Towards a theological virtue ethic for the preservation of biodiversity

In this paper I discuss how a virtue ethic for the preservation of biodiversity may look like. The starting-point is the virtue ethic proposed by Celia Deane-Drummond. She suggests that the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance should form the basis of an ethic of nature. Of this four, prudence is the most fundamental. Moreover, Deane-Drummond states that the intellectual virtue of wisdom also is important in the context of environmental policy-making. In this paper I argue that another fundamental virtue is needed whose degree of abstractness is situated somewhere in between prudence and wisdom and I propose that respect could be such a virtue. In the last section I outline how it can be applied in the context of biodiversity preservation.