The Ecological Life

Discovering Citizenship and a Sense of Humanity

By (author) Jeremy Bendik-Keymer

Paperback - £36.00

Publication date:

19 January 2006

Length of book:

256 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780742534483

Written as a series of lectures, The Ecological Life offers a humanistic perspective on environmental philosophy that challenges some of the dogmas of deep ecology and radical environmentalism while speaking for their best desires. The book argues that being human-centered leaves us open to ecological identifications, rather than the opposite. Bendik-Keymer draws on analytic and continental traditions of philosophy as well as literature and visual media. He argues for a sense of ecological justice consonant with human rights, and shows how humanistic thinking is committed to deepening respect for life and our ecological orientation. In a clear, jargon-free and conversational tone, The Ecological Life presents a timely and important contribution to civic engagement in an ecological century.
In The Ecological Life, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer combines an impassioned personal plea for global ecological responsibility with a thoughtful synthesis of the best traditions of environmental and humanist thinking. Conceived as a series of lectures to bright students at an unnamed liberal arts college in the United States, the argument is clear and compelling and accessible, and has the merit of bringing philosophical rigor to what sounds more like a very thoughtful individual working out what really matters now, than a jargon-filled contribution to questions of philosophical scholarship.