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 Carson’s Silent Spring, first published in 1962, alerted readers 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 job of environmental ethics is to outline our moral obligations in the face of such concerns. 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 former. 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 quite different environmental ethics.
Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to those parts of this article)
1. Extending Moral Standing
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?
If the answer is simply that we, as human beings, will perish if we
do not constrain our actions towards nature, then that ethic is
considered to be “anthropocentric.” Anthropocentrism
literally means “human-centeredness,” and in one sense
all ethics must be considered anthropocentric. After all, as far as we know,
only human beings can reason about and reflect upon ethical matters,
thus giving all moral debate a definite “human-centeredness.”
However, within environmental ethics anthropocentrism usually means
something more than this.
It usually refers to an ethical framework that grants “moral
standing” solely to human beings. 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. Some have claimed that this
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.
a. Human Beings
Although
many environmental philosophers want to distance themselves from the
label of anthropocentrism, it nevertheless remains the case that a
number of coherent anthropocentric environmental ethics have been
elaborated (Blackstone, 1972; Passmore, 1974; O’Neill, 1997;
and Gewirth, 2001). This should be of little surprise, since many of
the concerns we have regarding the environment appear 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.
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, 2001).
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. 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, 1972). 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, 1978). While still
others have conceded that although any future generation cannot do
anything for us, it can nevertheless act for the benefit of its own
subsequent generations, thus pointing to the existence of a broader
transgenerational reciprocity (Gewirth, 2001).
However,
perhaps we do not have obligations to future people because there is
no definitive group of individuals to whom such obligations are owed.
This argument is not based on the simple fact that future people do
not exist yet, but on the fact that we do not know who they will be.
Derek Parfit has called this the “non-identity problem”
(Parfit, 1984, ch. 16). The heart of this problem lies in the fact
that the policies adopted by states directly affect the movement,
education, employment and so on of their citizens. Thus, such
policies affect who meets whom, and who has children with whom. So,
one set of policies will lead to one group of future people, while
another set will lead to a different group. Our actions impact who
will exist in the future, making our knowledge of who they will be
incomprehensible. Since there is no definitive set of future people
to receive the benefits or costs of our actions, to whom do we grant
moral standing? Secondly, and of particular importance for
environmental ethics, how could any future people legitimately
complain that they have been wronged by our environmentally
destructive policies? For if we had not conducted such policies,
they would not even exist.
In
response to the non-identity problem, it has been argued that while
we do not know exactly who will exist in the future, we do know that
some group of people will exist and that they will have interests.
In light of this, perhaps our obligations lie with these interests,
rather than the future individuals themselves (DesJardins, 2001, p.
74). As for the second aspect of the problem, we might claim that
although future generations will benefit from our environmentally
destructive policies by their very existence, they will nevertheless
have been harmed. After all, cannot one be harmed by a particular
action even if one benefits overall? To illustrate this point, James
Woodward gives the example of a racist airline refusing to allow a
black man on a flight that subsequently crashes (Woodward, 1986).
Isn’t this man harmed by the airline, even though he benefits
overall?
Even
if we do decide to grant moral standing to future human beings,
however, that still leaves the problem of deciding just what
obligations we have to them. One set of difficulties relates to
our ignorance of who they are. For not only do we lack information
about the identity of future people, but we have neither knowledge
of their conceptions of a good life, nor what technological advances
they may have made. For example, why bother preserving rare species
of animal or oil reserves if humans in the future receive no
satisfaction from the diversity of life and have developed some
alternative fuel source? Our ignorance of such matters makes it very
difficult to flesh out the content of our obligations.
By
way of reply to such problems, some philosophers have argued that
while we do not know everything about future people, we can make some
reasonable assumptions. For example, Brian Barry has argued that in
order to pursue their idea of the good life - whatever that happens
to be - future people will have need of some basic resources, such as
food, water, minimum health and so on (Barry, 1999). Barry thus
argues that our obligations lie with ensuring that we do not prevent
future generations from meeting their basic needs. This, in turn,
forces us to consider and appropriately revise our levels of
pollution, resource depletion, climate change and population growth.
While this might seem a rather conservative ethic to some, it is
worth pointing out that at no time in humanity’s history have
the needs of contemporaries been
met, let alone those of future people. This unfortunate fact points
to a further problem that all future-oriented anthropocentric
environmental ethics must face. Just how are the needs and interests of the current generation to be weighed against the needs and interests of those human beings
in the future? Can we justifiably let present people go without for the sake of future humans?
Clearly
then, the problems posed by just a minimal extension of moral
standing are real and difficult. Despite this, however, most
environmental philosophers feel that such anthropocentric ethics do
not go far enough, and want to extend moral standing beyond humanity.
Only by doing this, such thinkers argue, can we get the beyond
narrow and selfish interests of humans, and treat the environment and
its inhabitants with the respect they deserve.
b. Animals
If only human
beings have moral standing, then it follows that if I come across a
bear while out camping and shoot it dead on a whim, I do no wrong to
that bear. Of course, an anthropocentric ethic might claim that I do
some wrong
by shooting the bear dead – perhaps shooting
bears is not the action of a virtuous individual, or perhaps I am
depleting a source of beauty for most other humans – but
because anthropocentrism states that only humans have moral standing,
then I can do no wrong to the
bear itself. However, many of us have the intuition that this claim
is wrong. Many of us feel that it is possible to do wrong to
animals, whether that be by shooting innocent bears or by torturing
cats. Of course, a feeling or intuition does not get us very far in
proving that
animals have moral standing. For one thing, some people (hunters and
cat-torturers, for example) no doubt have quite different intuitions,
leading to quite different conclusions. However, several
philosophers have offered sophisticated arguments to support the view
that moral standing should be extended to include animals.
