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A New Approach to Texas Groundwater Management: An Environmental Justice Argument to Challenge the Rule of Capture

Description: Texas is the last remaining state to utilize the rule of capture, a doctrine based on English Common Law, as a means of regulating groundwater resources. Many of the western states originally used the rule of capture to regulate their groundwater resources, but over time, each of these states replaced the rule of capture with other groundwater laws and regulations. The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) State Water Plan, Water for Texas-2002, warned Texans if current water usage and laws d… more
Date: December 2005
Creator: Purvis, Jody
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Redacted Dominionism: An Evangelical, Environmentally Sympathetic Reading of the Early Genesis Narrative

Description: Critiques of the environmental ramifications of the early Genesis narrative by environmental thinkers such as Aldo Leopold, Ian McHarg, and Lynn White underscore a longstanding tension between the environmental movement and Western Christianity. The evangelical community (EC) especially, has been at odds with the environmental movement, as the EC grounds its theology regarding human relations to nature on the Genesis narrative—and especially the Genesis 1:26-28 dominion mandate— interpreted wit… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Cone, Christopher
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Bahá'í Principle of Religious Unity and the Challenge of Radical Pluralism

Description: The Bahá'í principle of religious unity is unique among the world's religious traditions in that its primary basis is found within its own sacred texts and not in commentaries of those texts. The Bahá'í principle affirms the existence of a common transcendent source from which the religions of the world originate and receive their inspiration. The Bahá'í writings also emphasize the process of personal transformation brought about through faith as a unifying factor in all religious traditions. T… more
Date: December 1993
Creator: May, Dann J. (Dann Joseph)
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Ecological Forms of Life: Wittgenstein and Ecolinguistics

Description: The present philosophical literature on philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein tends to either stagnate by focusing upon issues particular to Wittgenstein's philosophy or expand the boundaries of Wittgenstein's thought to shed light onto other areas of study. One area that has largely been ignored is the realm of environmental philosophy. I prepare the way for a solution to this by first arguing that Wittgenstein's later philosophy of language shows 'proto-ecolinguistic' concerns, sharing much in co… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Sarratt, Nicholas M.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Environmental Imagination: the Constitution and Projection of a Sustainable Ethos

Description: This dissertation provides a theoretical analysis and examination of the role of imagination in the formation of an environmental ethos. The majority of ethical theories in environmental thought largely neglect the role that imagination plays in both the relationships that humans form with their environment, and the subsequent role that imagination plays in constituting the way that those relationships are understood ethically. To explore the role of imagination in constituting and subsequently… more
Date: December 2014
Creator: Day, Philip Garrett
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Contribution of Mira Behn and Sarala Behn to Social and Environmental Transformation in the Indian State of Uttarakhand

Description: The influence of Mohandas K. Gandhi on social and environmental movements in post-colonial India has been widely acknowledged. Yet, the contributions of two European associates of Gandhi, Madeleine Slade and Catherine Mary Heilemann, better known in India as Mira Behn and Sarala Behn, have not received the due attention of the academic community. This dissertation is an examination of the philosophy and social activism of Mira Behn and Sarala Behn and their roles in the evolution of Gandhian ph… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Mallik, Bidisha
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Approaches to Nature Aesthetics: East Meets West

Description: Nature aesthetics is examined as an approach to environmental ethics. The characteristics of proper nature appreciation show that every landscape can be appreciated impartially in light of the dynamic processes of nature. However, it is often claimed that natural beauty decreases if humans interfere into nature. This claim leads to the separation of human culture and nature, and limits the number of landscapes which can be protected in terms of aesthetic value. As a solution to this separation,… more
Date: December 2002
Creator: Toyoda, Mitsuyo
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Beauty of Nature As a Foundation for Environmental Ethics: China and the West

Description: My dissertation aims at constructing an environmental ethics theory based on environmental aesthetics in order to advocate and promote environmentally sustainable practices, policies, and lifestyles. I attempt to construct an integrated environmental aesthetics in order to inspire people’s feelings of love towards nature and motivate them to protect it.  In order to achieve this goal, I first examine the philosophical understanding and aesthetic appreciation of nature from philosophical traditi… more
Date: May 2012
Creator: Gao, Shan
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Acting Ethically: Behavior and the Sustainable Society

