Naturalizing Callicott
— Ouderkirk, Hill, 2002

"Naturalizing Callicott." Pages 107-122 in Ouderkirk, Wayne, and Hill, Jim, eds., Land, Value, Community: Callicott and Environmental Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002). Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/48096

In environmental philosophy, J. Baird Callicott is a doubtful guide; indeed he has gotten himself lost. He cannot find values in nature, not intrinsically. Indeed, at times he cannot find nature at all, only a nature commingled with culture. So, paradoxically, we need to get Callicott, though he thinks of himself as a naturalist, really naturalized. I cannot follow him in his arguments (1) about nature and culture, (2) about intrinsic natural value, and (3) about wilderness. He so resolutely opposes dichotomizing humans and nature that he cannot find any integrity for nature on its own. He remains, for a would-be naturalist, surprisingly — people projecting their values onto nature, with people managing their landscapes. This is half the truth. But it is not the whole truth.