It would be through individual effort, inspired perhaps by reading Nietzsche's books, that the Overman might emerge, not through social or educational engineering.

The focus of environmental ethics should indeed be on the virtues and how these inform our relationship to natural environments.

To describe this world is not to describe reality 'in itself', as it is independently of how we regard and describe it.

The main objection to the 'scientistic' claim that physics describes the world as it is in itself is that you 'can't weed out' the human contribution. That is, the scientific image of the world, like any other, is indelibly shaped by our interests, practices and prejudices.

Does the unmistakeable intent of Versailles to proclaim dominion over nature destroy its aesthetic appeal, as Schopenhauer thought? Does the greenness of the lawn lose its allure when we learn how much water, sorely needed elsewhere, it uses? And historical shifts in garden taste - from formal, 'French' gardens to 'Capability' Brown's landscapes, for instance, or from the elaborate gardens of imperial Kyoto to Zen 'dry' gardens - register important changes in philosophical or religious attitudes.

It would be through individual effort, inspired perhaps by reading Nietzsche's books, that the Overman might emerge, not through social or educational engineering.

There is no reason at all to think that creatures with very different purposes and concerns would arrive at the scientific image, and no reason at all to accuse such creatures of getting the world wrong - a point that both Chuang Tzu and Nietzsche make when comparing human and animal perspectives.