Time and the Land

What is the ethical significance of the environment? How shall we dwell on, and with, the earth? And what, if anything, do we owe to future generations? "Time and the Land" pursues these questions through each of the four most prominent theories of ethics in the western philosophical tradition: Utilitarianism, Distributive Justice, Kantian Deontology, and Virtue Ethics.For each theory, Derek Parfit's Non-Identity Problem serves as a test case. Parfit showed how some environmental policy decisions might harm no one in the far distant future, even if they produce situations all would agree are intrinsically repugnant. Myers seeks a theory of environmental ethics that not only responds to pressing moral problems in environmental policy, but also avoids the paradox of the Non-Identity Problem. Myers concludes that no single theory by itself can accomplish this task. A synthesis of ethics is required: but Virtue must lead the way. As Virtue is not a 'utility-maximizing' theory, it avoids the Non-Identity Problem. At the same time, its potential for responding to environmental ethics dilemmas is deep. Myers concludes that the aim for a worthwhile human life must include the aim to create and sustain the environmental conditions in which the worthwhile human life is possible and supported. A Virtuous person takes care of the future through aiming at ends which are, while achievable in the present, also temporally continuous and ongoing, even beyond the one's own lifetime. And the future which it is virtuous to aim for is the one which brings out one's best qualities in the course of striving for it.