PHI113 - Environmental Ethics

Ethics is a field in philosophy that focuses on explaining and defending judgments about right and wrong conduct. Ethicists use the method of ethical inquiry to examine value judgments critically, clarifying them and resolving conflicts among them. This chapter takes a brief tour of metaethics to orient us before delving into more specific questions about how to answer questions about environmental values. The chapter concludes with an introduction to environmental ethics, which addresses the need for and general outlines of an ethic that recognizes the value of nonhuman nature and our duties toward it.

A number of areas of biology raise questions about what is of value in the natural environment and how we ought to behave towards it: conservation biology, environmental science, and ecology, to name a few. Based on my experience teaching students from these and similar majors, I argue that the field of environmental ethics has much to teach these students. They come to me with pent-up questions and a feeling that more is needed to fully engage in their subjects, and I believe some exposure to environmental ethics can help focus their interests and goals.

Ethics in the Anthropocene must first account for the complex interaction between humanity and nature. An understanding of this complex interaction leads to a specific kind of environmental ethics, which not only formulates rules to protect certain entities of nature, like animals, plants, or landscapes, but also seeks to understand what it means to be human in natural and cultural contexts. It demands a new kind of ethical reflection about the place of human beings in the cosmos and the evolutionary dynamics of the Earth System—this is exactly what the term “human ecology” aims to conceptualize.

Anthropocentrism holds that the only things valuable in themselves are: human beings, their desires and needs, and the satisfaction of those. In turn, Gaia theory holds that the Earth and all creatures on it constitute something akin to a vast living being. Many layfolk maintain that Gaia theory implies the falsity of anthropocentrism, and thus puts the kibosh on that doctrine.

As critical research has revealed, climate change scepticism and inaction are not about science but ideas, and specifically the ideas that conform our worldview. Drawing on key theoretical approaches to climate change denial from the social sciences and humanities, this paper discusses the ideological dimension and, more especially, the anthropocentric denial underlying our failure to respond to climate change. We argue that the speciesist anthropocentrism inherent in the current dominant ethics is what prevents humanity from reacting to the main human-induced drivers of global warming.

“The question is not, Can theyreason?nor, Can theytalk?but, Can theysuffer?”¹ So Jeremy Bentham pinpointed half of a long-standing ethic toward animals. The other half is summarized by Aristotle: “Plants exist to give food to animals, and animals to give food to men—domestic animals for their use and food, wild ones, in most cases, if not in all, furnish food and other conveniences, such as clothing and various tools. Since nature makes nothing purposeless or in vain, all animals must have been made by nature for the sake of men.”

Why should deforestation be stopped? Why should greenhouse gas emissions be reduced? To answer moral queries such as these, one could point to the wellbeing of future generations and the survival of the human species. One could also appeal to the preservation of biodiversity and the intrinsic value of the natural world.

Simple Summary: Acting to preserve biodiversity can involve harming individual animals. It has recently been argued that conventional practice has placed too much emphasis on the preservation of collective entities, such as populations and species, at the expense of suffering for individuals. At least some advocates of the 'Compassionate Conservation' movement find any deployment of lethal measures in the interests of conservation to be unacceptable. This shifts the balance of priorities too far. While conservationists have a duty to minimise harm, and to use non-lethal measures where feasible, there will be serious implications for conservation if this movement were to be widely influential.

Defining what is and what counts as nature has been one of the main preoccupations of contemporary environmental ethicists. Depending on the philosopher one converses with, all biological life (Arne Naess), trees (Christopher Stone), sentient animals (Peter Singer), whole ecosystems (J. Baird Callicott and Holmes Rolston), and even larger bioregions (Peter Berg) count as part of nature and have value that makes certain moral claims on humans.¹ Religious environmental ethicists too have argued in favor of recognizing a moral status for parts and/or wholes within the nonhuman creation. In this case, however, the natural world and its beings hold intrinsic

Contra Dale Jamieson, the study of the metaethical foundations of environmental ethics may well lead students to a more environmentally responsible way of life. For although metaethics is rarely decisive in decision making and action, there are two kinds of circumstances in which it can play a crucial role in our practical decisions. First, decisions that have unusual features do not summon habitual ethical reactions, and hence invite the application of ethical precepts that the study of metaethics and ethical theory isolate and clarify. Second, there are times in which the good of others (including organisms and systems in the natural world) may well be given greater weight in one's ethical deliberations if theory has made clear that the good to be promoted is ontologically independent of one's own good.

