Environmental ethics and environmental policies

This chapter deals with the latter call extending the status of moral patient beyond the ideal paradigmatic human being and to do it with enthusiasm and with a strong personal commitment to issues of extreme relevance for the global agenda. It argues whether reference to environmental ethics and attention on the 'more-than-humans', the term suggested by UNEP for non-humans, could be explicitly incorporated into action programmes, and whether greater emphasis on environmental protection could then be obtained. Turning to the term 'ecological sustainability' could give priority to environmental protection, and the introduction of specific attention on the more-than-humans could bring new emphasis. A dialogical approach is to be strongly considered, where science, ethical and social values, and political processes need to play a key role, but no comprehensive analysis and systematic study of the connection between ethics and environmental policies exists in literature, in the different fields of application.