Chapter # 2 Environmental Ethics

1. Chapter # 2 Environmental Ethics Muhammad Salman Arshad MS-Management (Marketing)

2. After reading this chapter, 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 connection between material wealth and resource exploitation. • Describe the factors associated with environmental justice.

3. Continued… • Describe how environmental leaders in industry are promoting more sustainable practices. • Explain the importance of individual ethical commitments toward environment. • Explain why global action on the environment is necessary.

5. —Lewis Thomas. • The most beautiful object I have ever seen in a photograph in all my life is the planet Earth seen from the distance of the moon, hanging in space, obviously alive. • Although it seems at first glance to be made up of innumerable separate species of living things, on closer examination every one of its things, working parts, including us, is interdependently connected to all the other working parts. • It is, to put it one way, the only truly closed ecosystem any of us know about.

6. ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS • Ethics is one branch of philosophy. Ethics seeks to define what is right and what is wrong.

7. 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.

9. Cultural relativism Cultural relativism in ethics acknowledges that these differences exist. • On some occasions, 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 agreedupon.

10. Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture. • Cultural relativism is widely accepted in modern anthropology. • Cultural relativists believe that all cultures are worthy in their own right and are of equal value. • Diversity of cultures, even those with conflicting moral beliefs, is not to be considered in terms of right and wrong or good and bad.

12. 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 Rights issued by the United Nations expressed commitment to these basic human rights. • 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.

13. ETHICS AND LAWS • The laws of a particular nation or community should match the ethical commitments of those living there. • Sometimes laws are changed to match ethical commitments only after a long period of struggle and debate.

14. For Example: • In the United States, the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, civil rights laws, and regulations that protect the welfare of animals are all examples of changes in legislation that came about only after long periods of public debate and struggle. • As a result of these struggles, the country’s laws now fall more in line with the ethical commitments of its people.

15. CONFLICTING ETHICAL POSITIONS Even when people have strong personal ethical commitments, they might find that some of their commitments conflict. • For example: a mayor might have an ethical commitment to preserving the land around a city but at the same time have an ethical commitment to bringing in the jobs associated with the construction of a new factory on the outskirts of town. There are often difficult balances to be struck between multiple ethical values.

16. THE GREENING OF RELIGION For many years, environmental issues were considered to be the concern of scientists, lawyers, and policy makers. Now the ethical dimensions of the environmental crisis are becoming more evident. • What is our moral responsibility toward future generations? • How can we ensure equitable development that does not destroy the environment? • Can religious and cultural perspectives be considered in creating viable solutions to environmental challenges?

17. Today, many religious leaders recognize that religions, as enduring shapers of culture and values, can make major contributions to the rethinking of our current environmental impasse. • Religions have developed ethics for homicide, suicide, and genocide; now they are challenged to respond to biocide and ecocide

18. Homicide is the act of a human being causing the death of another human being. • Suicideis the act of intentionally causing one's own death. • Ecocide is the extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been or will be severely diminished.

19. THREE PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHESTO ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS Given the complexity of the issues, environmental philosophers have developed a number of theoretical approaches to help us see more clearly our ethical responsibilities concerning the environment

20. 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.

21. Anthropocentrism The first of these theories is anthropocentrism or human-centered ethics. • 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.

22. Biocentrism • A second theory of moral responsibility to the environment is biocentrism or life-centered environmental ethics. According to the broadest version of the bio-centric theory, all forms of life have an inherent right to exist. For example: some believes that we have a greater responsibility to protect animal species than plant species and a greater responsibility to protect mammals than invertebrates. Another group o bio-centrists, known as “bio-centric egalitarians,” take the view that all living organisms have an exactly equal right to exist.

23. Ecocentrism • The third approach to environmental responsibility, called eco-centrism, maintains that the environment deserves direct moral consideration and not consideration that is merely derived from human or animal interests. • In eco-centrism 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 possesses as the matrix that makes biological life possible.

24. OTHER PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES • 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.

25. 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 eco-centric ethic. Consequently they find the emphasis on ethical theories unhelpful.

26. 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 particularlyconcerned about the treatment of farm animals and animals used in medical research.

27. ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES 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 • (a) The development approach, • (b) The preservation approach • (c) The conservation approach.

28. DEVELOPMENT • 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.

29. Preservation • The preservationist approach tends to be the most eco-centric of the three common attitudes toward the environment. • Rather than seek to convert all of nature over to human uses, preservationists want to see large portions of nature preserved intact. Nature, they argue, has intrinsic value or inherent worth apart from human uses.

30. 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.

31. Sustainable Development • Sustainable development, a term first used in 1987 in a Unsponsored document called the Brundtland Report, is often defined as “meeting the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs.” Like conservationism, sustainable development is a middle ground that seeks to promote appropriate development in order to alleviate poverty while still preserving the ecological health of the landscape.

32. Continued…. • Sustainable development does not focus solely on environmental issues. • The United Nations 2005 World Summit Document refers to the “interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars” of sustainable development as economic development, social development, and environmental protection.

33. Environmental Justice • By the early 1990s, environmental justice (EJ) was recognized throughout the environmental movement as being a critical component of environmental protection.

34. Continued • In 1998, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States characterized environmental justice as a simple matter of fair treatment. • The EPA outlined the federal government’s commitment to the principle that “no group of people, including racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic groups, should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal programs and policies.”

35. Environmental justice encompasses a wide range of issues. In addition to the question. • Like that of where to place hazardous and polluting facilities, environmental justice questions arise in relation to transportation, safe housing, lead poisoning, water quality, access to recreation, exposure to noise pollution, the viability of subsistence fisheries, access to environmental information, hazardous waste cleanup, and exposure to natural disasters.

36. Individuals 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 new national laws and in better business practices but also in significant changes in the ways in which we all live.

37. Various public opinion polls conducted over the past decade have indicated that Americans think environmental problems can often be given a quick technological fix. • The Roper polling organization found that the public believes that “cars, not drivers, pollute, so business should invent pollution free autos. Coal utilities, not electricity consumers, pollute, so less environmentally dangerous generation methods should be found.” • It appears that many individuals want the environment cleaned up, but they do not want to make major lifestyle changes to make that happen.

38. Do we Consumer Too much? • The desire to consume is nothing new. It has been around for millennia. People need to consume to survive. • However, consumption has evolved as people have found new ways to help make their lives simpler and/or to use their resources more efficiently. • We consume a variety of resources and products today as we move beyond meeting basic needs to include luxury items and technological innovations to improve efficiency.

39. How are the products and resources we consume actually produced? • What are the impacts of that process of production on the environment, on society, and on individuals? • What are the impacts of certain forms of consumption on the environment, • on society, and on individuals? • What is a necessity and what is a luxury? • Businesses and advertising are major engines in promoting the consumption • of products so that they may survive. • How much of what we consume is influenced by their needs versus our needs? • How do material values influence our relationships with other people? • What impact does that have on our personal values? The impacts of consumerism—positive and negative— are very significant in all aspects of our lives, as well as on our planet.

40. How much we consume them? • Food. • Water. • Energy. • Wild Nature.