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The Theory of Moral Ecology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Allen D. Hertzke
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Extract

Although scholars use the term moral ecology and commentators frequently employ environmental analogies in depicting the cultural milieu, the profound implications of such formulations remain unexplored. This article provides the first systematic analysis of the theory of moral ecology as a philosophical, empirical, and practical construct. It applies environmental thought, particularly insights from the “tragedy of the commons,” to the moral and cultural realm. It suggests that the concept of moral ecology is a compelling depiction of genuine human dynamics. Corroboration flows from the way the theory of moral ecology synthesizes a vast empirical literature on media violence, family decline, and gambling into a parsimonious nomological formulation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , Fall 1998 , pp. 629 - 660
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1998

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41. Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, Miles To Go: A Personal History of Social Policy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996). In chapter 3 Moynihan draws upon empirical studies of the adverse impact of out–of–wedlock births to coin his celebrated term “defining deviancy down.”Google Scholar

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77. James Q. Wilson's ecological analysis of the link between social disorder and crime—the so–called “broken window” thesis—has guided numerous successful community anticrime efforts. See Wilson, James Q.Kelling, George L., “Broken Windows,” Atlantic Monthly 249, no. 3 (03 1982): 29–38.Google Scholar

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81. Michael Novak admonishes corporations to avoid promoting messages that undermine sustaining virtues in Toward a Theology of the Corporation (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1981),Google Scholar but there is little evidence they have heeded his exhortation. In The Fire of Invention (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), Novak suggests that corporations foster civil society by producing wealth, contributing to civic causes, teaching sturdy virtues, and checking the overweening state, but he does not refute evidence that certain corporate patterns can undermine family cohesion and community vitality.Google Scholar

82. Sandel, in Democracy's Discontent, argues that the public philosophy of modern liberalism, which rests on the notion that the state must be neutral about conceptions of the good life, has failed because it cannot address the legitimate moral concerns of citizens. Wilson, James Q., in The Moral Sense (New York: The Free Press, 1993),Google Scholar argues that the modern attempt to cleanse morality from public discourse has “amputated our public discourse at the knees,” and made it impossible to have a serious discussion of the issues perplexing society (p. xi).

83. Theodore Lowi exhibits this tendency in The End of the Republican Era (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), chap. 6, in which he envisions “statist” local conservatives enforcing a virtual police state on women.Google Scholar

84. This was how Hardin phrased the remedy in “The Tragedy of the Commons.”

85. See, for example, Berger, Peter L. and Neuhaus, Richard John, To Empower People: From State to Civil Society, 2d ed., edited by Novak, Michael (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1996);Google Scholar and Democracy and Mediating Structures: A Theological Inquiry, ed. Novak, Michael (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1980).Google Scholar

86. Anderson, Terry L. and Leal, Donald R., Free Market Environmentalism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991).Google Scholar

87. As argued by Smith, Fred L. Jr, president, Competitive Enterprise Institute (1001 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036), a think tank that challenges the command assumptions of environmental policy.Google Scholar

88. In addition to her syndicated radio program, Laura Schlessenger offered her remedy to moral confusion in How Could You Do That?!: The Abdication of Character, Courage, and Conscience (New York: HarperCollins 1997)Google Scholar and The Ten Commandments: The Significance of God's Laws in Everyday Life, with Vogel, Stewart (New York, HarperCollins, 1998).Google Scholar