PhiloWikiConceptsPhilosophersBooksInteractive graph

Concept

Environmental ethics

Environmental ethics
The original uploader was Magnus Manske at English Wikipedia. Later versions were uploaded by Optimager at en.wikipedia. · Public domain · source

Overview

In environmental philosophy, environmental ethics is an established field of practical philosophy "which reconstructs the essential types of argumentation that can be made for protecting natural entities and the sustainable use of natural resources." The main competing paradigms are anthropocentrism, physiocentrism (called ecocentrism as well), and theocentrism. Environmental ethics exerts influence on a large range of disciplines including environmental law, environmental sociology, ecotheology, ecological economics, ecology and environmental geography.

There are many ethical decisions that human beings make with respect to the environment. These decision raise numerous questions. For example:

Should humans continue to clear cut forests for the sake of human consumption?

What species or entities ought to be considered for their own sake, independently of its contribution to biodiversity and other extrinsic goods?

Why should humans continue to propagate its species, and life itself?

Should humans continue to make gasoline-powered vehicles?

What environmental obligations do humans need to keep for future generations?

Is it right for humans to knowingly cause the extinction of a species for the convenience of humanity?

How should humans best use and conserve the space environment to secure and expand life?

What role can Planetary Boundaries play in reshaping the human-earth relationship?

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

  1. They demand meaning. In the words of Henry Sidgwick[13]—“It is the primary aim of philosophy to unify completely, bring into clear coherence, all departments of rational thought, and this aim cannot be realised by any philosophy that leaves out of its view the important body of judgments and reasonings which form the subject matter of ethics.” Accordingly, the bias towards history on the part of the physical and…

    Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the modern world

    The author is tied to Environmental ethics in the knowledge graph.

    Read the chapter · Open in the reader

  2. To the first correspond what are called individual ends, to the second universal ends; the one gives rise to the judgment concerning the greater or less coherence of the action taken in itself, the other to that concerning its greater or less coherence in respect to the universal end, which transcends the individual.[69] Utilitarianism is according to Croce an attempt to reduce the Ethical to the Economic form…

    John Dewey, Creative Intelligence

    States what Environmental ethics is.

    Read the chapter · Open in the reader

  3. According to this definition, pure instinct is the most primitive type of response which is yielded by organisms to the stimulus of their environment. All physical response on the part of inorganic matter to its environment is thus properly to be termed instinct. In the case of organic matter, its primary difference from inorganic nature is its greater delicacy of internal mutual adjustment of minute parts and, in…

    Alfred North Whitehead, Symbolism, its meaning and effect

    The author is tied to Environmental ethics in the knowledge graph.

    Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Philosophers who discussed Environmental ethics

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Place in the tradition

Part of Outline of philosophy.

Narrower topics:

Explore Environmental ethics in the interactive graph →