ABSTRACT
Responsible environmental action requires serious reasoning about environmental issues. We need a clear grasp of the terms we use, the values we espouse, and our beliefs about what we consider it morally proper to do. Do we have responsibilities towards the environment? What might these responsibilities be? From what sources are they derived? The chapter begins with a brief examination of some of the basic terms and concepts, such as ‘environment’ and ‘nature’, followed by a discussion of the relationship between human beings and the natural world. Next, the relationship between environmental ethics and conventional approaches in ethics is analysed in order to situate the demand for a new, environmentally-sensitive ethic. What possibilities and resources are offered by different philosophical approaches and traditions? The discussion then turns to a consideration of the values we associate with the non-human world; values which inform the way we act towards the environment, be it direct-action protests or environmental policy making. However, our considerations need to go beyond purely environmental values and the chapter concludes with an analysis of global distributive justice and justice to future generations. Reasoning about environmental issues requires us to attend to our duties towards present generations, future generations and the non-human world. The case study at the end of the chapter engages with the ethical (and other) issues raised by genetically-modified organisms (GMOs)
The terms ‘nature’ and ‘environment’ are, of course, central to any discussion. What is ‘natural’ is usually defined as that which takes place independently of human agency; it is contrasted with the artificial, with the results of human skill or artifice. The natural, in total, constitutes a single world or system of nature (Collingwood, 1946, p. 30). In this sense the term is broader than the term ‘natural’ in ‘natural history’; it refers not merely to natural objects as they appear to us, but to the underlying principles governing their being and organisation. However, as John Stuart Mill recognised, there is also a sense in which everything is natural:
It thus appears that we must recognize at least two principal meanings in the word nature. In one sense, it means all the powers existing in either the outer or the inner world and everything which takes place by means of those powers. In another sense, it means, not everything which happens, but only what takes place without the agency, or without the voluntary and intentional agency, of man.
