ENVIRONMENTAL

ETHICS

BIO2207– ECOLOGY AND

ENVIRONMENTAL BIOLOGY
Lecturer: Ms. Leanna Kalicharan
[email protected]
Office Hours:
Monday, 14:00 – 16:00 HRS
Wednesday, 10:00 – 12:00 HRS
 OBJECTIVES
▪ At the end of this lecture you should be able
to:
▪ Understand the role of ethics in society.
▪ Recognize the importance of a personal
ethical commitment.
▪ List three conflicting attitudes toward
nature.
▪ Explain the concept “greenwashing.”
▪ Explain the importance of individual ethical
commitments toward environment.
▪ Explain why global action on the
environment is necessary.
▪ Ethics is one branch of philosophy.
▪ Ethics seeks to define what is right and
OVERVIEW
what is wrong.
▪ For example, most cultures are ethically
committed to the idea that it is wrong to
needlessly take life. Many cultures ground
this belief on the existence of a right to life.
It is considered unethical to deprive
humans of this right to their life.
▪ Ethics can help us to understand what
actions are wrong and why they are wrong.
▪ Many of the issues discussed throughout
this course (energy, population,
environmental issue, etc.) have ethical
dimensions.
▪ More so, across the world, not all cultures
share the same ethical commitments.
OVERVIEW
▪ Cultural relativism in ethics acknowledges
that these differences exist.
▪ In some cases, it is appropriate to show
sensitivity to legitimate differences in ethical
commitments.
▪ However, despite the presence of some
differences, there are also many cases in
which ethical commitments can and should
be globally agreed upon.
▪ The rights to life, liberty, and security of
person, for example, are judged to be
important across the globe.
▪ The 1948 Universal Declaration on Human
OVERVIEW
Rights issued by the United Nations
expressed a commitment to these basic
human rights.

▪ Furthermore, given the importance of the

planetary ecosystem to all of Earth’s
inhabitants, an area that shows potential for
similar global agreement is the question of
the proper treatment of the natural
environment.
▪ Ideally, the laws of a particular nation or
community should match the ethical ETHICS AND LAWS
commitments of those living there.

▪ Sometimes laws are amended to match

ethical commitments only after a long
period of struggle and debate.

▪ Not every action that is ethically right can

have a law supporting it.

▪ But even without a law it still might be the

ethically right thing to do.
▪ In the case of environmental issues, care
needs to be taken over when it is ETHICS AND LAWS
appropriate to legislate something and
when action should be left up to the
individual’s sense of right and wrong.

▪ For example, most people today agree that

knowingly putting harmful pollutants into
water and into the air is unethical.

▪ But while it may be appropriate to legislate

against deliberately dumping toxic
chemicals into a river, it may not be
appropriate to legislate against driving a car
more than a certain amount per week.
▪ Similarly, it may not be appropriate to
legislate how many material goods people ETHICS AND LAWS
can purchase, or how much food they can
waste, or how many kilowatts of electricity
they can use, or how large a family they
can have.

▪ On these issues, individual environmental

action tends to be determined more by
custom, habit, and certain social and
economic pressures.

▪ In addition to these factors, a strong

personal ethical commitment can help
guide behavior in the absence of supporting
laws.
▪ Even when people have strong personal
ethical commitments, they might find that
CONFLICTING
some of their commitments conflict. ETHICAL POSITIONS
▪ For example, the Major might have an
ethical commitment to preserving the land
around the city but at the same time have
an ethical commitment to bringing in the
jobs associated with the construction of a
new supermarket on the outskirts of town.

▪ There are often difficult balances to be

struck between multiple ethical values.

▪ As such, ethics can be complicated.

▪ Ethical issues dealing with the environment
are especially complex because sometimes
CONFLICTING
it appears that what is good for people
conflicts with what is good for the
ETHICAL POSITIONS
environment.

▪ For instance, saving the forest might result

in the loss of logging jobs.

▪ While recognizing that there are some real

conflicts involved, it is also important to see
that it is not necessarily the case that when
the environment wins people lose.
▪ In a surprising number of cases it turns out
that what is good for the environment is
CONFLICTING
also good for people. ETHICAL POSITIONS
▪ For example, even when forest protection
policy reduces logging jobs, a healthier
forest might lead to new jobs in areas such
as recreation, fisheries, and tourism.

