In their book, Defending Biodiversity , Newman, Varner, and Linquist (NVL) cast doubt on whether Leopoldian defenses of biodiversity, in their current form, have been successful. I argue that there is a more accurate interpretation of Leopold that is not subject to the criticisms made by NVL, and that Leopold’s body of work as a whole, including but not limited to the essay “The Land Ethic” in A Sand County Almanac , provides quite a bit of useful guidance and perspective. I begin with a brief summary of some of my own recent work on Leopold. This is intended to orient the reader who is more familiar with J. Baird Callicott’s influential interpretations of Leopold. I then discuss NVL’s Chapter 10 first followed by a discussion of their Chapter 9, responding to their critiques. I then conclude. On the revised interpretation that I have given, Leopold’s land ethic is defended by the method of reflective equilibrium, showing us that the land communities that we are interdependent with have intrinsic value, necessitating preserving their (land) health, which in turn necessitates preserving biodiversity.

中文翻译：

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捍卫生物多样性的利奥波德式基础：对纽曼、瓦纳和林奎斯特的回应

在他们的著作中，Newman、Varner 和 Linquist (NVL) 在他们的书中对 Leopoldian 对生物多样性的防御以目前的形式是否成功提出了质疑。我认为对利奥波德有更准确的解释，不受 NVL 的批评，而且利奥波德的整个作品，包括但不限于《沙县年鉴》中的文章“土地伦理”，提供了相当多有用的指导和观点。我首先简要总结我自己最近关于利奥波德的一些工作。这是为了让那些更熟悉 J. Baird Callicott 对利奥波德的有影响力的解释的读者有所了解。然后我首先讨论 NVL 的第 10 章，然后讨论他们的第 9 章，回应他们的批评。然后我得出结论。关于我给出的修改后的解释，