What are the theories of environmental ethics?
Environmental ethics is the field dedicated to understanding human responsibilities with regard to the natural environment. Some approaches to environmental ethics apply standard philosophical theories (e.g., utilitarianism and rights-based approaches) to environmental issues. Other approaches have sought to develop entirely new theoretical frameworks, such as "deep ecology" and "eco-feminism."
What is the importance of environmental ethics?
What Are The Key Points of Environmental Ethics?
- Justice and sustainability
- Sufficiency and compassion
- Solidarity and participation
What is meant by an ecological approach?
The ecosystem approach is a conceptual framework for resolving ecosystem issues. The idea is to protect and manage the environment through the use of scientific reasoning. The Convention on Biological Diversity has seen ecosystem-based management as a supporting topic/concept for the ecosystem approach.
What is the main goal of ethics?
Ethics is the reasonable obligation for us to refrain from hurting others, and sometimes an obligation to help others. Living ethically also requires the continuous effort of studying our own beliefs and conduct, and striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and evidence-based.
What are eco and ethical principles?
Environmental ethics is a branch of ethics that studies the relation of human beings and the environment and how ethics play a role in this. Environmental ethics believe that humans are a part of society as well as other living creatures, which includes plants and animals.
What is environmental ethics and why is it important to study?
Environmental Ethics Defined At its core, environmental ethics can be defined as the philosophic study that examines the ethical relationship of humans and the environment. The philosophy also explores the moral relationship humans have with Earth, animals, and plants.
What are the 3 environmental ethics?
There are many different principles on which to draw in moral reasoning about specific environmental problems. This lesson reviews three basic pairs of principles: justice and sustainability; sufficiency and compassion; solidarity and participation.
Why should environmental ethics be based on ecology?
That ecology provides reliable scientific laws for remedying environmental destruction. 2. That environmental ethics should be biocentric, not anthropocentric, and therefore that nonhuman beings should be accorded equal consideration of their interests, just as humans are.
What is environmental ethics and give some examples?
There are many ethical decisions that human beings make with respect to the environment. For example: Should humans continue to clear cut forests for the sake of human consumption? Why should humans continue to propagate its species, and life itself? Should humans continue to make gasoline-powered vehicles?
What is the aim of environmental ethics?
The practical purpose of environmental ethics, they maintain, is to provide moral grounds for social policies aimed at protecting the earth's environment and remedying environmental degradation.
How the ethics of ecology can be applied?
The aim of an ethics of ecology is to help us avoid disturbing the ecological integrity, stability and beauty of nature. This is in turn a necessary condition for bringing about ecological justice, understood as comprised of justice to both human and nonhuman organisms and systems.
What are the types of environmental ethics?
Environmental ethics comes in two forms: human-centered and nature-centered (see “anthropocentrism” and “biocentrism”).
What are environmental ethics and values?
Environmental Ethics is that sub-field of philosophy which seeks to articulate reasons why non-human "nature" — usually writ large to include collective entities like species and ecosystems — has value that cannot be reduced solely to economic value.
What is biocentrism in environmental ethics?
Biocentrism refers to all environmental ethics that extend the status of moral object from human beings to all other living things in nature. In a narrow sense, it emphasizes the value and rights of organic individuals, believing that moral priority should be given to the survival of individual living beings.
What are theories of ethics?
Ethical theories are thus formal statements about what we ought to do, when faced with an ethical dilemma. Is it, for example, wrong to tell a lie, even if we thereby avoid making somebody sad? Or what if we, by harming one individual, can avoid ten people being harmed; should we in such cases choose the lesser evil?
Why is the species point important?
The species point is pertinent to environmental sustainability. Furthermore, taking an evolutionary approach, Singer maintains that humans must move from an anthropocentric attitude to biocentrism (life-centeredness), and extend the concept of obligation beyond our own species in order to truly be moral agents. One reason why ethicists have perhaps not taken the interspecies debate to heart is that applying evolutionary principles to ethical thinking is still a controversial move, even more than one hundred and fifty years after On the Origin of Species first appeared.
What are the two types of biocentric approaches?
Two Types of Biocentrism. There are two basic types of biocentric approaches. The so-called ‘Gaia principle’ (a term coined by the biologist James Lovelock, who named it after the Greek earth goddess) says that we must take into consideration the interests of the biosphere itself in our actions.
What is the ultimate utilitarian ethic?
