Examples Of Environmental Ethics Related With The
While numerous philosophers have written on this topic throughout history, environmental ethics only developed into a specific philosophical discipline in the s.
This emergence was no doubt due to the increasing awareness in the s of the effects that technology, industry, economic expansion and population growth were having on the environment. The development of such awareness was aided by the publication of two important books at this time.
The job of environmental ethics is to outline our moral obligations in the face of such concerns.
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In a nutshell, the two fundamental questions that environmental ethics must address are: what duties do humans have with respect to the environment, and why? The latter question usually needs to be considered prior to the Environnental. In order to tackle just what our obligations are, it is usually thought necessary to consider first why we have them. For example, do we have environmental obligations for the sake of human beings living in the world today, for humans living in the future, or for the sake of entities within the environment itself, irrespective of any human benefits? Different philosophers have given quite different answers to this fundamental question which, as we shall see, has led to the emergence of Ethisc different environmental ethics.
As noted above, perhaps the most fundamental question that must be asked when regarding a particular environmental ethic is simply, what obligations do we have concerning the natural environment?
Thus, an anthropocentric ethic claims that only human beings are morally considerable in their own right, meaning that all the direct moral obligations we possess, including those we have with regard to the environment, are owed to our fellow human beings. While the history of western philosophy is dominated by this kind anthropocentrism, it has come under considerable attack from many environmental ethicists.
Such thinkers have claimed that ethics must be extended beyond humanity, and that moral standing should be accorded to the non-human natural world.
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Some have claimed that OOf extension should run to sentient animals, others to individual living organisms, and still others to holistic entities such as rivers, species and ecosystems. Under these ethics, we have obligations in respect of the environment because we actually owe things to the creatures or entities within the environment themselves. Determining whether our environmental obligations are founded on anthropocentric or non-anthropocentric reasoning will lead to different accounts of what those obligations are.
This section examines the prominent accounts of moral standing within environmental ethics, together with the implications of each. This should be of little surprise, since many of the concerns we have regarding the environment Examples Of Environmental Ethics Related With The to be concerns precisely because of the way they affect human beings.
For example, pollution diminishes our health, resource depletion threatens our standards of living, climate change puts our homes at risk, the reduction of biodiversity results in the loss of potential medicines, and the eradication of wilderness means we lose a source of awe and beauty. Quite simply then, an anthropocentric ethic claims that we possess obligations to respect the environment for the sake of human well-being and prosperity.
Post-Implementation Review
Despite their human-centeredness, anthropocentric environmental ethics have nevertheless played a part in the extension of moral standing. This extension has not been to the non-human natural world though, but instead to human beings who do not yet exist. The granting of moral standing to future generations has been considered necessary because of the fact that many environmental problems, such as climate change and resource depletion, will affect future humans much more than they affect present ones.
Moreover, it is evident that the actions and policies that we as contemporary humans undertake will have a great impact on the well-being of future individuals. In light of these facts, some philosophers have founded their environmental ethics on obligations to these future generations Gewirth, Of course, it is one thing to say that human beings in the future have moral standing, it is quite another to justify the position.
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Indeed, some philosophers have denied such standing to future people, claiming that they lie outside of our moral community because they cannot act reciprocally Golding, So, while we can act so as to benefit them, they can give us nothing in return. This lack of reciprocity, so the argument goes, denies future people moral status. However, other philosophers have pointed to the fact that it is usually considered uncontroversial that we have obligations to the dead, such as executing their wills and so on, even though they cannot reciprocate Kavka, While still others have conceded that although any future generation cannot do anything for us, it can nevertheless read more for the Examples Of Environmental Ethics Related With The of its own subsequent generations, thus pointing to the existence of a broader transgenerational reciprocity Gewirth, ]
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