Environmental Ethics: Study Notes

Environmental Ethics: Study Notes!

Morality refers to the concept of human ethics which pertains to matters of good and evil, often referred to as “right or wrong”, used in three contexts – individual conscience, systems of principles, and judgements; these three collectively called moral values. Morality is a collection of beliefs as to what constitutes a good life. Morals reflect a cultural predominant feeling on ethical issues.

Most cultures have reverence for life and hold that all individuals have a right to live. Morals differ from ethics because morals reflect the predominant feeling of culture. Moral codes are often complex definitions of right and wrong that are based upon well-defined value systems and dictate proper pe rsonal conduct. The systematic study of morality is a branch of philosophy called “ethics”.

Ethics (the ancient Greek word “ethikos” meaning arising from habit) is the study of value or quality, and it is a major branch of philosophy. Ethics are concerned with what is right and what is wrong, irrespective of the culture and society. For example, it is ethical to have reverence for all forms of life and any killing is unethical.

It seeks to address questions such as how a moral outcome can be achieved in a specific situation (applied ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), which morals people actually hold to (descriptive ethics), and so on. It has been applied to analyse human use of Earth’s limited resources. This has led to the study of environmental ethics and social ecology.


Moral principles that try to define one’s responsibility towards the environment are called “environmental ethics” or ‘environmental philosophy’ which considers the ethical relationship between human beings and the natural environment.

The inspiration for environmental ethics was the first Earth Day in 1970 when environmentalists started urging philosophers who were involved with environmental groups to do something about environmental ethics. A growing trend has been to combine the study of both ecology and economics to help provide a basis for sustainable decisions on environmental use.

Environmental ethics try to define the moral basis of environmental responsibility. Environmental issues require a consideration of ethics and morals. For example, because there is currently enough food in the world to feed everyone adequately, it is unethical to allow some people to starve while others have more than enough. However, the predominant mood of those in the developed world is one of indifference. They don’t feel morally bound to share what they have with others.


In reality, this indifference says that it is permissible to allow people to starve. This moral stand is not consistent with the purely ethical one. As we can see ethics and morals are not always the same, thus it is often difficult to clearly define what is right and what is wrong. Some individuals view the world’s energy situation as serious and reduce their consumption. Others do not believe there is a problem and so do not modify their energy use. They will use energy as long as it is available.

The earth is remarkable and valuable for both the nature and culture that occur on it. Evolutionary history has been going on for billions of years, while cultural history is only about a hundred thousand years old. But, certainly from here onwards, culture increasingly determines what natural history shall continue.

The debate about ethics as applied to nature asks whether the primary values about which we should be concerned are cultural, that is anthropocentric, or whether there is an also intrinsic natural value independent of human.

Although all deliberate human behaviour differs from the processes of spontaneous nature, some are healthy for humans because they agree with the natural systems with which their cultural decisions interact. The environmental ethics from this century will increasingly have to ask whether and why cultures should preserve any natural values at all and what kind of balance ought to be reached?


The Earth is now in a post-evolutionary phase. Culture is the principal determinant of earth’s future, more now than nature; we are into a century when this will be increasingly obvious. Indeed, some say that the principal novelty of the new millennium earth will be a managed planet. Meanwhile the techno-sphere remains in the biosphere; we are not in a post-ecological phase. The management of the planet must conserve environmental values.

Ethical issues dealing with the environment are different from other kinds of ethical problems. Depending on our perspective, an environmental ethic could encompass differing principles and beliefs. All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parents.

The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soil, water, plants and animals or collectively the land. A land ethic changes the role of man from conqueror of land community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow members and also respect for the community. Some environmental ethics are founded on the awareness that humanity is part of nature and that nature’s parts are interdependent.


In any natural community, the well-being of the individual and of each species is tied to the well being of the whole. In a world increasingly without environmental borders, nations like individuals should have a fundamental ethical responsibility to respect nature and to care for the earth, protecting its life-supporting systems, biodiversity, and beauty and caring for the needs of other countries and future generations.

Ethical Guidelines to Work with Earth:

Various ethicists and philosophers proposed the following ethical guidelines to work with the earth (Miller 1996).

Ecosphere and Ecosystems:

1. We should not deplete or degrade the earth’s physical, chemical or biological capital, which supports all life and all human economic activities.

2. We should try to understand and cooperate with rest of the nature.

3. We should work with rest of the nature to sustain the ecological integrity, biodiversity and adaptability of the earth’s life support systems.

4. When we must alter nature to meet our needs or wants, we should choose methods that do the least possible harm to us and other living things.

5. Before we alter nature, we should carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment to evaluate proposed actions and discover how to inflict the minimum short – and long-term environmental harm.

Species and Cultures:

1. Every species has a right to live or at least struggle to live. Simply because it exists.

2. We should work to preserve as much of the earth’s genetic variety as possible because it is the raw material for all future evolution.

3. We have the right to defend ourselves against individuals of species that do us harm and to use individuals of species to meet our vital needs but we should strive not to cause premature extinction of any wild species.

4. The best way to protect species and individuals of species is to protect the ecosystem in which they live and to help restore those we have degraded.

5. No human culture should become extinct because of our actions.

Individual Responsibility:

1. We should not inflict unnecessary suffering or pain on any animal we raise or hunt for food or use for scientific or other purposes.

2. We should use no more of the earth’s resources than we need and not waste such resources.

3. We should leave the earth as good as—or better—than we found it.

4. We should work with the earth to help heal ecological wounds we have inflicted.

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