Simon P. James's "How Nature Matters"

Simon P. James is Professor of Philosophy at Durham University. He has written a number of articles on environmental philosophy as well as several books, including Zen Buddhism and Environmental Ethics, The Presence of Nature, and Environmental Philosophy: An Introduction.

James applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, How Nature Matters: Culture, Identity, and Environmental Value, and reported the following:

Unfortunately, just three words appear on page 99 of How Nature Matters; and, although they’re perfectly good words arranged in a very sensible way, they don’t reveal much about the book’s content. So, I’m sorry to say that the Page 99 Test doesn’t work in this case.

But here, anyway, is a brief summary of what the book’s about.

Nature is often good for us. As many environmentally-minded people say, it provides us humans with a range of valuable ecosystem services. But that, I suggest, is very far from being the whole truth about nature’s value. Canyons, mangroves and other such things can be valuable even when they aren’t good for us. And even when they do contribute to our wellbeing, they do not always do so as service-providers. In many cases, for instance, they are good for us because they are part of who we are.

To accommodate these facts, we need a new theory of nature’s value, one based on part-whole relations. In How Nature Matters I develop such a theory.

I do so by engaging with recent work in environmental philosophy as well as some cutting-edge policy-focused debates. But I also explore twelve case studies concerning (amongst other things) the creation of ski resorts, the mining of bauxite, the controversial practice of dugong hunting and the religious significance of the site where the Buddha is said to have become enlightened. The end result is, I believe, an account of how nature matters which is humane without being human-centred.

Learn more about How Nature Matters at the Oxford University Press website.

--Marshal Zeringue