3 Environmental Ethics
Learning Objectives
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
- Describe the views of influential environmental ethicists
- Define the major ethical theories and attitudes towards the environment
- Give examples of the four levels of ethical responsibility
- Explain why the Tragedy of the Commons occurs
- Explain the utilitarian view of animal welfare
- Describe the environmental justice movement and the problems it is trying to solve
Approaches to Environmental Ethics
Although you may not realize it, you make environmentally impactful decisions every day. Should I drive to work or take the bus? Should I buy this soda that’s made by a company that pollutes the ocean? How you answer these questions depends on many factors, such as your own personal worldview, socioeconomic status, and educational level. But if you’re like most people, you make these decisions on “auto-pilot” without any deeper reflection on their impacts and importance. Environmental ethics is an attempt to provide a more rigorous framework for our ethical decision-making on environmental issues.
Ethics is a branch of philosophy that explores and defines what behaviors we consider to be right or wrong. Environmental ethics is the area of ethics that addresses the ethical relationship between humans and the non-human environment, including other species and the land itself. The main focus of environmental ethics is defining what responsibility humans have to the environment, and how far this responsibility extends. Our responsibility to other humans, other species, and the land is determined by how we assign value to these items. Something is considered to have instrumental value if it its value comes from its usefulness to humans. For example, paper money has instrumental value because it can be exchanged for goods and services, but the paper itself is essentially worthless. On the other hand, something that possesses intrinsic value is valuable in and of itself, regardless of how useful it is. For example, most people consider other humans to have intrinsic value because they possess that value whether or not they are “useful” to others. There are three general theories regarding human responsibility to the environment, each with its own approach to assigning value to the environment.
An anthropocentric, or human-centered, approach to environmental ethics is the view that human interests are the most important elements to consider in any given situation. Human beings are the only morally significant organisms, and all other species only possess instrumental value. We do not have a duty to protect other species for their own sake.
Early European settlers in North America had a completely anthropocentric attitude towards the land. After depleting the resources in one area, they moved westward to new frontiers, assuming that the earth has an unlimited supply of resources. This attitude survives today among many who view humans as masters whose respo