Environmental Virtue Education

Until now, theories of environmental philosophy have focused on the extension of rights and duties to nonhuman nature. Due to the inherent difficulties of this approach, a shift from the contemporary language of rights and duties to the concept of character development is pragmatically valuable. It appears 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 character traits. This work examines the general advantages of virtue ethics over deontological and utilitarian accounts to illustrate the potential for developing a theory of ecological virtue ethics. In addition to providing a preliminary list of ecological virtues, it proposes that certain types of rules serve as effective aids in the cultivation of environmental virtues, since these rules affect the way the moral agent perceives a particular situation. Ultimately, environmental virtue education shapes and refines the moral perception of a person and thus fundamentally changes the way we interact with the natural world.