| Popis: |
The language game of landscape ecology entails several action-guiding verbs like “promote”, “enhance”, “restore”, “preserve”, “safeguard”, “ensure”, “upgrade” to name just a few. They are closely related to conceptions of what should be done. Due to this evaluative and protective character of landscape ecology and due to its connectivity with evaluations, planning, and decision making it seems urgent to add philosophical and ethical considerations to the overall transdisciplinary research program of landscape ecology. Due to the multi-facetted concept of landscape these considerations should be performed in a more reflective way. It is quite trivial to say that humans are responsible for the regions they inhabit since they are designing and planning of how to modify landscapes according to their objectives and values. The notion of responsibility is intrinsically related to values, obligations, and principles which are debated in ethics. These categories will be analyzed in Chapter 7.1.2. In a further step the underlying ethical aspects of different disciplinary perspectives will be outlined (see Chapter 7.1.3). At the end of this investigation it shall be asked how different perspectives are related to each other. Additionally, the relationship between landscape evaluation and the concept of sustainability will be explored (see Chapter 7.1.4). In a final section, it will be pointed out how the rightness of procedures and the goodness of outcomes are related in cultural debates about how to take responsible care of landscapes (see Chapter 7.1.5). It will be argued that a highly democratic and discursive approach in landscape planning could provide “good” outcomes if some general insights of environmental ethics are presupposed and taken seriously. |