This is the ultimate version of utilitarianism, an ethics which strives to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. As Singer has urged, a true utilitarian would apply this ethic not just to what benefits the greatest number of human beings, but what brings about the most pleasure, and least pain, for all beings who can experience these things. The other approach to biocentrism is often called ‘environmental individualism’ and originated with the naturalist Aldo Leopold. This holds that we must take into consideration the good of not only species in general, but each individual member of a species. A prime example of this view is Albert Schweitzer’s ‘reverence for life’ philosophy: all living things are deserving of esteem, and must be treated with respect. This view can be connected with the duty-based ethics developed by Immanuel Kant (who was, by Singer’s standards, an ardent speciesist as well as a racist and sexist, but who nevertheless came up with an approach to ethics which theoretically treats all beings as equal in moral worth).
How long would it take for the Earth to return to a pristine state?
Marilyn Vos Savant, in her popular Parade Magazine column, addressed the question of how long it would take the Earth to return to a ‘pristine’ state if all human life were to vanish. She writes: “Buildings, roads, dams, and bridges would become ruins in just a few centuries, but they’d take thousands of years to disappear entirely. Meanwhile, nuclear waste in long-term storage would gradually become harmless. Without human attention, our hundreds of active reactors would catch fire or melt down and release radiation, but even that wouldn’t stop nature’s rapid return… Excess carbon dioxide would be cleansed by the oceans over tens of thousands of years. By then, added methane would be long gone. The toxic impact of pollutants such as DDT wouldn’t last even a century.” ( Parade, May 1, 2011) She goes on to say that “So the planet would forget all about us in maybe 50,000 years – far less time than humankind has existed. And if an unaltered atmosphere isn’t an essential part of what you call a pristine state, our influence would be gone in less than half that time – and maybe much less.” Chilling words indeed. But notice, it is still human beings who are doing the speculation. And while some, such as Crowley or von Hartmann, might take cold comfort in thinking about, and hoping for, the end of humanity, others will feel a motivation to do what they can to avoid such a calamity. Those who secretly, or perhaps not so secretly, wish to see Crowley’s vision come true are engaging in what Friedrich Nietzsche perceptively called a ‘cheerful pessimism’. Yet it is a strange thing to desire the destruction of one’s own species.
Why have ethicists not taken the interspecies debate to heart?
One reason why ethicists have perhaps not taken the interspecies debate to heart is that applying evolutionary principles to ethical thinking is still a controversial move, even more than one hundred and fifty years after On the Origin of Species first appeared.
What is the debate about sustainability?
The debate about sustainability is intimately connected with an evolutionary understanding of life. If one does not recognise the interconnectedness and the fragility of life, then one’s moral framework will likely lack a commitment to sustainability.
What is the central area of philosophy?
One of the central areas of philosophy is ethics, the study of what is the right thing to do. In particular, ethics is concerned with value judgments: it not only looks at why we act in certain ways, but asks whether or not such actions are right. At least in the Western world, until fairly recently the primary focus of ethics has been on human ...
What are the three fundamental facts of ecological ethics?
The bounds and rules of relationships are reshaped by a new consciousness of three fundamental facts about planetary existence: the biological, coevolutionary kinship of all life forms; the systemic interdependence of all beings and elements; and the biophysical limits of all planetary goods. Ethics itself must change to fit the reality that humans are not only social animals, as recognized in classical ethics, but also ecological animals.
What is ecological ethics?
Ecological (or environmental) ethics is the study of what humans, individually and corporately, ought to value, ought to be, and ought to do in relationships with all other beings and elements in the biosphere. As in normative ethics generally, ecological ethics involves evaluating, justifying (or not), and prescribing values, norms, ...
Why do ecological ethicists believe that all organisms have moral claims on humans?
Most ecological ethicists now argue that all organisms have some moral claims on humans, because they are intrinsic values, goods, or ends for themselves.
What is the difference between biocentric and ecocentric?
The debate is sometimes confused and polemical. Biocentrists focus on protecting or promoting the welfare of individual lives, often mammals, but sometimes other species, in a given context. Ecocentrists stress systemic values, arguing that our primary or only responsibility is to the integrity of ecosystems.
What are the issues that are important to ecological ethics?
The primary concerns are climate change, multiple forms of pollution, human population growth, scarcities of some renewable and nonrenewable resources, human-induced losses in biodiversity, the interactive dynamics of ecological degradation ...
Why is sustainability important in ecology?
