Table Of Content“A much-needed fresh approach to the environmental concerns of the aver-
age person.”
—Ladelle McWhorter, University of Richmond, USA
“Environmental ethics often seeks to develop a suitably modern solution
to the problems imposed by modernity—solutions rooted in enlightenment
thinking and romanticism. Mark Coeckelbergh’s Environmental Skill takes
an entirely different approach, demonstrating that it is modernity that is the
problem and developing an innovative form of environmental ethics that
relies not on better knowledge about the world but more attentive and skill-
ful ways of being-in-the-world.”
—David J. Gunkel, Northern Illinois University, USA
“This new book by Mark Coeckelbergh is an insightful argument for an
environmental philosophy that draws on the resources of and at the same
time extends work in philosophy of technology. The notion of skilled
engagement with the world as this has emerged from pragmatism and phe-
nomenology is here deepened and re-thought in an effort to understand and
respond to the challenges of living in a techno-transformed nature.”
—Carl Mitcham, Colorado School of Mines, USA
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Environmental Skill
Today it is widely recognized that we face urgent and serious environmen-
tal problems and we know much about them, yet we do very little. What
explains this lack of motivation and change? Why is it so hard to change our
lives? This book addresses this question by means of a philosophical inquiry
into the conditions of possibility for environmental change. It discusses how
we can become more motivated to do environmental good and what kind of
knowledge we need for this, and explores the relations between motivation,
knowledge, and modernity. After reviewing a broad range of possible philo-
sophical and psychological responses to environmental apathy and inertia,
the author argues for moving away from a modern focus on either detached
reason and control (Stoicism and Enlightenment reason) or the natural, the
sentiments, and the authentic (Romanticism), both of which make possible
disengaging and alienating modes of relating to our environment. Instead,
he develops the notion of environmental skill: a concept that bridges the
gap between knowledge and action, re-interprets environmental virtue, and
suggests an environmental ethics centered on experience, know-how, and
skillful engagement with our environment. The author then explores the
implications of this ethics for our lives: it changes the way we think about
and deal with health, food, animals, energy, climate change, politics, and
technology.
Engaging with phenomenological and pragmatist ideas and with litera-
ture on romanticism and contemporary environmental virtue ethics, this
book shows how existing thinking about nature is often still highly roman-
tic, and how the concept of environmental skill provides a more adequate
description of our basic existential relation to our environment. By revealing
different ways of actively relating to our environment and by encouraging
us to develop environmental skill, Coeckelbergh proposes an environmental
ethics that imaginatively and practically explores new possibilities.
Mark Coeckelbergh is Professor of Technology and Social Responsibility
at De Montfort University, UK. Previously he was Managing Director of
the 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology and affiliated to the Philosophy
Department of the University of Twente. His publications include Grow-
ing Moral Relations (2012), Human Being @ Risk (2013), and numerous
publications in the area of ethics and technology—in particular, ethics of
robotics and ICTS. His research interests include philosophy of technology,
environmental philosophy, and moral philosophy.
Routledge Studies in Ethics and Moral Theory
1 The Contradictions of Modern 9 Deprivation and Freedom
Moral Philosophy A Philosophical Enquiry
Ethics after Wittgenstein Richard J. Hull
Paul Johnston
10 Needs and Moral Necessity
2 Kant, Duty and Moral Soran Reader
Worth
Philip Stratton-Lake 11 Reasons, Patterns, and
Cooperation
3 Justifying Emotions Christopher Woodard
Pride and Jealousy
Kristján Kristjánsson 12 Challenging Moral
Particularism
4 Classical Utilitarianism Edited by Mark Norris Lance,
from Hume to Mill Matjaž Potrč, and Vojko
Frederick Rosen Strahovnik
5 The Self, the Soul and 13 Rationality and Moral Theory
the Psychology of Good How Intimacy Generates
and Evil Reasons
Ilham Dilman Diane Jeske
6 Moral Responsibility 14 The Ethics of Forgiveness
The Ways of Scepticism A Collection of Essays
Carlos J. Moya Christel Fricke
7 The Ethics of Confucius 15 Moral Exemplars in
and Aristotle the Analects
Mirrors of Virtue The Good Person is That
Jiyuan Yu Amy Olberding
8 Caste Wars 16 The Phenomenology of Moral
A Philosophy of Discrimination Normativity
David Edmonds William H. Smith
17 The Second-Person Perspective 25 Consequentialism and
in Aquinas’s Ethics Environmental Ethics
Virtues and Gifts Edited by Avram Hiller,
Andrew Pinsent Ramona Ilea, and Leonard Kahn
18 Social Humanism 26 The Ethics of Vulnerability
A New Metaphysics A Feminist Analysis of Social Life
Brian Ellis and Practice
Erinn C. Gilson
19 Ethics Without Morals
In Defence of Amorality 27 Eudaimonic Ethics
Joel Marks The Philosophy and Psychology of
Living Well
20 Evil and Moral Psychology Lorraine Besser-Jones
Peter Brian Barry
28 The Philosophy and
21 Aristotelian Ethics in Psychology of Character
Contemporary Perspective and Happiness
Edited by Julia Peters Edited by Nancy E. Snow and
Franco V. Trivigno
22 Modern Honor
A Philosophical Defense 29 Moral Responsibility and the
Anthony Cunningham Problem of Many Hands
Ibo van de Poel, Lambèr
23 Art and Ethics in a Royakkers, and Sjoerd D. Zwart
Material World
Kant’s Pragmatist Legacy 30 Environmental Skill
Jennifer A. McMahon Motivation, Knowledge, and the
Possibility of a Non-Romantic
24 Defending Associative Duties Environmental Ethics
Jonathan Seglow Mark Coeckelbergh
‘That is well said, answered Candide, but we must cultivate our garden.’
Illustration by Fernand Siméon, printed in Voltaire’s ‘Candide ou L’optimisme’,
Paris: Jules Meynial, 1922. Reproduction courtesy of the New York Public Library.
Environmental Skill
Motivation, Knowledge, and the
Possibility of a Non-Romantic
Environmental Ethics
Mark Coeckelbergh
First published 2015
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2015 Taylor & Francis
The right of Mark Coeckelbergh to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Coeckelbergh, Mark.
Environmental skill : motivation, knowledge, and the possibility of a
non-romantic environmental ethics / by Mark Coeckelbergh. — 1 [edition].
pages cm. — (Routledge studies in ethics and moral theory ; 30)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Environmental ethics. 2. Environmentalism—Moral and
ethical aspects. 3. Environmentalism—Philosophy. 4. Human
ecology—Philosophy. I. Title.
GE42.C64 2015
179'.1—dc23
2014041809
ISBN: 978-1-138-88557-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-71415-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
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