The connection between ecological responsibility and differing conceptions of Christian eschatology is widely observed. It is often assumed that the necessary response to Christian environmental inaction is affirmation of a strongly this-worldly vision of new creation (so, influentially, N. T. Wright). However, recent systematic theology has seen retrieval of elements of eschatology that foreground discontinuity and transcendence (e.g. Hans Boersma). Moreover, there are exegetical challenges to continuationist claims (e.g. Markus Bockmuehl and Edward Adams) and doctrinal reactions to ‘eschatological naturalism’ (Katherine Sonderegger and Michael Allen). Where does this leave the connection between ecological witness and the content of Christian hope? Doubtless, continuationist accounts have some salutary emphases, but on exegetical, doctrinal and moral grounds I seek to disentangle the assumed compact of particular construals of this-worldly continuity and ethical commitment. Finally, drawing on James Cone's meditations upon black spiritual traditions, I explore how discontinuous interpretations of the life to come themselves need not undermine responsible action.

Philosophers have used thought experiments to examine contentious examples of genetic modification. We hypothesised that these examples would prove useful in provoking responses from lay participants concerning technological interventions used to address welfare concerns. We asked 747 US and Canadian citizens to respond to two scenarios based on these thought experiments: genetically modifying chickens to produce blind progeny that are less likely to engage in feather-pecking (BC); and genetically modifying animals to create progeny that do not experience any subjective state (i.e. incapable of experiencing pain or fear; IA). For contrast, we assessed a third scenario that also resulted in the production of animal protein with no risk of suffering but did not involve genetically modifying animals: the development of cultured meat (CM). Participants indicated on a seven-point scale how acceptable they considered the technology (1 = very wrong to do; 7 = very right to do), and provided a text-based, open-ended explanation of their response. The creation of cultured meat was judged more acceptable than the creation of blind chickens and insentient animals. Qualitative responses indicated that some participants accepted the constraints imposed by the thought experiment, for example, by accepting perceived harms of the technology to achieve perceived benefits in reducing animal suffering. Others expressed discomfort with such trade-offs, advocating for other approaches to reducing harm. We conclude that people vary in their acceptance of interventions within existing systems, with some calling for transformational change.

Human activities deprive wild animals of their life requisites by destroying or impoverishing their surroundings, causing suffering of individuals. Yet, the notion that animal welfare applies to wildlife has escaped many animal welfarists and conservationists. A well-accepted and applied ethical foundation for animal conservation that considers animal welfare is lacking. We address this by examining how worldviews of conservationists and animal welfarists are related. The clear conceptual link is that individuals within anthropogenically disturbed populations often endure suffering caused by humans. Accordingly, our objectives are to provide an overview of wildlife conservation, integrate ethical aspects of wildlife conservation and animal welfare, and encourage a ‘wildlife welfare’ ethic among conservationists. We describe the relationship between contemporary socioeconomic and environmental conditions and the impoverished status of North American wildlife. We then describe the ecological plight of large mammalian carnivores in North America. Finally, as a case study, we focus on the tenuous lives of grey wolves (Canis lupus) living in the midst of human-dominated landscapes. We conclude that the suffering wildlife endures because of humans is a collective responsibility that presents a moral imperative for animal welfarists and conservationists alike. Habitat destruction and impoverishment deprives species of life requisites, causing trauma, prolonged suffering, and eventually death. We suggest that a shared doctrine of animal welfare principles is needed, such as a modified version of the internationally recognised Five Freedoms. In essence, this would be an ethical affirmation for conservationists and animal welfarists.

The Rights of Nature movement has recently achieved significant successes in using legal personhood as a tool for environmental protection. Perhaps most famously, the Whanganui River in Aotearoa New Zealand was accorded legal personhood in 2017. These kinds of development have attracted plenty of scholarly interest, but few have scrutinized a foundational underlying question: Can natural areas, such as rivers, or other non-sentient natural entities actually be legal persons?

The case of the Whanganui River is an example of the direct legal personhood model: it purports to grant legal rights to the river directly. Some other jurisdictions have set up legal persons to administer rivers, without declaring the rivers themselves to be legal persons: the indirect legal personhood model. This article offers legal-philosophical arguments for why legal personhood cannot be attributed to rivers directly.

