Reading 1

November.
01,2010 Jason Lockie
Reading 1: What Is Environmental Ethics?
Ones definition of the environment is subjective and can be as unique as that person
themselves. To me, environment means any area that someone or something inhabits and does
not necessarily have to be organic. By this I mean that even an office building can act as an
environment. But in this particular case I believe we are discussing “the” environment, so for this
the largest scale would be the earth and all of its natural habitats. Clare Palmer defines
environmental ethics as a process of how human beings should or “ought-to” interact with the
nonhuman world around them. To me, this definition is a strong statement, with a clear
message, but with that said it also leaves much room for interpretation, more so on an
individual’s perception of what they believe is ethical behaviour. In order for one to determine for
oneself what is ethical, there are two step that they must follow. The first step is very essential
and involves the gathering of knowledge and understanding about any environmental question.
This includes knowledge about the ecosystem and the organisms within it, as well as any
human variables. The second step it to develop skills that can be used to excavate and analyse
human interests, attitudes, and values related to a particular environmental problem.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle has been found to be one of the first people to address
the idea of ethics. In his writings Aristotle speaks of “potential”, an idea centralizing around the
fact that all things have built-in-potential, and all things aim to fulfill this potential. Like how the
smallest seed can have the potential to grow into the tallest tree. I think that this concept is still
very valid in today’s society, although I feel that the true nature of this idea has been somewhat
lost. We hear the word potential all are lives, such as “he/she has so much potential”. It seems
to me that when we speak of potential these days it’s more centered around what an individual
can achieve, opposed to their potential to make sociological or ecological achievements that
benefit more than just themselves.
In this reading Claire Palmer speaks of values being a fundamental aspect to ethics, and
she points out that values can be both subjective and objective. It goes on to say that subjective
values are human creation that can be related to or attached to their own lives and the lives of
other people. Where objective values are not created by humans but instead are built in to the
world around them. I think subjective values differ from Aristotle’s point of view because it states
that they are created rather than being within, waiting to come out.
Another concept of ethics involves ecology, more specifically Arne Naess’ concept of
“shallow” and “deep” ecology. Naess goes on to describe shallow ecology as a movement
who`s primary concern was for that of human welfare and issue that affect such, like depletion
of natural resources. Whereas deep ecology is more concerned with the philosophy on how
humans interact with their environment, with greater focus on humans understanding of the
natural world. Another aspect of ecology is social ecology, which looks at humans relationships
with each other being the root of environmental problems, oppose to deep ecologies premise of
it being humans misunderstanding of the environment. The main idea of social ecology is that
humans organize things in a hierarchical structure that consist of different layers of dominance
and oppression, thus making the natural world inferior to human beings. Social ecology is
similar to another aspect, ecofeminism. Ecofeminism discusses the link between the domination
of nature and the domination of women, so like social ecology the focus is on dominance. But it
differs in the sense that ecofeminists don`t believe that society as a whole must change in order
to allow changes in the natural world to occur. This is because they feel that the oppression of
women is linked to the oppression of nature thus making them the same and they should be
addressed simultaneously. Ecofeminists look at environmental ethics differently and tend to
reject the common or universal approach to ethical thinking. They feel that environmental ethics
should be more focused and context-specific. Meaning ethics should come directly from
relationships between the lives of those concerned, it goes on to suggest that the specific
“wrong” involved in an incident should vary according to the perspective of the people
concerned. This approach is beneficial in the fact that it looks at individual instances and
individual issues, rather that the environment as a whole. By doing this one can put more effort
into a specific thing rather than solely look at the big picture.
In conclusion, many different aspects and views goes into the broader title of
environmental ethics. In my opinion this reading shows that no one mind set is right or wrong,
and the best way to approach environmental ethics is to adapt all of the above techniques and
views into one hybrid way to look at ethics.

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November.

01,2010 Jason Lockie

Reading 1: What Is Environmental Ethics?

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