Peter
Singer and Tom Regan are the most famous proponents of the view that
we should extend moral standing to other species of animal. While
both develop quite different animal ethics, their reasons for
according moral status to animals are fairly similar. According to
Singer, the criterion for moral standing is sentience: the capacity
to feel pleasure and pain (Singer, 1974). For Regan, on the other
hand, moral standing should be acknowledged in all
“subjects-of-a-life”: that is, those beings with beliefs,
desires, perception, memory, emotions, a sense of future and the
ability to initiate action (Regan, 1983/2004, ch. 7). So, while
Regan and Singer give slightly different criteria for moral standing,
both place a premium on a form of consciousness.
For Singer,
if an entity possesses the relevant type of consciousness, then that
entity should be given equal consideration when we formulate our
moral obligations. Note that the point is not that every sentient
being should be treated equally, but that it should be considered equally.
In other words, the differences between individuals, and thus their
different interests, should be taken into account. Thus, for Singer
it would not be
wrong to deny pigs the vote, for obviously pigs have no interest in
participating in a democratic society; but it would be wrong to
subordinate pigs’ interest in not suffering, for clearly pigs
have a strong interest in avoiding pain, just like us. Singer then
feeds his principle of equal consideration into a utilitarian ethical
framework, whereby the ultimate moral goal is to bring about the
greatest possible satisfaction of interests. So there are two
strands to Singer’s theory: first of all, we must consider the
interests of sentient beings equally; and secondly, our obligations
are founded on the aim of bringing about the greatest amount of
interest-satisfaction that we can.
Tom Regan
takes issue with Singer’s utilitarian ethical framework, and
uses the criterion of consciousness to build a “rights-based”
theory. For Regan, all entities who are “subjects-of-a-life”
possess “inherent value”. This means that such entities
have a value of their own, irrespective of their good for other
beings or their contribution to some ultimate ethical norm. In
effect then, Regan proposes that there are moral limits to what one
can do to a subject-of-a-life. This position stands in contrast to
Singer who feeds all interests into the utilitarian calculus and
bases our moral obligations on what satisfies the greatest number.
Thus, in Singer’s view it might be legitimate to sacrifice the
interests of certain individuals for the sake of the
interest-satisfaction of others. For example, imagine that it is
proven that a particular set of painful experiments on half a dozen
pigs will lead to the discovery of some new medicine that will itself
alleviate the pain of a few dozen human beings (or other sentient
animals). If one’s ultimate norm is to satisfy the maximum
number of interests, then such experiments should take place.
However, for Regan there are moral limits to what one can do to an
entity with inherent value, irrespective of these overall
consequences. These moral limits are “rights”, and are
possessed by all creatures who are subjects-of-a-life.
But what
does all this have to do with environmental ethics? Well, in one
obvious sense animal welfare is relevant to environmental ethics
because animals exist within the natural environment and thus form
part of environmentalists’ concerns. However, extending moral
standing to animals also leads to the formulation of particular types
of environmental obligations. Essentially, these ethics claim that
when we consider how our actions impact on the environment, we should
not just evaluate how these affect humans (present and/or future),
but also how they affect the interests and rights of animals (Singer,
1993, ch. 10, and Regan, 1983/2004, ch. 9). For example, even if
clearing an area of forest were proven to be of benefit to humans
both in the short and long-term, that would not be the end of the
matter as far as animal ethics are concerned.
The welfare of the animals residing within and around the forest
must also be considered.
However,
many environmental philosophers have been dissatisfied with these
kinds of animal-centered environmental ethics. Indeed, some have
claimed that animal liberation cannot even be considered a legitimate
environmental ethic (Callicott, 1980, Sagoff, 1984). For these
thinkers, all animal-centered ethics suffer from two fundamental and
devastating problems: first of all, they are too narrowly
individualistic; and secondly, the logic of animal ethics implies
unjustifiable interference with natural processes. As for the first
point, it is pointed out that our concerns for the environment extend
beyond merely worrying about individual creatures. Rather, for
environmentalists, “holistic” entities matter, such as
species and ecosystems. Moreover, sometimes the needs of a “whole”
clash with the interests of the individuals that comprise it.
Indeed, the over-abundance of individuals of a particular species of
animal can pose a serious threat to the normal functioning of an
ecosystem. For example, many of us will be familiar with the
problems rabbits have caused to ecosystems in Australia. Thus, for
many environmentalists, we have an obligation to kill these damaging
animals. Clearly, this stands opposed to the conclusions of an ethic
that gives such weight to the interests and rights of individual
animals. The individualistic nature of an animal-centered ethic also
means that it faces difficulty in explaining our concern for the
plight of endangered species. After all, if individual conscious
entities are all that matter morally, then the last surviving panda
must be owed just the same as my pet cat. For many environmental
philosophers this is simply wrong, and priority must be given to the
endangered species (Rolston III, 1985).
Animal-centered ethics also face attack for some of the
implications of their arguments. For example, if we have obligations
to alleviate the suffering of animals, as these authors suggest, does
that mean we must stop predator animals from killing their prey, or
partition off prey animals so that they are protected from such
attacks (Sagoff, 1984)? Such conclusions not only seem absurd, but
also inimical to the environmentalist goal of preserving natural
habitats and processes.
Having
said all of this, I should not over-emphasize the opposition between
animal ethics and environmental ethics. Just because animal
ethicists grant moral standing only to conscious individuals, that
does not mean that they hold everything else in contempt (Jamieson,
1998). Holistic entities may not have independent moral standing,
according to these thinkers, but that does not equate to ignoring
them.
After all, the welfare and interests of individual entities are
often bound up with the healthy functioning of the “wholes”
that they make up. Moreover, the idea that animal ethics imply
large-scale interferences in the environment can be questioned when
one considers how much harm this would inflict upon predator and
scavenger animals. Nevertheless, clashes of interest between
individual animals and other natural entities are inevitable, and
when push comes to shove animal ethicists will invariably grant
priority to individual conscious animals. Many environmental
ethicists disagree, and are convinced that the boundaries of our
ethical concern need to be pushed back further.
c. Individual Living Organisms
As noted above,
numerous philosophers have questioned the notion that only conscious
beings have moral standing. Some have done this by proposing a
thought experiment based on a “last-human scenario”
(Attfield, 1983, p. 155). The thought experiment asks us to consider
a situation, such as the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust, where the
only surviving human being is faced with the only surviving tree of
its species.
