Celia E. Deane-Drummond is Professor of Theology and Biological Sciences at University of Chester, UK, and Director of the Centre for Religion and the Biosciences. Her recent publications include Creation Through Wisdom: Theology and the New Biology (2000), Biology and Theology Today: Exploring the Boundaries (2001), Re-Ordering Nature: Theology, Society and the New Genetics (2003) and Brave New World: Theology, Ethics and the Human Genome (2003). This text explores humanity’s treatment of the natural world from a Christian perspective. The book presents a range of ethical debates arising from our relationship with nature, including present controversies about the environment, animal rights, biotechnology, consciousness, and cloning. She suggests that humans should view themselves as part of nature, and when they do, they will treat nature more ethically. Clues about relating to the natural world, she contends, can be drawn from the virtues of human nature. Drawing upon Thomas Aquinas, she also suggests that the classical notion of God can be revised to appropriately deal with nature in the twenty-first century (xi). In the remainder of this review, I shall highlight select points from her text.
In the first chapter, she sets out the ethical framework for the remainder of the book. Therein, she argues for a recovery of virtue ethics, rooted in the virtues of charity, hope, and faith, and set in the context of justice, fortitude (courage), and temperance (15–18). Chapter two of this text deals with the problems encountered by environmental issues that are everywhere apparent in the modern world. There, she bypasses the debate between anthropocentric and biocentric ethics by asking a different question altogether: what does it mean to act prudently and justly in the context of environmental issues (29–31)? She also notes there that the principle of natural law fails to serve as a robust basis for environmental ethics. The question of ethics is further considered in chapter three by Deanne-Drummond offering a critique of current views on animal ethics; she employs Aquinas’ affirmation of the worth of all creatures in this chapter (67–69).
Deanne-Drummond examines issues related to the ethics of biotechnology in chapter four, particularly noting how far biotechnology has shaped the way that we think about nature and the natural (86–87). She laments how the discussion regarding cloning has (almost) exclusively been centered on the ethics of doing it with and on humans, particularly in reference to reproductive cloning, to the exclusion of attention being placed on lower species of the animal kingdom, in chapter five (111). Her discussion of cloning leads to broader consideration of humanity’s involvement with technology in general in chapter six. She entertains feminism and the Gaia hypothesis in chapters seven and eight, noting that they both advocate a recovery of virtue (162). Moreover, she asserts that the shift away from individualism toward a Gaian view has profound implications on environmental ethics (177). Chapter nine serves to tie together the disparate threads of the book and set forth a wisdom ethic of nature. She notes that wisdom is fruitful in delineating the relationship between God and the world in the context of science, as well as being fruitful in the Christian community when it is understood as a Trinitarian term (220).
This text is accessible and well documented, having both extensive bibliographical notes and references.
Complex scientific issues are explained in clear and intelligible language. She postulates that a virtue ethic centered on wisdom provides the most appropriate way to approach the ethics of nature, and draws out broader concerns for social justice. She invited readers to take up this discussion of a wisdom ethic regarding humanity’s care of nature in this title, but it seems that four years later, we have yet to truly follow her lead and extend the wisdom motif regarding the ethics of nature. May we do so without further delay!
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.