Ethics and the

Environment

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Learning Objectives:

› Identify environmental threats related to the

production of consumer goods
› Examine the important ethical considerations of
pollution control
› Assess the approaches to internalizing the
external costs of pollution
› Evaluate the ethics related to the conservation
of resources for future generations

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2-main external Environment

Natural Environment Consumer Environment

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The Dimension of Polution and Resource
Depletion
Refers to the undesirable
& unintended
contamination of the
environment by human
activities, such as
manufacturing , waste
disposal, burning fossil,
fuel etc.

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The Dimension of Polution and Resource
Depletion

Refers to the
consumption
of finite or
scares
resources.
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 Global
Warming

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Climate
Change

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Major Types of Air Pollution
› Greenhouse gases – absorbs and hold heat
from the sun; heating the atmosphere
› Ozone depleting gases – break down ozone
gas – which screens UV rays from the sun
› Acid rain gases – from coal-burning electric
power plants
› Airborne toxics – from chemical plants
› Common air pollutants – from utilities,
industrial smokestacks, & automobiles

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Major Types of Air Pollution

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Major Types of Air Pollution
› Greenhouse gases – absorbs and hold heat
from the sun; heating the atmosphere
› Ozone depleting gases – break down ozone
gas – which screens UV rays from the sun
› Acid rain gases – from coal-burning electric
power plants
› Airborne toxics – from chemical plants
› Common air pollutants – from utilities,
industrial smokestacks, & automobiles

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 Land
Pollution

Major Types of Land Pollution

Toxic substances – from pesticides and
herbicides
Solid wastes – residential, industrial,
agricultural and mining wastes
Nuclear wastes – from nuclear plants

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The Ethics of Pollution Control

Assumptions:

1. Business was able to treat air and water as

free goods – that is, as goods that no one owns
and that each firm can therefore use without
reimbursing anyone for their use.

2. Businesses have seen the environment as

an unlimited good.
©DarylEjeilSinlao

Consumer Responsibility

Problem Sollution

We are truly a POLLUTERS Why I live a Zero

waste life
| Lauren Singer | TEDxTeen”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF72px2R3Hg

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APPROACHES TO ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION
 A. Ecological Approach
› Anthropocentric View › Ecological Ethics
› t
B. Environmental Rights Approach
 C. Market Approach

External costs violate utility, rights, and justice so they should be internalized.

Costs of pollution are internalized – that is, they are absorbed by the producer
and taken into account when determining the price of its goods.
 Utilitarian Approach

❑ Cost-Benefit Analysis

❑ The costs of removing pollutants rise as benefits

of removal fall.

❑ The optimal level of pollution removal is the point

where the costs equal its benefits.

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Remedies and Justice

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Kinds of Justice:
1. Distributive Justice – favors equality;
community preference model
2. Retributive Justice – requires that those who
are responsible for and benefit from an injury
should bear the burdens of rectifying the injury
3. Compensatory Justice – requires that those
who have been injured should be compensated
by those who injured them
Social Ecology

Getting rid of social systems of

hierarchy and domination
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The Ethics of Conserving Resources

Conservation
- refers to the saving or rationing of natural
resources for later uses

Sustainability
-Refers to the ability to sustain – that is, to
continue or to maintain – something into
the future.
Environment,
Economy
&
Technology
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Gardens by the bay
(Singapore)

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Ethics and the
Environment

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