The paper discusses some difficulties that life in Anthropocene poses to our ethical thinking. It describes the sort of ethical task that individuals find themselves confronting when dealing with the planetary environmental quandaries that characterise the new epoch. It then asks what, given the situation, would count as environmentally virtuous ways of looking at and going about our lives, and how relevant virtues can be developed. It is argued that the practice of gardening is distinctively conducive to that objective. Finally, some garden virtues that will be of special importance in the Anthropocene, but have so far been largely neglected by environmental ethicists, are listed and described.
Bendik-KeymerJ. and ThompsonA., eds. 2012. Ethical Adaptation to Climate Change: Human Virtues of the Future. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
2.
BradyE.2002. ‘Aesthetic character and aesthetic integrity in environmental conservation’, Environmental Ethics24 (2): 75–91. CrossRef.
3.
BrookI.2010. ‘The virtues of gardening’. In O'BrienD., (ed.) Gardening – Philosophy for Everyone, pp. 13–25. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. CrossRef.
4.
CallicottJ.B.1999. Beyond the Land Ethic: More Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Albany NY: SUNY Press.
5.
CallicottJ.B.2003. ‘A critique of and an alternative to the wilderness idea’: In LightA. and RolstonH. (eds), Environmental Ethics: An Anthology, pp. 437–443. Malden: Blackwell.
6.
CooperD.2006. A Philosophy of Gardens. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
7.
CristE.2013. ‘On the poverty of our nomenclature’. Environmental Humanities3: 129–147.
8.
CrutzenP.2002. ‘Geology of mankind’. Nature415 (6867): 23. CrossRef.
9.
CrutzenP., and StoermerE.. 2000. ‘The “Anthropocene”’. Global Change Newsletter41: 17–18.
10.
CumberlidgeC., and MusgraveL.. 2007. Design and Landscape for People. London: Thames and Hudson.
11.
Di PaolaM.2012. Giardini globali: Una filosofia dell'ambientalismo urbano. Rome: LUISS University Press.
12.
Di PaolaM.2013. ‘Environmental stewardship, moral psychology, and gardens’. Environmental Values22 (4): 503–521. CrossRef.
13.
Di PaolaM.2014. ‘Climate change: Who does what, why, and how’. In Di PaolaM. and PellegrinoG. (eds), Canned Heat: Ethics and Politics of Global Climate Change, pp. 144–159. Delhi: Routledge Publishing.
14.
Di PaolaM.2015. ‘When ethics and aesthetics are one and the same: A Wittgensteinian perspective on natural value’. Journal for the Study of Nature, Religion, and Culture. (forthcoming, available at https://luiss.academia.edu/MarcelloDiPaola).
15.
ElliottR., and JamiesonD.. 2009. ‘Progressive consequentialism’. Philosophical Prospectives23: 241–251.
16.
ElsterJ.1970. Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
17.
ElsterJ.1985. ‘Rationality, morality, and collective action’. Ethics96 (1): 136–155. CrossRef.
18.
ForgeardM.J.C., JayawickremeE., KernM. and SeligmanM.E.P.. 2011. ‘Doing the right thing: Measuring wellbeing for public policy’. International Journal of Wellbeing, 1 (1): 79–106.
19.
FoucaultM.1998 [1976]. The History of Sexuality; Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge. London: Penguin.
20.
GardinerS.2011. A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossRef.
21.
GibsonK., FincherR. and RoseD.. 2010. ‘An ethics for the Anthropocene’. Dialogue29 (2): 81–94.
22.
Gibson-GrahamJ.K., and RoelvinkG.. 2010. ‘An economic ethic for the Anthropocene’. Antipode41: 320–346. CrossRef.
23.
GloverJ.1975. ‘It makes no difference whether or not I do it’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society49: 171–209.
24.
HaleT., HeldD. and YoungK.. 2013. Gridlock: Why Global Cooperation Is Failing When We Need It Most. Cambridge: Polity Press.
25.
HarrisonR.2009. Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
26.
HesterR.2006. Design for Ecological Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
27.
HibbardK.A.. 2006. ‘Group report: Decadal-scale interactions of humans and the environment’. In CostanzaR., GraumlichL. and SteffenW. (eds), Integrated History and Future of People on Earth, pp. 341–375. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
28.
HoltonR.2009. Willing, Wanting, Waiting. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossRef.
29.
JamiesonD.2007. ‘When utilitarians should be virtue theorists’. Utilitas19 (2): 160–183. CrossRef.
30.
JamiesonD.2008. Ethics and the Environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossRef.
31.
JamiesonD.2014. Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed, and What It Means for Our Future. New York: Oxford University Press. CrossRef.
32.