Normally, legal persons can hold claim-rights and be legally wronged. Some legal persons, such as human adults, can also be held legally responsible and exercise legal competences by entering into contracts. Natural entities cannot do any of these things. Hence, they cannot be legal persons directly; rather, their putative direct legal personhood will collapse into indirect legal personhood. Hence, treating natural entities as direct legal persons amounts only to a legal fiction. Such fictions may be justified for symbolic reasons. However, if environmental protection requires setting up a legal person to protect a natural entity, such protection in most cases can be realized without claiming that the natural entity itself would have become a legal person.

The article provides a philosophical explication of an African religious moral philosophy. Often philosophers repudiate the view that African Traditional Religions (ATR) can embody a religious moral philosophy. Theologians, on the other hand, tend to believe that ATR can, but they often do not provide a systematic account of such an ethical system. The article demonstrates that ATR can embody an under-explored moral philosophy. ATR refers to indigenous religious ideas, beliefs, and practices of the indigenous people below the Sahara. The article will invoke the metaphysical and moral concept of vitality as the basis to construct an African religious moral philosophy. (It is worth noting that this article merely constructs, but it does not defend, this ethical system.) Vitality is the spiritual energy that originates, maximally inheres and defines God, and God has since distributed it to all that exists, albeit in varying degrees. By ‘moral philosophy’, the article focuses on (1) meta-ethics (it proffers a vitality-based account of the moral terms right and wrong); (2) normative theory (it expounds on the perfectionist and deontological principles of right action); and (3) applied ethics (it invokes a vitality-based conception of moral status to explore environmental ethics and select bioethical themes).

Ethical deliberations about care for creation require more theological clarity about God's eschatological plan for creation than presently found in church teaching. Nonetheless, we can identify in the writings of recent popes a trajectory toward what I describe as a “covenantal communion” approach. This approach holds that God's eschatological plan is to draw all creatures together in Christ and attributes to creation its own form of agential density through which it becomes, with humanity, a genuine participant in the divine economy. I set this view in contrast to two other approaches: creation as “microcosmic referent” and “humanized abode.” Though versions of these latter two appear in Vatican II documents and in the writings of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, their claims have been moderated in Francis’ move toward a covenantal communion approach. Further developing this approach will help clarify the goods and values at stake in our environmental choices.

Geoengineering involves intentionally modifying the environment on a massive scale and is typically proposed as a last resort to prevent catastrophic harms caused by climate change. Critics argue that there are powerful moral reasons against researching, let alone undertaking, geoengineering. Perhaps most notably, Stephen Gardiner argues that even if we are forced to choose between allowing a climate catastrophe or geoengineering—and geoengineering is the less harmful option—it could still be the case that we ought not to geoengineer. This essay argues for a conditional: if we are indeed forced to choose between catastrophic environmental harm and the less harmful option of geoengineering, then we ought to geoengineer.

This article introduces Bernard Lonergan to environmental ethics through a conversation with Willis Jenkins. Jenkins represents a ripe dialogue partner for Lonergan because of his attentiveness to methodological questions within environmental ethics, as in his incisive critique of Lynn White's influence. To pursue this conversation, this article examines Jenkins's critique of White and then turns to Lonergan's thought to supplement and refine this critique. From this engagement, the article identifies the need for a “practical cosmology”: an ongoing Christian practice that can affectively motivate care for creation. It proposes that the Christian liturgy, through its rich symbolism and distinct cosmology, offers one such practice and thus can weave that care seamlessly within Christian identity. To test this conclusion, the article briefly considers the import of this conversation for contemporary ecclesial responses to the ecological crisis, such as in Laudato si’.

It is common to posit a clear opposition between the values served by property systems and the value of the environment. To give the environment its due, this view holds, the role of private property needs to be limited. Support for this has been said to be found in Locke’s famous ‘enough and as good’ proviso. This article shows that this opposition is mistaken, and corrects the implied reading of Locke’s proviso. In reality, there is no opposition between property and the environment. This is shown using Locke’s theory of appropriation, as well as the real-life case of instream water appropriation.