▪ Searching for genuine “win-win” situations

has become a priority in environmental
decision making.
 THREE
PHILOSOPHICAL
APPROACHES
TO ENVIRONMENTAL
ETHICS
▪ Given the complexity of the issues,
environmental philosophers have
developed a number of theoretical OVERVIEW
approaches to help ‘us’ see more clearly
our ethical responsibilities concerning the
environment.

▪ In these environmentally conscious times,

most people agree that we need to be
environmentally responsible.

▪ Toxic waste contaminates groundwater, oil

spills destroy shorelines, and fossil fuels
produce carbon dioxide, thus adding to
global warming.
▪ The goal of environmental ethics, then, is
not simply to convince ‘us’ that we should
be concerned about the environment— OVERVIEW
many persons already are.

▪ Instead, environmental ethics focuses on

the moral foundation of environmental
responsibility and how far this responsibility
extends.

▪ There are three primary theories of moral

responsibility regarding the environment.

▪ Although each can support environmental

responsibility, their approaches are different
(Figure 1).
Figure 1: Philosophical Approaches Of the
three major approaches only anthropocentrism
refers all value back to human needs and
interests.
▪ The first of the three theories is
anthropocentrism or human-centered
ethics.
ANTHROPOCENTRISM

▪ Anthropocentrism is the view that all

environmental responsibility is derived from
human interests alone.

▪ The assumption here is that only human

beings are morally significant and have
direct moral standing.

▪ Since the environment is crucial to human

well-being and human survival, people have
an indirect duty toward the environment,
that is, a duty derived from human interests.
▪ People must ensure that Earth remains ANTHROPOCENTRISM
environmentally hospitable for supporting
human life and even that it remains a
pleasant place for humans to live.

▪ Nevertheless, according to this view, the

value of the environment lies in its
instrumental worth for humans.

▪ Nature is fundamentally an instrument for

human manipulation.
▪ Some anthropocentrists have argued that ANTHROPOCENTRISM
our environmental duties are derived both
from the immediate benefit that people
receive from the environment and from the
benefit that future generations of people will
receive.

▪ However, critics have maintained that since

future generations of people do not yet
exist, they cannot have rights any more
than a dead person can have rights.

▪ Nevertheless, both parties to this dispute

acknowledge that environmental concern
derives solely from human interests.
▪ The second theory of moral responsibility to
the environment is biocentrism or life- BIOCENTRISM
centered environmental ethics.

▪ According to the broadest version of the

biocentric theory, all forms of life have an
inherent right to exist.

▪ A number of biocentrists recognize a

hierarchy of values among species.

▪ For example, some believe that we have a

greater responsibility to protect animal
species than plant species and a greater
responsibility to protect mammals than
invertebrates.
 BIOCENTRISM
▪ Another group of biocentrists, known as
“biocentric egalitarians,” take the view that
all living organisms have an exactly equal
right to exist.

▪ Since the act of survival inevitably involves

some killing (for food and shelter) it is hard
to know where biocentric egalitarians can
draw the lines and still be ethically
consistent.
▪ The third approach to environmental
responsibility, called ecocentrism, ECOCENTRISM
maintains that the environment deserves
direct moral consideration and not
consideration that is merely derived from
human or animal interests.

▪ In ecocentrism it is suggested that the

environment itself, not just the living
organisms that inhabit it, has moral worth.
▪ Some ecocentrists talk in terms of the
systemic value that a particular ecosystem ECOCENTRISM
possesses as the matrix that makes
biological life possible.

▪ Others, go beyond particular ecosystems

and suggest that the biological system on
Earth as a whole has an integrity to it that
gives it moral standing.

▪ Another version goes even further and

ascribes personhood to the planet,
suggesting that Mother Earth should have
the same right to life as any mother.
 OTHER
PHILOSOPHICAL
APPROACHES
▪ As traditional political and national
boundaries fade or shift in importance, new OVERVIEW
variations of environmental philosophy are
fast emerging.

▪ Many of these variations are founded on an

awareness that humanity is part of nature
and that nature’s component parts are
interdependent.

