Browsing by Author "Indiana University Press, publisher"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Open Access
F/Actual knowing: putting facts and values in place
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2005) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, author; Indiana University Press, publisher
Knowing needs to be actualized, an act of ours, yet also a discovery of what is actually, factually there. Embodied, emplaced persons, shaped by our concepts and percepts, perhaps all our knowledge wears a human face. But we humans have powers of dis-placement too, sometimes taking up the situations of others than humans. Language is for conversing with each other; language is for encountering the world we inhabit. We sometimes find placed there before us what we variously value on Earth. The human genius can transcend location.
Open Access
Scientific and ethical considerations in rare species protection: the case of beavers in Connecticut
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Dirrigl, Frank J., Jr., author; Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, author; Wilson, Joshua H., author; Indiana University Press, publisher
The protection of rare species abounds with scientific and ethical considerations. An ethical dilemma can emerge when the life of one species is valued higher than that of another, and so we discuss the basis of ranking, protection, and valuation of plants and animals. A duty to protect rare species exists in this age of great losses to plant and animal life, but the scientific and public communities are not always in agreement regarding what species deserve protection. Using a case study, we illustrate how the decision to kill beavers to protect a rare plant and rare animals found in a tidewater creek demanded an ecological ethic approach. We present the concept of a "conservation mediator" and how its use may help find a common ground between stakeholders and decision-makers in similar situations.
Open Access
Technology and/or nature: denatured/renatured/engineered/artifacted life?
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, author; Indiana University Press, publisher
In our high-tech world, do we live at the end of nature? Is the technosphere replacing the biosphere? Can humans control their genetically inherited Pleistocene appetites in an Anthropocene Epoch? Is experience of the urban, rural, and wild a three-dimensional life, with life focused on fewer dimensions under-privileged? Do we, ought we, wish to live on an engineered planet? Would this fulfill human destiny or display human arrogance, failing to embrace our home planet in care and wonder? If we are to solve the escalating technology problem in the right place, we must learn to manage ourselves as much as the planet. True, we must become civilized. Be a resident on your landscape. True, the future holds advancing technology. But equally: we do not want to live a denatured life, on a denatured planet.