If the individual chops down the tree, no human would be harmed by
its destruction. For our purposes we should alter the example and
say that all animals have also perished in the holocaust. If this
amendment is made, we can go further and say that no conscious being
would be harmed by the tree’s destruction. Would this
individual be wrong to destroy the tree? According to a human or
animal-centered ethic, it is hard to see why such destruction would
be wrong. And yet, many of us have the strong intuition that the
individual would act wrongly by chopping down the tree. For some
environmental philosophers, this intuition suggests that moral
standing should be extended beyond conscious life to include
individual living organisms, such as trees.
Of
course, and as I have mentioned before, we cannot rely only on
intuitions to decide who or what has moral standing. For this
reason, a number of philosophers have come up with arguments to
justify assigning moral standing to individual living organisms. One
of the earliest philosophers to put forward such an argument was
Albert Schweitzer. Schweitzer’s influential “Reverence
for Life” ethic claims that all living things have a “will
to live”, and that humans should not interfere with or
extinguish this will (Schweitzer, 1923). But while it is clear that
living organisms struggle for survival, it is simply not true that
they “will” to live. This, after all, would require some
kind of conscious experience, which many living things lack.
However, perhaps what Schweitzer was getting at was something like
Paul W. Taylor’s more recent claim that all living things are
“teleological centers of life” (Taylor, 1986). For
Taylor, this means that living things have a good of their own that
they strive towards, even if they lack awareness of this fact. This
good, according to Taylor, is the full development of an organism’s
biological powers. In similar arguments to Regan’s, Taylor
claims that because living organisms have a good of their own, they
have inherent value; that is, value for their own sake, irrespective
of their value to other beings. It is this value that grants
individual living organisms moral status, and means that we must take
the interests and needs of such entities into account when
formulating our moral obligations.
But
if we recognize moral standing in every living thing, how are we then
to formulate any meaningful moral obligations? After all, don’t
we as humans require the destruction of many living organisms simply
in order to live? For example we need to walk, eat, shelter and
clothe ourselves, all of which will usually involve harming living
things. Schweitzer’s answer is that we can only harm or end
the life of a living entity when absolutely necessary.
Of course, this simply begs the question: when is absolutely
necessary? Taylor attempts to answer this question by advocating a
position of general equality between the interests of living things,
together with a series of principles in the event of clashes of
interest. First,
the principles state that humans are allowed to act in self-defense
to
prevent harm being inflicted by other living organisms. Second, the
basic interests
of nonhuman living entities should take priority over the nonbasic
or trivial interests of humans. Third, when basic interests clash,
humans are not required
to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others (Taylor, 1986, pp.
264-304).
As
several philosophers have pointed out, however, this ethic is still
incredibly demanding. For example, because my interest in having a
pretty garden is nonbasic, and a weed’s interest in survival is
basic, I am forbidden from pulling it out according to Taylor’s
ethical framework.
For some, this makes
the ethic unreasonably burdensome. No doubt because of these
worries, other philosophers who accord moral standing to all living
organisms have taken a rather different stance. Instead of adopting
an egalitarian position on the interests of living things, they
propose a hierarchical framework (Attfield, 1983 and Varner, 1998).
Such thinkers point out that moral standing is not the same as moral
significance.
So while we could acknowledge that plants have moral standing, we
might nevertheless accord them a much lower significance than human
beings, thus making it easier to justify our use and destruction of
them. Nevertheless, several philosophers remain uneasy about the
construction of such hierarchies and wonder whether it negates the
acknowledgement of moral standing in the first place. After all, if
we accept such a hierarchy, just how low is the moral significance of
plants? If it is low enough so that I can eat them, weed them and
walk on them, what is the point of granting them any moral
standing at all?
There
remain two crucial challenges facing philosophers who attribute moral
standing to individual living organisms that have not yet been
addressed.
One challenge comes from the anthropocentric thinkers and animal
liberationists. They deny that “being alive” is a
sufficient condition for the possession of moral standing. For
example, while plants may have a biological good, is it really good
of their own?
Indeed, there seems to be no sense in which something can be said to
be good or bad from the point of view of the plant itself. And if
the plant doesn’t care about its fate, why should we (Warren,
2000, p. 48)? In response to this challenge, environmental ethicists
have pointed out that conscious volition of an object or state is not
necessary for that object or state to be a
good. For example, consider a cat that needs worming. It is very
unlikely that the cat has any understanding of what worming is, or
that he needs worming in order to remain healthy and fit. However,
it makes perfect sense to say that worming is good for the cat,
because it contributes to the cat’s functioning and
flourishing. Similarly, plants and tress may not consciously desire
sunlight, water or nutrition, but each, according to some ethicists,
can be said to be good for them in that they contribute to their
biological flourishing.
The
second challenge comes from philosophers who question the
individualistic nature of these particular ethics. As mentioned
above, these critics do not believe that an environmental ethic
should place such a high premium on individuals. For
many, this individualistic stance negates important ecological
commitments to the interdependence of living things, and the harmony
to be found in natural processes. Moreover, it is alleged that these
individualistic ethics suffer from the same faults as anthropocentric
and animal-centered ethics: they simply cannot account for our real
and demanding obligations to holistic entities such as species and
ecosystems. Once again, however, a word of caution is warranted
here. It is not the case that philosophers who ascribe moral
standing to individual living things simply ignore the importance of
such “wholes”. Often the equilibrium of these entities
is taken extremely seriously (See Taylor, 1986, p. 77). However, it
must be remembered that such concern is extended only insofar as such
equilibrium is necessary in order for individual living organisms to
flourish; the wholes themselves have no independent moral standing.
