Callicott supports a holistic, non-anthropocentric environmental ethic which is in accordance with Leopold's view that " A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.

J. Baird Callicott is an American philosopher whose work has been at the forefront of the new field of environmental philosophy and ethics.

Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac is one of environmental philosophy ’ s seminal texts, and Callicott is widely considered to be the leading contemporary exponent of Leopold's land ethic.

Callicott ’ s Earth ’ s Insights ( 1994 ) is also considered an important contribution to the budding field of comparative environmental philosophy ; a special edition of the journal Worldviews: Environment, Culture, Religion ( Vol.

Callicott is co-Editor-in-Chief with Robert Frodeman of the award-winning, two-volume A-Z Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, published by Macmillan in 2009.

It is wrong when it tends otherwise " — Callicott espouses a holistic, non-anthropocentric environmental ethic.

Callicott offers a subjectivist theory of nature ’ s intrinsic value: he does not challenge the modern classical distinction between subject and object, but rather insists that all value originates in subjects ( human or otherwise ) and is conferred by those subjects on various objects.

Callicott has worked with conservation biologists to develop a philosophy of conservation and conservation values and ethics, based in part on the recent paradigm shift in ecology from what he calls the “ balance of nature ” to the “ flux of nature .” He has been a strong critic of the “ received wilderness idea ”: the idea that wildernesses are places that are “ untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain .” That idea, Callicott claims in The Great New Wilderness Debate ( 1998 ), perpetuates a pre-Darwinian human-nature dualism ; in effect, it “ erases ” from collective memory the indigenous inhabitants of North America and Australia, liberating the current inhabitants of those continents from disturbing thoughts of their own heritage of genocide.

In sum, Callicott is a theoretical monist and an interpersonal and normative pluralist.

As Andrew Light observes, Callicott does not insist that the Leopold land ethic is based on the uniquely true worldview of evolutionary biology and ecology.

Callicott ’ s justification for this claim is an analysis based on the following criteria for tenability: self-consistency ; comprehensiveness ; self-correction ; universality ; and beauty.

When the details of that worldview are shown to be inconsistent with themselves or unable to account for all the facts, the theory is revised accordingly ; the evolutionary-ecological worldview is thus self-correcting and is therefore, Callicott believes, becoming ever more refined.

Callicott counters that his quarrel is with an idea, not the places trammeled by the idea, the preservation of which places he appears to be as ardently supportive as any other environmentalist.

This idea indicates by its very name what the primary goal of wildland preservation is, whereas the wilderness idea is historically associated with outdoor recreation and thus, Callicott claims, confuses the preservation issue and fosters incoherent and contradictory wildlands-use policies.

Among many other speakers: Tyler Volk, Co-director of the Program in Earth and Environmental Science at New York University ; Dr. Donald Aitken, Principal of Donald Aitken Associates ; Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, President of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment ; Robert Correll, Senior Fellow, Atmospheric Policy Program, American Meteorological Society and noted environmental ethicist, J. Baird Callicott.

Callicott writes that “ the landscape that had helped shape and inspire the nascent evolutionary-ecological thought of the youthful Muir and that of the mature Leopold was the perfect setting for ( me ) to inaugurate ( my ) life-long vocation as a founder of academic environmental philosophy .” In 1995, he joined the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies at the University of North Texas in Denton.

The tradition of dichotomous thinking in Western philosophy inclines most philosophers to dismiss Hume ’ s ethics as a kind of irrational emotivism, despite the fact that, Callicott believes, Hume clearly provides a key role for reason in moral action and judgment.

Additionally, Callicott has been criticized for espousing an overbearing and impolitic monism in environmental ethics.

Callicott claims that philosophers and laypersons should not adopt one theory, say utilitarianism, for one purpose or in one context and another theory, say Kantian deontology, for another purpose or in another context ( this would be theoretical pluralism ).

In addition, his arrangement for " Cottonfield Blues " was performed by early Delta blues musicians Garfield Akers and Mississippi Joe Callicott in 1929.

Callicott ’ s book In Defense of the Land Ethic ( 1989 ) explores the intellectual foundations of Leopold's outlook and seeks to provide it with a more complete philosophical treatment ; and a following publication titled Beyond the Land Ethic ( 1999 ) further extends Leopold ’ s environmental philosophy.

For 26 years, Callicott lived and taught in the northern reaches of Wisconsin's sand counties, located on the Wisconsin River, just ninety miles from Aldo Leopold's storied shack and John Muir's first homestead on Fountain Lake, the region that stirred the souls of two very influential environmental thinkers.

Aldo Leopold, according to Callicott, provides reasons why non-human species, biotic communities, and ecosystems should be valued intrinsically ( and thus not severely compromised or destroyed ).

In response to Callicott ’ s elaboration of the Aldo Leopold land ethic, the land ethic ( and, by implication, Callicott ’ s own non-anthropocentric, holistic environmental ethic to the extent that it may differ from Leopold ’ s ) has been subject to the charge of “ ecofascism ,” notably leveled by Tom Regan.

Some scholars acknowledge the intellectual merits of Callicott ’ s critique of the wilderness idea, but regard it as both a betrayal of one of Aldo Leopold ’ s most cherished causes and as giving aid and comfort to the environmental movement ’ s enemies.

