I elucidate a frame of mind that David Wiggins calls respect for nature, which he understands as a special attitude toward a sui generis object, Nature as such. A person with this frame of mind takes nature to impose defeasible limits on her action, so that there are some courses of action that she will refuse even to entertain, except in circumstances of dire exigency. I defend the reasonableness of respect for nature, drawing upon considerations in Wiggins's work. But I argue that the natural systems that comprise the proper object of respect for nature are not sui generis; they are kindred, for practical reason, to complex social, political, and economic systems that we inhabit. I argue that it is reasonable to treat all such valuable systems with a similar respect, and that this respect is continuous with the respect we owe to persons and to valuable objects more generally. In all of these cases, respect consists, in part, in a disposition to defeasible constraints on practical deliberation.

我阐明了戴维·威金斯（David Wiggins）称之为尊重自然的一种心态，他将其理解为对一个自成一体的对象，即自然本身的特殊态度。具有这种心态的人会自然而然地对她的行为施加可废除的限制，因此除了在紧急情况下，她甚至会拒绝接受某些行为。我为尊重自然的合理性辩护，借鉴了威金斯作品中的考虑。但我认为，构成尊重自然的适当对象的自然系统并不是自成一格的。; 出于实际原因，它们与我们所居住的复杂的社会、政治和经济系统有血缘关系。我认为，以类似的尊重对待所有这些有价值的系统是合理的，并且这种尊重与我们对个人和更普遍的有价值物品的尊重是连续的。在所有这些情况下，尊重部分地在于对实际审议的可废除限制的倾向。