James P. Sterba

Reconciling Anthropocentric and Nonanthropocentric Environmental Ethics

I propose to show that when the most morally defensible versions of an anthropocentric environmental ethics and a nonanthropocentric ethics are laid out, they would lead us to accept the same principles of environmental justice.

Understanding Evil: American Slavery, the Holocaust, and the Conquest of the American Indians

In Vessels of Evil: American Slavery and the Holocaust, Laurence Mordekhai Thomas seeks to increase our understanding of evil by discussing important differences between American slavery and the Holocaust. He notes that the Holocaust, particularly the murdering of the Jews in the camps, was shrouded in secrecy, whereas American slavery was a public institution such that people could easily find out how American slaves were treated (p. 7). He notes that while there were economic advantages and pressures to own slaves in the South, no one was required to do so, especially in the North.1 By contrast, the Holocaust was mandated by law and all those under the Third Reich who were called upon were required to assist in its fulfillment (p. 7). Thomas particularly wants to show that a comparison of American slavery with the Holocaust can and should be made without concluding that one of these evils was worse than the other. For example, while about six million Jews lost their lives in the Holocaust, Thomas notes that most likely more than that number of blacks lost their lives during the voyage from Africa to America (p. 9). (The usual estimates are

From Rationality to Equality

1. Introduction 2. The Historical Connection to Immanuel Kant 3. From Rationality to Morality 4. Critics of the Rationality to Morality Argument 5. Alternative Justifications for Morality 6. From Liberty to Equality 7. Critics of the Liberty to Equality Argument 8. Alternative Justifications for Welfare and Equality 9. Conclusion

Ethics in the History of Western Philosophy

Notes on the Contributors - Preface R.Cavalier - Plato A.Adkins - Aristotle A.Gomez-Lobo - Augustine T.Losoncy - Aquinas V.Bourke - Hobbes L.May - Hume D.Fate Norton - Kant C.Korsgaard - Mill N.Lachs - Nietzsche R.Schacht - Dewey J.Gouinlock - Sartre H.Barnes - Moore to Stevenson S.Darwall - Toulmin to Rawls J.Sterba - Index

Global Justice for Humans or for all Living beings and what Difference it Makes

I begin with an account of what is deserved in human ethics, an ethics that assumes without argument that only humans, or rational agents, count morally. I then take up the question of whether nonhuman living beings are also deserving and answer it in the affirmative. Having established that all individual living beings, as well as ecosystems, are deserving, I go on to establish what it is that they deserve and then compare the requirements of global justice when only humans are taken into account with the requirements of global justice when all living beings are taken into account.

How to achieve global justice

In this paper, I argue that even a libertarian ideal of liberty, which initially seems opposed to welfare rights, can be seen to require a right to a basic needs minimum that extends to distant peoples and future generations and is conditional upon the poor doing whatever they reasonably can to meet their own basic needs, including bringing their population growth under control. Given that, as I have argued elsewhere, welfare liberal, socialist, communitarian and feminist political ideals can be easily seen to support this same right to a basic needs minimum, showing how a libertarian ideal of liberty supports the right should go a long way toward solving the problem of what all people, whether near or distant, present or future, deserve, which is the basic problem of global justice.

Justifying morality: The right and the wrong ways

Contemporary philosophers offer three kinds of justification for morality. Some, following Plato, claim that morality is justified by self-interest.1 Others, following Hume as he is frequently interpreted, claim that morality is justified in terms of other-regarding interests, wants or intentions that people happen to have.2 And still others, following Kant, claim that morality is justified in terfns of the requirements of practical reason.3 In The Moral Point of View pub lished in 1958 and in a series of articles continuing to the present, Kurt Baier has defended this third sort of justification for morality.4 In this paper, after years of respectful opposition, I join forces with Baier and argue that only a justification of this third sort can be fully adequate and then only when it is developed in a certain way.5 I begin by showing what is wrong or defective in the other justifications. Then I consider attempts by Baier and others to elaborate the third sort of justification. Drawing upon their work, I present a justification based on the requirements of practical reason that succeeds in demonstrating that the rational egoist acts contrary to reason.

Biocentrism and Human Health

Biocentrists endorse the equality of species. But is endorsing the equality of species compatible with maintaining the health of humans, or should at least sometimes the health of humans be sacrificed for the sake of other species? In this article, I argue for the compatibility of biocentrism and human health. I argue that maintaining the equality of species, correctly understood, is in no way in conflict with maintaining human health. In fact, I will argue that there is a mutually supporting relationship between the requirements of biocentrism and the requirements for human health.

Five Commentators: A Brief Response

So much of the work that we do as philosophers is published without much critical commentary from our colleagues. Only rarely do we have the chance to improve our work through the extensive critical analysis of our colleagues. That is why I am very grateful to have this opportunity to benefit from the valuable critical analysis that the contributors to this volume have directed at my practical reconciliation argument for making people just. While in this brief response I cannot hope to discuss all the interesting points that my distinguished commentators Kurt Baier, Gerald Doppelt, James Fishkin, John Hospers, Alison Jaggar, Eric Mack, Jeffrey Reiman, Rosemarie Tong and Iris Young have raised, I will try to lay to rest at least some of their doubts concerning my practical reconciliation argument for making people just.

Toulmin to Rawls

There are several threads that make up the fabric of contemporary ethical theory from the 1950s to the present. One of these is the good reasons approach to ethics pioneered by Stephen Toulmin and developed by Kurt Baier.1 Another is the revival of social contract theory begun by John Rawls and extended to a wide range of practical problems by David Richards, Charles Beitz, Norman Daniels, myself and others.2 Recently, Stephen Darwall has argued that these two threads can be joined into one: that the good reasons approach can provide a rational foundation for a Rawlsian social contract theory.3 But while establishing this linkage would clearly be an interesting result, it was never one of the stated goals of the major proponents of these views, and it is in terms of the stated goals of their major proponents that it seems best to begin to try to understand and to evaluate these views.