APPROACHES TO

ENVIRONMENTAL
ETHICS
ACTIVITY!
5 – MINUTES
ENVIRONMENTAL
OBSERVATION
 The class will brainstorm
about the ECOLOGICAL
PROBLEM they have seen in
the school premise. The class
will create a flowchart that
shows how the problem
occurs in the school.
 What is the most important
living being?
How do we correlate it the
attribution of moral
consideration?
How does man play the major
role in the cycle of life?
 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
- It is the discipline in philosophy
that studies the moral
relationship of human beings to,
and also the value and moral
status of, the environment and its
non-human contents.
 ALDO LEOPOLD
- was an American conservationist and
forester by profession.
- Published an article entitled A Sand
Country Almanac (1949)
- which emphasized the importance of the
adoption of a land ethic giving importance
to the land as an entity that should be
given due respect and love.
 BRYAN NORTON
- Wrote about the article entitled,
Environmental Problems and
Future Generations, sees the
analysis of environmental
problems as belonging to three
generations
 ATTRIBUTION OF
MORAL
CONSIDERATION
(Intrinsic Value) and
their Corresponding
Approaches
Diagram
HUMANS - ANTHROPOCENTRISM
- Traditional, anthropocentric views would
consider human beings as the center of
moral consideration.
- Human being claimed to have reached
the highest level of evolutionary process
or the highest form of life, with many
perhaps agreeing with this assumption.
“Our own good requires that
we have due and wise
regard for animals and the
environment”.
-Barbara Mckinnon, author of a book
Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues-
Non- Humans (higher forms of animals) –
PANTHOCENTRISM
- Another proposal that paved
the way for animal liberation
and animal rights movement
 Peter Singer
- An Australian philosopher
who wrote an article about
Animal Liberation.
 Panthocentrism would
argue that there are two
reasons why animals
should have a moral
consideration.
 1. Animals are sentient
beings and they could
feel pain.
“All the arguments to prove man’s
superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in
suffering the animals are equals.”
 2. Animals morally
considerable because they
posses inherent or intrinsic
value.
- They considered as end in themselves
and should not be regarded only as means
to man’s usually selfish ends.
2.