One Quiz and one research paper for Business Ethics
Lisa
environmental_ethics_presentation_for_lisa.pptENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
Your name
WHAT IS ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS?
Environmental ethics- the discipline that studies the moral relationship of human beings and also the value and moral status of the environment and its nonhuman contents
It considers the ethical relationship between humans and the environment
WHY ARE ENVIRONMENTAL
ETHICS IMPORTANT?
Humans are slowly depleting all of our natural resources that other generations need for their future
Our world was created for us to live and thrive on and we are slowly killing it
Sustainability for the environment is crucial so that we do not destruct the world that was created.
THE LANDSCAPE
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10.bin
ETHICAL REASONING
Ethical reasoning is the means by which moral agents determine morally acceptable actions giving due consideration to all those deserving of moral concern.
We ask:
- What should we do?
- Why should it be done? (justification)
- How should it be done? (policy)
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DIFFERENT SORTS OF CLAIMS
- Empirical claims
- describe states of affairs in the world
- can be true or false
- To know whether a given claim is true or false, we need to know certain things about the world.
- Normative claims
- describe what ought or ought not to be the case or what ought or ought not to be done
- concern values
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VALUES
- Instrumental Something has instrumental value if and only if it is a means to something that is intrinsically valuable.
- Intrinsic The intrinsic value of something is the value it has solely in virtue of its intrinsic nature.
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SUSTAINABILITY
- Obligation: Equivalence of some sort
“An obligation to conduct ourselves so that we leave to the future the option or capacity to be as well off as we are” (Robert Solow).
- Worry: Resource depletion
BUT Instrumental values always allow substitutes
- Instrumental optimism
“There is no necessity either in logic or in historical trends to suggest that the supply of any given resource is ‘finite’” (Julian Simon).
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ETHICAL FRAMEWORKS
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Rights Theories
Individuals possess certain prerogatives to act, choose, or be in particular states and it is the duty of moral agents to accord, or not interfere, with these prerogatives.
Moral Principle: Act in accordance with the rights of others.
• the primary concept is the "right"
• stress is on what is permissible;
duties are entailed to insure "permissibility"
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Utilitarian Theories
Utility: a measure of whatever one takes to be
intrinsically good
(e.g. pleasure, happiness, or well-being)
Total Net Utility: for a given act, the sum of all
individual utilities for the collective under consideration
Moral Principle: Act so as to maximize Total Net Utility.
[In other words, do that which brings the greatest good for the greatest number of individuals.]
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Moral Considerability
Who counts? Why?
Traditional ethical frameworks are anthropocentric.
Humans are the creatures deserving of moral consideration.
Challenges:
• issues of distribution and justice
• the individual vs. the social
• responsibilities to future generations
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Climate Change
• Distributional equity and Global justice
Must all countries adopt the same
restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions?
• Obligations to future generations
How can we have obligations to persons
that do not exist?
• Uncertainty + risk
How do we handle uncertainty in our empirical knowledge and in the likely outcomes of our actions?
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Moral Considerability
Who counts? Why?
Traditional ethical frameworks are anthropocentric.
But if we ask “why?”…
Possible grounding:
• high cognitive function/rational capacities
• sentience (experiential)
• having interests
• being alive
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Moral Considerability
Who (or what) counts? Why?
When we look for the dividing line, it is not at all clear that only humans will be worthy of moral consideration.
non-anthropocentricism
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Moral Considerability
Who (or what) counts? Why?
When we look for the dividing line, it is not at all clear that only humans will be worthy of moral consideration.
non-anthropocentricism
Are species morally considerable?
Are mountains? ecosystems?
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Moral Considerability
Who (or what) counts? Why?
When we look for the dividing line, it is not at all clear that only humans will be worthy of moral consideration.
non-anthropocentricism
Are species morally considerable?
Are mountains? ecosystems?
Individualism vs. Holism
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Peter Singer’s Position
• utilitarian
• non-anthropocentric
• individualist
Grounding: sentience
(pain and pleasure as the measure of utility)
BUT this excludes non-sentient living things, and thus, presumably, any “holistic” entities.
Sticky issues: gradations of intrinsic value
“interests” versus “sentience”
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Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic
The Moral Principle:
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise".
Built upon a newly acquired, ecological understanding of the biological world…
The Land Pyramid
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"All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts... The land ethic simply enlarges the boundary of the community...”
"It is inconceivable to me that an ethical relation to land can exist without… a high regard for its value. By value, I of course mean something far broader than mere economic value; I mean value in the philosophical sense.”
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Deep Ecology
Two Basic Norms:
1) Self-Realization:
• identification
• self-in-Self
2) Biocentric Equality:
All living things have equal right to live and flourish.
All livings things are equal in intrinsic value.
(careful: "living" is used very broadly here)
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Developing
Ethical
Frameworks
Identifying
Values
Constructing
Arguments
Ethics
