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From the Introduction to Wilderness, Morality, and Value

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"We have reached a point in history when the continued existence of wilderness cannot be taken for granted. If, two hundred years from now, wilderness areas still exist, it will be because humanity has made a deliberate choice. The idea is disquieting but not hubristic. Left unchecked, humanity now possesses the capacity to hunt, mine, fish, farm, cultivate, settle, judgment, destroy or otherwise extend our influence over the entire biosphere. For wilderness to exist into the future, we must decide that it should and then maintain policies to ensure that it does. The decisions and policies will be influenced by the cogency of the arguments given in defense of wilderness. Philosophical analysis of those arguments — particularly the value of, and moral problems associated with, wilderness— has a role to play in the future of wilderness itself, whatever that future turns out to be." (ix)

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​Praise for Wilderness, Morality, and Value

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This book, written by a professed lover of wilderness, is a sustained discussion – honest, fair-minded, and undogmatic – of a challenge to wilderness preservation. Wilderness areas are populated with animals whose lives are filled with appalling suffering. We may eventually be able to intervene in minimally invasive but effective ways to reduce this suffering, but the areas subject to this intervention might no longer be wilderness. I know of no better or more careful weighing of the claims of animal advocates and wilderness preservationists than that in Duclos’s lucid and eloquent book.  -Jeff McMahan, University of Oxford

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Wilderness, Morality, and Value presents the best explanation of – and the best introduction to – the philosophical literature on the concept and value of wilderness. The writing is so clear-minded, uncontentious, and informed that it convinces the reader that while there is still much to be written and thought about the subject, Duclos has given us the surest footing we have on current debates about the moral, aesthetic, spiritual, scientific, and other philosophical arguments about the value of wilderness and the reasons for preserving it.  -Mark Sagoff, George Mason University

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More reviews @ Rowman & Littlefield

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