Just now in my Worldviews and Ethics course, we were talking about Aristotle. After class discussion and such we watched a video of Nic Marks, a British jack of all trades. He helped in founding the New Economics Foundation (I believe) and is the founder of NEF's Centre for Well-Being. He is most proud though of his Happy Planet Index; an incredibly difficult and yet easy way to look at the world, economics, happiness and the environment. At first when I learned about what he was creating and frankly, the way he pronounces Costa Rica, I along with my class thought he was kind of ridiculous. Yet, when I started to think a little more about what he is proposing, I found that is was an interesting land ethic. Marks is proposing that we stop looking at the world negatively, something that the media has popularized with all this apocalypse talk, and just live, produce and work for happiness. Happiness, to Marks, does not cost the world anything. If we just focus on this happiness than we can make things strictly efficient and it will better everyone. While, as a pessimist, I believe this to be unobtainable, idealistic and naive, it does form a land ethic of a certain kind. Marks focuses this idea mostly on the economy but he also hit on the previous stated points as well. Below are some of his videos and the link to his website, everyone should check it out. It may even affect or shape someone else's land ethic.
Website
Video
New Economics Foundation
always interesting to read how students' courses bleed into and inform one another. thanx for sharing this insight, and for providing yet another land ethic example!
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