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Nature and environment
Balthrop-Lewis, Alda
Balthrop-Lewis, Alda
Author
Abstract
This chapter treats Reinhold Niebuhr’s thought on nature and environment in an effort to evaluate its utility for contemporary environmental politics and ethics. Like a small but growing group of Niebuhrian environmental ethicists, the chapter finds in Niebuhr’s thought both peril and promise. Niebuhr’s anthropological focus leaves him inattentive to the ethical status of the more-than-human world, the intrinsic value of which is a premise for much contemporary environmental ethics and politics. Nonetheless, Niebuhr’s insistence on the social nature of sin and the exigencies of democratic political power should have a more central place in contemporary thinking about the politics of nature and environment. The chapter makes this argument by way of attention to a few themes in Niebuhr’s thought, primarily nuclear science, nature, and industry.
Keywords
Aldo Leopold, ecology, environmental ethics, economic justice, industry, nuclear politics, individualism
Date
2021
Type
Book chapter
Journal
Book
The Oxford handbook of Reinhold Niebuhr
Volume
Issue
Page Range
485-499
Article Number
ACU Department
Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
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Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled