ETHICS AND

ENVIRONMENT
ANTHROPOCENTRISM
ECOCENTRISM
DEEP ECOLOGY
ECOFEMINISM
 Introduction
 Confronted by public and scientific perception of the "environmental crisis",
there is fairly general agreement among environmental philosophers that the
environment should be looked at from an ethical perspective. They believe that
ethics should play a larger role in the way we handle environmental problems.
 However, environmental philosophers disagree about what exactly constitutes
an environmental ethic, how it is achievable, and to what degree it is desirable
to achieve it.
 Environmental ethics is the study of ethical questions raised by human
relationships with the nonhuman environment. It is a 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.
 As a result of the growing environmental consciousness and social movements
of the 1960s, environmental ethics comes to the forefront during 1970’s.
 “Value” in Environmental Ethics
 At the heart of environmental ethics is a question about what has value. One important
view most of environmental ethicists is that environment has intrinsic value.
 (1) First, intrinsic value is contrasted with instrumental value. Instrumental value is the
value that something has as being a means to our ends.
 To say that the environment has intrinsic value is just to say that it has value beyond
anything it does to help us achieve our aims — beyond, for example, providing
ecosystem services, recreational opportunities, and so on.
 (2) Intrinsic value is sometimes contrasted with extrinsic value. Extrinsic value is the
value something has by virtue of its relation to another valuable thing.
 In this view, to say that the environment has intrinsic value is to say that it is not
valuable on account of its relations to things other than itself, but rather that it has value
in its own right.
 “Value” in Environmental Ethics
 (3) Intrinsic value also denotes a particular way that something ought to be valued
— that it ought to be regarded as worthy of respect rather than merely useful or
convenient.
 (4) Finally, the term intrinsic value is also sometimes taken to mean having moral
status or moral considerability. To say that something has moral status normally
means that it should be taken directly into account in our moral decision making.
 In the early days of the field, many writers argued that an environmental ethic
ought to be able to attribute intrinsic value to at least some parts of the nonhuman
natural world.
 They claimed that the inadequacy of mainstream ethics was mainly due to its
assumption of anthropocentrism, the view that only humans and/or their interests
matter morally in their own right, and everything else matters only insofar as it
affects humans and/or their interests.
 Anthropocentricism
 A philosophical viewpoint arguing that human beings are the central or most significant entities
in the world. This is a basic belief embedded in many Western religions and philosophies.
 Humans are separate from and superior to nature and human life has intrinsic value while other
entities (including animals, plants, mineral resources, and so on) are resources that may
justifiably be exploited for the benefit of humankind.
 Roots of anthropocentrism is attributed to the Creation story told in the book of Genesis in the
Judeo-Christian Bible, in which humans are created in the image of God and are instructed to
“subdue” Earth and to “have dominion” over all other living creatures.
 This passage indicates humanity’s superiority to nature and condone an instrumental view of
nature, where the natural world has value only as it benefits humankind.
 This line of thought can be found also in Aristotle’s Politics and in Immanuel Kant’s moral
philosophy.
 Anthropocentricism
 As a human-centered approach, anthropocentrism is the ethical belief that humans
alone possess intrinsic value - all other beings hold value only in their ability to serve
humans, or in their instrumental value.
 According to the anthropocentric perspective, things are good to the extent that they
promote the interests of human beings. Animals are valuable only insofar as they
promote the interests of humans or are useful to us in one or more of a variety of ways.
Animals provide nutritional, medical, protective, emotional, and aesthetic benefits for
us.
 Those people who hold an anthropocentric view also may believe that it is bad to cause
animals needless pain, but if this is necessary to ensure some important human good,
then it is justified.
 Only humans possess direct moral standing because they are ends in and of
themselves; other things (individual living beings, systems) are means to human ends.
 Anthropocentricism
 All ethics are anthropocentric, for arguably humans alone possess the cognitive
ability to formulate and recognize moral value.
 This might be the reason Albert Schweitzer, a Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1952,
remarked: "The great fault of all ethics hither to has been that they believed
themselves to have to deal only with the relationships of man to man".
 How does anthropocentricism address the relationship between man and the
environment?
 Central anthropocentric ethical argument is that human well-being depends upon
the quality of the environment, and therefore it is in the interest of humans to
preserve their environment. The environment is seen as a means to human ends
and values.
 Australian philosopher and historian of ideas, John Passmore (Man’s
Responsibility for Nature, 1974) establishes himself as an early and prominent
anthropocentric environmental ethicist.
 Anthropocentricism
 Instead of creating a more inclusive moral systems, Passmore asserts that we need is
stronger interpretation of our existing ethical obligations.
 Passmore’s views define narrow anthropocentrism, which is characterized by an embrace
of traditional human-centered ethics that isolate humans from the environment.
 He dismisses claims that it would be intrinsically wrong to destroy a species, cut down a tree
or, clear a wilderness as ‘‘merely ridiculous’’.
 Narrow anthropocentrists believe humans alone possess value; human efforts on behalf of
nonhuman nature are driven by a desire to serve human needs.
 Another anthropocentric environmental ethicist William Frankena does not believe that we
would need a new, more inclusive ethic when we have access to centuries of theoretical
philosophy we can apply to environmental issues. Greater attention to the practice of
traditional philosophical dialogue is necessary and sufficient for addressing our current
ethical concerns, including environmental issues.
 Anthropocentricism
 Bryan Norton, another anthropocentric ethicist suggests, rather than bother with a new theory
we simply need constraints on traditional anthropocentric behavior to prevent consumptive
habits.
 Norton’s broad anthropocentrism ‘‘requires no radical, difficult-to-justify claims about the
intrinsic value of nonhuman objects and, at the same time, it provides a framework for stating
obligations that goes beyond concern for satisfying human preferences’’ (“Environmental ethics
and weak anthropocentrism”, 1984).
 This view represents an ethic that is both effective and comfortable to employ, a goal that leads
to what might be the most common representation of environmental anthropocentrism:
environmental pragmatism.
 Influenced by American pragmatists, environmental pragmatists have argued that
environmental ethics should (a) focus on helping to solve practical environmental problems and
only involve itself in theoretical disputes insofar as is necessary for the solution of practical
environmental problems; and (b) adopt a pragmatist philosophical perspective, particularly in
its theory of value.
 Anthropocentricism: Limitations
 The inadequacy of traditional ethical theories was initially attributed to their
anthropocentrism. Any view that understands morality simply as a matter of the
obligations that humans have to one another, early theorists argued, cannot claim
that humans have direct moral obligations to the natural world.
 Thus, such views fail to capture an essential aspect of our relationship with the
natural world.
 This point was illustrated most clearly by Richard Routley’s ‘last person’ case.
(‘Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental Ethic?’ 1973)
 Routley asks the reader to imagine that some catastrophe has killed every other human being on earth such that there is
only one person left alive. If this person were dying, and if with his or her last dying breath it would be possible to
push a button that would destroy the rest of life on earth (plants, animals, ecosystems, etc.), would there be anything
morally wrong about doing so? Routley’s worry is that anthropocentric theories cannot explain why it would be
morally wrong to push the button under these circumstances. If moral obligations come from the interests of humans,
then once humans and their interests cease to exist, so do moral obligations. To put the point another way, if the natural
world has value only insofar as it serves human interests, then in a case in which the natural world cannot possibly
serve our interests (because we no longer exist), it can have no value, and thus there is nothing wrong with destroying
it.
 Anthropocentricism: Limitations
 In order to explain what would be wrong with pushing the button in the last person case,
early environmental ethicists argued, ethical theories need to claim that the natural
world has value that is independent of humans and of their interests. Only by meeting
these theoretical criteria can we arrive at an ethic (as Tom Regan describes it) ‘of the
environment, rather than an ethic for the use of the environment’.
 The anthropocentric perception is widespread and is considered to be responsible for
severe environmental crisis ranging from global warming, ozone depletion and water
scarcity to the loss of biological diversity.
 Deforestation, for example, contributes to global warming where the trees-logging
means less absorption of carbon dioxide, thus leading to more greenhouse gases trapped
in the atmosphere. As taken from an anthropocentric view, people cut down trees to
build houses, or provide jobs for low-income class; trees’ innate value in this situation is
ignored, therefore, destructive global outcomes emerge.
 Individualism and Holism
 In the 1970s, scholars of environmental ethics issued fundamental challenge to
anthropocentrism: they suggested that the natural environment might possess intrinsic
value independent of its usefulness to humankind.
 One issue that arose in early debates about the value of the natural world was the
question of what kinds of entities are morally significant in their own right.
 Some theorists argued that individual persons, animals, plants, etc. are valuable in their
own right, while the value of the larger wholes that these individuals comprise – species,
ecosystems, the biosphere, etc. – is merely derivative of the value of the individual
constituents. This view came to be called individualism.
 Theories generally considered to be forms of individualism are biocentrism (the view
that each living thing matters morally in its own right) and animal rights (the view that
some or all animals have moral rights).
 Individualism and Holism
 Holism argued that we should consider wholes to be the primary bearers of value and
the value of individuals to depend on the contribution that those individuals make to the
good of the wholes.
 This view sees the world as an integrated whole. To study reality is to study a system of
interrelationships. Value is fundamentally found in wholes such as species, ecosystems,
or the planet, and individuals have value as part of those wholes.
 The most common type of holism in environmental ethics is ecocentrism (the view that
ecosystems matter in their own right, and individuals have value in virtue of the
contribution they make to ecosystemic functioning).
 Holism attributes greater or lesser value to individuals depending on their contribution
to ecosystemic processes.
 Holistic thinkers are critical of individualistic egalitarianism, the view that we must
attribute value to all living things equally.
 Individualism and Holism
 Holists argue that egalitarianism about the value of individual organisms is ecologically
wrong-headed; some individuals simply have more ecological value than others, and an
adequate environmental ethic needs to take account of this difference.
 However, proponents of individualism charge that holists unjustifiably disregard the
worth of individuals by considering their worth to be derivative of their ecological
contributions.
 Some individualists have labeled holists ‘eco-fascists’ (charge of eco-fascism is from
Tom Regan), a way of emphasizing their worries about views that consider individuals
to have value only insofar as they contribute to the greater good of the communities to
which they belong.
 Other individualists argue that wholes such as ecosystems and species do not have a
good of their own, and thus that their value must be derivative of the value of individual
organisms, which do have a good of their own.
 Individualistic Theories: Animal Rights and
Biocentrism
 Early environment ethics includes ‘animal rights’ or ‘animal welfare’ or ‘animal
liberation’ ethics, which is no longer the case today.
 In arguing against anthropocentrism, many early animal rights theorists pointed out that
nonhuman animals have interests that exist independently of human interests, and thus
they rejected the view that the importance of these interests must be thought of as
dependent upon a relation to human interests.
 Peter Singer, a famous environmental ethicist, in his Animal Liberation argues for the
moral status of animals within the framework of utilitarianism.
 He argues that the suffering of nonhuman animals should be counted in the same way
within our utilitarian calculations as the suffering of humans would be counted. On
Singer’s view, the criterion for direct moral status is sentience, the capacity to experience
pleasure and pain.
 Animal Rights and Biocentrism
 Singer argues that there is no morally relevant reason why some pain and
suffering should be considered in ethical deliberations and some should not. Pain
is equally bad for the sufferer, regardless of who suffers it (or their species
membership). As a result, like pain (and pleasure) must be considered alike.
 Tom Regan (The Case for Animal Rights, 1983), preferred to understand the
moral status of animals within a deontological framework.
 Regan argued that some aspects of the Kantian understanding of the moral status
of persons should be extended to any creature that is a conscious creature having
an individual welfare that has importance to it whatever its usefulness to
others should be thought of as having inherent moral worth.
 Within the literature on the moral status of animals, views such as Singer’s came
to be called “animal welfare” or “animal liberation” views, while Regan’s
deontological rights-based is known as “ animal rights” view .
 Biocentrism
 For some writers of environmental ethics animal rights theorists took an overly narrow
view of interests. Sentience cannot be the only way to consider the moral worth of
living organism.
 Living things that are not sentient, such as plants, can be made better or worse off by
having their biologically given aims furthered or thwarted, they argued.
 Proponents of this view is called Biocentrism. Biocentrists claim that any living
organism, in virtue of having a set of biologically given aims, has interests that are an
independent source of claims on moral agents.
 In his essay "The Ethics of Respect for Nature" (1981) Paul W. Taylor argues for
Biocentrism - a system of ethics that attempts to protect all life in nature. Under
Biocentrism, all life - not just human life - should be protected for the organism's sake,
regardless of the good it does humans.
 Biocentrism
 Taylor lays out his ideas for Biocentrism in four main components:
 (1) Humans are thought of as members of the Earth's community of life, holding that membership
on the same terms apply to all non-human members (i.e. humans share the same value as all other
living beings).
 (2) The Earth's natural ecosystem as a totality are seen as a complex web of interconnected
elements.
 (3) Each individual organism is conceived of as a teleological center of life, pursuing its own good
in its own way.
 (4) The idea that humans are superior to other species is a groundless claim, and must be rejected
as an irrational bias.
 For Taylor, that all organisms are unified systems of goal-oriented activities directed at self-
preservation.
 We need to realize how affecting one part of that web can dramatically affect the others. For
example, if grain goes extinct, we have no grain, nor do we have the animals that eat it, nor do we
have the animals that eat those animals. Our food supply will be cut dramatically shorter.
 Biocentrism
 Taylor's biocentrism argues that we need to put limits on human population, and technology so that
people can properly share the earth with other beings.
 Biocentrism maintains that we can still eat other beings; however, we cannot do it at a rate that
harms the natural ecosystems.
 Biocentrists often emphasize the similarities between and among all species (including humans) in
arguing that there is no adequate reason to disregard the good of some living things and not others.
 Thus, we ought to care about the good of all living things – that is, they all have inherent worth.
For Taylor, humans share the same value as animals.
 But biocentrism cannot be an ethics to be practical. The duties to do no harm to living beings and
to refrain from interfering with the lives of other beings ask a great deal of humans.
 It is difficult to understand how any living being, and especially humans, could survive without
doing harm to and interfering with other living beings. Not only would abstaining from eating
meat seem to be required, but even vegetables would seem to be protected from harm and
interference.
 Biocentrism
 Another criticism emphasizes that most living things are microorganisms. The ethic appears
to imply that every bacteria has inherent worth and is due respect, which strikes some as
absurd (as well as unlivable).
 Another type of criticism focuses on the argument for biocentric individualism. It points out
that proponents of biocentrism often emphasize the similarities between all living things
(e.g., ecological interconnectedness and having a good of their own) while not attending to
the differences (e.g., only some are sentient or self-aware).
 Biocentrists standardly respond to these concerns by arguing that to claim that all living
things have inherent worth is not equivalent to the claim that all living things have rights,
the same level of inherent worth, or that they should all be treated the same. It is to claim
that all living things have direct moral standing, and deserve respect.
 However, the response continues, what respect toward a plant amounts to is something quite
different than respect toward a sentient animal, for example, precisely because one is
sentient and one is not.
 Ecocentrism
 Ecocentrism finds inherent or intrinsic value in all of nature.
 It takes a much wider view of the world than does anthropocentrism, which sees
individual humans and the human species as more valuable than all other organisms.
 Ecocentrism goes beyond biocentrism (ethics that sees inherent value to all living things)
by including environmental systems as wholes, and their abiotic aspects. It also goes
beyond zoocentrism (seeing value in animals) on account of explicitly including flora
and the ecological contexts for organisms.
 Ecocentrism is thus the umbrella that includes biocentrism and zoocentrism, because all
three of these worldviews value the nonhuman, with ecocentrism having the widest
vision.
 The ecocentric ethic was conceived by Aldo Leopold in his Sand County Almanac
(1949).
 Ecocentrism
 In his “The Land Ethic” Leopold says: “all species including humans are the products
of a long evolutionary process and are inter-related in their life processes.” To save
mankind along with other living beings and to switch our survival practices to
sustainable ones means finding a compelling belief system to redirect our own way of
living.
 The one and only compelling belief system that shifts its intrinsic values from ‘only
humans’ to the planet as a whole is ‘Ecocentrism’. This belief helps us realize that the
ecosystem as a whole is the creative centre of life and we are just functional parts of
this cosmos.
 Ecologist John Stanley Rowe (Home Place: Essays on Ecology, 1990) has argued:
 It seems to me that the only promising universal belief-system is ecocentrism, defined as a value-shift
from Homo sapiens to planet earth. A scientific rationale backs the value-shift. All organisms are evolved from
Earth, sustained by Earth. Thus Earth, not organism, is the metaphor for Life. Earth not humanity is the Life-
center, the creativity center. Earth is the whole of which we are subservient parts. Such a fundamental
philosophy gives ecological awareness and sensitivity an enfolding, material focus.
 Ecocentrism
 Ecocentrists place emphasis on the value of ecosystems. An ecosystem is an
integrated system of interacting and interdependent parts within a circumscribed
locale. They are loosely structured wholes.
 In an ecosystem boundary changes and some members come and go. Sometimes
there is competition within the whole—as in the relation between predators and prey
in a given habitat. Sometimes there is symbiosis, with each part living in cooperative
community with the other parts—as in the relationship between flowers and the bees
that pollinate them.
 The need to survive pushes various creatures to be creative in their struggle for an
adaptive fit. There is a unity to the whole, but it is loose and decentralized.
 Question is: Why is this unity to be thought of as having value in itself?
 One answer is given by Aldo Leopold in his famous essay “The Land Ethic”.