Description: One of the most important factors for creating the sustainable society is that the individuals in that society behave in an environmentally sustainable fashion. Yet achieving appropriate behavior in any society is difficult, and the challenge is no less with regards to sustainability. Three of the most important factors for determining behavior have recently been highlighted by psychologists: personal efficacy, social influence, and internal standards. Because these three factors play a promine… more
Date: August 2007
Creator: Sewell, Patrick
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Sustainable Environmental Identities for Environmental Sustainability: Remaking Environmental Identities with the Help of Indigenous Knowledge

Description: Early literature in the field of environmental ethics suggests that environmental problems are not technological problems requiring technological solutions, but rather are problems deeply rooted in Western value systems calling for a reorientation of our values. This dissertation examines what resources are available to us in reorienting our values if this starting point is correct. Three positions can be observed in the environmental ethics literature on this issue: 1. We can go back and rei… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Parker, Jonathan
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Wilderness Women: Embodiment in Nature

Description: Virginia Woolf makes clear in her book A Room of One's Own that "[A] woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write…." This statement extends to all endeavors by women, including sport. The gap between men and women's sports is not bridged by monetary compensation. The domination of women exists in conceptual ideals and how those are expressed through our roles in this world. I use Val Plumwood's ecological feminist theory to expose the blatant masculinity imposed upon sport. I… more
Date: August 2000
Creator: Cordell, Tami
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Situating Cost-Benefit Analysis for Environmental Justice

Description: Cost-benefit analysis plays a significant role in the process of siting hazardous waste facilities throughout the United States. Controversy regarding definitively disparate, albeit unintentional, racist practices in reaching these siting decisions abounds, yet cost-benefit analysis stands incapable of commenting on normative topics. This thesis traces the developments of both cost-benefit analysis and its normative cousin utilitarianism by focusing on the impacts they have had on the contempor… more
Date: December 2010
Creator: Wohlmuth, Erik Michael
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The American Community College's Obligation to Democracy

Description: In this thesis, I address the dichotomy between liberal arts education and terminal vocational training in the American community college. The need is for reform in the community college in relation to philosophical instruction in order to empower citizens, support justice and create more sustainable communities. My call for reform involves a multicultural integration of philosophy into terminal/vocational programs as well as evolving the traditional liberal arts course to exist in a multicultu… more
Date: December 2007
Creator: Pokross, Amy Elizabeth
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Negotiating Environmental Relationships: Why Language Matters to Environmental Philosophy

Description: The medium of language is important to environmental philosophy, and more specifically, to the establishment and understanding of environmental relationships. The differences between animal and human language point to our unique semantic range, which results from our neuro-linguistic process of signification. An examination of the linguistic implications of the problem of nature and the tenets of semiotics challenges the idea of a clean word to world fit. Because signs are the medium in which m… more
Date: December 2003
Creator: Martin, Vernon J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Between Logos and Eros: New Orleans' Confrontation with Modernity

Description: This thesis examines the environmental and social consequences of maintaining the artificial divide between thinking and feeling, mind and matter, logos and eros. New Orleans, a city where the natural environment and human sensuality are both dominant forces, is used as a case study to explore the implications of our attempts to impose rational controls on nature - both physical and human nature. An analysis of New Orleans leading up to and immediately following Hurricane Katrina (2005) reveals… more
Date: May 2008
Creator: Moore, Erin Christine
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Earth Tones: How Environmental Journalism and Environmental Ethics Influence Environmental Citizenship

Description: Environmental ethics and environmental journalism are influencing the developing philosophy of environmental citizenship. This philosophy involves the ideas that people are part of the environment, that the future depends on a healthy environment, and that action on behalf of the environment is necessary. It applies to individuals, communities, large and small companies and corporations, governments, and a coalition of nations. Environmental philosophers and environmental journalists can work t… more
Date: August 2007
Creator: Wall, Don
Partner: UNT Libraries

