Environmental ethics is the part of environmental philosophy which
considers extending the traditional boundaries of ethics from solely including
humans to including the non-human world. It exerts influence on a large range
of disciplines including environmental law, environmental sociology, eco-theology, ecological economics, ecology and environmental geography.
There are many ethical decisions that human beings need to make
with respect to the environment. For example:
·
Should we continue to clear cut forests for the sake of human consumption?
·
Should we continue to make
gasoline powered vehicles, depleting fossil fuel resources while the
technology exists to create zero-emission vehicles?
·
What environmental obligations do we need to keep for future generations?
·
Is it right for humans to knowingly cause the extinction of a species for the (perceived or real) convenience of
humanity?
Environmental ethics may include such ISSUES as the following:
- Why care about nature "for itself" when only people "matter"? After all, if no people are around to regret it, what difference does it make if a species, a canyon, or even a planet is destroyed? If people who are around prefer to destroy natural objects and landscapes, then so what? Why not?
- When species or landscapes or wilderness areas are destroyed, what, of value, is lost to mankind?
- Will future generations "miss" what we have "taken from them?" (How could they know what they have "lost"?
- Do future generations (who, after all, do not exist now) have a "right" now to a clean and natural environment when their time comes?
- "Should Trees Have Legal Standing?" On what grounds, if not for mankind’s sake?
- Does "land ownership" make moral sense, or is it a morally absurd concept in Western culture? (As the Native Americans would claim).
- Do human beings have a need for nature that implies an obligation to preserve it? What is the evidence for this?
- What are the ultimate grounds of an affirmation to protect the environment? Are they rational? Irrational? Non- rational? Mystical?
- What, basically, is wrong with the developer's anthropocentric and utilitarian land ethic? Why not treat land as a "commodity" rather than a "community"?
- Can man "improve" upon nature? How? What constitutes “improvement"?
- Do the facts of environmental science have moral implications?
- Are human beings psychologically capable of caring for nature and for future generations? If they have this capacity, are we morally obligated to nurture it?
Such other concerns or issues with a question mark.
The field
of environmental ethics concerns human beings' ethical relationship with the
natural environment. While numerous philosophers have written on this topic
throughout history, environmental ethics only developed into a specific
philosophical discipline in the 1970s. This emergence was no doubt due to the
increasing awareness in the 1960s 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. Rachel Carsonyys Silent Spring first published in 1962, alerted
readers as to how the widespread use of chemical pesticides was posing a
serious threat to public health and leading to the destruction of wildlife. Of
similar significance was Paul Ehrlich's 1968 book, The Population Bomb, which
warned of the devastating effects the spiraling human population has on the
planet's resources.
Of course, pollution and the depletion of natural resources have
not been the only environmental concerns since that time: dwindling plant and
animal biodiversity, the loss of wilderness, the degradation of ecosystems and
climate change are all part of a raft of green issues that have implanted
themselves into both public consciousness and public policy over subsequent
years.
The aim of environmental ethics is to outline our moral
obligations in the face of environmental concerns. In a nutshell, the two
fundamental questions that environmental ethics must address are:
- What duties do humans have with respect to the
environment?
- Why do humans
have duties towards the environment?
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