The Standing Tree: A Narrative Review of Environmental Ethics from Leopold's Land to Ecological Feminism
Year: 2026
Type: review
Abstract: Environmental ethics---the philosophy whose subject is the tree's standing and whose question is the nature's membership---moved from Leopold's 1949 land ethic and White's 1967 roots through Hardin's 1968 commons, Stone's 1972 standing, and Naess's 1973 depths to Singer's 1975 animals, Warren's 1990 feminism, and pragmatism's 1996 light. This article presents a narrative review of that arc's canonical line: Leopold's 1949 Sand County, White's 1967 Science roots, Passmore's 1974 responsibility, Hardin's 1968 tragedy, Stone's 1972 Southern California trees, Naess's 1973 Inquiry depths, Rolston's 1975 ecological ethic, Singer's 1975 animals, Callicott's 1980 triangle, Devall and Sessions's 1985 deep ecology, Warren's 1990 power, and Light and Katz's 1996 pragmatism. The review is organized around three themes: the land's ethic and the roots's diagnosis, in which the Leopold's pyramid and the White's history named the crisis's membership; the standing's and the depths's era, in which the Stone's trees, the Naess's shallow-deep divide, the Rolston's nature's value, and the Singer's animals enlarged the moral's circle; and the triangle's and the feminisms's era, in which the Callicott's controversy, the deep's platform, the Warren's logic of domination, and the pragmatists's convergence carried the ethic into the policy's marketplace. It is concluded that environmental ethics is the moral's circle's widest enlargement---and that its arc is the tree's reading from the land's pyramid to the standing's gavel.
Authors: Revista, Zen, PHILOSOPHY, 10
Institution: Faculdades Guarulhos
Language: English
Subfield: Nature and Landscape Conservation
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204751342