Ian Goldstein
Professor Nemli
“A Critique of and an Alternative to the Wilderness Idea” By J. Baird Callicott
Philosophy 117
In J. Baird Callicott’s “A Critique of and an Alternative to the Wilderness Idea,” he
critiques traditional notions of what the wilderness is and criticizes current preservation efforts
of the wilderness. He begins his paper with describing how wilderness is typically viewed, “an
area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man is a visitor
who does not remain” (pg. 437). He dismisses this view of nature and describes that within
modern society there are multiple levels of nature preservation such as the practical level, the
political level, the international level, etc. I agree with Callicott’s criticism of what nature is
because I don’t think that it should just be thought of as the area untraveled by man. This
