Реферат: A role of environmental ethics in modern society

Реферат: A role of environmental ethics in modern society

Kyiv national university of culture and arts

A Role of the Environmental Ethics in the modern society.

The inspiration for environmental ethics was the first Earth Day in 1970 when

environmentalists started urging philosophers who were involved with

environmental groups to do something about environmental ethics. An

intellectual climate had developed in the last few years of the 1960s in large

part because of the publication of two papers in Science: Lynn White`s

“The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis” (March 1967) and Garett

Hardin`s "The Tragedy of the Commons" (December 1968). Most influential with

regard to this kind of thinking, however, was an essay in Aldo Leopold`s A

Sand County Almanac, "The Land Ethic," in which Leopold explicitly claimed

that the roots of the ecological crisis were philosophical. Although originally

published in 1949, Sand County Almanac became widely available in 1970

in a special Sierra Club/Ballantine edition, which included essays from a

second book, Round River.

Most academic activity in the 1970s was spent debating the Lynn White thesis and

the tragedy of the commons. These debates were primarily historical,

theological, and religious, not philosophical. Throughout most of the decade

philosophers sat on the sidelines trying to determine what a field called

environmental ethics might look like. The first philosophical conference was

organized by William Blackstone at the University of Georgia in 1972. The

proceedings were published as Philosophy and Environmental Crisis in

1974, which included Pete Gunter`s first paper on the Big Thicket. In 1972 a

book called “Is It Too Late?” A Theology of Ecology, written by John B. Cobb,

was published. It was the first single-authored book written by a philosopher,

even though the primary focus of the book was theological and religious. In

1973 an Australian philosopher, Richard Routley (now Sylvan), presented a paper

at the 15th World Congress of Philosophy "Is There a Need for a New, an

Environmental, Ethic?" A year later John Passmore, another Australian, wrote

Man’s Responsibility for Nature, in which, reacting to Routley, he argued

that there was no need for an environmental ethic at all. Most debates among

philosophers until the mid-1980s was focused on refuting Passmore. In 1975

environmental ethics came to the attention of mainstream philosophy with the

publication of Holmes Rolston, III`s paper, "Is There an Ecological Ethic?" in

Ethics.

Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher and the founding editor of the journal

Inquiry authored and published a paper in Inquiry “The Shallow and

the Deep, Long-range Ecology Movement” in 1973, which was the beginning of the

deep ecology movement. Important writers in this movement include George

Sessions, Bill DeVall, Warwick Fox, and, in some respects, Max Oelschlaeger.

Throughout the 1970s Inquiry was the primary philosophy journal that

dealt with environmental ethics. Environmental ethics was, for the most part,

considered a curiosity and mainstream philosophy journals rarely published more

than one article per year, if that. Opportunities for publishing dramatically

improved in 1979 when Eugene C. Hargrove founded the journal Environmental

Ethics. The name of the journal became the name of the field.

The first five years of the journal was spent mostly arguing about rights for

nature and the relationship of environmental ethics and animal rights/animal

liberation. Rights lost and animal welfare ethics was determined to be a

separate field. Animal rights has since developed as a separate field with a

separate journal, first, Ethics and Animals, which was later superseded

by Between the Species.

Cobb published another book in the early 1980s, The Liberation of Life with

co-author Charles Birch. This book took a process philosophy approach in

accordance with the philosophy of organism of Alfred North Whitehead. Robin

Attfield, a philosopher in Wales, wrote a book called The Ethics of

Environmental Concern. It was the first full-length response to Passmore.

An anthology of papers, Ethics and the Environment, was edited by

Donald Scherer and Tom Attig.

There was a turning point about 1988 when many single-authored books began to

come available: Paul Taylor`s Respect for Nature; Holmes Rolston`s

Environmental Ethics; Mark Sagoff`s The Economy of the Earth; and

Eugene C. Hargrove`s Foundations of Environmental Ethics. J. Baird Callicott

created a collection of his papers, In Defence of the Land Ethic. Bryan

Norton wrote Why Preserve Natural Diversity? followed more recently by

Toward Unity among Environmentalists. A large number of books have been

written by Kristin Shrader-Frechette on economics and policy.

In the 1980s a second movement, ecofeminism, developed. Karen Warren is the

key philosopher, although the ecofeminism movement involves many thinkers

from other fields. It was then followed by a third, social ecology, based on

the views of Murray Bookchin. An important link between academics and radical

environmentalists was established with the creation of the Canadian deep

ecology journal, The Trumpeter. In 1989, Earth Ethics Quarterly was begun as

a more popular environmental publication. Originally intended primarily as a

reprint publication, now as a publication of the Centre for Respect for Life

and Environment, it is focused more on international sustainable development.

The 1990s began with the establishment of the International Society for

Environmental Ethics, which was founded largely through the efforts of Laura

Westra and Holmes Rolston, III. It now has members throughout the world. In

1992, a second refereed philosophy journal, dedicated to environmental

ethics, Environmental Values published its first issue in England.

