From possessive individualism to civic virtue environmentalism: Virtue, community, and the moral foundations of environmental responsibility

Abstract This thesis develops a systematic critique of liberal conceptions of the self and their implications for environmental ethics, arguing for a shift towards a civic virtue environmentalism grounded in a situated conception of the person and community. It begins from the empirical observation that, although citizens in liberal democracies often express concern about environmental problems, they rarely experience themselves as personally responsible for them. The thesis traces this gap between awareness and responsibility to deeper assumptions within liberal political thought about the nature of the self, freedom, and the role of markets. Engaging critically with Hobbes, Locke, Mill, and Rawls, and drawing on C. B. Macpherson's account of possessive individualism, the thesis shows how liberal ideas of self-ownership and property converge on a conception of freedom primarily understood as economic freedom. Through an examination of Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and Friedrich Hayek, it analyses how economic freedom is defended as morally sufficient and how the figure of the economic man-a self-interested, utility-maximising market actor-is normalised as the central agent of modern societies. This framework is then tested against environmental problems such as the tragedy of the commons and common-pool resource management, engaging especially with Elinor Ostrom's work on the role of communities, shared norms, and institutional trust. The second half of the thesis argues that liberal individualism is too thin to sustain robust environmental responsibility. It develops an alternative account of the situated self, embedded in constitutive communities, histories, and places, drawing on Alasdair MacIntyre's account of practices and traditions, Michael Sandel's conception of civic responsibility, and Charles Taylor's understanding of the self as located within a moral space. On this basis, the thesis advances civic virtue environmentalism: an environmental virtue ethics centred on phronēsis (practical wisdom) and oikophilia (love of home). It argues that the mutual reinforcement of these virtues generates a form of grounded environmental judgement in which decision-making is both emotionally invested and prudentially sound. The central conclusion is that civic virtue environmentalism offers a more adequate and ethically robust normative framework for responding to environmental challenges than liberal individualism and the economic man. By re-situating the self within networks of membership, tradition, and place, it provides a thicker account of responsibility and explains how environmental stewardship can be understood as an expression of civic virtue rather than a burdensome constraint on individual freedom.