Can products and services truly communicate the Environmental message? Is the traditional economic model able to encompass both concepts of Environment and Sustainable Development, enhancing natural resources? These are some of the key-questions at the base of the Green Economy and the most recent Circular Economy, the “green revolution” of the economy as a result of strong socio-cultural change that pushed the corporates to implement eco-sustainable actions as well as to find new communication tools to communicate their Environmental commitment in a very efficient, eco-responsible, transparent and shared way. In the modern economy, still linked to the business-oriented approach, the Environmental compartment is an integral part of the economic system on the tail of the Triple Bottom Line model based on the trinomial: Population, Planet and Profit. But is it sufficient to prevent the risk of “sprinkled with green” products and services that really have nothing to do with an eco-sustainable management aka (as known as) “green washing”? The process and product certifications are they able to guarantee the communication of Environmental quality to the consumer-user? Can the marketing tools be efficient Media to communicate Environmental and sustainable values? And if so, which forms and within which limits? The promotion conventional and non-conventional tools (guerrilla marketing) have raised the “green” flag, but are they really effective? These are some of the questions we will try to give an answer in the “Chapter 5—Communicating the Environment in the Green and Circular Economy”.

Friedrich Nietzsche famously stated: “There are no facts, only interpretations.”¹ Perhaps this could be slightly rephrased: no facts go uninterpreted. There are simply no bare facts, at least if a fact is to be meaningful. Every fact has meaning only in relation to other facts, to context, and to the human understanding itself. In other words, at the heart of every confrontation of concept and perception is the issue of hermeneutics: the art and science of interpretation.

“You see, I am fond of learning. Now the country places and trees won’t teach me anything, and the people in the city do.”¹ Socrates loved the city with its politics and culture but avoided nature as profitless and boring. On the other hand, when John Muir finished his formal education and went to live in the Sierra Nevadas, he wrote, “I was only leaving one University for another, the Wisconsin University for the University of the Wilderness.”² No education is complete until one has a concept of nature, and no ethics is complete until one has an appropriate respect

Does the decision to relax by taking a drive rather than by taking a walk cause harm? In particular, do the additional carbon emissions caused by such a decision make anyone worse off? Recently several philosophers have argued that the answer is no, and on this basis have gone on to claim that act-consequentialism cannot provide a moral reason for individuals to voluntarily reduce their emissions. The reasoning typically consists of two steps. First, the effect of individual emissions on the weather is miniscule: the planet's meteorological system is so large, and the size of individual emissions so tiny, that whatever impact an individual emission has on the weather must be vanishingly small. Second, vanishingly small impacts aren't morally relevant because no one could possibly tell the difference between such an impact occurring and it not occurring. In this paper, we show why both steps are mistaken, and hence why act-consequentialism implies that each of us has an individual obligation to do what we can to stop damaging the climate, including by refraining from, or perhaps by purchasing offsets against, our own individual luxury carbon emissions.

PRESERVATIONIST ENVIRONMENTAL thought involves the following interrelated ideas. Nature’s value is significantly a function of its degree of independence from humanity. Naturalness or wildness is what most centrally grounds nature’s value. When considerably modified by humans, nature loses much of its value and even its essential character. A strong conceptual separation exists between humans and nature. Nature is to be understood in opposition to humanity; nature is the nonhuman. Wilderness is thus quintessential nature.

Awe has been proposed by environmentalists as a crucial—perhaps even foundational—aspect of our moral orientation toward the natural world. This article considers recent psychological evidence about the effects that awe has on those who experience it and explores worries about the role of awe as a potential tool of manipulation, a way of circumventing deliberative processes, and a force that undermines democratic and egalitarian social relations. It concludes that while awe can inspire environmentalist attitudes and commitments, there are also legitimate concerns about using it as the basis for environmentalism

The article discusses the relevance of ecological ethics when it comes to climate change. Topics include how modernity has affected climate change int the long run, the criticisms against modernity and the economics of population growth. The moral politics involved in colonialism and gender discrimination is also discussed.

