Nature

Can Orthodox Christianity offer spiritual resources uniquely suited to the environmental concerns of today? This book makes the case emphatically that it can indeed. In addition to being the first substantial and comprehensive collection of essays, in any language, to address environmental issues from the Orthodox point of view, this volume (with contributions from many of the most influential theologians and philosophers in contemporary world Orthodoxy) will engage a wide audience, in academic as well as popular circles—resonating not only with Orthodox audiences but with all those in search of a fresh approach to environmental theory and ethics that can bring to bear the resources of ancient spirituality, often virtually unknown in the West, on modern challenges and dilemmas.

The essays collected here, by both eminent and emerging scholars, engage interlocutors from Machiavelli to Arendt. Individually, they contribute compelling readings of important political thinkers and add fresh insights to debates in areas such as environmentalism and human rights. Together, the volume issues a call to think anew about nature, not only as a traditional concept that should be deconstructed or affirmed but also as a site of human political activity and struggle worthy of sustained theoretical attention.

“Philosophy of religion,” in recent decades, has been the study of the rationality, coherence, and truth-claims of classical theism. Yet philosophical reflection on religion has included much more than this: it has been the creative construction of a religious philosophy; it has critically examined claims for religious authority and certainty; it has explored the principles underlying religious thought and life; it has exposed domination, deception, and illusion, it has explored the subjective, practical, and spiritual dimensions of religion.

This collection brings together essays by a variety of contemporary philosophers who are working in this broader tradition: Pamela Sue Anderson, Gary Banham, Bettina Bergo, John Caputo, Matthew Haltman, Wayne Hudson, Grace Jantzen, Donna Jowett, Greg Sadler, Graham Ward, and Edith Wyschogrod.

Pets, People, and Pragmatism examines human relationships with pets without assuming that such relations are either benign or unnatural and to be avoided. The book addresses a lack of respect in pet–people relationships; for respectful relationships to be a real possibility, however, humans must make the effort to understand the beings with which we live, work, and play.

American pragmatism understands that humans and other animal beings have been interacting and transforming each other for thousands of years. There is nothing “unnatural” about the human domestication of other animal beings, though domestication does raise specific practical and ethical questions. A pragmatist account of our relationship with those animal beings commonly considered as pets does not prohibit the use of these beings in research, entertainment, competition, or work. It does, however, find abuse and neglect ethical.

Because abuse can occur in any use of other animal beings, this pragmatist account takes up the abusive practices in research, entertainment, competition, and work without arguing that these practices are inherently abusive. Some of the sources of abuse have been addressed by utilitarian and deontological accounts, but a pragmatist evolutionary perspective offers unique insights and results in some surprising conclusions: For instance, there may be an ethical obligation to let a horse race, a dog show, or a cat compete in agility.

Pets, People, and Pragmatism embarks on a philosophical journey that will captivate scholars and pet enthusiasts alike. It provides an important contribution to longstanding debates in the area of animal issues and strengthens the idea of multiple approaches to nonhuman beings. It also opens space for approaches that challenge some of the assumptions in the field of philosophy that have resulted in a dualistic and hierarchical approach to metaphysics and ethics.