▪ Beyond the three ethical positions

discussed previously, other areas of thought
recently developed by philosophers to
address the environmental crisis include:
▪ Ecofeminism: the view that there are
important theoretical, historical, and
empirical connections between how society
treats women and how it treats the
environment.

▪ Social ecology: the view that social

hierarchies are directly connected to
behaviors that lead to environmental
destruction. Social ecologists are strong
supporters of the environmental justice
movement.
▪ Deep ecology: the generally ecocentric
view that a new spiritual sense of oneness
with the Earth is the essential starting point
for a more healthy relationship with the
environment. Deep ecology also includes a
biocentric egalitarian world view. Many
deep ecologists are environmental activists.

▪ Environmental pragmatism: an approach

that focuses on policy rather than ethics.
Environmental pragmatists think that a
human-centered ethic with a long-range
perspective will come to many of the same
conclusions about environmental policy as
an ecocentric ethic. Consequently they find
the emphasis on ethical theories unhelpful.
▪ Environmental aesthetics: the study of
how to appreciate beauty in the natural
world. Some environmental aesthetics
advocates think that the most effective
philosophical ground for protecting the
natural environment is to think in terms of
protecting natural beauty.

▪ Animal rights/welfare: this position asserts

that humans have a strong moral obligation
to nonhuman animals. Strictly speaking,
this is not an environmental position
because the commitment is to individual
animals and not to ecosystems or
ecological health. Animal rights advocates
are particularly concerned about the
treatment of farm animals and animals used
in medical research.
ENVIRONMENTAL
ATTITUDES
▪ Even for those who have studied
OVERVIEW
environmental ethics carefully, it is never
easy to act in accordance with one
particular ethic in everything.

▪ Ethical commitments pull in different

directions at different times.

▪ Because of these difficulties, it is

sometimes easier to talk in terms of general
attitudes or approaches to the environment
rather than in terms of particular ethics.
▪ The three most common approaches are OVERVIEW
the:

1. Development approach,
2. Preservation approach, and
3. Conservation approach.
▪ The development approach tends to be
DEVELOPMENT
the most anthropocentric of the three.

▪ It assumes that the human race is and

should be master of nature and that the
Earth and its resources exist solely for our
benefit and pleasure.

▪ This approach is reinforced by the capitalist

work ethic, which historically dictated that
humans should create value for themselves
by putting their labor into both land and
materials in order to convert them into
marketable products.
▪ The development approach suggests that
improvements in the human condition
require converting ever more of nature over DEVELOPMENT
to human use.

▪ The approach thinks highly of human

creativity and ingenuity and holds that
continual economic growth is itself a moral
ideal for society.

▪ In the development approach, the

environment has value only insofar as
human beings economically utilize it.

▪ This mindset has very often accompanied

the process of industrialization and
modernization in a country.
▪ The preservationist approach tends to be
the most ecocentric of the three common
attitudes toward the environment. PRESERVATION
▪ Rather than seek to convert all of nature
over to human uses, preservationists want
to see large portions of nature preserved
intact.

▪ Preservationists argue that nature has

intrinsic value or inherent worth apart from
human uses.

▪ Preservationists have various ways of

articulating their position.
▪ While many preservationists adopt an
ecocentric ethic, some also include PRESERVATION
anthropocentric principles in their
arguments.

▪ These preservationists wish to keep large

parts of nature intact for aesthetic or
recreational reasons.

▪ They believe that nature is beautiful and

restorative and should be preserved to
ensure that wild places exist for future
humans to hike, camp, fish, or just enjoy
some solitude.
▪ The third environmental approach is the
conservationist approach. CONSERVATION
▪ Conservationism tends to strike a balance
between unrestrained development and
preservationism.

▪ Conservationism is anthropocentric in the

sense that it is interested in promoting
human well-being.

▪ But conservationists tend to consider a

wider range of long-term human goods in
their decisions about environmental
management.
 SOCIETAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
ETHICS
▪ The environmental ethic expressed by a
society is a product of the decisions and
choices made by a diverse range of social
actors that includes individuals, businesses,
and national leaders.