On the theoretical level, Taylor and Rolston, despite many disagreements, can

be regarded as objective nonanthropocentric intrinsic value theorists.

Callicott, who follows Aldo Leopold closely, is a subjective

nonanthropocentric intrinsic value theorist. Hargrove is considered a weak

anthropocentric intrinsic value theorist. Sagoff is very close to this

position although he doesn’t talk about intrinsic value much and takes a

Kantian rather than an Aristotlian approach. At the far end is Bryan Norton

who thought up weak anthropocentrism but wants to replace intrinsic value

with a pragmatic conception of value.

A brief history of environmental consciousness in the western world places

our views in perspective and provides a context for understanding the maze of

related and unrelated thoughts, philosophies, and practices that we call

"environmentalism." Understanding where the questions being asked and

analyzed are coming from is essential in environmental analysis: the kinds of

questions asked by an environmental group and their interpretation of the

results can be vastly different from, for example, a utility, logging company

or special interest (ranchers grazing public lands, and so forth).

The term "environmental ethics," in fact the whole field, is a very recent

phenomenum, actually only several decades old, although many particular

concerns or philosophical threads have been developing for several centuries. A

Professor named Eugene Hargroves began a journal he named Environmental Ethics

in the late 1970s in which controversies regarding environmental behaviour and

visions could be discussed. This name became an umbrella for a group of strange

bedfellows. A controversy had begun in 1974 when an Australian named John

Passmore published a book called "Man`s responsibility for nature: ecological

problems and western traditions" in which he argued that environmental

preservation and concern was inconsistent with western tradition. Robin

Attfield replied 1983 in a book entitled "The ethics of environmental concern"

by holding that the stewardship tradition was more important than dominion in

western thought, and that this is what forms the foundation for environmental

ethics. Environmental ethics is a collection of independent ethical

generalizations, not a tight, rationally ordered set of rules.

Environmental ethics will be a compilation of interrelated independent

guidelines - a process field that will be coming together for a long time.

Ethics really flow from peoples perceptions, attitudes and behaviour - as in

the case of environmental ethics and animal liberation. Like chess, decision

making in life is very perceptual or intuitive - by analogy, there are l)

favourite formations (of players or arguments); 2) empirical investigation of

these (with maximum and minimum expectations); which leads to a progressive

deepening of perspective.

The problem is only dimly perceived in the beginning, but becomes clearer

with thought and re-examination. What holds a chess game together is not the

rules but the experience the individual player. A grand master at chess sees

more on a chessboard in a few seconds than an average player sees in thirty

minutes.

Environmental ethics today encompasses a diverse, not necessarily related,

anthology including:

1. Animal rights.

2. The Land Ethic.

3. Ecofeminism.

4. Deep Ecology.

5. Shallow Ecology.

6. The rights of rocks, and so forth.

8. Bioethics.

Bioethics could be defined as the study of ethical issues and decision-making

associated with the use of living organisms and medicine. It includes both

medical ethics and environmental ethics. Rather than defining a correct

decision it is about the process of decision-making balancing different

benefits, risks and duties. The word "bioethics" was first used in 1970,

however, the concept of bioethics is much older, as we can see in the ethics

formulated and debated in literature, art, music and the general cultural and

religious traditions of our ancestors.

Society is facing many important decisions about the use of science and

technology. These decisions affect the environment, human health, society and

international policy. To resolve these issues, and develop principles to help

us make decisions we need to involve anthropology, sociology, biology,

medicine, religion, psychology, philosophy, and economics; we must combine

the scientific rigour of biological data, with the values of religion and

philosophy to develop a world-view. Bioethics is therefore challenged to be a

multi-sided and thoughtful approach to decision-making so that it may be

relevant to all aspects of human life.

The term bioethics reminds us of the combination of biology and ethics,

topics that are intertwined. New technology can be a catalyst for our

thinking about issues of life, and we can think of the examples like assisted

reproductive technologies, life sustaining technology, organ transplantation,

and genetics, which have been stimuli for research into bioethics in the last

few decades. Another stimulus has been the environmental problems.

There are large and small problems in ethics. We can think of problems that

involve the whole world, and problems which involve a single person. We can

think of global problems, such as the depletion of the ozone layer

which is increasing UV radiation affecting all living organisms. This problem

could be solved by individual action to stop using ozone-depleting chemicals,

if alternatives are available to consumers. However, global action was taken to

control the problem. The international convention to stop the production of

many ozone-depleting chemicals is one of the best examples yet of applying

universal environmental ethics.

Another problem is greenhouse warming, which results mainly from energy

use. This problem however can only be solved by individual action to reduce

energy use, because we cannot easily ban the use of energy. We could do this by

turning off lights, turning down heaters and air conditioners, building more

energy efficient buildings, shutting doors, and driving with a light foot.