What exactly does the environment, the biosphere, and biodiversity entail? To what extent are they in crisis currently, what are the drivers behind this crisis, and why is it important that one should do something about this crisis? What exactly should one focus on when protecting the environment, the biosphere, and biodiversity, and why should one do so? In this chapter, an overview is given of the conceptual, philosophical, and ethical challenges related to finding answers to these questions. The crux of this discussion is devoted to different kinds of values that can be used to justify protection.

Can persons be held morally responsible for harmful consequences that result from the acts or omissions of their nation or society, even if they conscientiously avoid contributing toward those consequences qua individuals? What if those acts and omissions, together with a great many other similar ones committed against the backdrop of social norms that tolerate and even encourage such harmful behavior, contribute to a global environmental problem that gives rise to valid claims for compensation on the part of those harmed by it, but where discrete instances of harm cannot be attributed to any specific persons as directly causally responsible? Such is the case with global climate change, which results in part from social norms that are permissive of polluting activities and which often frustrate efforts to avoid them, rather than being caused by culpable individual choices alone, in which case individual fault and responsibility could more plausibly be assigned.

Environmental justice refers to an attempt to achieve environmental equity for all groups within society through fair treatment and substantial involvement of people regardless of their racial and socioeconomic background in the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies

Humanity has become a threat to the environment that sustains us. Global climate change, ocean acidification, air and water pollution, and other forms of environmental harm threaten ecosystems and human communities all over the planet. Human rights can protect both humans and the environment on which we depend. Long-recognized rights like the rights to life, health, and culture, as well as newer rights like the rights to water and a healthy environment, defend humans who depend on a healthy environment. Indigenous and cultural rights protect those who depend on the environment for their spiritual, cultural, or physical survival. Rights to participate in decision-making, to access relevant information, and to judicial remedies serve to safeguard other fundamental rights. Ultimately, the scope of our power to harm the environment requires us to recognize and protect the rights of future generations and of Mother Earth herself.

Humanity’s current consumption patterns threaten the lives of current as well as future people. This provides a strong moral imperative to take the material constraints of the environment as the point of departure for an account of sustainable distributive justice. This ecological space paradigm should focus on a multidimensional, non-aggregative conception of carrying capacity. However, because resources are merely instrumental in pursuing various ends, we suggest combining capabilities and ecological space as the currency of distributive justice. As regards scope, this integrative account has the major advantage of combining the strength of the capabilities approach regarding global justice with the focus of the ecological space paradigm on intertemporal justice. The pattern of distribution should then take the form of distributing material resources so as to enable everyone to reach the capability threshold, while the leftover ecological space should be distributed on an equal per capita basis.

The Commission's recentinterpretation of the Precautionary Principleis used as starting point for an analysis ofthe moral foundation of this principle. ThePrecautionary Principle is shown to have theethical status of an amendment to a liberalprinciple to the effect that a state only mayrestrict a person's actions in order to preventunacceptable harm to others. The amendmentallows for restrictions being justified even incases where there is no conclusive scientificevidence for the risk of harmful effects.However, the liberal tradition has seriousproblems in determining when a risk of harm isunacceptable. Nevertheless, reasonable liberalarguments in favor of precaution can be basedon considerations of irreversible harm andgeneral fear of harm. But it is unclear whenthere considerations can be overridden.Within the liberal framework, the Commissionadvocates a so-called proportional version ofthe Precautionary Principle. This should beclearly distinguished from a welfare-basedapproach to precaution based on risk-aversiveweighing up of expected costs and benefits.However, in the last resort, the Commissiondoes seem to make a covert appeal to suchconsiderations.

Representing unborn generations to more suitably include future interests in today's climate policymaking has sparked much interest in recent years. In this review we survey the main proposed instruments to achieve this effect, some of which have been attempted in polities such as Israel, Philippines, Wales, Finland, and Chile. We first review recent normative work on the idea of representing future people in climate governance: The grounds on which it has been advocated, and the main difficulties that traditional forms of representation have encountered when applied to this particular case. We then survey existing institutional means to represent generations to come.

This chapter applies to issues of sustainability principles of global justice and equity, already discussed in Chapter 9, and derivative principles such as respect for local autonomy and such as the precautionary principle. These principles turn out to be vital if global agreements about the environment are to prove viable and long-lasting. It might seem that a chapter on moving towards sustainability should seek to derive the best objective policies from science and from principles of sustainability and equity, with a view to the best overall outcomes emerging from their worldwide adoption.

