ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

What is Environmental Ethics?

The discipline that studies the moral relationship of human beings to and the value and moral status of the environment and its nonhuman content.

Levels of Environmental Ethics

DESCRIPTIVE Consists of accounts of what people and their cultures should do and value
NORMATIVE Deals with the questions of right or wrong, duties and rights, justice and injustice, virtue and wickedness and so forth. Recommendations are also made as to the morally best course of action or conduct. CRITICAL Concerned with the meanings of ethical concepts with the justification of normative claims.

The Principles Of Environmental Ethics

PRINCIPLE OF NATURALISM Man is a natural species, evolving from and sustained by a complex and functioning ecosystem.
PRINCIPLE OF AGENCY Man has the ability to use language, acquire knowledge, imagine alternative futures, use abstract reasoning,a ct according to rules, recognize the personhood of others, and to realize other capacities. PRINCIPLE OF HOLISM The ecosystem is a systemic whole, of which human beings are a part. Accordingly, the whole informs the parts: The ecosystem, and mankinds place and responsibility within, is best understood from the perspective of the whole.

Various World Views and Ethical Perspectives

Philosophy Anthropocentric Stewardship Biocentric Intrinsic Value Humans Humans and Nature Species Instrumental Value Nature Tools Abiotic Nature Role of Humans Masters Caretakers One of many

Ecocentric Ecofeminist

Processes Relationships

Individuals Roles

Destroyers Caregivers

MAN AS STEWARD
A sense of responsibility to manage and care for the environment

Stewardship = Moral Responsibility

Moral responsibility is nothing more than our capacity to be human and being able to take care of everything around us.

Four Criteria of Moral Responsibility

The person has knowledge of the consequences of the act. The person has the capacity to do the act. The person has the choice not to do it.

Man has moral responsibility towards nature

We know that we can cause permanent damage to natural landscapes, resources and ecosystems We know that we can cause them We know how we can prevent or remedy them

Knowing all these exacts a moral obligation to act with care, foresight, forbearance and constraint.

Have dominion over the fish of the sea , the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on earth. Genesis 1:28