Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Environmental Ethics
- What is
environmental ethics?
- It considers the major concerns about the
environment and evaluates these against the
various ethical theories and the other ways in
which the environment is shown to have value.
- It considers the relationship between humans
and the natural world and how and why we
make decisions about the environment.
- Key Issues in
environmental ethics
- The main approaches to environmental ethics:
Anthropocentric - human centered 'green light'
(Aquinas, Kant or Bentham), Biocentric - life centered,
shallow ecology 'mid green' (Singer), Ecocentred - plant
centered, deep ecology (Arne Naess or James Lovelock)
- Main issues: Does the environment have intrinsic or instrumental
value? What is humanity's relationship to the environment,
should humans dominate and use natural resources for their own
good, or enable natural resources to flourish, or preserve them?
To what extent do future generations need to be considered when
making decisions about the environment?
- What is the status of animals? Do they have the same rights as
humans and therefore should humans strive to protect them? Are all
living things, ranging from people to plants, of the same moral value?
- Religious Approaches
- Dominion and/or
stewardship?
- The Bible appears to imply that humans can do
what they want because the Bible states that
nature was the inanimate creation of God.
- The word 'dominion' in Gen 1 have paved
the way for exploitation. God made man 'in
his image', this gives humankind dominion
(authority, humans are the peak creation)
- Aristotle influenced Aquinas to continue
the view that the human species are the
only morally important beings in inhabit
the earth; Aquinas maintained that all
animals are naturally subject to man.
- However it is incorrect to interpret as dominion as rule
over and therefore that we can do what we like? Should it
not mean we have responsibility to ensure the world is
cared for because it belongs to God? Gen 2 states God put
man into the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
- This implies that humankind has the role of
stewards. Stewardship sees humans as the
peak of God's creation but only in as much as
they are considered to be the creatures who
God has selected to regulate the response of
the natural world and to its creator.
- Humans have 2 roles: to conserve and
care for creation, and to act as the
director of nature's obedience to God.
- Adam and Eve's disobedience in Gen 3
(The Fall) is seen by some as explaining
why we are experiencing environmental
problems. It is from that moment that
humans became poor stewards.
- Christians believe that creation is intrinsic
value and reveals God, but it also reveals
human sin through our bad treatment of the
world. But using creation well and respecting
it restores human's relationship with God.
- Evaluating a
Christian Approach
- Humans are stewards - responsible to God
for their use of God's creation. Technology
and science are not intrinsically bad
because God works in and through nature.
- Christians can be called to reject lifestyles that
disregard and damage God's creation. Creation
has value in itself and reveals God.
- The teachings in the Bible state that humans must observe
environmental justice. However, the Bible is accused of
encouraging human domination and exploitation. People
have moved from nature-centered religions to a religion
where God demands dominion over nature. The ecological
crisis will be solved only when the Christian view is rejected.
- Some philosophers criticise Judaeo-Christian tradition
for placing humans at the moral centre. Genesis shows
God commanding Adam and Eve to multiply, fill the
earth and subdue it, but revised beliefs show that
Christians should be stewards not manipulators.
- Secular Approaches
- Shallow Ecology
- Believes that the environment is important and
should be looked after only if it benefits humans.
The environment had instrumental values - its value
is dependent on what it can do for humans.
- Conservation ethics is a form of shallow
ecology. Conservation looks at the use,
allocation and protection of the natural world
in order to help the survival of the human race.
- A person might individually choose to recycle
their waste because these actions would help
them. Biodiversity should be preserved in order
to ensure the survival of the human race.
- This means that shallow ecology would accept
environmental damage if humans benefit from
it. Yet it could also mean that if preservation of
the rain forests is proved to be good for
humans then this is what should happen.
- Neither animals nor plants have rights - any
respect shown to them depends on how humans
may benefit. Shallow ecology is anthropocentric.
- EVALUATION: Shallow ecology allows
species to die out if the cost of preserving
them is too high. Making human welfare
central may benefit the human population,
but in the long term may create problems.
- Deep Ecology
- Arne Naess began the deep ecology movement
in the 1960s and believed that nature has a
value of its own. He gave the example of a
mountain which has a 'dignity' which shouldn't
be violated for the sake of humankind.
- Deep ecology believes that the flourishing of
human and non human life has intrinsic
value contributing to the realisation of these
value which are also values in themselves.
- In other words, its teaches that reverence for life
and celebration of diversity are an intrinsic good
in themselves. The environment is preserved for
its own sake (not just for the sake of humans)
- Naess thinks humans should reduce their
population, abandon the notion of economic
growth, conserve diversity and live in small
self-reliant communities.
- EVALUATION: It is difficult to justify the claim that
not only people and animals, but plants and even
rocks have rights. How is one right balanced
against another? Who guarantees the rights?
- In post-industrial society the idea of going back to
a simpler time is romantic and impractical. Human
population is increasing and humans have as much
right to reproduce as much as other animals.
- Eco-holism: the Gaia
hypothesis
- James Lovelock was acutely aware of the
inter-connectedness of all matter -
especially at the subatomic level. He argues
that it was quite wrong to consider the Earth
to be inert but in some ways alive.
- He likened the relationship of the atmosphere and living
beings to the bark of a tree: although the bark is inert,
without it the tree cannot live; but without the tree there
would be no bark. Gaia is therefore more than just
principle but describes the vital energy of nature.
- In his study of other plants he asked the question why
was the earth different from them? What was happening
upon the earth which enabled the maintenance of such
an unlikely combination of chemical gases.
- What complex processes are at work within the earths
atmosphere - and have occurred for billions of years - to
explain this uniqueness. Lovelock believes that the Earth
itself is part of the life supporting biosphere. It is not just
a question of everything relying on everything else
(circle of life) but that the plant itself is alive.
- The earth is self regulating. Human existence may be destroyed by
Gaia's survival mechanism so that the environmental damage
which threatens planetary survival will stop. Unlike religious
systems the Gaia hypothesis seriously questions whether human
life is dispensable in the great scheme of planetary survival.
- This implies: Either the earth is more complex, and the
potential problems are more severe, than we think; the
earth's inbuilt controls are delicate, and can respond to
natural fluctuations in conditions, but the artificial
fluctuations are overloading the system - CO2 emissions.
- Therefore, for a purely utilitarian
principle, it is for our greatest good that
we reduce these emissions and release
the pressure on the environment.
- Or the Earth will compensate for the load placed
on it by human industrial activity. We have only a
limited influence on the planet. The life forms that
currently occupy the planet are only of incidental
importance. The microbiological foundation for life
is far more important. Life in some form will
survive but the human race may not.
- The Gaia hypothesis accepts evolution but
Lovelock believes that organisms also
contribute to change in the environment so that
the organisms and the environment become
inter-dependent and they evolve together.
- Evaluating Gaia
Hypothesis
- The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins argues
that it seems inconceivable that life should 'club
together' for a mutual advantage, especially when
evolutionary theory shows that the biosphere is
engaged in a 'survival of the fittest'.
- Peter Singer, maintains that while life forms can have value
as part of the biosphere, only sentient life has intrinsic value.
Other organisms, such as plants, cannot truly be said to
desire to flourish or have experience - they are non - sentient,
however, plants do go to extraordinary lengths to procreate,
- It is argued that the fate of one species is dependent on
that of all the other species, so it is difficult to say
exactly what the long-term effect on humankind might
be as a result of the general change in the biosphere.
- Gaia is not telelogical and only seeks to maintain the
equilibrium of the earth, however the conditions
which favour one organism may not favour another,
which does simply imply genetic adaption.