Environmental Values Environmental Values
Environmental Values 10(2001): 113-123. doi: 10.3197/096327101129340778
In this article I argue that textual evidence from David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature does not support J. Baird Callicott's professedly Humean yet holistic environmental ethic, which understands the community (e.g., the biotic community) as a 'metaorganismic' entity 'over and above' its individual members. Based on Hume's reductionist account of the mind and his assimilation of the metaphysical nature of the mind to that of the community, I also argue that a Humean account of the community should be likewise reductionist. My conclusion is that Callicott's anti-reductionist holism is at least foreign to, and at worst incompatible with, Hume's philosophy.
KEYWORDS: Hume, Callicott, holism, community, individual, sympathy
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