In a classic essay, published posthumously in A Sand County Almanac, conservationist Aldo Leopold advocated for an expansion of our ethical obligations beyond humanity to include what he termed the “land community” or the “biotic community” — communities of interdependent humans, nonhuman animals, plants, soils and waters. This philosophy has been extremely influential in environmental ethics as well as conservation biology and related fields.

Using an approach grounded in environmental ethics and the history and philosophy of science, Roberta L. Millstein reexamines Leopold’s land ethic in light of contemporary ecology. Despite the enormous influence of the land ethic, it has sometimes been dismissed as either empirically out of date or ethically flawed. Millstein argues that these dismissals are based on problematic readings of Leopold’s ideas. In this book, she provides new interpretations of the central concepts underlying the land ethic: interdependence, land community and land health. 

Millstein is an Emerit Professor in the Department of Philosophy at UC Davis.

Access the book at the University of Chicago Press