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Environmental Ethics Summary of Environmental Ethics Schools of Thought 1. Sustainability Since the 1980s sustainability has been used more in the sense of human sustainability on planet Earth and this has resulted in the most widely quoted definition of sustainability by the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations on March 20, 1987: “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” A universally accepted definition of sustainability remains elusive because it needs to be factual and scientific, a clear statement of a specific “destination.” The simple definition "sustainability is improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting eco-systems", though vague, conveys the idea of sustainability having quantifiable limits.” 2. Environmental Justice The Environmental Justice movement addresses the statistical fact that people who live, work, and play in America’s (and the world’s) most polluted environments are commonly minority communities and the poor. Environmental justice advocates argue that this is not an accident, and that minority and poor communities are often targeted to host facilities that have negative environmental impacts (landfill, dirty industrial plant, etc.). This movement is also called “environmental racism” when concerning communities of color. 3. Biocentrism Ethical perspectives are traditionally anthropomorphic or human-centered, in that they either assign value in human beings alone or they assign a significantly greater amount of intrinsic value to human beings than to any nonhuman things such that the protection or promotion of human interests or well-being at the expense of nonhuman things turns out to be nearly always justified. Environmental ethics proposes a new biocentric outlook, encouraging humans to consider (1) The belief that humans and other living things exist within the same greater Earth community, (2) the belief that all species (humans and otherwise) are integral elements in an interdependent, symbiotic system, (3) the belief that each organism is a unique individual pursuing its own good in its own way, and (4) the belief that humans are not inherently superior to other living things. (Taylor, 1986). 4. The Ecological Perspective American environmentalist Aldo Leopold advocated for an ecological perspective, nature-centered approach to environmental ethics. He was focusing on the idea that human Document1 Environmental Ethics action should preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. (Leopold, 1949). In the 1970s, people became concerned with the Earth’s “carrying capacity,” or how many people the planet could support given its finite resources. Scholars began considering ecological scarcity and how humans were obliged to balance human demand for the environment with the Earth’s resources to reach some equilibrium with minimal erosion to the Earth’s carrying capacity. (Ophuls, 1977). 5. Value of Species and Ecosystems Biocentrism proposes a wholly equal view of species and ecosystems, others have encouraged valuing species and ecosystems based on their intrinsic value. Nicholas Agar argued that “the value of an individual within a species is not a function only of its own goals. Its demise affects the other members of the species, depending on how plentiful the species is. This makes individuals belonging to endangered species more valuable than those belonging to nonendangered species.” (Agar, 2001) One can argue that not all populations in an ecosystem are equally important to that ecosystem’s health; and therefore under this view if a population is particularly important to ecosystemic health, then its members should be viewed as more valuable. 6. Deep Ecology The deep ecology movement endorses “biospheric egalitarianism,” the view that all living things are alike in having value in their own right, independent of their usefulness to others. This also stems from Leopold’s beliefs that there is an intrinsic value to the stability of natural processes unchanged by human intervention. That humans are just a “plain citizen of the biosphere, not its conqueror or manager.” (Devall, 1980). Deep ecology is therefore a type of ecological perspective, respecting the planet’s optimal human carrying capacity and creating healthy, ecologically viable societies above all. It represents a very spiritual, in tune with our environs approach to environmental thought. 7. Vegetarianism An ecological vegetarian may argue that they maintain their meat-free diet because of environmental ethics. That the amount of arable land needed for raising grain and other plants as food for those animals that are in turn to be eaten by humans takes much more resources then the amount of land needed for raising grain and other plants for direct human consumption. 8. Ecofeminism Ecofeminism argues that just as patriarchy is the domination of women by men, patriarchy has objectified nature by placing it in the category of “other” and denied human links with the natural world. Ecofeminists argue that patriarchy must be replaced with an egalitarian Document1 Environmental Ethics form of social organization in which men and women have equal power, and by a social ecology in which the natural environment is treated with respect and sustained rather than manipulated and destroyed. (Epstein, 1993). They also argue that capitalism is linked to this patriarchal domination, and must be replaced with small-scale economies and local democracy. It encourages linking environmental problems with wider social problems. Document1