In the next section, those philosophers who claim that this standing
should be extended to such “wholes” will be examined.
d. Holistic Entities
While Albert Schweitzer
can be regarded as the most prominent philosophical influence for
thinkers who grant moral standing to all individual living things,
Aldo Leopold is undoubtedly the main influence on those who propose
“holistic” ethics. Aldo Leopold’s “land
ethic” demands that we stop treating the land as a mere object
or resource. For Leopold, land is not merely soil. Instead, land is
a fountain of energy, flowing through a circuit of soils, plants and
animals.
While food chains conduct the energy upwards from the soil, death
and decay returns the energy back to the soil. Thus, the flow of
energy relies on a complex structure of relations between living
things. While evolution gradually changes these relations, Leopold
argues that man’s interventions have been much more violent and
destructive. In order to preserve the relations within the land,
Leopold claims that we must move towards a “land ethic”,
thereby granting moral standing to the land community itself, not
just its individual members. This culminates in Leopold’s
famous ethical injunction: “A thing is right when it tends to
preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic
community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise” (Leopold,
1949/1989, pp. 218-225).
Several
philosophers, however, have questioned Leopold’s justification
of the land ethic. For one thing, it seems that Leopold jumps too
quickly from a descriptive account
of how the land is, to a prescriptive account
of what we ought to do. In other words, even if Leopold’s
accounts of the land and its energy flows are correct, why should we
preserve it? What precisely is it about the biotic community that
makes it deserving of moral standing? Unfortunately, Leopold seems to
offer no answers to these important questions, and thus no reason to
build our environmental obligations around his land ethic. However,
J. Baird Callicott has argued that such criticisms of Leopold are
unfair and misplaced. According to Callicott, Leopold lies outside
of mainstream moral theory. Rather than assign moral standing on the
identification of some particular characteristic, such as
consciousness or a biological good of one’s own, Leopold is
claimed to accord moral standing on the basis of moral sentiment and
affection. Thus, the question is not, what quality does the land
possess that makes it worthy of moral standing? But rather, how do
we feel about
the land (Callicott, 1998)? In
this light, the land ethic can be seen as an injunction to broaden
our moral sentiments beyond self-interest, and beyond humanity to
include the whole biotic community. This, so the argument goes,
bridges the gap between the descriptive and the prescriptive in
Leopold’s thought.
Of course, some have
questioned whether sentiment and feelings are suitable foundations
for an environmental ethic. After all, there seem to be plenty of
people out there who have no affection for the biotic community
whatsoever. If Leopold’s injunction is ignored by such people,
must we simply give up hope of formulating any environmental
obligations? In the search for more concrete foundations, Lawrence
E. Johnson has built an alternative case for according moral standing
to holistic entities (Johnson, 1993). Johnson claims that once we
recognize that interests are not always tied to conscious experience,
the door is opened to the possibility of nonconscious entities having
interests and thus moral standing. So, just as breathing oxygen is
in the interests of a child, even though the child has neither a
conscious desire for oxygen, nor any understanding of what oxygen is,
so do species have an interest in fulfilling their nature. This is
because both have a good of their own, based on the integrated
functioning of their life processes (ibid., p. 142). Children can
flourish as living things, and so too can species and ecosystems; so,
according to Johnson, both have interests that must be taken into
account in our ethical deliberations.
But
even if we accept that moral standing should be extended to holistic
entities on this basis, we still need to consider how we are then to
flesh out our moral obligations concerning the environment. For
some, this is where holistic ethics fail to convince. In particular,
it has been claimed that holistic ethics condone sacrificing
individuals for the sake of the whole. Now while many holistic
philosophers do explicitly condone sacrificing individuals in some
situations, for example by shooting rabbits to preserve plant
species, they are reluctant to sacrifice human interests
in similar situations. But isn’t the most abundant species
destroying biotic communities Homo sapiens?
And if human individuals are just another element within the larger
and more important biotic community, is it not necessary under
holistic ethics to kill some of these “human pests” for
the sake of the larger whole? Such considerations have led Tom Regan
to label the implications of holistic ethics as “environmental
fascism” (Regan, 1983/2004, p. 362). In response, proponents
of such ethics have claimed that acknowledging moral standing in
holistic entities does not mean that one must deny the interests and
rights of human beings. They claim that granting moral standing to
“wholes” is not the same thing as taking it away from
individuals. While this is obviously true, that still leaves the
question of what to do when the interests of wholes clash with the
interests of individuals. If humans cannot be sacrificed for the
good of the whole, why can rabbits?
The
answer that has been put forward by Callicott claims that while the
biotic community matters morally, it is not the only community that
matters. Rather, we are part of various “nested”
communities all of which have claims upon us. Thus, our obligations
to the biotic community may require the culling of rabbits, but may
not require the culling of humans. This is because we are part of a
tight-knit human community, but only a very loose human-rabbit
community. In this way, we can adjudicate clashes of interest, based
on our community commitments. This communitarian proposal certainly
seems a way out of the dilemma. Unfortunately, it faces two key
problems: first, just who decides the content and strength of our
various community commitments; and second, if human relationships are
the closest, does all this lead back to anthropocentrism? As for the
first point, if deciding on our community attachments is left up to
individuals themselves, this will lead to quite diverse and even
repugnant moral obligations. For example, if an individual believes
that he has a much stronger attachment to white males than to black
women, does this mean that he can legitimately favor the interests of
the former over the latter? If not, and an objective standard is to
be imposed, we are left with the enormous problem of discovering this
standard and reaching consensus on it. Secondly, if our moral
commitments to the biotic community are trumped by our obligations to
the human community, doesn’t this lead us back down the path to
anthropocentrism – the very thing the holist wants to avoid?
Without
doubt, extending moral standing to the degree of holistic ethics
requires some
extremely careful argumentation when it comes to working out the
precise content of our environmental obligations.