Callicott traces the conceptual foundations of the Leopold land ethic first back to Charles Darwin ’ s analysis of the “ moral sense ” in the Descent of Man and ultimately to David Hume ’ s grounding of ethics in the “ moral sentiments ” espoused in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.

In “ The Conceptual Foundations of the Land Ethic ,” Callicott replies that Leopold presented the land ethic as an “ accretion ” to our evolving complex set of ethics.

Callicott believes that an adequate environmental ethic — an environmental-ethics paradigm that addresses actual environmental concerns — must be holistic.

Callicott has explored the possibility of a Judeo-Christian “ citizenship ” environmental ethic as a more radical alternative to the familiar Judeo-Christian “ stewardship ” environmental ethic that was developed in response to criticism from environmental historians and philosophers.

In response, Callicott offered two second-order principles as a framework to adjudicate between conflicting first-order duties: 1 ) “ obligations generated by membership in more venerable and intimate communities take precedence over those generated in more recently emerged and impersonal communities ”; 2 ) “ stronger interests take precedence over duties generated by weaker interests .” Because our various human community memberships are both more venerable and intimate and because human interests in enjoying rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are very strong, Callicott argues that our traditional obligations to individual fellow human beings trump our obligations to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community — at least, he believes, when it comes to the prospect of culling members of the overpopulous Homo sapiens species.

J. Baird Callicott

* Ransom M. Callicott, restaurateur and politician

* J. Baird Callicott

Callicott held the position of Professor of Philosophy and Natural Resources at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point from 1969 to 1995, where he taught the world ’ s first course in environmental ethics in 1971.

J. Baird Callicott, University Distinguished Research Professor at the University of North Texas, Denton.

Callicott was instrumental in developing the field of environmental philosophy and in 1971 taught the world's first course in environmental ethics.

Callicott was born in Memphis, Tennessee on May 9, 1941, to distinguished regional artist and art instructor Burton H. Callicott ( 1907 – 2003 ), of the Memphis Academy of Arts ( now Memphis College of Arts ).

In 1959, Callicott graduated from Memphis's then racially segregated Messick High School and attended Southwestern at Memphis ( now Rhodes College ), earning a B.

The addition of Callicott ’ s expertise helped cement its standing as the world's leading program in the field.

He thought of the jungles below him, and of the wild, strange, untracked beauty there and he promised himself that someday he would return, on foot perhaps, to hunt in this last corner of the world where man is sometimes himself the hunted, and animals the lords.

A third, one of at least equal and perhaps even greater importance, is now being traversed: American immersion and involvement in world affairs.

( Since the time-span of the nation-state coincides roughly with the separate existence of the United States as an independent entity, it is perhaps natural for Americans to think of the nation as representative of the highest form of order, something permanent and unchanging.

It is perhaps difficult to conceive, but imagine that tonight on London bridge the Teddy boys of the East End will gather to sing Marlowe, Herrick, Shakespeare, and perhaps some lyrics of their own.

The key word in my plays is ' perhaps ' ''.

As Lipton puts it: `` The Eros is felt in the magic circle of marijuana with far greater force, as a unifying principle in human relationships, than at any other time except, perhaps, in the mutual metaphysical orgasms.

Years ago this was true, but with the replacement of wires or runners by radio and radar ( and perhaps television ), these restrictions have disappeared and now again too much is heard.

What I want to point out here is that all of them are ex-liberals, or modified liberals, with perhaps one exception.

There is another side of love, more nearly symbolized by the croak of the mating capercailzie, or better still perhaps by the mute antics of the slug.

However, it was not of innocence in general that I was speaking, but of perhaps the frailest and surely the least important side of it which is innocence in romantic love.

Of all the Whig tracts written in support of the Succession, The Crisis is perhaps the most significant.

It is, however, a disarming disguise, or perhaps a shield, for not only has Mercer proved himself to be one of the few great lyricists over the years, but also one who can function remarkably under pressure.

He tends to underestimate -- or perhaps to view charitably -- the brutality and the violence of the age, so that there is an idyllic quality in these pages which hazes over some of its sharp reality.

If only for this modest masterpiece of military history, Blenheim is likely to be read and reread long after newer interpretations have perhaps altered our picture of the Marlborough wars.

The most famous document that comes out of this dispute is perhaps Sir Philip Sidney's An Apologie For Poetrie, published in 1595.

His credulity is perhaps best illustrated in his introduction to The Emancipation Of Massachusetts, which purports to examine the trials of Moses and to draw a parallel between the leader of the Israelite exodus from Egypt and the leadership of the Puritan clergy in colonial New England.

the mere fact that he was selected, though as a substitute, to act as interlocutor or moderator for it, or perhaps we should say with Buck as ' father of the act ', is in itself a difficult phase of his development to grasp.

If it proclaims that the best is yet to be, it always arouses, at least in the young, either a suspicious question or perhaps the exclamation of the Negro youth who saw on a tombstone the inscription, `` I am not dead but sleeping ''.

It is perhaps too late now to talk of mandate because it is inconsistent with what is termed political realism.

The only response we can think of is the humble one that at least we aren't playing the marimba with our shoes in the United Nations, but perhaps the heavy domes in the house of delegates can improve on this feeble effort.

-- Is this, perhaps, one of the things that is wrong with our country??

Since appeals to morality, to humanity, and to sanity have had such small effect, perhaps our last recourse is the deterrent example.