The Perfectibility of Man [antikvár]

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John Passmore was an Australian philosopher. Passmore was as much a historian of ideas as a philosopher, and his scholarship always paid careful attention to the complex historical context of philosophical problems. He published about twenty books, many of which have been translated. Philosopher Frank Jackson notes that Passmore "shaped public debate and opened up philosophy and history of ideas to the wider world." In his book Man's Responsibility for Nature (1974) Passmore argued that there is urgent need to change our attitude to the environment, and that humans cannot continue unconstrained exploitation of the biosphere. However, he rejected the view that we need to abandon the Western tradition of scientific rationalism, and was unsympathetic towards attempts to articulate environmental concern through radical revisions of our ethical framework, as advocated by deep ecologists, which he conceived as misguided mysticism or irrationalism. Passmore was very skeptical about attempts to attribute intrinsic value to nature, and his preferred position was of valuing nature in terms of what it contributes to the flourishing of sentient creatures (including humans). According to William Grey of the International Society for Environmental Ethics, his "unequivocal anthropocentrism made him a reference point in the discourse of environmental ethics and many treatises in field begin with (or include) a refutation of his views." Passmore described himself as a "pessimistic humanist" who regarded neither human beings nor human societies as perfectible.