ATENEO DE DAVAO UNNIVERSITY

Master of Arts in Philosophy

November 6, 2018

APPLIED ETHICS: Environmental Ethics

Mave Rick T. Roa

Environmental Ethics in the Developing Nations

Abstract:

This paper attempts to analyze the status of environmental ethics in developing nations.

Conceptual analysis fashioned from democratic dialogue is necessary in the contemporary

environmental issues. This method empowers not just the decisions in international negotiations

but also the ideas and judgments of every participant (a lay person, a child, adult and the

community at large). Global government employing its normative and traditional of burden sharing

principles of the environmental problem merely isolates the critical conception of environmental

ethics rooted from the minds every person. This paper aims to provide a broader view of

environmental problem and critical awareness of the place we live in. Furthermore, the concept of

environment does not merely rely on the ready-made scientific discoveries, but also on person’s

capacity to wonder, question, define and distinguish to reveal the intrinsic quality of a meaningful

answers towards the pressing issues of the environment.

 I. Introduction:

The industrialization and progress of technologies has inflicted damages to the

environment and consumes the necessary condition for life to exist. It threatens, not just the most

vulnerable communities but also the global scale. International relations agreed upon a warranted

general conception of climate policies that protects man from devastating climate change. This

negotiation has ameliorated man’s awareness of the intrinsic value of his own environment,

however, the attempt of global negotiation to solve the problem raises bigger issues. First, these

policies are made to share the burden, not on reducing the damage of environment, but to allocate

the damage through economic transfer of rights. Secondly, the gap between economic inequality

of poor and rich nations leads to incompatible and ineffective solutions solving the issues at hand.

Finally, these policies are ineffective due to lack of environmental awareness in educational

process. Education plays a crucial part to help children, as well as adults, to think critically towards

man’s relation to nature through a democratic discourse in their own terms rather than

indoctrination of the supremacy of the global policies.

The problems mentioned above may be answered holistically by the paper of Holmes

Rolston, III, Environmental Ethics, as he defines the moral principles that governs person’s

behavior in relation to environment. On the narrower perspective, Thomas Schelling shares his

thoughts on his work, The Cost of Combating Climate Change. It encourages international

community to address the serious problem of gas emission abatement though a pragmatic mode of

discourses and arguments of an immediate economic improvement. The general notion of

Rolston’s moral principles that defines man’s relations towards his environment should be

accompanied by, Matthew Lipman’s concept of community of inquiry, teachers and students,

adults and child, to:

 “(a) extend knowledge through logical inference; (b) defend knowledge through reasons

and arguments; and (c) coordinate knowledge through critical analysis”

(Lipman 2003, 111)

in order to boost their interest to explore environmental issues in their own terms. In this ends,

Lipman’s method extends and revitalized the moral principle that roots from the locality. In

summary, this paper seeks for concepts or principles that relates towards environmental ethics, and

analysis of the general references derived from the decisions of international community, and

finally, environmental concerns does not merely rely on political, social, and economic solutions,

but also, a deep personal connection of a rational agent of his relation of the environment through

his interest to ask questions and apply his reasons.

Burden Sharing

Burden sharing can be allocated through of fairness principles examined by Ringuis,

Torvanger, and Underdal. Ringuis and his peers, identified that the UNFCCC and the Kyoto

Protocol refers some fairness principles on how they proportionately allocate the burden to reduce

greenhouse gas emissions. They added, “Notions of fairness can provide a basis for an

international regime only if there is a certain minimum of consensus among its members about

what is fair and what is unfair; a critical mass of actors must, in other words, subscribe to the

same norms.” (Ringius et al. 2002, 3). It implies that a consensus among its members are derived

from equity between disproportionate capacity of the developed nation and the developing nations.

And secondly, equality referred to the burden allocated that has been divided proportionately
between nations who has equal economic status. And finally, to exempt poor nations to contribute

thereof.

In contrary, Schelling claimed, there are no any burden sharing principles or hard facts that

will proportionately distribute the cost and benefit of substantial support. For instance, it cast a

doubt whether economic improvement should be allocated to China rather than to Bangladesh,

which is already suffering from disastrous effect of climate change. Rather than establishing

“commitments to targets and timetables,” they should focus on “policies, programs, taxes,

subsidies, regulations, investments, energy technology research and development—” (Schelling

1997, 13) that will seriously reduce carbon emissions in combating climate change.