JamiesonD., and Di PaolaM.. 2014. ‘Climate change and global justice: New problem, old paradigm?’. Global Policy5 (1): 105–111. CrossRef.
33.
KaganS.2011. ‘Do I make a difference?’. Philosophy and Public Affairs39: 105–141. CrossRef.
34.
KrakoffS.2011. ‘Parenting the planet’. In ArnoldD., (ed.) The Ethics of Global Climate Change, pp. 145–169. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossRef.
35.
LichtenbergJ.2013. Distant Strangers: Ethics, Psychology, and Global Poverty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossRef.
36.
LorimerJ.2012. ‘Multinatural geographies for the Anthropocene’. Progress in Human Geography36 (5): 593–612. CrossRef.
37.
LukeT.1995. ‘On environmentality: Geo-power and eco-knowledge in the discourses of contemporary environmentalism’. Cultural Critique31: 57–81. CrossRef.
38.
MacIntyreA.1981. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
39.
MartinP., and KleinR.. 1984. Quaternary Extinctions: A Prehistoric Revolution. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
MeyerS.2006. The End of the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
42.
MulganT.2009. Future People: A Moderate Consequentialist Account of Our Obligations to Future Generations. New York: Oxford University Press.
43.
NelsonM.2003. ‘An amalgamation of wilderness preservation arguments.’ In LightA. and RolstonH. (eds), Environmental Ethics: An Anthology, pp. 413–436. Malden: Blackwell.
44.
O'NeillJ.2008. ‘Happiness and the good life’. Environmental Values17 (2): 125–144. CrossRef.
45.
ParfitD.1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
46.
PartridgeE.2001. ‘Future Generations’. In JamiesonD., (ed.) A Companion to Environmental Philosophy, pp. 377–389. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. CrossRef.
47.
PoggeT.2008. World Poverty and Human Rights. Cambridge: Polity Press.
48.
PollanM.1991. Second Nature. New York: Dell Publishing.
49.
RolstonH.III1994. ‘Value in nature and the nature of value’. In AttfieldR. and BelseyA. (eds), Philosophy and the Natural Environment, pp. 13–30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
50.
SandlerR.2007. Character and Environment. New York: Columbia University Press.
51.
SandlerR.2013. ‘Climate change and ecosystem management’. Ethics, Policy, and Environment, 16 (1): 1–15. CrossRef.
52.
SandlerR., and CafaroP. (eds). 2005. Environmental Virtue Ethics. New York: Rowan and Littlefield.
53.
SarkarS.2005. Biodiversity and Environmental Philosophy: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossRef.
54.
SchefflerS.2013. Death and the Afterlife. ed. KolodnyN.. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossRef.
SchellenbergerM., and NordhausT. (eds). 2011. Love Your Monsters: Post-Environmentalism and the Anthropocene.The Breakthrough Institute.
57.
ShoveE.2010. ‘Beyond the ABC: Climate change policy and theories of social change’. Environment and Planning42: 1273–1285. CrossRef.
58.
SingerP.1975. Animal Liberation. New York: New York Review/Random House.
59.
SingerP.2009. The Life You Can Save. New York: Random House.
60.
Sinnott-ArmstrongW.2005. ‘It's not my fault’. In Sinnott-ArmstrongW. and HowarthR. (eds), Perspectives on Climate Change, pp. 221–253. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
61.
SmithB., and ZederM.. 2013. ‘The onset of the Anthropocene’. Anthropocene4: 8–13. CrossRef.
62.
SouthertonD., ChappellsH. and Van VlietB.. 2004. Sustainable Consumption: The Implications of Changing Infrastructures of Provision. Aldershot: Edward Elgar.
63.
SteffenW., GrinewaldJ., CrutzenP., and McNeillJ.. 2011. ‘The Anthropocene: Conceptual and historical perspectives’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A369: 842–867. CrossRef.
WelchmannJennifer, 2012. ‘A defense of environmental stewardship’. Environmental Values21 (3): 297–316. CrossRef.
71.
WenarL.2011. ‘Clean trade in natural resources’. Ethics and International Affairs25 (1): 27–39. CrossRef.
72.
InstituteWorldwatch. 2011. State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet. New York: W.W. Norton.
73.
ZalasiewiczJ.. 2011. ‘Stratigraphy of the Anthropocene’. Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences369 (1938): 1036–1055. CrossRef.
74.
ZalasiewiczJ., WatersC. and WilliamsM.. 2014. ‘Human bioturbation and the subter-reanean landscape of the Anthropocene’. Anthropocene6: 3–9. CrossRef.
75.
ZalasiewiczJ., WilliamsM., SteffenW. and CrutzenP.. 2010. ‘The new world of the Anthropocene’. Environment Science & Technology44 (7): 2228–2231. CrossRef.
