Searching for Sustainability: Interdisciplinary Essays in the Philosophy of Conservation Biology

Description

This book examines from a multidisciplinary viewpoint the question of what we mean - what we should mean - by setting sustainability as a goal for environmental management. The author, trained as a philosopher of science and language, explores ways to break down the disciplinary barriers to communication and deliberation about environment policy, and to integrate science and evaluations into a more comprehensive environmental policy. Choosing sustainability as the keystone concept of environmental policy, the author explores what we can learn about sustainable living from the philosophy of pragmatism, from ecology, from economics, from planning, from conservation biology and from related disciplines. The idea of adaptive, or experimental, management provides the context, while insights from various disciplines are integrated into a comprehensive philosophy of environmental management. The book will appeal to students and professionals in the fields of environmental policy and ethics, conservation biology, and philosophy of science.

"[R]eaders with interests in environmental science and conservation biology will find insight and mature, thoughful discussion well founded in the social and life sciences as well as the humanities." Choice "...inspiring and thought-provoking as well as wide-ranging...This book would be excellent for an undergraduate or graduate student discussion of public policy and philosophy, and as background reading on the complexities of sustainability." Edward J. Valauskas, Manager, Chicago Botanic Garden "This is an excellent book ... [Norton] provide a useful service by consolidating his considerable past contributions to the field of environmental philosophy under one cover." The Quarterly Review of Biology "This is a grand, yet warmly human book, well worth having on the shelf as food for thought and as a reference on a range of topics that truly matter." Environmental Ethics