Finding Our Place in Nature: Aristotle for Environmental Scientists

Finding Our Place in Nature argues that Aristotelian philosophy provides a much needed ethical foundation for the environmental sciences and for our daily commitment to practices of sustainability. Shearman challenges previously held interpretations of Aristotle’s value to the grounding of environmental ethics. He demonstrates that Aristotelian philosophy is a valuable and under-appreciated resource for any student-citizen who requires ethically persuasive reasons--both for pursuing environmental science in the first place and for grounding our social practices as citizens. The author clarifies sustainability as a moral concept--this supplies the underlying purpose to the applied environmental sciences and to living the good life. More importantly, the environmental sciences without the ethical grounding provided by moral philosophy are incomplete and unable to realize a sustainable vision. Finding Our Place in Nature was a finalist for the 2020 PROSE Awards honoring scholarly works published in 2019, in the Environmental Science category.