| In the seminal essay "The Land Ethic," the father of conservation biology, Aldo Leopold, briefly discusses the evolution of ethics. Leopold observes that human morality has evolved through a gradual extension of ethical concern to both previously excluded modes of conduct and persons theretofore unconsidered. He then famously suggests that the next step in human moral development is for persons to extend moral consideration to "the land," to soils, to waters, to plants, and to animals. Leopold argues that adopting the following "Land Ethic Principle" ensures appropriate respect for nature: "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."; Many environmental ethicists, rather than understanding Leopold's moral views as the provocative but incautious musings of a non-philosopher, have seized upon his moral ideas, enfranchising them as one of the earliest attempts at depicting an environmental ethic. Yet, for all the ink spilled analyzing Leopold's views, no scholar has offered an in-depth discussion of Leopold's claim that adoption of the Land Ethic Principle represents a type of 'moral progress.' Specifically, no philosopher has either sought out or created a theory of moral progress capable of affirming this moral claim of Leopold's.; My dissertation begins filling this void. I depict what a theory of moral progress must look like to buttress Leopold's assertion that adoption of his Land Ethic represents moral progress. In doing this, I argue for a novel interpretation of Leopold's moral ideas---a pluralistic interpretation. A pluralistic take on Leopold's views, however, calls into question the most famous interpretation(s) of Leopold offered by philosopher J. Baird Callicott. Whereas I argue that Leopold both embraces moral pluralism and emphasizes a consistency maximization of values, Callicott most recently argues that Leopold is best understood within a Humean framework that prioritizes objects of moral value, relegating environmental concerns to, in my estimation, a negligibly efficacious periphery. Hence, my dissertation not only discusses Leopold's moral ideas within an entirely new context, the context of moral progress, but also offers up a new understanding of Leopold's ideas generally. |
