THE RELEVANCE OF FOUCAULT TO WHITEHEADIAN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

Although he devotes little explicit analysis to ethics, Whitehead's un derstanding of the human moral life immerses both human moral agency a nd environmental ethics in the natural world, judging good actions in the context of complex and interdependent histories of value present i n societies of what he calls actual occasions. In this sense, Whitehea dian environmental ethics draws on the most interesting features of Mi chel Foucault's genealogies of values that suffuse institutions. Never theless, a Whiteheadian notion of environmental ethics exceeds Foucaul t's work in that Whitehead acknowledges the possibility of responsible human values and actions with regard to the environment.