Sustainability has been a prominent norm in ecological ethics — largely because of the perception that present patterns of using the planet as source and sink are unsustainable . Sustainability is living within the bounds of the regenerative, assimilative, and carrying capacities of the planet indefinitely, in fairness to future generations. It seeks a just distribution of goods between present and future generations, without sacrificing one for the other. Human beings have obligations to future generations because what they are and do will have profound effects on them for good and ill. Since they do not yet exist but can reasonably be expected to do so, future generations can be said to have anticipatory rights, and every present generation has anticipatory obligations to them.
Why is the environment important to ethics?
Much ethical thought about the environment has been an expansion of the concern in traditional ethics to cover the adverse effects of environmental conditions on human interests. Classical moral values and norms remain basically unchanged. Only humans count for direct moral consideration. Other life forms are strictly instrumental values — means — for human needs and wants, such as scientific, aesthetic, and various economic purposes. The basic moral assumption has been: Humans ought to take care of the environment so that the environment can take care of humans.
What are some examples of environmental ethics?
For instance, Baird Callicott (1989, 22), Aldo Leopold (1949, 224–225) Holmes Rolston (1988), Stanley Salthe (2005), Paul Taylor (1986, 50), and others subscribe to variants of the balance-of- nature thesis. Rolston (1988, 231) claims “the paramount law in ecological theory” is “homeostasis,” and he ties environmental ethics to maintaining ecological balance or stability, to actions that “maximize ecosystemic excellences.” Baird Callicott (1989, 31) says something similar, that the “organic whole” of the biosphere has rights to moral considerability based on “ecological entitlement.” Salthe (2005, 1) speaks of the natural biological world as comprising “nested homeostatic space-time systems.” De La Plante and Odenbaugh (forthcoming, 2) claim “the theoretical ecology literature” supports “a ‘balance of nature’ and that ecosystems exhibit self-organizing behaviors that are directed toward increasing complexity and stability.” Although Odenbaugh (2005, 250) admits that concepts of stability and balance are vague, he maintains that “ecological stability” provides a “conceptual framework for ecologists to study communities in the field and the lab.”
What are value judgments in ecology?
Ecologists likewise must frequently rely on subjective estimates and methodological value judgments whenever the “minimum viable population” size is not known in a precise area (Boecklen and Simberloff 1987). One of the most fundamental sources of value judgments in ecology is the fact that the island-biogeographical theory underlying current paradigms regarding reserve design has rarely been tested and is dependent primarily on correlations rather than causal explanations, on assumptions about homogeneous habitats, and on unsubstantiated turnover rates and extinction rates. Hence, whenever ecologists apply this theory, they must make a variety of methodological—and sometimes ethical—value judgments. Some of these value judgments concern the importance of factors other than those dominant in island biogeography (for example, maximum breeding habitat), factors that have often been shown to be superior predictors of species number. Making value judgments regarding reserve design is also difficult because corridors (an essential part of island biogeographic theory) have questionable overall value for species preservation. Recommending use of corridors thus requires ecologists to evaluate subjectively their effectiveness in particular situations. Also, owing to the large variance about species-area relationships, those who use island biogeographical theory are often forced to make subjective evaluations of non-testable predictions. Some of these subjective evaluations arise because islands are disanalogous in important ways with nature reserves. As a result, ecologists who apply data about islands to problems of reserve design must make a number of value judgments about the representativeness and importance of their particular data (e.g., Stouffer et al. 2011; Ale and Howe 2010; Shrader- Frechette 1995; Shrader-Frechette and McCoy 1993; Boecklen and Simberloff 1987).
What does De La Plant and Odenbaugh claim about ecology?
Agreeing, De La Plant and Odenbaugh (2005, 2) claim that “the theoretical ecology literature” justifies such “holistic conceptions of nature.”. However, despite their differences, environmental ethicists’ appeals to biocentrism and the equal intrinsic value of nature have at least four major problems.
What is Rolston's theory of homeostasis?
Rolston (1988, 231) claims “the paramount law in ecological theory” is “homeostasis,” and he ties environmental ethics to maintaining ecological balance or stability, to actions that “maximize ecosystemic excellences.”. Baird Callicott (1989, 31) says something similar, that the “organic whole” of the biosphere has rights to moral considerability ...
How should people respond to this disproportionate environmental harm borne by the most vulnerable members of society, children, and the?
How should people respond to this disproportionate environmental harm borne by the most vulnerable members of society, children, as well as by the environment? To the degree that individuals have participated in , or derived benefits from, social institutions—such as poor government pollution controls—that have helped cause life -threatening or rights-threatening environmental harm, one can argue that these individuals have prima facie duties either to stop their participation in such damaging institutions or to compensate for this harm by helping to reform the institutions that allow the harm. ( Prima facie duties are those that one has, in the absence of specific arguments to the contrary.) Yet, virtually everyone in the developed world—who enjoys at least a middle-class lifestyle—has participated in, or derived benefits from, social institutions—such as poor government pollution controls—that have helped cause life-threatening or rights-threatening environmental harm. Why are so many of us responsible for pollution harm?