Ethics Naturally: An Environmental Ethic Based on Naturalness

Description: In this thesis I attempt to base an environmental ethic on a quality called naturalness. I examine it in terms of quantification, namely, as to whether it can quantified? I then apply the concept to specific areas such as restoration and conservation to create an environmental ethic and to show how such an ethic would be beneficial in general, and especially to policy issues concerning the environment. The thesis consists of three chapters: (1) the definition of nature and natural by way of a h… more
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Date: May 2004
Creator: Leard, Jason
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Disturbing Nature's Beauty: Environmental Aesthetics in a New Ecological Paradigm

Description: An ecological paradigm shift from the "balance of nature" to the "flux of nature" will change the way we aesthetically appreciate nature if we adopt scientific cognitivism-the view that aesthetic appreciation of nature must be informed by scientific knowledge. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, though we talk about aesthetic qualities as if they were objectively inherent in objects, events, or environments. Aesthetic judgments regarding nature are correct insofar as they are part of a communit… more
Date: August 2009
Creator: Simus, Jason Boaz
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Environmental Philosophy and the Ethics of Terraforming Mars: Adding the Voices of Environmental Justice and Ecofeminism to the Ongoing Debate

Description: Questions concerning the ethics of terraforming Mars have received some attention from both philosophers and scientists during recent decades. A variety of theoretical approaches have been supplied by a number of authors, however research pursuant to this thesis has indicated at least two major blindspots in the published literature on the topic. First, a broad category of human considerations involving risks, dangers, and social, political, and economic inequalities that would likely be associ… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: French, Robert Heath
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Mapping Overlapping Constellations: Nature and Technology in Research in Philosophy and Technology/Techné and Environmental Ethics

Description: The overlap between the separate fields of philosophy of technology and environmental philosophy can be investigated using the two longest running flagship journals for each field, Environmental Ethics (EE) and Research in Philosophy and Technology, which is now published as Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology (RPT/Techné). By looking at the theoretical and conceptual ideas on nature and the environment expressed in RPT/Techné, at those on technology and artifacts expressed in EE, an… more
Date: May 2015
Creator: Miller, Glen, 1975-
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Wild Practices: Teaching the Value of Wildness

Description: The notion of wildness as a concept that is essentially intractable to definition has profound linguistic and ethical implications for wilderness preservation and environmental education. A survey of the ways in which wilderness value is expressed through language reveals much confusion and repression regarding our understanding of the autonomy of nature. By framing discussions of wilderness through fact-driven language games, the value of the wild autonomy in nature becomes ineffable. In remo… more
Date: May 2004
Creator: Lindquist, Christopher R.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Toward an Ecofeminist Environmental Jurisprudence: Nature, Law, and Gender

Description: This thesis develops a legal theory reflecting the insights of feminism and environmental philosophy. I argue that human beings are not ontologically separate, but embedded in webs of relationality with natural others. My primary purposes are to 1) delineate ways in which institutions of modernity (such as law and science) have precipitated ecosocial crisis through the attempt to dialectically enforce mastery and control over nature and women; and 2) explore alternate political forms and ontolo… more
Date: August 1999
Creator: Mallory, Chaone
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Environmental Virtue Education: Ancient Wisdom Applied

Description: The focus of environmental philosophy has thus far heavily depended on the extension of rights to nonhuman nature. Due to inherent difficulties with this approach to environmental problems, I propose a shift from the contemporary language of rights and duties to the concept of character development. I claim that a theory of environmental virtue ethics can circumvent many of the difficulties arising from the language of rights, duties, and moral claims by emphasizing the cultivation of certain d… more
Date: August 2005
Creator: Lindemann, Monica A.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Ranges of consideration: crossing the fields of ecology, philosophy and science studies.

Description: Environmental issues are often complex with many different constituents operating according to a broad range of communication techniques. In order to foster negotiations, different perspectives need to be articulated in lucid ways sensitive to various viewpoints and circumstances. In my thesis I investigate how certain approaches to environmental discourse effect dialogue and negotiation. My first two chapters focus on environmental problems surrounding rangeland ecology along the U.S./Mexico b… more
Access: Restricted to UNT Community Members. Login required if off-campus.
Date: December 2002
Creator: Dinneen, Nathan
Partner: UNT Libraries
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