2. Ethics
 a branch of
philosophy that
involves
systematizing,
defending and
recommending
concepts of right and
wrong conduct

3. Environment
the social and cultural forces
that shape the life of a person
or a population
the aggregate of surrounding
things, conditions, or
influences
the air, water, minerals, orga
nisms, and all other external
factors surrounding and
affecting a
given organism at any time.

4. Environmental Ethics
 the evaluation of nature and
the way it impacts society and
culture and the rules and
regulations governing these
decisions
 doing what is ethically and
morally right concerning other
things that are not human.
Environmental Ethics, a hybrid of both ancient and recent insights, is a discipline in the
making. In part, this is so because it is a discipline whose time has come, and come
urgently.

5. Individualistic
&
Holistic
Two main types of Environmental Ethics:

6. Problems with individualistic approaches:
(1) Animal Liberation:
How can you measure
pleasure/suffering
a perennial problem
with utilitarianism
(2) Animal Rights:
boundary of moral
considerability is very
restrictive
and many plants and
animals left out.

7. Problems with individualistic approaches:
(3)Feinberg,
Regan and Singer
base standing on
human traits:
having interests,
capacity to suffer,
beings subjects-
of-a-life"
 only if animals
are like us in
some important
way will we
grant them
standing

8. Problems with individualistic approaches:
(4) How can we
determine what the
"interests" of a living
thing are?
How should we
decide who should
be the trustee for
non-rational, morally
considerable entities?

9. (5)
Individualistic
approaches
provide no
basis for
prioritizing
concern for
endangered
species
Problems with individualistic approaches:

10. 3 Holistic Approaches
1. Biocentrism
life-centered ethics
2. Egocentrism
ecosystem-centered ethics
3. Deep Ecology
‘identification’ and kinship ethics

11. Biocentrism
life centered ethics
Living things have
a good of their
own, a will to live,
and end of their
own. Thus they
have inherent
worth.

12. Ecocentrism:
ecosystem centered ethics
"All ethics rest
upon a single
premise: that the
individual is a
member of a
community of
interdependent
parts.”
• Aldo Leopold’s watershed Land Ethic, 1949

13. Deep Ecology
Basic ideas
 All life evolved in the same
way and thus, all are kin, with
kinship obligations
 All life systems are sacred and
valuable -- apart from their
usefulness to human beings
 All species should be allowed
to flourish and fulfill their
evolutionary destinies

15. Thank you
G
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