Benjamin Hale, “The Wild and the Wicked: On Nature and Human Nature” (MIT Press, 2016)
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What is the central argument of Hale’s Kantian environmentalism?
Thank you.
Hello and welcome to New Books in Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figdor, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. I'm co host of the channel along with Robert Talise, Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Together we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books, drawing from a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Benjamin Hale, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His new book, The Wild and the Wicked on Nature and Human Nature, is just out from the MIT Press. Many environmentalists approach the problem of motivating environmentally friendly behavior from the perspective that nature is good and that we ought to act so as to maximize the good environmental consequences of our actions and minimize the bad ones.
An environmental activist turned academic philosopher, Hale argues against this dominant consequentialist approach towards environmentalism in favor of a Kantian view. We ought to act in environmentally friendly ways because it is the right thing to do. Hell argues that nature is not good, it is often bad, but that the Kantian position shows why we should have good reason to act to preserve nature, whether or not it is good. On his view, environmentally friendly action is motivated by reflecting on our reasons for acting, guided by a concern that our actions be acceptable to a wide range of parties. In this accessible discussion intended for a wide audience, Hale provides a fresh philosophical grounding for thinking about human action and inaction regarding the environment.
Let's turn to the interview. Hello, Benjamin Hale, are you there?
I'm here. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, welcome to New Books in Philosophy.
Thank you.
I'm looking forward to our discussion, The Wild and the Wicked on Nature and Human Nature, which um is a very interesting I mean interestingly written um and interestingly argued. Uh defense of a basically a Kantian environmentalism, you know, where you emphasize, you know, we should act in certain ways that are environmentally friendly, uh because essentially that's the reasonable thing to do. We should we should leverage our human reasoning resources in order to promote uh activities that respect Or at least um maybe that's not the right word, but um promote the health of the planet and the environment. Um now you yourself also discuss at uh in the beginning, uh at least in the introduction to the book, um, that you have uh your you have a history of uh being an environmental activist um as well as a philosopher.
So So uh before we get into the book itself, maybe you can tell us a bit about your background, um and how you came to philosophy. and how you came to uh write the book.
I will definitely do that. Uh I do want to say though, thank you for the introduction. I think you did a nice job of summarizing the book and and you're correct that it's uh primarily a Kantian justification for environmentalism, which is somewhat unusual within the environmental literature. Um so hopefully I can clarify why why I sort of took that path um and um my justifications or reasons for writing the book in the first place. But I guess I should start just by sort of like giving a a rough history of my uh intellectual uh maturation, if you will, and and um uh and how I came to um become uh not just a Kantian environmentalist, but um but but ultimately an environmentalist and environmental philosopher.
I I mean sort of long story short, I mean I think like many people who enter the philosophy uh literature, I wasn't initially um drawn to philosophy. I didn't know anything about it. I went to the college and I I had all sorts of other kinds of interests. I was interested in chemistry and art and um and um and Russian. And so during my college time I I I studied a lot of Russian and I studied a lot of art. Um and I moved to Russia during my sophomore year of college.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central argument of Hale’s Kantian environmentalism?
0:06–5:31
2
How does Hale’s personal history shape his philosophical perspective?
5:31–17:29
3
Why does Hale reject the view that nature’s intrinsic value motivates environmental action?
17:29–30:12
4
What are the limitations of consequentialist approaches to climate policy?
30:12–43:56
5
How does the book address the tragedy of the commons and over‑population?
43:56–54:40
6
What role do public reason and institutional negotiation play in solving environmental problems?
54:40–1:04:05
7
How can Kantian deontology guide individual and collective environmental decisions?
1:04:05–1:06:10
8
What future projects is Hale pursuing after *The Wild and the Wicked*?
1:06:10–1:07:27
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