Donato Bergandi

The Structural Links between Ecology, Evolution and Ethics: The Virtuous Epistemic Circle - Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science Donato Bergandi 2013 edition

Marc Notes: Examining the defining moments in the history of evolutionary biology, ecology and environmental ethics, this volume views such material as linked and attempts to trace their common epistemological tendencies, a task of urgent scientific necessity. Brief Description: Examining the defining moments in the history of evolutionary biology, ecology and environmental ethics, this volume views such material as linked and attempts to trace their common epistemological tendencies, a task of urgent scientific necessity. Jacket Description/Back: Evolutionary biology, ecology and ethics: at first glance, three different objects of research, three different worldviews and three different scientific communities. In reality, there are both structural and historical links between these disciplines. First, some topics are obviously common across the board. Second, the emerging need for environmental policy management has gradually but radically changed the relationship between these disciplines. Over the last decades in particular, there has emerged a need for an interconnecting meta-paradigm that integrates more strictly evolutionary studies, biodiversity studies and the ethical frameworks that are most appropriate for allowing a lasting co-evolution between natural and social systems. Today such a need is more than a mere luxury, it is an epistemological and practical necessity. In short, the authors of this volume address some of the foundational themes that interconnect evolutionary studies, ecology and ethics. Here they have chosen to analyze a topic using one of these specific disciplines as a kind of epistemological platform with specific links to topics from one or both of the remaining disciplines. Brief Description: Outgrowth of the international workshop "Between the Philosophy of Biology and the Philosophy of Ecology: Evolutionisms, Ecologies and Ethics," held in May 2005 at the Museum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris. Cf. acknowledgments. Brief Description: Evolutionary biology, ecology and ethics: at first glance, three different objects of research, three different worldviews and three different scientific communities. In reality, there are both structural and historical links between these disciplines. First, some topics are obviously common across the board. Second, the emerging need for environmental policy management has gradually but radically changed the relationship between these disciplines. Table of Contents: List of Figures.- List of Contributors.- Acknowledgements.- 1 Ecology, Evolution, Ethics: In Search of a Meta-Paradigm - An Introduction; Donato Bergandi.- 2 Evolution Versus Creation: A Sibling Rivalry?; Michael Ruse.- 3 Evolution and Chance; Jean Gayon.- 4 Some Conceptions of Time in Ecology; Jean-Marc Drouin.- 5 Facts, Values, and Analogies: A Darwinian Approach to Environmental Choice; Bryan G. Norton.- 6 Towards EcoEvoEthics; Patrick Blandin.- 7 Ecology and Moral Ontology; John Baird Callicott.- 8 Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics; Tom Regan.- 9 Reconciling Individualist and Deeper Environmentalist Theories? An Exploration; Robin Attfield.- 10 Two Philosophies of the Environmental Crisis; Catherine Larrere 11 Epilogue: The Epistemic and Practical Circle in an Evolutionary, Ecologically Sustainable Society; Donato Bergandi.- Index."Review Quotes: From the reviews: The panel of contributors representing a variety of schools of thought is presented to the reader as an opportunity to embrace a wide landscape of philosophical problems within the fields of environmental science and nature conservation. I highly recommend this book to evolutionary biologists, systems ecologists, and environmental stakeholders, with the hope that it will contribute to new avenues of research in ecosystem resilience. (Jean-Francois Ponge, BioScience, February, 2014)"