van Zyl, Liezl2025-05-082025-05-082025van Zyl, L. (2025). Wonder and empathy in environmental ethics. South African Journal of Philosophy, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/02580136.2025.24624360258-0136https://hdl.handle.net/10289/17365My aim in this article to argue that wonder is a basic moral capacity, akin to the capacity for empathy, that is required for the virtue of environmental benevolence. I begin by examining Geoffrey Frasz’s account of benevolence as a set of environmental virtues, and I identify a gap that not only threatens the coherence of Frasz’s theory, but also points to an important cause of our widespread apathy toward the environment: the inherently limited and biased nature of the capacity for empathy. My proposal is that the capacity for wonder can fill this gap, that is, I think wonder can play the role in environmental benevolence that empathy plays in interpersonal benevolence.enThis is an accepted version of an article published in the South African Journal of Philosophy. © 2025 Informa UK Limited.Journal Article10.1080/02580136.2025.24624362073-48675003 Philosophy50 Philosophy and Religious Studies5001 Applied Ethics5003 Philosophy