ON THE VALUE OF NATURAL RELATIONS

In ''A Refutation of Environmental Ethics'' Janna Thompson argues that by assigning intrinsic value to nonhuman elements of nature either ou r evaluations become (1) arbitrary, and therefore unjustified, or (2) impractical, or (3) justified and practical, but only by reflecting hu man interest, thus failing to be truly intrinsic to nonhuman nature. T here are a number of possible responses to her argument, some of which have been made explicitly in reply to Thompson and others which are i mplicit in the literature. In this discussion I describe still another response, one which takes Thompson's concerns about value seriously, but does not assign nature intrinsic or nonanthropocentric value. I su ggest a relational environmental ethic as the basis for a genuinely et hical stance toward nature in which our relations to nature are a prin cipal object of ethical concern.