2. Radical Ecology
Not
all philosophers writing on our obligations concerning the
environment see the problem simply in terms of extending moral
standing. Instead, many thinkers regard environmental concerns to
have warranted an entirely new ideological perspective that has been
termed, after its biological counterpart, “ecology”.
While the ideas and beliefs within this “radical ecology”
movement are diverse, they possess two common elements that separates
them from the ethical extensionism outlined above. First of all,
none see extending moral standing as sufficient to resolve the
environmental crisis. They argue that a broader philosophical
perspective is needed, requiring fundamental changes in both our
attitude to and understanding of reality. This involves reexamining
who we are as human beings and our place within the natural world.
For radical ecologists, ethical extensionism is inadequate because it
is stuck in the traditional ways of thinking that led to these
environmental problems in the first place. In short, it is argued
that ethical extensionism remains too human-centered, because it
takes human beings as the paradigm examples of entities with moral
standing and then extends outwards to those things considered
sufficiently similar. Secondly, none of these radical ecologies
confine themselves solely to the arena of ethics. Instead, radical
ecologies also demand fundamental changes in society and its
institutions. In other words, these ideologies have a distinctively
political element,
requiring us to confront the environmental crisis by changing the
very way we live and function, both as a society and as individuals.
a. Deep Ecology
Deep ecology is perhaps
most easily understood when considered in opposition to its “shallow”
counterpart. According to deep ecologists, shallow ecology is
anthropocentric and concerned with pollution and resource depletion.
Shallow ecology might thus be regarded as very much the mainstream
wing of environmentalism. Deep ecology, in contrast, rejects
anthropocentrism and takes a “total-field” perspective.
In other words, deep ecologists are not aiming to formulate moral
principles concerning the environment to supplement our
existing ethical framework. Instead, they demand an entirely new
worldview and philosophical perspective. According to Arne Naess,
the Norwegian philosopher who first outlined this shallow-deep split
in environmentalism, deep ecologists advocate the development of a
new eco-philosophy or “ecosophy“
to replace the destructive philosophy of modern industrial society
(Naess, 1973). While the various eco-philosophies that have
developed within deep ecology are diverse, Naess and George Sessions
have compiled a list of eight principles or statements that are basic
to deep ecology:
The well-being and
flourishing of human and non-human life on Earth have value in
themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent worth). These
values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for
human purposes.
Richness and diversity
of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are
also values in themselves.
Humans have no right
to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs.
The
flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a
substantially smaller population. The flourishing of non-human life requiresa smaller human population.
Present human
interference with the non-human world is excessive, and the
situation is rapidly worsening.
Policies must
therefore be changed. These policies affect basic economic,
technological and ideological structures. The resulting state of
affairs will be deeply different from the present.
The ideological change
will be mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in
situations of inherent value) rather than adhering to an
increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound
awareness of the difference between bigness and greatness.
Those who subscribe to
the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to
try to implement the necessary changes (Naess, 1986).
But while Naess regards
those who subscribe to these statements as supporters of deep
ecology, he does not believe it to follow that all such supporters
will have the same worldview or “ecosophy”. In other
words deep ecologists do not offer one unified ultimate perspective,
but possess various and divergent philosophical and religious
allegiances.
Naess’s own
ecosophy involves just one fundamental ethical norm:
“Self-realization!” For
Naess, this norm involves giving up a narrow egoistic conception of
the self in favor of a wider more comprehensive Self (hence the
deliberate capital “S”). Moving to this wider Self
involves recognizing that as human beings we are not removed from
nature, but are interconnected with it. Recognizing our wider Self
thus involves identifying ourselves with all other life forms on the
planet. The Australian philosopher Warwick Fox has taken up this
theme of self-realization in his own eco-philosophy, “transpersonal
ecology”. Fox does not regard environmental ethics to be
predominantly about formulating our moral obligations concerning the
environment, but instead views it as about the realization of an
“ecological consciousness”. For Fox, as with Naess, this
consciousness involves our widest possible identification with the
non-human world. The usual ethical concern of formulating principles
and obligations thus becomes unnecessary, according to Fox, for once
the appropriate consciousness is established, one will naturally
protect the environment and allow it to flourish, for that will be
part and parcel of the protection and flourishing of oneself
(Fox,1990).
Critics of deep ecology
argue that it is just too vague to address real environmental
concerns. For one thing, in its refusal to reject so many worldviews
and philosophical perspectives, many have claimed that it is
difficult to uncover just what deep ecology advocates. For example,
on the one hand, Naess offers us eight principles that deep
ecologists should accept, and on the other he claims that deep
ecology is not about drawing up codes of conduct, but adopting a
global comprehensive attitude. Now, if establishing principles is
important, as so many ethicists believe, perhaps deep ecology requires more
precision than can be found in Naess and Sessions’s platform.
In particular, just how are we to deal with clashes of interests?
According to the third principle, for example, humans have no right
to reduce the richness and diversity of the natural world unless to
meet vital needs. But does that mean we are under an obligation to
protect the richness and diversity of the natural world? If so,
perhaps we could cull non-native species such as rabbits when they
damage ecosystems. But then, the first principle states that
non-human beings such as rabbits have inherent value, and the fifth
principle states that human interference in nature is already
excessive. So just what should we do? Clearly, the principles as
stated by Naess and Sessions are too vague to offer any real guide
for action.
However, perhaps
principles are not important, as both Naess and Fox have claimed.
Instead, they claim that we must rely on the fostering of the
appropriate states of consciousness. Unfortunately, two problems
remain. First of all, it is not at all clear that all conflicts of
interest will be resolved by the adoption of the appropriate state of
consciousness. For even if I identify myself with all living things,
some of those things, such as bacteria and viruses, may still
threaten me as a discrete living organism. And if conflicts of
interest remain, don’t we need principles to resolve them?
Secondly, and as we saw with Leopold’s land ethic, just what
are we to do about those who remain unconvinced about adopting this
new state of consciousness? If there aren’t any rational
arguments, principles or obligations to point to, what chance is
there of persuading such people to take the environmental crisis
seriously?
