Where the wild things are: exploring the concept of wilderness and its moral implications

Abstract

First and foremost, this work offers a critical review of recent influential environmental theorists’ efforts to construct and defend normatively significant accounts of wilderness. As such, this work focuses on the definitions provided by environmental philosophers Eric Katz, Holmes Rolston III, J. Baird Callicott, Steven Vogel, and Val Plumwood. I suggest that insofar as Katz and Rolston rely on the problematically construed human-nature dichotomy, their definitions and moral arguments for the preservation of wilderness fail. While J. Baird Callicott’s definition provides an accurate account of wilderness, his ethical framework limits its normative force. Since Val Plumwood does not rely on the human-nature dichotomy, nor does she attempt to assign intrinsic value to wilderness and wild entities, her approach is the most successful.