Environmental ethics appeared as a subfield of
philosophy in the early 1970s. During
the sixties environmental awareness and social movements were on the rise. Humans’ moral relationship with nature was a
hot topic for the public in the 1960s.
One of the biggest motivators for environmental ethics was the desire to
create ethical theories that made humans accountable for their work in the
natural world.
One main issue that was debated in the early years
of environmental ethics discussions was what entities were morally significant
and how significant. Individualists
thought that humans, animals, and plants were giving automatic value unlike the
larger wholes. Species, biospheres, and
ecosystems were comprised from the smaller, already valuable, entities which
made them significant because of the individuals in them. On the contrary, the holism perspective
believes that the whole biospheres, ecosystems, and species are of a higher
value. Individualist believe that each
animal holds the same value whether they are endangered, domesticates, a
destructive invasive species, or wild.
Holist believe different animals carry various weight dependent on their
contribution to processes in the ecosystem.
McShane,
K. (2009), Environmental Ethics: An Overview. Philosophy Compass, 4: 407–420.
doi: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00206.x
No comments:
Post a Comment