Philosophy

Introduction

The writings of Aldo Leopold appear to be more convincing to me because he has gained the insight to environmental ethics after doing something against it. Leopold began his journey as an author and later on, he become an ecologist and environmentalist, forester and a scientist. He was also a professor at the University of Wisconsin. The book which made Leopold a renowned author in the genre of environmental ethics is A Sand County Almanac. Over two million copies of this book were sold around the globe. In addition Leopold also started influential movements for wildlife conservation and developed the modern environmental ethics. One more thing which makes Leopold a more convincing author is his holistic or biocentric ethics about land along with the wildlife and nature preservation ethics have a deep and profound impact on the environmental movement. He was also the found of the science of wildlife management, emphasizing on biodiversity and ecology.

Discussion

In his writings, he has shown the pure feelings of hatred which people have against hunters of wildlife as he initially himself has experiences this, when he was assigned to kill and hunt wolves, lions and bear in New Mexico. He experienced the hatred of local ranchers as they always got fierce towards these hunters. In an effort to minimize this hunting, Leopold quit himself first, respecting the animals. Since then, he was engaged in developing ethical considerations towards wildlife hunting and preservation of nature and environment. He developed an ecological ethic replacing the previous versions of ethics of wilderness stressing upon the dominance of humans. After thinking about the role which nature has given to predators in the balance of ecological cycle, he returned a number of lions, bears and wolves to the forests of New Mexico.

Under the supervision of Leopold, the concept of wilderness took a new facet. He wrote that wilderness is no longer a recreational or hunting ground; rather, it is an amphitheatre to have a healthy biotic community, entailing lions and wolves. He also formed the Wilderness Society, in 1953, which was dedicated to the expansion of wilderness areas nationwide. He termed the society as "one of the focal points of a new attitude—an intelligent humility toward man's place in nature."

Because of serving the nature for a long time, the writings of Leopold had a simple and noteworthy openness. All of his writings show his great intimacy with what happens ...