 Ecocentrism: Leopold’s View
 While giving the example of land Leopold remarked that we should think about the
land as “a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals.”
 He says, look at any environment supporting life on our planet and you will find a
system of life—intricately interwoven and interdependent elements that function as a
whole.
 Such a system is organized in the form of a biotic pyramid, with myriad smaller
organisms at the bottom and gradually fewer and more complex organisms at the top.
Plants depend on the earth, insects depend on the plants, and other animals depend on
the insects.
 In this system, individual organisms feed off one another. Some elements come and
others go. It is the whole that continues.
 Leopold also believed that a particular type of ethics follows from this view of nature
—a biocentric or ecocentric ethics.
 Ecocentrism: Leopold’s View
 The system has a certain integrity because it is a unity of interdependent elements
that combine to make a whole with a unique character.
 It has a certain stability, not in that it does not change, but that it changes only
gradually.
 Finally, it has a particular beauty. Here beauty is a matter of harmony, well-ordered
form, or unity in diversity.
 When envisioned on a larger scale, the entire Earth system may then be regarded as
one system with a certain integrity, stability, and beauty. Morality becomes a matter
of preserving this system or doing only what befits it.
 Thus Leopold remarked: “a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity,
stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends to do
otherwise.”
 Ecocentrism: Other Advocates
 The kind of regard for nature that is manifest in ecocentric views include Native
American view on nature. Eagle Man, an Oglala Sioux writer, emphasizes the unity of
all living things.
 All come from tiny seeds and so all are brothers and sisters. The seeds come from
Mother Earth and depend on her for sustenance. We owe her respect, for she comes from
the “Great Spirit Above.”
 The transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau regard
nature as a friend or kindred spirit.
 Some have characterized aspects of their nature theory as idealism, the view that all is
ideas or spirit; others characterize it as pantheism, the doctrine that holds that God is
present in the whole of nature.
 John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club also held a similar view of the majesty,
sacredness, and spiritual value of nature.
 Deep Ecology Movement
 Deep Ecology is a variant of ecocentrism. Members of this movement wish to
distinguish themselves from mainstream environmentalism, which they call “shallow
ecology” and criticize as fundamentally anthropocentric.
 The term was first used by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, a Norwegian
philosopher and environmentalist, in 1972 in his paper "The Shallow and the Deep,
Long-Range Ecology Movement".
 Naess proposed that an adequate response to environmental problems required a shift
in our ethical and metaphysical assumptions about the world.
 Deep ecology is called "deep" because it reflects critically on our ethical and
metaphysical assumptions about the world. In this sense, deep ecology refers to any
environmental philosophy that critiques deep-seated worldviews and proposes a radical
alternative.
 Deep Ecology: Arne Naess
 Naess advocated ‘biospherical egalitarianism’, the principle that all living things have
an equal right to flourish.
 Living up to this principle, Naess argued, requires humans to radically rethink our
modes of life, including our economic activity, our political institutions, and our
acceptance of human population growth.
 Metaphysically, Naess argued for a revised understanding of the self, in which the self is
seen as relational rather than discrete and bounded, and in which it is seen as including
aspects of the natural world rather than distinct from the natural world.
 With this extended conception of the self in place, environmental ethics is then seen as a
project of self-realization. The self should be understood as deeply connected with and
as part of nature, not disassociated from it.
 Deep Ecology
 Naess call that conception of human nature the “ecological self,” and it
represents humans acting and being in harmony with nature, not in opposition to
it.
 According to Naess, when the ecological self is realized, it will recognize and
abide by the norms of an environmental ethic that will end the abuses of nature
that typify the traditional self, which is trapped in anthropocentric attitudes.
 Deep ecologists take a holistic view of nature and believe that we should look
more deeply to find the root causes of environmental degradation.
 The idea is that our environmental problems are deeply rooted in the Western
psyche, in Western reductionism, individualism, and consumerism.
 We have to rethink what it is to be an individual. Are individuals separate and
independent beings? Or are they interrelated parts of a whole?
 Deep Ecology
 According to deep ecologists, solving our environmental problems requires a change in
our views about what is a good quality of life.
 The good life is not one that stresses the possession of things and the search for
satisfaction of wants and desires. Instead, a good life is one that is lived simply, in
communion with one’s local ecosystem.
 Arne Naess lived his message. He retreated to a cabin in the mountains of Norway,
which he built with his own hands. He lived a modest life until his death at age ninety-
six in 2009.
