NARRATING THE ENVIRONMENTAL APOCALYPSE: HOW IMAGINING THE END FACILITATES MORAL REASONING AMONG ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS

摘要

Often assumed to induce fatalism, empirical evidence shows that envi ronmental apocalypticism is frequently associated with activism. I sug gest this is the case because the notion of imminent catastrophe reveals a moral to the environmental story, and in so doing furnishes a point of view from which people can determine what constitutes environmentally ethical behavior. Insofar as it guides behavior, this apocalyptic moral rea soning can be usefully understood as a folk version of consequentialism. Further research on how people put environmental ethics into practice would complement the significant advances environmental ethicists have made in the areas of normative and meta-ethics over the past several decades.