▪ For instance, Western, developed societies

have long acted as if the Earth has
unlimited reserves of natural resources, an
unlimited ability to assimilate wastes, and a
limitless ability to accommodate unchecked
growth.
▪ The economies of developed nations have
been based on a rationale that favors
continual growth.

▪ Unfortunately, this growth has not always

been carefully planned or even desired.

▪ This “growth mania” has resulted in the

unsustainable use of nonrenewable
resources for comfortable homes, well-
equipped hospitals, convenient
transportation, fast-food outlets, among
other.
▪ In economic terms, such “growth” measures
out as “productivity.”

▪ But the question arises, “What is enough?”

▪ Poor societies have too little, but rich

societies never say, “We have enough.”

▪ Until the last quarter of the twentieth

century, economic growth and resource
exploitation were by far the dominant
orientations toward the natural environment
in industrialized societies.
▪ Developing countries were encouraged to
follow similar anthropocentric paths.

▪ Since the rise of the modern environmental

movement in the last 40 years, things have
started to change.

▪ Some of the most dramatic changes have

occurred in corporate business practices.
 CORPORATE
ENVIRONMENTAL
ETHICS
▪ The enormous effects of business on the
state of the environment highlight the
important need for corporate environmental
ethics.

▪ For example, Waste and Pollution. The

daily tasks of industry, such as procuring
raw materials, manufacturing and marketing
products, and disposing of wastes, cause
large amounts of pollution.
▪ When raw materials are processed, some
waste is usually inevitable.

▪ It is often hard to completely control all the

by-products of a manufacturing process.
Some of the waste material may simply be
useless.

▪ For example, the food-service industry uses

energy to prepare meals.

▪ Much of the energy is lost as waste heat.

Smoke and odors are released into the
atmosphere and spoiled food items must be
discarded. Heat, smoke, and food wastes
appear to be part of the cost of doing
business in the food industry.
▪ Corporations are making frequent Is there a Corporate
references to environmental issues over the
past several years. Environmental Ethic?
▪ Is such concern only rhetoric and social
marketing, (also called “greenwashing”) or
is it the beginning of a new corporate
environmental ethic?

▪ Greenwashing is a form of corporate

misrepresentation whereby a company
presents a green public image and
publicize green initiatives while privately
engaging in environmentally damaging
practices.
▪ Companies are trying to take advantage of Is there a Corporate
the growing public concern and awareness
about environmental issues by creating an Environmental Ethic?
environmentally responsible image.

▪ Greenwashing can help companies win

over investors, create competitive
advantage in the marketplace, and
convince critics that the company is well
intentioned.

▪ Although some corporations only want to

appear green, others have taken a more
ethical approach. Corporations face real
choices between using environmentally
friendly or harmful production processes.
▪ As the idea of an environmental ethic has Is there a Corporate
become more firmly established within
society, corporations are being increasingly Environmental Ethic?
pressured to adopt more environmentally
and socially responsible practices.
 INDIVIDUAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
ETHICS
▪ Ethical changes in society and business
must start with individuals.

▪ We have to recognize that our individual

actions have a bearing on environmental
quality and that each of us bears some
personal responsibility for the quality of the
environment in which we live.

▪ In other words, environmental ethics must

express themselves not only in laws and in
better business practices but also in
significant changes in the ways in which we
all live.
▪ While new technologies will certainly play a
major role in the future in lessening the
environmental impact of our lifestyles,
individual behavioral choices today can also
make a significant difference to the health
of ecological systems.

▪ Environmental ethics must therefore take

hold not only at the level of government and
business but also at the level of personal
choices about consumption.
 GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTAL
ETHICS
▪ As human stresses on the environment
increase, the stability of the planet’s
ecological systems becomes more
uncertain.

▪ Small environmental changes can create

large-scale and unpredictable disruptions.
Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide and
methane, whether caused by humans or
not, are leading to changes in surface
temperatures that will result in major
ecological effects.

▪ For example, just a small reduction in

seasonal snow and ice coverage in Arctic
regions due to global warming can greatly
increase the amount of solar energy the
Earth absorbs.
▪ This additional energy itself raises
atmospheric temperature, leading to a
further reduction in snow coverage.

▪ Some models predict that ocean currents,

nutrient flows, and hydrologic cycles could
make radical shifts from historic patterns in
a matter of months.