These are all simple actions which everyone must do if we are concerned about

our planet, yet not many do so. Energy consumption could be reduced 50-80% by

lifestyle change with current technology if people wanted to. New technology

may help, but lifestyle change can have much more immediate affect.

Environmental ethics is a relatively new field - and the name

"environmental ethics" derives from Eugene Hargrove`s journal, which was begun

in late 1970s.

This field - environmental ethics, - will be subsumed as other areas of

applied ethics develop more fully. The early pieces or threads of

environmental ethics were disconnected...one needs a quick review to fully

comprehend today`s "whole" - and know the directions in which the threads lead.

Environmental ethicists as well as policy-makers, activists etc. frequently

speak about the need for preservation of various parts of nature. Two main

grounds are repeatedly presented for this need:

1. Our moral responsibilities to future human beings (sometimes called

sustainable development) require that we stop using technology and science for

short-term gains at the expense of long-term risks of very negative ecological

effects for future people. In several official declarations and

policy-documents this idea has been expressed as "the precautionary principle",

roughly the idea that we should not use particular means of production,

distribution etc. unless they have been shown not to effect too serious risks.

However, it is far from clear what is meant by this. What determines whether or

not the effecting of a certain risk (in order to secure some short-term gain)

is too serious or not? - and what determines whether or not this has been

"shown"? Some traditional decision-theorists would say that it is a question of

traditional instrumental efficiency (i.e. rationality) in relation to morally

respectable aims. Some ethicists would instead claim that it is a question of

whether or not the severity of the scenario illustrating an actualization of

the risk in question makes the taking of this risk morally wrong in itself.

Others, yet, hint that they want to take a stand in between these two extremes,

however, without specifying what this could mean. There is also a rather grim

debate regarding whether or not it can ever be shown that a certain

action does not effect too serious risks, and this of course depends on what

requirements should be laid on someone who purports to show such a thing. In

both cases, the questions seem to boil down to basic issues regarding what is

required of risky decisions in order to make them morally justified. But,

obviously, it must be a kind of moral justification different from the one

dealt with by traditional ethical theories of the rights and wrongs of actions,

since these only deal with justification in terms of actual outcomes, not in

terms of risks for such outcomes.

2. Natural systems possess a value in themselves which makes them worth

preserving also at the expense of human well-being and man-made constructs.

This idea is less common in official documents than the former (although it is

explicitely set out as a part of the basis of the Swedish Environmental Policy

Act) than it is among environmental philosophers and ethicists. However, also

this idea is far from clear, since it is not clear neither how a natural

system is to be distinguished from a non-natural one and why this difference is

to be taken as morally relevant, nor why preservation is the only

recommendation which follows from the placing of an intrinsic value in nature.

Although there are several suggestion on what it is that makes certain systems

intrinsically valuable, it is has not been sufficiently explained, first, why

these characteristics (typically complexity, self-preservation/replication,

beauty etc.) do not justify preservation also of systems normally not taken to

be natural (such as metropolitan areas, hamburger restaurants or nuclear

power-plants), secondly, why this value does not imply a recommendation to

reshape rather than preserve natural systems, in order to increase the

presence and magnitude of the value-making characteristics. In particular, it

seems to be a challenge for a preservationist to argue in favour of restoration

of certain biotic variants, without leaving the door open also for reshaping,

for example by the use of modern biotechnology.

The aim of this research-project is to attack these two families of issues,

both connected to the justification of common ideas regarding the importance

of preserving various parts of nature. In one part (carried out by christian

menthe), the project will be aimed at mapping out moral intuitions regarding

the moral responsibility of the taking of risks, in order to use these for

developing a normative theory of the morality of risk-taking which can be

used to underpin a more specific version of the precautionary principle. The

other part of the project is instead aimed at systematically reviewing

various proposals (and new home-made to how to distinguish between that (i.e.

nature)) which should typically be preserved according to preservationists

and that which does not need to be so preserved, and to resist the conclusion

that reshaping of nature might be a better idea from the point of view of

typically preservationist values than actual preservation. The focus here

will be on ideas ascribing a value in itself to nature or certain natural

systems.

Bibliography list.

1. Charles Birch and John B. Cobb, Jr., The Liberation of Life: From the

Cell to the Community (Denton, Tex.: Environmental Ethics Books, 1990), 357

pages.

2. Yrjo Sepanmaa, The Beauty of Environment: A General Model for

Environmental Aesthetics, 2d ed. (Denton, Tex.: Environmental Ethics Books,

1993), 191 pages.

3. John B. Cobb, Jr., Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecology, rev. ed.

(Denton, Tex.: Environmental Ethics Books, 1995), 112 pages.

4. Eugene C. Hargrove, Foundations of Environmental Ethics (reprint ed.,

Denton, Tex.: Environmental Ethics Books, 1996), 229 pages.

5. Robin Attfield, The Ethics of Environmental Concern (Denton, Tex.:

Environmental Ethics Books, 1983), 237 pages.