Climate change is one of the greatest threats to human well-being, now, in the early twenty-first century. Although long-term solutions are required, increasing climatic threats are now a clear and present danger. The purpose of early warning systems is to protect human life, infrastructure and the environment. Planning for EWS has been fraught with arguments, delays, ideological division and financial concerns. The language of ethics in relation to social obligation for the prevention of harm and suffering to both present and future populations makes for a strong and persuasive argument for change which may help us overcome the current impasse.

Human population growth is sometimes held to underlie or even cause ecological problems. As will be seen below, there is reason to doubt this theory. Nevertheless there is also reason to believe that population cannot continue to grow indefinitely, and certainly not at the current rate, if the world is to become sustainable, or if basic human needs are to be satisfied. Hence population needs to be discussed in this work partly with a view to discovering its relation to ecological problems, whether global or local, and partly to considering the ethics of stabilising it at some sustainable level.

(Full Monograph - 71 Pages) Spilt into different chapters for different types of energy. Nations enact domestic policies to allocate public resources, to generate revenue or to encourage specific behavior. Each rule benefits those who support it and creates a disadvantage for those who oppose it. Although a specific public policy may be issued from a central governmental office, all contexts are local. Natural resources are not uniformly distributed. Support for or opposition to public energy policy depends on availability of natural resources, capital, and transportation corridors

This chapter investigates the claim that embodiment produces ethical implication. What is the experience of recognizing ourselves as impossibly situated in interdependent relationships of suffering? I argue that to be embodied is to be placed, sustained, affected by the world, and in turn to affect the world. I fill out the ethical demands embodiment implies, focusing on the ethical entanglement of one’s body with suffering bodies that at first pass seem to be quite far away. That is to say, intimate others may show up intuitively as touching and touched by our bodies and thus as ethically demanding.

Seafood isen vogue.Modern consumers think of seafood as a healthy supplement to a traditional meat-based diet. Supermarkets offer frozen seafood of great variety and some even fresh seafood. Good restaurants the world over have a variety of seafood on offer, even if they are not located in a coastal area. Typically, a consumer will associate fishermen and fishmongers as suppliers of this food. Yet, chances are that some if not most of what is on offer in restaurants and supermarkets originates from some form of aquaculture. Does that make a difference? And if so, in what respect? Aquaculture

The extinction of humanity is now a significant possibility, not least through environmental impacts of human actions. Thus a nuclear winter could descend as the environmental impact of nuclear war fare, and this is just one of several conceivable catastrophes. Another is a pandemic resulting from biological warfare, or from terrorist action, or even from accidental spin-offs of experimentation. Chemical warfare could produce similar effects. Or imaginably, global warming could accelerate irretrievably; or the ozone layer could be lost, and the conditions of human life thus be undermined.

With advances in technoscience, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish nature from culture, the grown from the made. Geneticists can enhance the DNA of almost any living creature, including human beings. Cloning is a reality, no longer just the stuff of science fiction. New genetic engineering and organ transplantation technologies raise legal questions about the ownership of one’s own DNA and one’s own body. Who has the right to reproduce certain DNA, particularly if some DNA (disease resistant) is more desirable than other DNA (disease prone)? In laboratories, we can reproduce most things living and dead.

This chapter deals with one of the most important aspects of conservation management: why we do it. It is not an easy chapter: there are no clearly defined, or widely accepted, rights or wrongs. It is entirely a matter of opinion or belief. My intention, therefore, is simply to provoke thought and debate. When sites, particularly legally protected areas, are managed by organisations that have policies to guide management there may be little reason to consider conservation ethics when preparing a plan (though anyone engaged in nature conservation should at least be aware of the ethical considerations). Where there is no formal guidance, legislation or policy, planners must understand why they are managing the site. It is only by understanding ‘why’ that we are able to decide what we are trying to achieve and what we must do. Human values are considered, with an emphasis on scientific values and conservation ethics.

Disagreements about morally appropriate mitigation policies arise in part from implicit disagreements about the nature and moral significance of needs. One key question is what, if anything, distinguishes “needs” from “mere wants.” One approach, prominent in economics and implemented in existing integrated assessment models of climate change, rejects a hard distinction between needs and wants. An alternative approach, prominent in the philosophical literature on needs, identifies needs with the requirements for autonomous agency, which is the capacity to set and pursue one’s own goals.