▪ Such disruptions would cause catastrophic

environmental change by shifting
agricultural regions, threatening species
with extinction, decimating crop harvests,
and pushing tropical diseases into areas
where they are currently unknown.
▪ Glaciers will continue to melt and ocean
waters will rise, flooding heavily populated
low-lying places like Bangladesh, the
Netherlands, and even the U.S. Gulf Coast.

▪ Millions of people would be displaced by

famine, flood, and drought.

▪ As environmental justice advocates point

out, these changes will hit the poor and
those least able to respond to them first.

▪ However, the changes predicted are of

such magnitude that even the very wealthy
countries will suffer environmental
consequences that they cannot hope to
avoid.
▪ Many of these problems require global
solutions.

▪ This new sense of urgency and common

cause about the environment is leading to
unprecedented cooperation in some areas.

▪ Perhaps one of the most important

questions for the future is, “Will the nations
of the world be able to set aside their
political differences to work toward a global
environmental course of action?”
▪ Environmental ethics suggests that we may
have an obligation beyond simply
minimizing the harm that we cause to our
families, our neighbors, our fellow human
citizens, and future generations of people
that will live on Planet Earth.

▪ It suggests that we may also have an

obligation to minimize the harm we cause to
the ecological systems and the biodiversity
of the Earth itself.

▪ The ecological systems, many believe,

deserve moral consideration for what they
are in themselves, quite apart from their
undeniable importance to human beings.
Recognizing that our treatment of the
natural environment is an ethical issue is a
good start on the challenges that lie ahead.
▪ Recognizing that our treatment of the
natural environment is an ethical issue is a
good start on the challenges that lie ahead.

“Today we are faced with a challenge that calls

for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops
threatening its life-support system. We are called
to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the
process heal our own—indeed, to embrace the
whole creation in all its diversity, beauty, and
wonder. This will happen if we see the need to
revive our sense of belonging to a larger family of
life, with which we have shared our evolutionary
process. In the course of history, there comes a
time when humanity is called to shift to a new
level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral
ground. A time when we have to shed our fear
and give hope to each other. That time is now.”
Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize winner.
 SUMMARY
▪ People of different cultures view their place
in the world from different perspectives.
Among the things that shape their views are
religious understandings, economic
pressures, geographic location, and
fundamental knowledge of nature.

▪ Because of this diversity of backgrounds,

different cultures put different values on the
natural world and the individual organisms
that compose it. Environmental ethics
investigates the justifications for these
different positions.
 SUMMARY
▪ Three common attitudes toward nature are
the development approach, which assumes
that nature is for people to use for their own
purposes; the preservationist approach,
which assumes that nature has value in
itself and should be preserved intact; and
the conservationist approach, which
recognizes that we must use nature to meet
human needs but encourages us to do so in
a sustainable manner. The conservationist
approach is generally known today as
“sustainable development.”
 SUMMARY
▪ Recognition that there is an ethical
obligation to protect the environment can be
made by corporations, by individuals, by
nations, and by international bodies.

▪ Corporate environmental ethics are

complicated by the existence of a corporate
obligation to its shareholders to make a
profit. Corporations often wield tremendous
economic power that can be used to
influence public opinion and political will.
Many corporations are now being driven to
include environmental ethics in their
business practices by their shareholders.
▪ Natural capitalism and industrial ecology
are ideas that promote ways of doing
profitable business while also protecting the
SUMMARY
environment.

▪ Individuals must demonstrate strong

commitments to environmental ethics in
their personal choices and behaviors.

▪ Global commitments to the protection of the

environment are enormously important.

▪ Opportunities for global cooperation and

agreement are of critical importance in
facing these real and increasing challenges.
▪ Environmental ethics has a role to play in
shaping human attitudes
▪ Environmental ethics has a role to play in
shaping human attitudes toward the
environment from the smallest personal
SUMMARY
choice to the largest international treaty.

THINKING GREEN
Calculate your ecological footprint.
 CLASS ACTIVITY
Which approach to the environment—
development, preservation, or conservation—
do you think you adopt in your own life?

Do you think it appropriate for everybody in

the world to share the same attitude you
hold?