The global loss of biodiversity is one of the most important challenges facing humanity, and a multi-faceted strategy is needed to address the size and complexity of this problem. This paper draws on scholarship from the philosophy of science and environmental ethics to help address one aspect of this challenge: namely, the question of how to frame biodiversity loss in a compelling manner. The paper shows that the concept of biodiversity, like many scientific concepts, is value-laden in the sense that it tends to support some ethical or social values over others. Specifically, in comparison with other potential concepts, the biodiversity concept is tied more closely to the notion that nature has intrinsic value than to the idea that nature is valuable instrumentally or relationally. Thus, alternative concepts could prove helpful for communicating about biodiversity loss with those who emphasize different value systems. The paper briefly discusses five concepts that illustrate the potential for using different concepts in different contexts. Going forward, conservationists would do well to recognize the values embedded in their language choices and work with social scientists to develop a suite of concepts that can motivate the broadest swath of people to promote conservation.

An interdisciplinary course about Mars for teachers and science students is presented. The focus of the course is on planning for a journey with humans to the planet Mars. Issues in ethics, morality, rights and obligations, conflict management and human psychology as well as rocket orbits, fuel economy, radiation hazards and knowledge of the solar system are included. Examination of the teacher students include interpretation of the course material for future pedagogical usage.

Multiple searches hunt for extraterrestrial life, yet the ethics of such searches in terms of fossil and possible extant life on Mars have not been sufficiently delineated. In response, in this essay, I propose a tripartite ethic for searches for microbial Martian life that consists of default non-harm towards potential living beings, default non-harm to the habitats of potential living beings, but also responsible, restrained scientific harvesting of some microbes in limited transgression of these default non-harm modes. Although this multifaceted ethic remains secular and hence adaptable to space research settings, it arises from both a qualitative analysis of authoritative Buddhist scriptural ethics as well as the quantified ethnographic survey voices of contemporary American Buddhists. The resulting tripartite ethic, while developed for Mars, contains ramifications for the study of microbes on Earth and further retains application to other research locations in our Solar system.

This review essay examines three important new contributions to the water governance literature, which provide important overviews of the changing water governance structures over time, and advance the call for a new water ethic. Furthering this work, I suggest that the need for a water ethic is globally important, but it is particularly urgent for indigenous communities. Settler expansion, fixed political boundaries, and subsequent colonial framings of land and water ownership have affected indigenous communities throughout the world and have led to severe environmental and social justice disparities. Although the books under consideration provide examples of indigenous rights associated with water protection, the theme is largely underdeveloped. Thus, I suggest that insights from indigenous communities’ more holistic and long-term relationship with water could help define and move forward the adoption of a new global water ethic. These insights are gleaned from work with indigenous communities throughout North America, particularly those in the Salish Sea and the Great Lakes regions. A new water ethic could incorporate three precepts: (1) treat water as sacred; (2) consider rights and responsibilities together; and (3) practice hydrophilia (love and know your waterways).

This article offers two arguments for the conclusion that we should refuse on moral grounds to establish a human presence on the surface of Mars. The first argument appeals to a principle constraining the use of invasive or destructive techniques of scientific investigation. The second appeals to a principle governing appropriate human behavior in wilderness. These arguments are prefaced by two preliminary sections. The first preliminary section argues that authors working in space ethics have good reason to shift their focus away from theory-based arguments in favor of arguments that develop in terms of pretheoretic beliefs. The second argues that of the popular justifications for sending humans to Mars only appeals to scientific curiosity can survive reflective scrutiny.

I argue that the use of a social discount rate to assess the consequences of climate policy is unhelpful and misleading. I consider two lines of justification for discounting: (i) ethical arguments for a ‘pure rate of time preference’ and (ii) economic arguments that take time as a proxy for economic growth and the diminishing marginal utility of consumption. In both cases I conclude that, given the long time horizons, distinctive uncertainties, and particular costs and benefits at stake in the climate context, discount rates are at best a poor proxy for the normative considerations they are meant to represent.