ECOHUMANISM: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism Vol. 16, Issue 2, Fall-Winter, 2008 William R. Patterson Introduction: The term ‘ecohumanism’ was coined by Robert Tapp in his edited book by the same name and published in cooperation with The Humanist Institute. This book brought to light many controversies within humanism over issues of ecology and environmental ethics. The book did not of course resolve all of these issues and many remain contentiously debated amongst humanist philosophers. More work is certainly needed in this field. Since humanism is based upon a set of principles, rather than upon dogmatic rules of behavior, disagreements about particular ethical questions can be quite common – this has been especially true in regards to environmental ethics. There is a large degree of debate within the humanist community regarding environmental ethics and this essay sets out to highlight the most important philosophical principles of humanism as they relate to those issues. Human beings are today faced with a plethora of environmental problems. Loss of biodiversity, increased air and water pollution at the same time that we have a growing need for natural resources, and global climate change are just a few examples. Humanists frequently discuss these issues and offer ethical and practical opinions about them. These opinions, however, are rarely explicitly tied to larger humanist principles. Issues of environmental ethics often seem to be disconnected from the broader humanist philosophy. The opinions offered by humanists on these issues therefore, though often valid and implicitly relying upon humanist philosophy, remain only the opinions of individual thinkers without the weight of a philosophical system as their explicit foundation. Individual humanists can offer responses to the environmental problems that face us, but they can only espouse those responses from a humanist perspective once the humanist principles that have a bearing on them are made clear. The intention of this article is to outline those principles and to demonstrate how they should inform humanists’ responses to issues of environmental ethics. Of course, some of these problems will not have concrete solutions that all humanists will agree on. The solutions offered will often depend upon circumstances, as do the solutions to most other problems, and may involve thorny ethical dilemmas that require making tough choices. By examining the issues and exploring the principles that relate to them, however, these choices may be a little easier to make as they continue to confront us. It is hoped that this article will shed more light on how humanist principles should guide decision-making about environmental ethics within the humanist community of scholars and citizens. Through its analysis of humanist principles and two case studies of particular environmental problems, this essay can stand as a guidepost for humanists struggling with environmental issues in the future and help make coming to resolute decisions a little easier. By clearing up some of the abstract intellectual brush, this article will contribute to the literature by providing a framework from which to apply humanist principles and values to issues of the environment in a consistent and effective manner. Principles: This section will analyze several humanist principles and explore their relationship with issues of environmental ethics. The issues of principle to be explored include: the role of human beings in moral decision-making; how human beings should approach nature (whether as a malevolent force to be subdued or as the beneficent root of our being without which we could not