Societal concerns regarding the negative impacts of wind turbines on species and ecosystems have placed more emphasis on mitigation efforts pre- and post-construction. While the mitigation hierarchy is usually fronted to deal with negative ecological impacts, it is hardly employed accordingly. This calls for the core of the problem to be addressed, namely, the lack of an appropriate framework for mitigation as a concept to properly address ecological impacts caused by wind-power development. In this chapter, mitigation is defined as the intervention(s) implemented to affect the risk of wind turbines impacting species or ecosystems.

Although trends in climate change are expected to continue, there is considerable uncertainty about the precise rate of change and its concrete impact. A key element in decision-making on climate adaptation is how to deal with this uncertainty. This chapter provides the background information on dealing with uncertainties: descriptions of uncertainty typology, methods of assessment, as well as a framework for dealing with uncertainty in climate adaptation decision-making. The chapter highlights that the classical elements used in uncertainty assessment (statistics, scenarios and recognised ignorance) can be expanded toward five principal uncertainty dimensions that are crucial for informing/supporting adaptation decision-making: location, level, nature, qualification of knowledge base, and value-ladenness.

Migration has always been part of human existence, supporting and inhibiting sustainable development while leading to both cooperation and conflict. Given that one possible consequence from the responses to contemporary climate change, or lack thereof, is migration, that also applies for climate change. To understand the complex interplay amongst climate change, conflict, and migration, many frameworks and models exist for analysis within sustainable development. One framework which has not been explored extensively for climate change and migration is ‘disaster diplomacy’, how disaster-related activities do and not influence conflict and peace. This chapter is conceptual, exploring a disaster diplomacy perspective for climate change and migration.

Engineering the climate by means of carbon dioxide removal (CDR), Earth radiation management (ERM), and/or solar radiation management (SRM) approaches has recaptured the attention of scientists, policy makers, and the public. Climate engineering is being assessed as a set of tools to deliberately, and on a large scale, moderate or retard global warming. There are several concepts available, like injecting aerosol-forming SO2 into the stratosphere or placing huge objects in orbit to partly shade Earth from incoming radiation or fertilizing the ocean with iron for increased algae growth and creation of carbon sinks. Such concepts are highly speculative, and irrespective of whether they would work, they bear huge risks, from adversely affecting the complex climate system on a regional or global scale to potentially triggering droughts, famine, or wars.

While it has been forcefully argued that the world is generally becoming more peaceful (e.g. Gleditsch 2008; Pinker 2011), the debate on climate change raises the specter of a new source of instability and conflict. In this field, the policy debate has been running well ahead of its academic foundation—and sometimes even contrary to the best evidence. A small but important literature of systematic research on possible security implications of climate change is now emerging. To date, however, the studies are inconclusive, often finding no or low predicted effect of climate change. The scenarios summarized by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001, 2007, and 2014 are much less certain in terms of the social implications of climate change than in their conclusions about the physical implications.

This chapter applies to issues of sustainability principles of global justice and equity, already discussed in Chapter 9, and derivative principles such as respect for local autonomy and such as the precautionary principle. These principles turn out to be vital if global agreements about the environment are to prove viable and long-lasting. It might seem that a chapter on moving towards sustainability should seek to derive the best objective policies from science and from principles of sustainability and equity, with a view to the best overall outcomes emerging from their worldwide adoption.

In this chapter, I will argue that persuasion to change people’s behaviour in the face of climate chaos is not working, but that dictatorial force should be avoided at all costs. Instead, enlightened self-interest provides the only durable solution to saving the planet from calamitous global warming and climate change. This is an ambitious undertaking. First, an overview of the different forms that persuasion takes will be given, and then some ideas follow on the potential contribution of a more enlightened approach.

In the summer of 2012, some 10 percent of the earth’s land baked under intense heat, a tenfold increase from baseline years. Ninety-seven percent of the surface of the Greenland ice sheet warmed enough to show signs of thawing. The temperature in the state of Kansas broke 115 degrees—an all-time record. And the U.S. Drought Monitor reported that 62.3 percent of the United States was suffering from moderate to extreme drought. Hot, dry weather also scorched Moscow, which was cloaked in haze from wildfires. All but 24 percent of the Arctic Ocean was ice-free that summer, the lowest point since measurements began at 50 percent in the late 1970s