The gap between economic inequality of developing and developed nations

International negotiation on facing the problem of climate change were cautious not merely

on the cost imposed to them but rather in what way their decisions can advance the interest of their

corporate businesses. The corporate’s interest attached in international negotiation aggravates the

condition of economic inequality between poor and rich nations. The treaties on climate policies

between nations are analogously comparable to a treaty that governs the marketable license to

produce carbon emissions. Ringius, citing UNFCCC Article 4.8(h), fears that implementation of

climate policies may have a negative effect upon “countries whose economies are highly

dependent on income generated from the production, processing and export, and/or on

consumption of fossil fuels and associated energy-intensive products” (Ringius et al. 2002, 16). A

thought that “a big problem needs a big solution” will only worsen the vulnerable economy of

developing nations.
 The relative condition of developing and developed nation’s capacity to act upon the

declining quality of their environment varies on their economic status. The gap between economic

inequality of poor and rich nations leads to incompatible and ineffective solutions in its application.

Combating climate change can neither be resolved by hard facts depicting levels of CFCs

produced by each nation, nor dependent upon the agreements of climate policies aimed to devote

for the future generation.

Climate Policies are ineffective due to lack of environmental awareness in educational

process

Another problem that the developing countries faces today is the lack of a critical

environmental awareness in educational process particularly in basic education. I do not intend to

argue the deficiency of the content of environmental science to teach the function of nature. The

subject has been taught, to equip the child to become aware of his environment, as well as his

exploitive power to control the external components for the greater good. Textbooks become the

main source of the conceptual framework of the nature of environment and has been gradually

reduced to memorization of an exclusive paradigm of knowledge. Initial reactions of these lessons

are the three (3) R’s – reduce, reuse and recycle. School projects that require students to bring

considerable amount of empty plastic bottles has become a merely generic solution to overcome

pollution in basic education and even at tertiary level.

The problem is not about the content of what they teach, but how they teach student.

Education in developing countries is simply reduced and predicated to economic means (Singer

2002, 108.) In the context of globalization, authority of schools was perceived as the only
legitimate representation of learning. Education as a means for economic development trains

students to become submissive and passive class of learners and contends that learning occurs only

in schools. For Lipman, “what this leads to is a kind of one-dimensional moral thinking that feeds

upon stereotypes” (Lipman 2003, 107). For instance, “she’s passive, so she must be good” which

is analogously describes to a Filipina being Maria Clara, good and virtuous, in the Philippine

context. This is practically common to developing countries where students believed that

institution of education stands as a foundation of knowledge and must submit to it.

The capacity of environmental awareness is more than learning the theory and practice. It

requires the leaner to engage in serious deliberation to test logically their justification of the

distinction between right and wrong. Justification must be followed by a series of question within

the community of inquiry to extract the essential form of the concept.

Environmental Ethics

Environmental ethics, for Holmes Rolston, III, concerns both theory and practice. His

concept of environmental ethics’ rallies back against anthropocentric ethics. It is worth mentioning

since it describes the transformation of traditional practices to a more radical solution. This field

of study exposes the history of man’s exploitation and dependence towards nature. However, the

exposure of such conflict is insufficient to mold the status quo from their exploitive and destructive

behavior because “humans are mostly moved to act in their self-interest; and they will do so to the

degradation of the environment—unless environmental policy gives them incentive otherwise”

(Rolston 2003, 525).

 My point here is not to argue on the theories that describes the intrinsic value possessed by

animals, ecosystems, organisms, and our home planet against anthropocentric ethics. My emphasis

here is that human being has an a priori essential connection with his environment, that they co-

exist together in a unified space and time. Environment is also thought as a biosphere that

obviously a significant life support for every being. And when we invoke these terms that describes

our environment, the innate and primary concept has already been established a priori through our

exposure and dependence to nature. In other words, environmental ethics is already present in our

thoughts, practices, and a similar reference to language. The environmental problems we

experience cannot be resolved by a short-term solution to motivate a person by reward, but rather

to encourage individuals in a democratic dialogue to prompt our innate knowledge, justify and

question of their thoughts about the moral condition of environment in logical manner.