At
this point deep ecologists would object that such criticisms remain
rooted in the ideology that has caused so much of the crisis we now
face. For example, take the point about persuading others. Deep
ecologists claim that argument and debate are not the only means we
must use to help people realize their ecological consciousness; we
must also use such things as poetry, music and art. This relates
back to the point I made at the beginning of the section: deep
ecologists do not call for supplementary moral principles concerning
the environment, but an entirely new worldview. Whether such a
radical shift in the way we think about ourselves and the environment
is possible, remains to be seen.
b. Social Ecology
Social ecology shares with
deep ecology the view that the foundations of the environmental
crisis lie in the dominant ideology of modern western societies.
Thus, just as with deep ecology, social ecology claims that in order
to resolve the crisis, a radical overhaul of this ideology is
necessary. However, the new ideology that social ecology proposes is
not concerned with the “self-realization” of deep
ecology, but instead the absence of domination.
Indeed, domination is the key theme in the writings of Murray
Bookchin, the most prominent social ecologist. For Bookchin,
environmental problems are directly related to social problems. In
particular, Bookchin claims that the hierarchies of power prevalent
within modern societies have fostered a hierarchical relationship
between humans and the natural world (Bookchin, 1982). Indeed, it is
the ideology of the free market that has facilitated such
hierarchies, reducing both human beings and the natural world to mere
commodities. Bookchin argues that the liberation of both humans and
nature are actually dependent on one another. Thus his argument is
quite different from Marxist thought, in which man’s freedom is
dependent on the complete domination of
the natural world through technology. For Bookchin and other social
ecologists, this Marxist thinking involves the same fragmentation of
humans from nature that is prevalent in capitalist ideology.
Instead, it is argued that humans must recognize that they are part
of nature, not distinct or separate from it. In turn then, human
societies and human relations with nature can be informed by the
non-hierarchical relations found within the natural world. For
example, Bookchin points out that within an ecosystem, there is no
species more important than another, instead relationships are
mutualistic and interrelated. This interdependence and lack of
hierarchy in nature, it is claimed, provides a blueprint for a
non-hierarchical human society (Bookchin, 2001).
Without doubt, the
transformation that Bookchin calls for is radical. But just what
will this new non-hierarchical, interrelated and mutualistic human
society look like? For Bookchin, an all powerful centralized state
is just another agent for domination. Thus in order to truly be rid
of hierarchy, the transformation must take place within smaller local
communities. Such communities will be based on sustainable
agriculture, participation through democracy, and of course freedom
through non-domination. Not only then does nature help cement richer
and more equal human communities, but transformed societies also
foster a more benign relationship with nature. This latter point
illustrates Bookchin’s optimistic view of humanity’s
potential. After all, Bookchin does not think that we should condemn
all of humanity for causing the ecological crisis, for instead it is
the relationships within societies that are to blame (Bookchin, 1991). Because of this,
Bookchin is extremely critical of the anti-humanism and misanthropy
he perceives to be prevalent in much deep ecology.
One problem that has been
identified with Bookchin’s social ecology is his extrapolation
from the natural world to human society. Bookchin argues that the
interdependence and lack of hierarchy within nature provides a
grounding for non-hierarchical human societies. However, as we saw
when discussing Aldo Leopold, it is one thing to say how nature is,
but quite another to say how society ought to be.
Even if we accept that there are no natural hierarchies within
nature (which for many is dubious), there are plenty of other aspects
of it that most of us would not want
to foster in our human society. For example, weak individuals and
weak species are often killed, eaten and out-competed in an
ecosystem. This, of course, is perfectly natural and even fits in
with ecology’s characterization of nature as interconnected.
However, should this ground human societies in which the weak are
killed, eaten and out-competed? Most of us find such a suggestion
repugnant. Following this type of reasoning, many thinkers have
warned of the dangers of drawing inferences about how society should
be organized from certain facts about how nature is (Dobson, 1995, p.
42).
Some environmental
philosophers have also pointed to a second problem with Bookchin’s
theory. For many, his social ecology is anthropocentric, thus
failing to grant the environment the standing it deserves. Critics
cite evidence of anthropocentrism in the way Bookchin accounts for
the liberation of both humans and nature. This unfolding process
will not just occur of its own accord, according to Bookchin, rather,
human beings must facilitate it. Of course, many philosophers are
extremely skeptical of the very idea that history is inevitably
“unfolding” towards some particular direction. However,
some environmental philosophers are more wary of the prominent place
that Bookchin gives to human beings in
facilitating this unfolding. Of course, to what extent this is a
problem depends on one’s point of view. After all, if humans
cannot ameliorate the environmental problems we face, is there much
point doing environmental ethics in the first place? Indeed,
Bookchin himself has been rather nonplussed by this charge, and
explicitly denies that humans are just another community in nature.
But he also denies that nature exists solely for the purposes of
humans. However, the critics remain unconvinced, and believe it to
be extremely arrogant to think that humans know what the unfolding of
nature will look like, let alone to think that they can bring it
about (Eckersley, 1992, pp. 154-156).
c. Ecofeminism
Like social ecology,
ecofeminism also points to a link between social domination and the
domination of the natural world. And like both deep ecology and
social ecology, ecofeminism calls for a radical overhaul of the
prevailing philosophical perspective and ideology of western society.
However, ecofeminism is a broad church, and there are actually a
number of different positions that feminist writers on the
environment have taken. In this section I will review three of the
most prominent.
