Ethics

Ethics Study Guide

Chapter 9: Environmental Issues

©2018 Achieve Page 68 of 116 Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Compare and contrast egocentrism and anthropocentrism. 2. Explain various ethical issues within the environmental field. 9.1 Environmental Ethics Environmental ethics extend the traditional boundaries of ethics to include the non-human world. When studying environmental ethics, the most fundamental question is, “What obligations do we have concerning the natural environment?” If the answer is that we, as human beings, will die if we do not constrain our actions towards nature, then that ethic is considered to be anthropocentric. Determining whether our environmental obligations are founded on anthropocentric or non- anthropocentric reasoning will lead to different accounts of what those obligations are. Practical applications of environmental ethics are evident in such arenas a business, government, and lifestyle choices. Many businesses deal with issues such as industrial waste disposal, natural resource usage, packaging design, transportation choices, and energy consumption. The federal government is responsible for the national park system, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and for creating legislation that regulates impacts on air and water, among other natural resources. Local governments deal with recycling and waste disposal issues, sewer andwater authorities, and hunting and fishing regulations. Lifestyle choices based on environmental ethics can include vegetarianism or veganism, organic farming, gardening, and shopping, recycling and composting, re-purposing and buying second-hand. Anthropocentrism (Ethical Humanism) The theory of anthropocentrism says that the world exists for humanity. Someone who believed in anthropocentrism would say that humans have an elevated moral standing and can rightfully try to benefit as much as possible from the environment. Although the history of Western philosophy is dominated by this kind of anthropocentrism, it has many critics. Environmental ethicists claim moral standing should be extended beyond its use to humanity. Some claim this extension should apply to sentient animals, individual living organisms, or holistic entities such as ecosystems. Under these ethics, we have obligations with respect to the environment because we have a moral obligation to the creatures or entities themselves, within the environment.