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Article: Four land ethics: order, reform, responsibility, opportunity.
- Article from:
- Environmental Law
- Article date:
- October 1, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Lewis & Clark Northwestern School of Law. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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I. INTRODUCTION
The term "land ethics"(1) has found a prominent place in environmental literature ever since Aldo Leopold rather casually and cryptically coined it in the 1930s.(2) If one defines the phrase to mean a system of thought that relates land to ideas of right and wrong, one can identify many prior systems which have achieved prominence at some time or place.
Leopold's hope that Americans' thinking would converge toward a single land ethic has not been realized. To the contrary, our debates about land are ever more intemperate and ideological as they reflect increasingly divergent views about the appropriate role of land in American ...