Val
Plumwood offers a critique of the rationalism inherent in traditional
ethics and blames this rationalism for the oppression of both women
and nature. The fundamental problem with rationalism, so Plumwood
claims, is its fostering of dualisms. For example, reason itself is
usually presented in stark opposition to emotion. Traditional
ethics, Plumwood argues, promote reason as capable of providing a
stable foundation for moral argument, because of its impartiality and
universalizability. Emotion, on the other hand, lacks these
characteristics, and because it is based on sentiment and affection
makes for shaky ethical frameworks. Plumwood claims that this
dualism between reason and emotion grounds other dualisms in
rationalist thought: in particular, mind/body, human/nature and
man/woman. In each case, the former is held to be superior to the
latter (Plumwood, 1991). So, for Plumwood, the inferiority of both
women and nature have a common source: namely, rationalism. Once
this is recognized, so the argument goes, it becomes clear that
simple ethical extensionism as outlined above is insufficient to
resolve the domination of women and nature. After all, such
extensionism is stuck in the same mainstream rationalist thought that
is the very source of the problem. What is needed instead, according
to Plumwood, is a challenge to rationalism itself, and thus a
challenge to the dualisms it perpetuates.
However,
while it is perfectly possible to acknowledge the rationalism present
in much mainstream ethical thinking, one can nevertheless query
Plumwood’s characterization of it. After all, does rationalism
necessarily promote
dualisms that are responsible for the subjugation of women and
nature? Such a claim would seem odd given the many rationalist
arguments that have been put forward to promote the rights and
interests of both women and the natural world. In addition, many
thinkers would argue that rationalist thought is not the enemy, but
instead the best hope for securing proper concern for the environment
and for women. For as we have seen above, such thinkers believe that
relying on the sentiments and feelings of individuals is too unstable
a foundation upon which to ground a meaningful ethical framework.
Karen J.
Warren has argued that the dualisms of rationalist thought, as
outlined by Plumwood, are not in themselves problematic. Rather,
Warren claims that they become problematic when they are used in
conjunction with an “oppressive conceptual framework” to
justifysubordination.
Warren argues that one feature inherent within an oppressive
conceptual framework is the “logic of domination”. Thus,
a list of the differences between humans and nature, and between men
and women, is not in itself harmful. But once assumptions are added,
such as these differences leading to the moral superiority of
humans and of men, then we move closer to the claim that we are
justified in subordinating women and nature on the basis of their
inferiority. According to Warren, just such a logic of domination
has been prevalent within western society. Men have been identified
with the realm of the “mental” and “human”,
while women have been identified with the “physical” and
the “natural”. Once it is claimed that the “natural”
and the “physical” are morally inferior to the “human”
and “mental”, men become justified in subordinating women
and nature. For Warren then, feminists and environmentalists share
the same goal: namely, to abolish this oppressive conceptual
framework (Warren, 1990).
Other
ecofeminists take a quite different approach to Plumwood and Warren.
Rather than outlining the connections between the domination of
women and of nature, they instead emphasize those things that link
women and the natural world. Women, so the argument goes, stand in a
much closer relationship to the natural world due to their capacity
for child-bearing. For some ecofeminists, this gives women a unique
perspective on how to build harmonious relationships with the natural
world. Indeed, many such thinkers advocate a spiritualist approach
in which nature and the land are given a sacred value, harking back
to ancient religions in which the Earth is considered female (Mies &
Shiva, 1993).
For writers
such as Plumwood, however, emphasizing women’s “naturalness”
in this way simply reinforces the dualism that led to women’s
oppression in the first place. Placing women as closer to nature,
according to Plumwood, simply places them closer to oppression.
Other critics argue that the adoption of a spiritualist approach
leads feminists to turn their attention inwards to themselves and
their souls, and away from those individuals and entities they should
be trying to liberate. However, in response, these ecofeminists may
make the same point as the deep ecologists: to resolve the
environmental problems we face, and the systems of domination in
place, it is the consciousness and philosophical outlook of
individuals that must change.
3. The Future of Environmental Ethics
Given
the increasing concern for the environment and the impact that our
actions have upon it, it is clear that the field of environmental
ethics is here to stay.
However, it is less clear in what way the discipline will move
forward. Having said that, there
is evidence for at least three future developments. First of all,
environmental ethics needs to be and will be informed by changes in
the political efforts to ameliorate environmental problems.
Environmental ethics concerns formulating our moral obligations
regarding the environment. While this enterprise can be, and often
is, quite abstract, it is also meant to engage with the real world.
After all, ethicists are making claims about how they think the world
ought to be. Given this, the effectiveness of states and governments
in “getting there” will affect the types of ethics that
emerge. For example, the Kyoto Protocol might be regarded as the
first real global attempt to deal with the problem of climate change.
However, without the participation of so many large polluters, with
the agreed reductions in greenhouse gas emissions so small, and with
many countries looking like they may well miss their targets, many
commentators already regard it as a failure. Ethicists need to
respond not just by castigating those they blame for the failure.
Rather they must propose alternative and better means of resolving
the problems we face. For example, is it more important to outline a
scheme of obligations for individuals rather
than states, and go for a bottom-up solution to these problems?
Alternatively, perhaps businesses should
take the lead in tackling these problems. Indeed, it may even be in
the interests of big business to be active in this way, given the
power of consumers. It is quite possible then, that we will see
business ethics address many of the same issues that environmental
ethics has been tackling.
However,
the effects of environmental ethics will not be limited to
influencing and informing business ethics alone, but will undoubtedly
feed into and merge with more mainstream ethical thinking. After
all, the environment is not something one can remove oneself from.
In light of this, once it is recognized that we have environmental
obligations, all areas of ethics are affected, including just
war theory, domestic distributive justice, global distributive
justice, human rights theory and many others. Take global
distributive justice as an example: if one considers how climate
change will affect people throughout the world so differently –
affecting individuals’ homes, sanitation, resistance from
disease, ability to earn a living and so on - it is clear that
consideration of the environment is essential to such questions of
justice. Part of the job of the environmental ethicist will thus be
to give such disciplines the benefit of his or her expertise.
Finally,
environmental ethics will of course be informed by our scientific
understanding of the environment. Whether it be changes in our
understanding of how ecosystems work, or changes in the evidence
concerning the environmental crisis, it is clear that such change
will inform and influence those thinkers writing on our environmental
obligations.