 Deep ecology also includes the belief that the flourishing of nonhuman life requires a
“substantial decrease in the human population.” (Naess)
 George Sessions argues that “humanity must drastically scale down its industrial
activities on Earth, change its consumption lifestyles, stabilize” and “reduce the size of
the human population by humane means.”
 Deep Ecology
 Some critics maintain that deep ecologists are misanthropic (biwe‡Ølx) because of
their interest in reducing the human population, or suggest that they are advocating
totalitarian methods for achieving a reduction in human population.
 Some go so far as to malign deep ecology as “eco-fascism,” equating it with fascist
plans to create an ecological utopia through population control.
 Deep ecologists would reply that they recognize that population reduction can be
achieved only through humane methods such as the empowerment of women and
making contraception available.
 Deep ecologists were influenced by Buddhism and Native American spirituality, by
Daoism and Hinduism, and by certain Western philosophers, such as Baruch
Spinoza and Martin Heidegger.
 Deep Ecology
 The members of the deep ecology movement have been quite politically active. Their creed
contains the belief that people are responsible for Earth. Beliefs such as this often provide a
basis for the tactics of groups such as Earth First!
 Some radicals advocate direct action to protect the environment including various forms of
“ecosabotage”—for example, spiking trees to prevent logging and cutting power lines.
 However, Arne Naess himself was interested in nonviolence. He wrote extensively about
Gandhi’s nonviolent methods, and he conceived his commitment to the environment in
conjunction with Gandhian ideas about the interconnectedness of life.
 He employed nonviolent methods in his own protests—such as chaining himself to a
boulder to protest a project aimed at building a dam on a river.
 Deep ecology Platform and Common Principles are enumerated in the hand-out (pp. 10-
11)
 Ecofeminism
 Ecofeminism or Ecological Feminism is another variant of ecocentrism. locates the
source of environmental problems not in worldviews, as deep ecologists do, but in
social practices.
 Social ecology, as this wider movement is called, holds that we should look to
particular social patterns and structures to discover what is wrong with our relationship
to the environment.
 Ecofeminists believe that the problem lies in a male-centered view of nature—that is,
one of human domination over nature.
 According to Karen Warren, a philosopher and environmental activist, ecofeminism is
“the position that there are important connections … between the domination of women
and the domination of nature, an understanding of which is crucial to both feminism
and environmental ethics.” (“The power and promise of ecological feminism”, 1987)
 Ecofeminism
 Feminists differ in their interpretation of ecofeminist views.
 One version celebrates the ways that women differ from men. This view is espoused by
those who hold that women—because of their female nature—tend to value organic, non-
oppressive relationships. They stress caring and emotion, and they seek to replace conflict
and assertion of rights with cooperation and community.
 This idea is connected with the feminist ethics of care. From this perspective, a feminine
ethic should guide our relationship to nature. They urge that we should cooperate with
nature and should manifest a caring and benevolent regard for nature, just as we do for
other human beings.
 Another version thinks of nature itself as in some way divine. Rather than think of God as
a distant creator who transcends nature, these religiously oriented ecofeminists think of God
as a being within nature.
 Some also refer to this God as “Mother Nature” or “Gaia,” after the name of a Greek
goddess.
 Ecofeminism
 Other version of ecofeminism rejects the dualism often found in the Western
philosophical tradition. They hold that this tradition promotes the devaluing and
domination of both women and nature.
 Rather than divide reality into contrasting elements—the active and passive, the
rational and emotional, the dominant and subservient—they encourage us to
recognize the diversity within nature and among people. They would similarly
support a variety of ways of relating to nature.
 They say that if we have a feeling for nature and a listening attitude, then we might
be better able to know what actually is there.
 They also believe that we humans should see ourselves as part of the community of
nature, not as distinct, non-natural beings functioning in a world that is thought to be
alien to us.
 Conclusion
 Motivated by a more urgent need to solve pressing environmental problems such as
climate change, ozone depletion, waste disposal and pollution, and wilderness
preservation, environmental ethics is moving toward a more active engagement with
other fields.
 Environmental ethics has broadened its scope considerably to include questions about
how environmental policy should be constrained by considerations of distributive and
procedural justice, questions about how environmental policies and practices affect
relationships of political power among social groups, questions about whether and how
ethical considerations should constrain our economic activities, and questions about
which modes of caring and valuing are appropriate to which parts of the natural world.
 Ultimately, environmental ethics aims to find answers to these questions that can be
harmonized with one another, so that they might guide us in our efforts to more ably
care for ourselves and the world we live in.