Environmental Ethics in the Midwest: Interdisciplinary Approaches

by Ian Smith (Editor), Matt Ferkany (Editor)

Overview

The American Midwest is environmentally rich and complex, home to some of the world’s largest freshwater lakes and streams as well as cities, prairies, forests, and farmlands. Nevertheless, the unique environmental opportunities and challenges the region presents have been left underappreciated and underexplored by environmental ethicists. The close integration of the natural and built environments of the Midwest prompts interdisciplinary inquiry in a particularly pointed way. To remedy the lack of scholarly attention to this area, this volume attends to the way that the broad concerns of environmental ethics manifest in the region. These eight original essays cover a wide range of topics, including agrarian ethics and Stoicism; the Dakota access pipeline and Indigenous women’s activism; philosophy of law and species classification; environmental justice and the Flint water crisis; hog farming and antimicrobial drug resistance; science education standards and climate change education; virtue ethics and ecological restoration; environmental pragmatism and the Clean Water Act; and more. Each accessibly written chapter brings multidisciplinary complexity to bear on this complex region. The authors include philosophers working in environmental ethics and other subfields of philosophy, and together with scholars in fields such as environmental sociology, American Indian studies, and environmental studies, they provide a fresh and necessary perspective on the American Midwest.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611864427
Publisher:	Michigan State University Press
Publication date:	12/01/2022
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

IAN A. SMITH is associate professor of philosophy and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Washburn University, where he primarily teaches ethics and logic classes.
MATT FERKANY is associate professor in philosophy and affiliated faculty of the Environmental Science and Policy Program at Michigan State University. His work concerns virtue, environmental ethics, and moral education.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Acknowledgments xiii

Midwest Stoicism, Agrarianism, and Environmental Virtue Ethics William O. Stephens 1

Searching for the just Shrinking City in Flint, Michigan Benjamin J. Pauli Levi Tenen 43

The Ethics of Women Water Warriors: #NoDAPL and an Indigenous Women's Environmental Ethic Matthew Meyer Heather Ann Moody 69

Wilbur on Drugs: Antimicrobial Use in Hog CAFOs J. M. Dieterle Wade Tornquist 113

Prairie Dog Wars, the Philosophy of Biology, and Justice Scalia Ian A. Smith 141

Another Dam Controversy: The Case of the Cuyahoga River from Stagnant Sludge to Poster Child of the Clean Water Act Joel MacClellan 167

What Ohio Can Teach Us about Effective and Ethical Ecological Restoration Justin Donhauser 203

Are the Next Generation Science Standards for Weather and Climate Indoctrinating? Matt Ferkany 233

Contributors 261

Editorial Reviews

This fascinating collection of essays brings to life the complex questions that the U.S. Midwest raises for environmental ethics. The original, interdisciplinary contributions take the reader on a journey through forests and feedlots, rivers and restorations, cities and classrooms, challenging us to see the often-neglected Midwest as in fact laying at the heart of twenty-first-century U.S. environmental concerns.”
—CLARE PALMER, George T. and Gladys H. Abell Professor of Liberal Arts and professor of philosophy, Texas A&M University

From the Publisher