Owen Goldin

The Greeks and the Environment

Chapter 1 Foreword Part 2 Part I: Overview Chapter 3 Introduction Chapter 4 Some Ancient Ecological Myths and Metaphors Chapter 5 Why Greek Philosophers Might Have Been Concerned about the Environment Chapter 6 The Philosophical Genesis of Ecology and Environmentalism Part 7 Part II: Plato Chapter 8 Platonic Ecology Chapter 9 Environmental Ethics in Platos Timaeus Chapter 10 The Ecology of the Critias and Platonic metaphysics Part 11 Part III: Aristotle Chapter 12 Aristotelian Roots of Ecology: Causality, Complex Systems Theory, and Integrity Chapter 13 The Greening of Aristotle Chapter 14 Self-Love and the Virtue of Species Preservation in Aristotle Chapter 15 The Organic Unity of Aristotles World Part 16 Part IV: Greek Philosophy After Aristotle Chapter 17 Fortitude and Tragedy: The Prospects for a Stoic Environmentalism Chapter 18 Plotinus as Environmentalist? Chapter 19 Notes Chapter 20 Index

Conflict and Cosmopolitanism in Plato and the Stoics

According to a number of contemporary philosophers, the moral demands to care for those of the same nationality are not more pressing than the demands to care for those of a different nation, at least in regard to basic needs and rights. They conclude that national boundaries have little or no moral relevance. The Stoics are admired for being the first in the West to have drawn this conclusion. There is some truth to this; although the Hellenistic era lacked our concept of the “nation”, they did have the notion of a people, an ethnos, and did deny that the obligations of justice hold only among members of the same people. However, Stoics, like other ancient philosophers, had complex and nuanced views on this matter. This can be seen especially in the political writings of Cicero, which show clear and direct Stoic influence. Cicero’s writings present evidence that some Stoics, like contemporary political thinkers attracted to cosmopolitan ideals, struggled with the tension between the demands of moral impartiality and the recognition of special bonds of moral obligation between those of the same ethnos. If Stoic cosmopolitan thought is to be fully appreciated, it needs to be considered in its philosophical context, as developed in response to earlier philosophical arguments and articulations of everyday morality. A number

Circular Justification and Explanation in Aristotle

Abstract Aristotle’s account of epistēmē is foundationalist. In contrast, the web of dialectical argumentation that constitutes justification for scientific principles is coherentist. Aristotle’s account of explanation is structurally parallel to the argument for a foundationalist account of justification. He accepts the first argument but his coherentist accounts of justification indicate that he would not accept the second. Where is the disanalogy? For Aristotle, the intelligibility of a demonstrative premise is the cause of the intelligibility of a demonstrated conclusion and causation is asymmetric. Within the Posterior Analytics itself, Aristotle does not account for this, but elsewhere he develops the resources for doing so: the cause is what acts on a substrate to actualize a potential in that substrate, resulting in the effect. On the other hand, it may well happen that two propositions entail each other, in which case one may as well justify the one on the basis of the other as vice versa.

Tamir, Rawls and the Temple Mount

What gives ethical and political validity to a state? This is to ask what a state is for and to provide a means to determine whether or not a constitution is just. In this paper I compare the account given by Tamir in Liberal Nationalism with that of Rawls, in order to clarify the decisive differences. Although both recognize the importance of particular associations and the moral imperative to be fair, Tamir places priority on the first and Rawls on the second. I explore their practical implications in regard to the ethical defensibility of Israels self-identification as a Jewish state and to conflicting nationalistic territorial claims for the Temple Mount (Haram esh-Sharif) in Jerusalem. I suggest that if Tamir is correct in her analysis of nationalism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a problem that is without the sort of solution that is sought by those who are both interested parties and rational agents of good will.

Environmental Education and Metaethics

Contrā Dale Jamieson, the study of the metaethical foundations of environmental ethics may well lead students to a more environmentally responsible way of life. For although metaethics is rarely decisive in decision making and action, there are two kinds of circumstances in which it can play a crucial role in our practical decisions. First, decisions that have unusual features do not summon habitual ethical reactions, and hence invite the application of ethical precepts that the study of metaethics and ethical theory isolate and clarify. Second, there are times in which the good of others (including organisms and systems in the natural world) may well be given greater weight in ones ethical deliberations if theory has made clear that the good to be promoted is ontologically independent of ones own good.