Short-Range Plan

“If carbon-induced climate change proves serious, it will be the ultimate concentration of

greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that matters” (Schelling 1997, 13). However, setting the

ceiling of the limit of certain level of concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is

unrealistic. Since there is no exact or estimated amount of concentration of global carbon emissions

accurately feasible for a long-range plan. Schelling suggests a short-term plan by “proposing

reductions of 10 or 15 percent in annual emissions for most developed countries during the coming

decade or so”. He added that “short-term reductions would help governments learn more about

emissions and how much they can be reduced by different measures” (Schelling 1997, 13). A

short-range plan is pragmatically viable in developed nation since they have the capacity of the
economic means to minimize their dependence of the consumption of fossil fuels and associated

energy-intensive products.

Ethics and Community of Inquiry

Matthew Lipman is the founder of Philosophy for Children, emphasizing on the development of a

child to perform reasoning skills by teaching logic. His methods in education is not mere exclusive

to children but applies in some other fields. His book Thinking in Education explains the

importance of philosophy in early age. The most appealing part is part two (2): communities of

inquiry which is relevant in the problem at hand. For Lipman, a ‘dialogue is a form of inquiry.’ A

dialogue permits the child to justify and strengthen his own view through wondering, questioning,

inferring, defining, assuming, supposing, imagining, and distinguishing by sharing one’s

experience or views as a subject matter of thinking. Learning can be found in a dialogue as a form

of inquiry which is governed by logical thinking. This forms a community of inquiry that

establishes a sound judgment by engaging “in a series of mental acts aimed at penetrating and

analyzing the matter at hand” (Lipman 2003, 95).

Climate policies must be perceived, not in a form neither an indoctrination nor an incentive

system, but rather an avenue of capacity for thinking. The environmental ethics, therefore, is not

all about economic assistance, but on how we enable a persons “capacity to employ rational

procedure in judicious manner” (Lipman 2003, 97) It describes to the capacity of the wiser species

to distinguish right actions from wrong ones. As a result, the enriched quality of concepts and

understanding towards the ethical issues are easily framed and developed from one generation

passed to other generation in a form of a dialogue. Right action requires a necessary condition of

his own understanding and justification of his own actions.

Conclusion

Climate policies and regulations are effective way to control human-centered actions.

However, considering the intrinsic attribute of man, as free and rational animal, he is not a passive

and submissive individual. The problem is not on how man should be governed by his exploitive

and destructive nature, but rather, how to teach the rational agents to be reasonable and appreciate

his own ideas. As we see, Democratic forces never failed to impose laws to the people, but failed

to let people think the importance of these policies. Environmental awareness is commonly

attributed in every language of cultures that accompanied a quality strategy to care for the nature.

Incentives system offers a mere short-term solution. In contrary, this is how we treat dogs

to respond to their pleasing stimuli to follow command for sake of bountiful rewards. Incentive or

rewards should not be a sole driving force in educating man to think and conceptualize moral

principles. A rational man should not be taught the way how we teach a dog. Government

institutions should at least refrain from indoctrinating of what policies could offer, but rather to

encourage individuals to ponder for their own interpretation and challenge other’s perspective to

enrich the holistic concept of a moral principle applicable to the environment.

Society that is weak in ethical awareness lacks intellectual responsiveness to understand

and act according to what is right. Environmental principles should be a subject for thinking. The

ethical problem man faces in identifying his relations towards environment is not exclusively a

philosopher’s concern. This burden must be shared to the community of inquiry to think critically,

into a democratic discourse, as well as to empower indigenous and local ideas.

References:

1. Lipman, Matthew. 2003. Thinking in Education: Communities of Inquiries. USA, New

York: Cambridge University Press.

2. Posner, Eric and Cass R. Sustein. 2008. “Justice and Climate Change.” The Harvard

Project on International Climate Agreements: 1-25

3. Ringius, Lasse, Asbjørn Torvanger and Arild Underdal. 2002. “Burden Sharing and

Fairness Principles in International Climate Policy.” International Environmental

Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 2: 1–22.

4. Rolston, Holmes III. 2003. “Environmental Ethics.” The Blackwell Companion to

Philosophy (2): 1-16.

5. Schelling, Thomas. 1997. “The Cost of Combating Global Warming.” Foreign Affairs

76(6): 1-8

6. Singer, Peter. 2002. One World. United States: Yale University Press