The value of nature has been greatly debated by humanists, scholars, social scientists and many other professionals all over the world. Whereas some argue that nature might be indirectly morally considerable, many others believe that it is morally...Read More
~Posted on
Nov 2019
The value of nature has been greatly
debated by humanists, scholars, social scientists and many other professionals
all over the world. Whereas some argue that nature might be indirectly morally
considerable, many others believe that it is morally considerable. When it
comes to environmental ethics; the moral relationship of humans to the
environment and its non-human contents, some actions by human beings are not
morally permissible. According to Light and Rolston (2003), “nature might be
directly morally considerable if it possesses some kind of value (for example
some kind of value in and of itself not dependent on its value to anything or
anyone else) which could be further demonstrated as the sort of value that
demanded that we respect or protect it” (pg. 2).
Among many other morally wrong actions,
destroying or polluting parts of the natural environment and consuming
significant proportions of mother nature’s natural resources is often
considered morally unacceptable (Brennan & Lo, 2016).
I totally concur with this assertion. Research boldly indicates that global
warming is often intertwined with destroying the environment (whether for
settlement or agriculture) and polluting it. The intrinsic value of the environment
or forests cannot be ignored and neither can we overlook the effects that come
along with clearing or destroying the environment including depletion of the
ozone layer, acid rain, as well as pollution of soil, water, and air thus
impacting negatively on human beings, plants and animals.
Unlike other forms of applied ethics that
focus only on the area of concern, the scope of environmental ethics moves
beyond the human sphere. Environmental ethicists have shown concern over who
counts morally and why when unethical events occur in the environment as well
as reexamine the human-nature relationship regarding wilderness areas,
endangered species and old growth forests among other things (Light & Rolston, 2003, pg. 4). Nonetheless, humans
should start to develop a conscience about the way they act on their
environment. Deep ecologists firmly believe that humans need to completely
change their perspective about nature and appreciate it to the point of
granting rights to all wild living things.
References
Brennan,
A., & Lo, Y. (2016). Environmental Ethics. Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. Retrieved 13 March 2018, from
https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=ethics-environmental
Light, A., &
Rolston, H. (2003). Environmental Ethics: An Anthology (pp. 1-11).
Malden: Blackwell Publishers.