Holmes Rolston III

Holmes Rolston III was an American philosopher and theologian, for decades at Colorado State University, who is widely regarded as a founder of environmental ethics as an academic field. He argued that value is not only conferred by human valuers but exists objectively in organisms, species and ecosystems, so that natural systems carry intrinsic value that grounds duties toward them. He also wrote on science and religion and received the Templeton Prize in 2003.

Key ideas

• Value exists objectively in nature, not only in human preferences.
• Organisms, species and ecosystems each carry value, so duties toward nature are not reducible to duties toward people.
• Ecosystems have systemic value as the generative source of individual lives.
• Science and religion can be brought into constructive dialogue about nature and value.

Major works

• Philosophy Gone Wild (1986)
• Science and Religion: A Critical Survey (1987)
• Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World (1988)
• A New Environmental Ethics (2012)

In the conversation

• Discussion The last person and the kelp forest: does nature matter when no one is left to value it? Ignacio Cárcamo · 4 replies