ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we examined one of the central claims made by proponents of the need for a new environmental ethic. The claim is that a new ethic requires a new ethical theory that extends moral consideration beyond humans to include a variety of non-human entities. Debates of this nature, about who or what is entitled to moral consideration, form a part of what is often called ‘normative ethics’. Normative ethics deals with first-order substantive questions in ethics, including those at the heart of environmental ethics which concern the significance of environmental changes, and the relative importance of those beings, human and non-human, who are affected. As we saw in part one of this book, normative ethics also typically involves an attempt to offer systematic theoretical frameworks for the justification and articulation of such claims. Consequentialist, deontological, and virtue theories are standard examples of such systematic theoretical frameworks. Proponents of the need for a new environmental ethic have tended to see themselves as engaged in a continuation of the very same project, but as offering different foundational postulates about the scope of moral considerability from those that have hitherto dominated mainstream ethics. In the last chapter we suggested some reasons for scepticism about the very nature of this project.