4. References and Further Reading
Attfield,
Robin, The Ethics of Environmental Concern, (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1983).
Barry,
Brian, “Sustainability and Intergenerational Justice” in
Dobson, Andrew (ed.), Fairness and Futurity, (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999): 93-117.
Benson,
John, Environmental Ethics: An Introduction with Readings,
(London: Routledge, 2001).
Blackstone,
William T., “Ethics and Ecology” in Blackstone, William
T. (ed.), Philosophy and Environmental Crisis, (Athens,
University of Georgia Press, 1972): 16-42.
Bookchin,
Murray, The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of
Hierarchy, (Palo Alto, CA: Cheshire Books, 1982).
Bookchin,
Murray, “What is Social Ecology?” in, Boylan, Michael
(ed.), Environmental Ethics, (New Jersey: Prentice Hall,
2001): 62-76.
Bookchin,
Murray and Foreman, Dave, Defending the Earth, (New York:
Black Rose Books, 1991).
Boylan,
Michael (ed.), Environmental Ethics, (New Jersey: Prentice
Hall, 2001).
Brennan,
Andrew and Lo, Yeuk-Sze, "Environmental Ethics", The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2002 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2002/entries/ethics-environmental.
Callicott,
James Baird, “Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair”,
Environmental Ethics 2
(1980): 311-328.
Callicott,
James Baird, “The Conceptual Foundations of the Land Ethic”
in Zimmerman, Michael E.; Callicott, J. Baird; Sessions, George;
Warren, Karen J.; and Clark, John (eds.), Environmental
Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology, (New Jersey:
Prentice Hall, 2nd ed., 1998): 101-123.
Carson,
Rachel, Silent Spring, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962).
DesJardins,
Joseph R., Environmental Ethics: An Introduction to Environmental
Philosophy, (Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 3rd ed., 2001).
Dobson,
Andrew, Green Political Thought, (London: Routledge, 2nd
ed., 1995).
Eckersely,
Robyn, Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric
Approach, (London: UCL Press, 1992).
Ehrlich,
Paul, The Population Bomb, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968).
Elliot,
Robert, “Environmental Ethics” in, Singer Peter (ed.), A
Companion to Ethics, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1993):
284-293.
Fox,
Warwick, Towards a Transpersonal Ecology: Developing New
Foundations for Environmentalism (Boston: Shambhala Press, 1990).
Gewirth,
Alan, “Human Rights and Future Generations” in Boylan,
Michael (ed.), Environmental Ethics, (New Jersey: Prentice
Hall, 2001): 207-211.
Golding,
Mark, “Obligations to Future Generations”, Monist, 56
(1972): 85-99.
Goodpaster,
K. E., and Sayre, K. M., (eds.), Ethics and Problems of the 21st
Century, (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 1979).
Jamieson,
Dale, “Animal Liberation is an Environmental Ethic”,
Environmental Values, 7/1 (1998): 41-57.
Johnson,
Lawrence E., A Morally Deep World: An Essay on Moral Significance
and Environmental Ethics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1993).
Kavka,
Gregory, “The Futurity Problem” in Sikora, R. I., and
Barry, Brian (eds.), Obligations to Future Generations,
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978): 186-203.
Leopold,
Aldo, A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There, (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, Special Commemorative Edition,1949/1989).
Mies,
Maria and Shiva, Vandana, Ecofeminism, (London: Zed Books,
1993).
Naess,
Arne, “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement. A
Summary”, Inquiry 16 (1973): 95-100.
Naess,
Arne, “The Deep Ecological Movement Some Philosophical
Aspects”, Philosophical Inquiry 8, (1986): 1-2.
O’Neill,
Onora, “Environmental Values, Anthropocentrism and Speciesism”,
Environmental Values 6, No. 2 (1997): 127-142.
Parfit,
Derek, Reasons and Persons, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).
Passmore,
John, Man’s Responsibility for Nature, New York:
Scribner’s, 1974).
Passmore,
John, “Environmentalism”, in Goodin, Robert E., and
Pettit, Philip (eds.), A Companion to Contemporary Political
Philosophy, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1995): 471-488.
Plumwood,
Val, “Nature, Self, and Gender: Feminism, Environmental
Philosophy, and the Critique of Rationalism”, Hypatia 6,
1 (Spring, 1991): 3-27.
Regan,
Tom, The Case for Animal Rights, (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2nd ed., 1983/2004).
Rolston
III, Holmes, “Duties to Endangered Species”, Bioscience,
35 (1985): 718-726
Sagoff,
Mark, “Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Bad
Marriage, Quick Divorce”, Osgoode Hall
Law Journal 22, 2 (1984): 297-307.
Schweitzer,
Albert, (translated by Naish, John), Civilization and Ethics: the
Philosophy of Civilization Part II, (London: A & C Black Ltd,
1923).
Shrader-Frechette,
Kristin, “Environmental Ethics” in LaFollette, Hugh
(ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Practical Ethics, (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995): 188-215.
Singer,
Peter, “All Animals Are Equal”, Philosophical
Exchange, Vol. 1. No. 5 (Summer, 1974): 243-257.
Singer,
Peter, Practical Ethics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2nd ed., 1993).
Taylor,
Paul W., Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics,
(Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986).
Varner,
Gary E., In Nature’s Interests? Interests, Animal Rights,
and Environmental Ethics, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1998).
Warren,
Karen J., “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism”,
Environmental Ethics 12, 3 (Summer, 1990): 124-126.
Warren,
Mary Anne, Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living
Things, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Woodward,
James, “The Non-Identity Problem”, Ethics, 96
(July, 1986): 804-831.
Zimmerman,
Michael E.; Callicott, J. Baird; Sessions, George; Warren, Karen J.;
and Clark, John (eds.), Environmental Philosophy: From Animal
Rights to Radical Ecology, (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2nd
ed., 1998).
|
