A Blind Spot
From its inception environmental ethics has focused mainly on the normative status of wilderness and wildlife. The many arguments about moral standing and intrinsic value have been aimed at finding a more appropriate balance between the domestic and the wild, mainly by valorizing the wild. One example is Paul W. Taylor's theory of respect for nature, which purports to be bio-centric but provides inherent worth (intrinsic value) only for wild organisms, expressly excluding domestic ones. Landscapes that have not been touched by human hands are the normative reference against which all other landscapes are to be judged not only ethically but aesthetically, according to Allen Carlson's theory of positive environmental aesthetics.
The historical alliance of environmental ethics with the tradition of wilderness advocacy once all but precluded serious direct engagement with urban environments. There is thus what Andrew Light has called "an urban blind-spot'' in environmental ethics: ''[B]y and large, cities are considered sources of environmental disvalue: a landscape either to be mined for examples to be avoided or ignored altogether as a product of human intentions—an artifact rather than a part of nature and so outside the proper boundaries of the discipline" (Light 2001, p. 8).
A handful of environmental ethicists have attempted to remedy that blind spot, motivated by a sense that environmental ethics is incomplete if it automatically excludes from consideration the landscapes in which people live. Roger J. H. King, for example, found a "self-destructive logic'' in an approach to environmental ethics that "presupposes that humans are at best interlopers on what should otherwise have been a nonhuman scene.'' The one-sided valorization of wilderness yields a "halt-and-withdraw" strategy that "holds nothing open for the future; the narrative line ends in tragedy for nature and for humans.'' (King 2000, pp. 115-116)
The literature on urban environments has expanded in two directions. One approach focuses on the role
Aerial View of Manhattan. The island of Manhattan, a part of New York City seen here from the Empire State Building, is the epitome of an urban metropolis in the United States. Many believe that environmental ethics have ignored urban environments until only more recently, instead choosing to focus more on wilderness habitats. Some places, like New York's Central Park, provide ta mix of both environments: a lush natural habitat in the midst of one of the largest urban centers of the world. image copyright donald r. schwartz, 2008. used under license from shutterstock.com.
Aerial View of Manhattan. The island of Manhattan, a part of New York City seen here from the Empire State Building, is the epitome of an urban metropolis in the United States. Many believe that environmental ethics have ignored urban environments until only more recently, instead choosing to focus more on wilderness habitats. Some places, like New York's Central Park, provide ta mix of both environments: a lush natural habitat in the midst of one of the largest urban centers of the world. image copyright donald r. schwartz, 2008. used under license from shutterstock.com.
urban environments can play in fostering concern for wild nature and putting that concern into practice. Light argued that in the short term at least, practicing ''ecological restoration'' in urban settings can be a means toward the goal of fostering ''ecological citizenship'' (Light 2001, p. 28). King maintained that cities should at least foster an ''environmental conscience'' and to that end proposed as a principle that ''the built environment should make nature a visible, palpable presence in daily human experience'' (King 2000, pp. 115, 130).
Another approach starts with the recognition that cities and suburbs are the environments of most direct concern to most people, with the implication that those environments should be understood and evaluated on their own account, not simply or exclusively held to the standard of wildness. In discussing long-term considerations, Light stated, ''If environmental ethics is to fully embrace the urban, then it must describe the brown space of the city to be as important a locus of normative consideration as the green space'' (Light 2001, p. 31). Alastair Gunn went so far as to redefine the natural environment in terms ofthe conditions for human thriving, stating that ''to the extent that human beings are able to thrive in a given environment—to live long lives, to be physically and psychologically healthy, to fulfill a significant portion of their potential—then that environment is natural for humans'' (Gunn 1998, p. 348).
There is no reason in principle why a city or a suburb cannot be natural in this sense.
Taking both of these approaches into account, an urban turn in environmental ethics opens up a broad range of normative questions concerning human well-being, justice, sustainability, and political legitimacy (Kirkman, 2004).
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