Why are nature reserves considered evaluative?
Such choices are evaluative because they are never wholly determined by the data. In the nature-reserve case, as already mentioned, ecologists must decide whether ethical and conservation priorities require protecting an individual species, an ecosystem, or biodiversity, when not all can be protected at once.
Why is soft ecology not considered a scientific foundation?
At the other extreme from “hard ecology,” proposed “soft ecology” likewise fails to provide adequate scientific foundations for environmental ethics because concepts like “integrity” are qualitative, unclear, and vague. These “soft ecology” terms underestimate the ecological uncertainty associated with such fuzzy terms.
What is environmental ethics simply explained?
Environmental ethics (also called ecological ethics) is fundamentally concerned with moral questions about man's interaction with non-human nature. In a narrower sense, the term refers to human or economic behavior in terms of morality, responsibility and the protection of natural resources.₁.
Examples and justification models
Which living beings and natural objects should or must we humans assign a self-worth to? And should this happen out of pure self-protection or do we also have a moral responsibility? These questions are at the heart of environmental ethics. Here I would now like to introduce you to some of its reasoning models to make them a bit more tangible.
Why is environmental ethics so important?
Environmental ethics is for that, To bring about changes in our thinking and actions. If it is not followed by action change and environmental social movements, its value is low.
Study
I don't want to deprive you of the fact that you can also study environmental ethics. The course provides you with a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between humans and nature.
Environmental ethics - We have a responsibility
We humans are responsible and have nowadays, through our own fault, a kind of special position in nature: simply because we are responsible for the environmental problems of our time - and therefore also for our own environmental problems. are the only living beings - who can actively save the planet from collapse.
What are some examples of ethical approaches to the natural environment?
Alan Marshall and Michael Smith are two examples of this, as cited by Peter Vardy in "The Puzzle of Ethics." According to Marshall, three general ethical approaches have emerged over the last 40 years: Libertarian Extension, the Ecologic Extension, and Conservation Ethics.
What are some examples of deontological theories?
That is, within this framework an environmental policy that gives rights to non-human sentient beings, would prioritise the conservation of such in their natural state, rather than in an artificial manner. Consider for example, issues in climate engineering; Ocean fertilisation aims to expand marine algae in order to remove higher levels of CO2. A complication from this approach is that it creates salient disruptions to local ecosystems. Furthermore, an environmental ethical theory based on the rights of marine animals in those ecosystems, would create a protection against this type of intervention. Environmental deontologists such as Paul W. Taylor, for example, have argued for a Kantian approach to issues of this kind. Taylor argues that all living things are ‘teleological centres of life’ deserving of rights and respect. His view uses a concept of ‘ universalizability ’, to argue that one ought to act only on actions which could be rationally willed as a universal law. Val Plumwood has criticised this approach by noting that the universalisation framework, is not necessarily based on ‘respect’ for the other, as it’s based on duty and ‘becoming’ part of the environment.
What are the detractors of anthropocentrism?
Detractors of anthropocentrism argue that the Western tradition biases homo sapiens when considering the environmental ethics of a situation and that humans evaluate their environment or other organisms in terms of the utility for them (see speciesism ).
What is virtue ethics?
Virtue ethics states that some behaviours should be cultivated, and others avoided. This framework avoids problems of defining what is of intrinsic value, by instead arguing that what is important is to act in accordance with the correct balance of virtue. The Golden mean formulation, for example, states that to be ‘generous’ (virtue), one should neither be miserly (deficiency) or extravagant (excess). Unlike deontology and consequentialism, theories of virtue focus their formulations on how the individual has to act to live a flourishing life. This presents a ‘subjective flexibility’ which seems like an adequate position to hold considering the fluctuating demands of sustainability. However, as a consequence, it can also be said that this is an inherently anthropocentric standpoint.
What is truth centrism?
The theory of “truth centrism in environmental ethics” is a new theory that discusses the human needs and protection of life and nature. This theory holds that all beings have a right in the system of existence.
What is Rachel Carson Center?
In 2009, the University of Munich and Deutsches Museum founded the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, an international, interdisciplinary center for research and education in the environmental humanities.
What is the use of theology in environmental stewardship?
