by Carrie Wilson

Created on: May 03, 2009

Given the earth's current state it is understandable that environmental ethics would be a hot topic of discussion. The demolishment of forest, pollution of lakes and rivers and the ever dwindling state of the earth's atmosphere are just a few issues that have given environmentalist a voice in political decision making. For these reasons and many others, environmental ethics are playing an important role in our world today. Some might think it radical to claim that littering and pollution is morally wrong, but I intend to prove otherwise. In order to better understand our world as it relates to the environment, it is important to examine the history of environmental ethics as well as its current events and expected future.

The History

Many of the early perspectives of environmental ethics were human-centered or anthropocentric in nature. This view would give humans a greater amount of intrinsic value than nonhuman life. For example, Aristotle believed that "nature has made all things specifically for the sake of man" therefore plants and animals were on earth for the instrumental use of man. (Brennan, 2008) Some historians think that this view found reason to justify their arrogance in the Bible and other Judeo-Christian beliefs. (Brennan, 2008) Genesis
1:27-8 reads, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." This quote from the book of Genesis would support the anthropocentric view that man is the ruler of all plants and animals and that they are man's to destroy without any injustice.

Immanuel Kant, an eighteenth century philosopher shared a human dominated view. Kant believed that nonhuman animals had no moral standing and our treatment of them is unimportant and insignificant. Even cruel and torturous behavior toward animals was viewed by can't to be neither moral nor immoral. He refers to the cruel behavior as being amoral and falling somewhere in between. According to Kantian philosophy, "Genuine ethical behavior must be driven entirely and exclusively by ethical principles derived from pure reason." (Waller 2008, pg 137) So because non human animals do not have the ability to rationalize, Kant concludes that they cannot behave in a moral way or qualify as a moral

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