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open access

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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation

Burn and Sow: The Ethical Implications of Ecological Restoration

Description: Ecological restoration is quickly becoming a major approach to how humans interact with the natural world. Some view restoration as another land management technique on par with conservation and preservation. Others view it as a way to make reparations for our misdeeds and to reincorporate humans into the natural world. Ideas regarding restoration from key academics and restorationists are evaluated here. Their views have set the stage for the contemporary paradigm. Values that may be attr… more
Access: Restricted to UNT Community Members. Login required if off-campus.
Date: August 2005
Creator: Mauritz, Elizabeth
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Cultivating the Ecological Conscience: Smith, Orr, and Bowers on Ecological Education

Description: During the past two decades, one of the positive developments in academia has been the emergence of a sizable literature pertaining to ecological education-the theory and practice of preparing children and adults alike for ecologically responsible citizenship. Gregory A. Smith, David W. Orr, and C. A. Bowers are three of the more prolific writers in the field. Smith critiques modern primary and secondary education and argues for, and paints a picture of, an alternative "green pedagogy" that s… more
Date: December 2009
Creator: Hoelscher, David W.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Deliberative Democracy, Divided Societies, and the Case of Appalachia

Description: Theories of deliberative democracy, which emphasize open-mindedness and cooperative dialogue, confront serious challenges in deeply divided political populations constituted by polarized citizens unwilling to work together on issues they collectively face. The case of mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia makes this clear. In my thesis, I argue that such empirical challenges are serious, yet do not compromise the normative desirability of deliberative democracy because communicative mec… more
Date: August 2009
Creator: Tidrick, Charlee
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Discursive Horizons of Human Identity and Wilderness in Postmodern Environmental Ethics: A Case Study of the Guadalupe Mountains of Texas

Description: Using a genealogy of the narratives of the Guadalupes, I explore three moral identities. The Mescalero Apache exist as caretakers of sacred space. Spanish and Anglo settlers exist as conquerors of a hostile land. The park service exists as captives, imprisoned in the belief that economic justifications can protect the intrinsic value of wilderness. The narrative shift from oral to abstract text-based culture entails a shift from intrinsic to instrumental valuation. I conclude that interpretatio… more
Date: May 1993
Creator: Hood, Robert L. (Robert Leroy)
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Embedded Within Landscapes: Agrarian Philosophy and Sustainable Agriculture

Description: Small-scale, conservation-based agrarianism provides a model for sustainable human habitation within heterogeneous landscapes. Thoreau's Transcendentalism and the historical roots of American Agrarianism are explored as influences for wilderness preservation and the New Agrarian movement. Idealizing a distant wilderness too often means overlooking the ecological and socio-economic environment where people live. Middle landscapes between nature and culture, or between wilderness and cities, can … more
Date: August 2005
Creator: Leonard, Evan
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

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.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation

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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Expendable Creation: Classical Pentecostalism and Environmental Disregard

Description: Whereas the ecological crisis has elicited a response from many quarters of American Christianity, classical (or denominational) Pentecostals have expressed almost no concern about environmental problems. The reasons for their disregard of the environment lie in the Pentecostal worldview which finds expression in their: (1) tradition; (2) view of human and natural history; (3) common theological beliefs; and (4) scriptural interpretation. All these aspects of Pentecostalism emphasize and value … more
Date: December 1997
Creator: Goins, Jeffrey P. (Jeffrey Paul)
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Green Horizon: An (Environmental) Hermeneutics of Identification with Nature through Literature

Description: This thesis is an examination of transformative effects of literature on environmental identity. The work begins by examining and expanding the Deep Ecology concept of identification-with-nature. The potential problems with identification through direct encounters are used to argue for the relevance of the possibility of identification-through-literature. Identification-through-literature is then argued for using the hermeneutic and narrative theories of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, as … more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Bell, Nathan M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Indigenous Knowledge on the Marshall Islands: a Case for Recognition Justice

Description: Recent decades have marked growing academic and scientific attention to the role of indigenous knowledge in climate change adaptation, mitigation, and detection strategies. However, how indigenous knowledge is incorporated is a point of contention between self-identifying indigenous groups and existing institutions which combat climate change. In this thesis, I argue that the full inclusion of indigenous knowledge is deterred by certain aspects of modernity. In order to overcome the problems of… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Gessas, Jeff
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

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.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

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
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Orca Recovery by Changing Cultural Attitudes (ORCCA): How Anthropocentrism and Capitalism Led to an Endangered Species in Puget Sound

Description: Ways of understanding, living, and communicating with non-human species, and more specifically endangered species, have been thought of dualistically and hierarchically in Western cultures. This type of thinking is harmful when examining environmental issues that involve more than just humans, which is arguably all environmental issues. By enforcing a nature/culture dichotomy, humans are seen as separate from nature and therefore they can ethically excuse themselves from dealing with environmen… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Jandick, Brittany
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Private Property in America: Land Use and the Ethics of Owning Land

Description: Private property in the United States arose out of a tradition that emphasized the individual freedom to control holdings without interference from governmental influences. A sharp distinction between society as a whole and individual rights isolated ownership of private property from a notion of the common good. This dualistic framework excludes the possibility for forms of property that do not fall completely into either category. Property ownership attitudes are central to issues that ofte… more
Date: December 2005
Creator: Grant, Elizabeth Michelle
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Process environmental philosophy

Description: A process-information approach is examined as a foundation for an environmental philosophy that is dynamic and elastic, with particular emphasis on value, beauty, integrity and stability supporting Aldo Leopold's vision. I challenge one of the basic assumptions of Western philosophy, namely the metaphysical primacy of substance. The classical, medieval and modern metaphysics of substance is presented with particular attention given the paradoxes of substance. Starting from the philosophy of Her… more
Date: May 2003
Creator: Corbeil, Marc J.V.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Queer Phenomenological Framework of Gender and Sexuality for the Discourses of Environmental Religion and Ecofeminism

Description: This master's thesis undertakes an analysis of the current discourse in environmental religion and ecofeminism respectively and proposes the use of queer phenomenology to provide a framework of analysis for the ways gender and sexuality are envisioned in those fields in conversation with the use of Judith Butler's theory of performativity. First, a literature review and overall analysis of the current discourse of environmental religion is established. This is followed by a literature review an… more
Date: May 2022
Creator: Spratt, Rachel Olivia
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Rhetoric of Ecofeminism: A Postmodern Inquiry

Description: Ecofeminism is a mixture of two important contemporary schools of thought; feminism and ecology. The rhetoric generated from ecofeminism focuses on language, on its potential to reconstruct deeply embedded attitudes and beliefs. Thus, ecofeminists attempt to transform society through the redescription and redefinition of modern concepts into postmodern concepts. The rhetoric of ecofeminism, set in postmodern context, is a fusion of substantive and stylistic features that simultaneously deconstr… more
Date: May 1993
Creator: Robinson, Michael W. (Michael William)
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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