Moral Geographies: Ethics in a World of Difference

by David G. Smith

This book explores the interface between geography, ethics and morality. It considers questions that have haunted the past, are subjects of controversy in the present, and which affect the future. Does distance diminish responsibility? Should we interfere with the lives of those we do not know? Is there a distinction between private and public space? Which values and morals, if any, are absolute, and which cultural, communal or personal? And are universal rights consistent with respect for difference? David Smith shows how these questions play themselves out in politics, planning, development, social and personal relations, the exploitation of resources, and competition for territory. After introducing the essential elements of moral philosophy from Plato to postmodernism, he examines the moral significance of concepts of landscape, location and place, proximity, distance and community, space and territory, justice, and nature. He is concerned above all with the morality people practice, to see how this varies according to geographical context, and to assess the inevitability of its outcomes. His argument is seamlessly interwoven with everyday observation and vividly described case studies: the latter include genocide and rescue during the Holocaust, the conflicts over space between Israeland Palestine and within Israel itself, and the social tensions and aspirations in post-apartheid South Africa. The meaning, possibility and limits of social justice lie at the heart of the book. That geographical context is vital to the understanding of moral practice and ethical theory is its central proposition. The book is clearly and engagingly written. The author has a student readership in mind, but his book will appeal widely to geographers and others involved in planning, development, politics, social theory, and the analysis of the contemporary world.

272 pages, Paperback

First published May 2, 2000

Reviews

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really impressive introduction to the interconnections between morality/ethics and geography in a way that challenges and provokes, but also makes clear that there are essential moral questions in the ways we use, make, and understand space. Smith is concerned with all three aspects of ethics – descriptive (this is how things are), normative (this is how we make decisions about ethical questions), and metaethics (this is what it means to engage in ethics practice).

He poses challenging questions about responsibilities and about universalism and particularity by exploring geographical frames of location, locality, community, spatial relations, proximity and so forth. The chapters centred on location and proximity use case studies from the Polish industrial city Łódź with a focus in one case on a major textile mill complex, and in the other on the ghetto. While this is interesting for me (made more so by a longstanding interest in the shape of cities), I found the chapters dealing with space and territorial justice (who should be where) more useful with case studies from Palestine/Israel – and not just the usual colonial analysis but also an exploration of the complex issue of ultra-orthodox communities in West Jerusalem. Equally, the discussion of development ethics (centred on post-apartheid South Africa) is excellent.

I quite like his overall approach – a communitarian rather than liberal-individualist approach interwoven with a feminist inspired ethics of care in which he tries to moderate the localistic exclusivity of communitarian approaches with a sense of internationalism and holistic spatial responsibilities. All in all, an excellent introduction to a new and exciting field of interdisciplinary study – although demanding for the non-specialist (I’m neither a geographer nor an ethicist so at times I had to revisit and re-read) – and one that I’ll be using in my work and with my students.