The Wild and the Wicked

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 book, 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. In turn, the book argues that these reasons must be justified – assessed and ratified by the scrutiny of a wide deliberative body – and that an approach to environmentalism that prioritizes the Right over the Good is the correct approach. Environmentalism, then, cannot be entirely about identifying good states of affairs, but also must partly be about whether actions are and/or could be justified.