right to fear consecrating science. She—and the humanists, sages, and saviors—need also to fear blindness to what science has to teach us about cosmogenesis and wonderland Earth.
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Religion, Sociology, Philosophy, Blindness, Science, and 7 moreHumanism, Anthropocentrism, Cosmogenesis, Scientism, Wonder, Mistake, and Zygon
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The question of technology versus nature must be set within the larger question of culture versus nature, as it is an intensified form of that more general issue. Technology involves artifacts, both in its etymology, from the Greek... more
The question of technology versus nature must be set within the larger question of culture versus nature, as it is an intensified form of that more general issue. Technology involves artifacts, both in its etymology, from the Greek tekhne, 'art' or 'skill,' and in its central idea, the body of ...
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Philosophy, Cybernetics, Natural History, Flesh, God, and 8 moreImmanence, Incarnation, Suffering, Grace, Spirit, Struggle, Deep Incarnation, and Cruciform
Environmental ethics has a future as long as there are moral agents on Earth with values at stake in their environment. Somewhat ironically, just when humans, with their increasing industry and development, seemed further and further from... more
Environmental ethics has a future as long as there are moral agents on Earth with values at stake in their environment. Somewhat ironically, just when humans, with their increasing industry and development, seemed further and further from nature, having more power to manage it, just when humans were more and more rebuilding their environments with their super technologies, the natural world emerged as a focus of ethical concern. Environmental alarms started with prophets such Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, John Muir, and David Brower, and have, over recent decades, become daily news. A massive Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, sponsored by the United Nations, involving over 1,300 experts from almost 100 nations, begins: "At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning. Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted " (Millennium Ecosyst...
Abstract. Both science and ethics are embedded in cultural tradi-tions where truths are shared through education; both need com-petent critics educated within such traditions. Education in both ought to be directed although moral... more
Abstract. Both science and ethics are embedded in cultural tradi-tions where truths are shared through education; both need com-petent critics educated within such traditions. Education in both ought to be directed although moral education demands levels of responsible agency that science education does not. Evolutionary science often carries an implicit or explicit understanding of who and what humans are, one which may not be coherent with the implicit or explicit human self-understanding in moral education. The latter in turn may not be coherent with classical human self-understandings. Moral education may enlighten and elevate the human nature that has evolved biologically.
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Science and conscience have a complex, elusive relationship and this is nowhere better illustrated than in the relationship between environmental science and environmental ethics. Some ecological descriptions are more or less laden with... more
Science and conscience have a complex, elusive relationship and this is nowhere better illustrated than in the relationship between environmental science and environmental ethics. Some ecological descriptions are more or less laden with values: order, stability, diversity, communities, interdependence, health, integrity, resilience, efficiency, flourishing. Examples from the Ecological Society of America and a sustainable biosphere, as this differs from sustainable development, advocated by the United Nations UNCED conference. Asking what is "vital" joins environmental science and environmental ethics
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Report on a trip to Siberia and Lake Baikal, with a focus on conservation biology, led by Russian scientists, and sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Riding the Trans-Siberian railway across its wildest... more
Report on a trip to Siberia and Lake Baikal, with a focus on conservation biology, led by Russian scientists, and sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Riding the Trans-Siberian railway across its wildest stretches and exploring the oldest and deepest lake on Earth, with 1,500 endemic species. What should Siberia be? Forever wild? Developed? Certainly, not further exploited and impoverished
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This book is a short, simplified version of Science and Religion: A Critical Survey, at http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37691, appropriate for youth.
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Includes covers, table of contents, and published critical notices.In the inaugural volume of the Perspectives in Biological Diversity Series, edited by Mary C. Pearl
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Includes bibliographical references (pages 71-73).We are now entering the Anthropocene Epoch - so runs a recent enthusiastic claim. Humans can and ought to go beyond the natural and powerfully engineer a better planet, managing for... more
Includes bibliographical references (pages 71-73).We are now entering the Anthropocene Epoch - so runs a recent enthusiastic claim. Humans can and ought to go beyond the natural and powerfully engineer a better planet, managing for climate change, building new ecosystems for a more prosperous future. Perhaps the Anthropocene is inevitable. But: Rejoice? Accommodate? Accept it, alas? Perhaps the wiser, more ethical course is not so much "beyond" as "keeping the natural in "symbiosis" with humans. Enter the Semi-Anthropocene! Basically Natural! Carefully