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Environmental Values

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Environmental Values

Can We Be 'Friends of the Earth'?

Environmental Values 14(2005): 503-512. doi: 10.3197/096327105774462665

Reasons for protecting biodiversity are usually defined in terms of its instrumentality. Although there may be a number of ways to seek an alternative non-anthropocentric approach, I have chosen to develop an Aristotelian response that draws upon his conception of friendship and self-love. In doing so, I argue that a person living according to moral virtue will recognise that the nonhuman world should be valued and thus protected (at least in part) for its own sake.

KEYWORDS: Aristotle, biodiversity, friendship, self-love

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