American Indian environmental ethics : an Ojibwa case study

Book

American Indian environmental ethics : an Ojibwa case study / by J. Baird Callicott, Michael P. Nelson.

Callicott, J. Baird. (Author). Nelson, Michael P., 1966- (Added Author).

Summary:

"For courses in anthropology, cultural geography, environmental philosophy and ethics. Brief text focusing on environmental attitudes and practices of American Indians using the Ojibwa narrative, myths, legends, stories and rituals. Introductory essay offers theory of environmental ethics, an overview of the field of environmental ethics, and places the Ojibwa within this contemporary debate."--Publisher.

"J. Baud Callicott and Michael P. Nelson offer an engaging study of environmental ethics with particular emphasis on an ethics supported by the Ojibwa cultural worldview. Connecting environmental theory with diverse stories from Ojibwa Indians, Callicott and Nelson reveal the meaning and power of cultural worldviews as they inform ethical principles and practices, as they show that competing worldviews demonstrate the many ways "of cognitively organizing human experience." The authors begin with a concise treatment of environmental ethics, cultural worldviews, and the problem of cultural relativism, and integrate and evaluate rarely seen narratives of Ojibwa Indians on their relationship to the environment"--Back cover.

Record details

ISBN: 0130431214
ISBN: 9780130431219
Physical Description: ix, 163 pages ; 23 cm.
Publisher: Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Prentice Hall, �2004.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references (pages 137-141) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Ch. 1. Introductory Essay: Cultural Worldview and Environmental Ethics -- 1. What is Environmental Ethics? -- [Anthropocentric, Individualistic nonanthropocentric, Holistic nonanthropocentric & comparative] -- 2. What is a Cultural Worldview? -- [Worldview and philosophy ; traditional American Indian philosophy [Aboriginal or Native peoples, Indians, First Nations] ; cultural & personal] -- 3. What is Culture? -- [Ontological & methological problem ; Lamarckian cultural evolution ; biological unity, cultural diversity, drawing cultural boundaries ; methodological problem solved -- the analysis of narratives] -- 4. Language, Worldview, and Cultural Relativism [Linguistic-cultural relativism, cultural absolutism, Descartes' subject-object dualism, Kant Copernican revolution & Einsteinian revolution in philosophy [Einstein], connection between relativity in physics and in anthropology, basic principle of relativity in physics; analogous relativity in anthropology, postmodern philosophy -- truth or tenability?, uncertainty principle in Worldview anaysis] -- 5. The Ojibwa Narratives -- [Four segments of the Ojibwa people ; the role of narratives in oral education, the provenance & authenticity of these narratives].

Ch. 2. Narratives -- 1. The Orphans and Mashos -- 2. Clothed-in-Fur -- 3. The Woman Who Married a Beaver -- 4. The Boy That Was Carried Away by a Bear -- 5. A Moose and His Offspring -- 6. Little-Image -- 7. The Person That Made Medicine -- 8. The Birth of Nanabushu [Nanabush, Nanabozo, Nanabozho] -- 9. Nanabushu Swallowed by the Sturgeon -- 10. Nanabushu Slays Hewer-of-His-Shin -- 11. Nanabushu Leaves His Brother, and Also His Grandmother -- 12. Nanbushu, the Sweet-Brier Berries, and the Sturgeons -- 13. Notes on the Mystic Rite.

Ch. 3. Interpretive Essay: An Ojibwa Worldview and Environmental Ethic -- I. Key Cognitive Elements of an Ojibwa Worldview -- [Personification, community concept, power, metamorphosis, situation of blessing, disobedience and its consequences, reciprocity, life & death, immortal bones and spirit] -- II. Ojibwa Environmental Ethics -- [Animal rights, human-animal marriages as a means of community building, human-animal gift economy, animal communities -- personification -- biotic communities ... in the Leopold and Ojibwa land ethics, the fur -- flesh -- and bones of the land ethics, Pimadaziwin] -- III. The Controversy About American-Indian Environmental Ethics -- [Proponents and skeptics ; a debate about apples and oranges ; ethics and behaviour [behavior] -- Ideals and actions].