The second sees the use of theology as a means to rationalize the unmanaged consumptions of natural resources. Lynn White and Calvin DeWitt represent each side of this dichotomy.
What is anthropocentric ethics?
Many traditional western ethical perspectives, however, are anthropocentric or human-centered in that either they assign intrinsic value to human beings alone (i.e., what we might call anthropocentric in a strong sense) or they assign a significantly greater amount of intrinsic value to human beings than to any non-human things such that the protection or promotion of human interests or well-being at the expense of non-human things turns out to be nearly always justified (i.e., what we might call anthropocentric in a weak sense). For example, Aristotle ( Politics, Bk. 1, Ch. 8) maintains that “nature has made all things specifically for the sake of man” and that the value of non-human things in nature is merely instrumental. Generally, anthropocentric positions find it problematic to articulate what is wrong with the cruel treatment of non-human animals, except to the extent that such treatment may lead to bad consequences for human beings. Immanuel Kant (“Duties to Animals and Spirits”, in Lectures on Ethics ), for instance, suggests that cruelty towards a dog might encourage a person to develop a character which would be desensitized to cruelty towards humans. From this standpoint, cruelty towards non-human animals would be instrumentally, rather than intrinsically, wrong. Likewise, anthropocentrism often recognizes some non-intrinsic wrongness of anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) environmental devastation. Such destruction might damage the well-being of human beings now and in the future, since our well-being is essentially dependent on a sustainable environment (see Passmore 1974; Bookchin 1990; Norton et al. (eds.) 1995).
What is environmental ethics?
Environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its non-human contents. This entry covers: (1) the challenge of environmental ethics to the anthropocentrism (i.e., human-centeredness) embedded in traditional western ethical ...
Where did deep ecology originate?
“Deep ecology” was born in Scandinavia, the result of discussions between Næss and his colleagues Sigmund Kvaløy and Nils Faarlund (see Næss 1973 and 1989; also see Witoszek and Brennan (eds.) 1999 for a historical survey and commentary on the development of deep ecology). All three shared a passion for the great mountains. On a visit to the Himalayas, they became impressed with aspects of “Sherpa culture” particularly when they found that their Sherpa guides regarded certain mountains as sacred and accordingly would not venture onto them. Subsequently, Næss formulated a position which extended the reverence the three Norwegians and the Sherpas felt for mountains to other natural things in general.
What was Rachel Carson's work about the food web?
Among the accessible work that drew attention to a sense of crisis was Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1963), which consisted of a number of essays earlier published in the New Yorker magazine detailing how pesticides such as DDT, aldrin and deildrin concentrated through the food web.
What is instrumental value?
In the literature on environmental ethics the distinction between instrumental value and intrinsic value (in the sense of “non-instrumental value”) has been of considerable importance. The former is the value of things as means to further some other ends, whereas the latter is the value of things as ends in themselves regardless of whether they are also useful as means to other ends. For instance, certain fruits have instrumental value for bats who feed on them, since feeding on the fruits is a means to survival for the bats. However, it is not widely agreed that fruits have value as ends in themselves. We can likewise think of a person who teaches others as having instrumental value for those who want to acquire knowledge. Yet, in addition to any such value, it is normally said that a person, as a person, has intrinsic value, i.e., value in his or her own right independently of his or her prospects for serving the ends of others. For another example, a certain wild plant may have instrumental value because it provides the ingredients for some medicine or as an aesthetic object for human observers. But if the plant also has some value in itself independently of its prospects for furthering some other ends such as human health, or the pleasure from aesthetic experience, then the plant also has intrinsic value. Because the intrinsically valuable is that which is good as an end in itself, it is commonly agreed that something’s possession of intrinsic value generates a prima facie direct moral duty on the part of moral agents to protect it or at least refrain from damaging it (see O’Neil 1992 and Jamieson 2002 for detailed accounts of intrinsic value).
Why do natural processes deserve respect?
Natural processes deserve respect, according to Rolston’s quasi-religious perspective, because they constitute a nature (or God) which is itself intrinsically valuable (or sacred). Meanwhile, the work of Christopher Stone (a professor of law at the University of Southern California) had become widely discussed.
When did environmental ethics emerge as a new sub-discipline of philosophy in the early 1970s?
When environmental ethics emerged as a new sub-discipline of philosophy in the early 1970s, it did so by posing a challenge to traditional anthropocentrism. In the first place, it questioned the assumed moral superiority of human beings to members of other species on Earth. In the second place, it investigated the possibility ...
