SOURCE ARTICLE

Environmental Ethics (article)

Asks whether animals, ecosystems, and future generations matter beyond their usefulness to present people.

01 / EXPLORE THE TOPIC

A guide to the reading.

What this article covers

Environmental ethics asks what morally matters in human relationships with the nonhuman world. This entry explores challenges to exclusively human-centered value, individual and ecological concerns, political approaches, and sustainability. It provides a wider context for the atlas’s climate, animal-standing, and intrinsic-value connections.

Environmental concern can target individual beings, ecological relationships, future people, or valuable landscapes. These objects can generate different priorities. Protecting a habitat, for example, is not automatically the same argument as protecting every individual within it. As you read, mark the object of concern and the reason it matters. This makes the disagreements intelligible and prevents a general commitment to nature from appearing to establish one uncontroversial policy.

How to read it

Begin with the opening dilemmas and identify whether each concerns an animal, an ecosystem, future people, or human dependence on nature. Then compare the frameworks that place different entities at the center. Do not assume that valuing an ecosystem and protecting every individual animal are equivalent aims.

Questions to carry forward

Consider conflicts between ecological integrity, particular creatures, and human livelihoods. A claim that nature matters independently does not automatically choose a conservation policy. The entry develops ethical frameworks; scientific claims about interventions and their consequences still need suitable empirical evidence.

Consider an original fictional landscape used for essential livelihoods and valued for ecological relationships. Ask which claims a proposed restriction would protect and which burdens it would create. Then list the empirical questions needed before assessing an actual intervention. The entry can help articulate values and responsibilities, but practical decisions also require relevant scientific evidence and participation by affected people. Reading across frameworks shows why a worthwhile environmental goal still needs justification of its particular means.

Reference articleEnvironmental Ethics

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02 / FOLLOW A CONNECTION

Keep following the thread.

Idea · mentionsVirtue ethics

Why these topics connect

A further suggestion is that there is a need to reassess traditional theories such as virtue ethics, which has its origins in ancient Greek philosophy (see the following section) within the context of a form of stewardship similar to that earlier endorsed by Passmore (see Barry 1999).

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A further suggestion is that there is a need to reassess traditional theories such as virtue ethics, which has its origins in ancient Greek philosophy (see the following section) within the context of a form of stewardship similar to that earlier endorsed by Passmore (see Barry 1999).

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Idea · mentionsThe moral status of animals

Why these topics connect

For instance, the movement for “animal liberation”, which also emerged strongly in the 1970s, can be thought of as a political movement aimed at representing the previously neglected interests of some animals (see Regan and Singer (eds.) 1976, Clark 1977, and also the entry on the moral status of animals ).

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For instance, the movement for “animal liberation”, which also emerged strongly in the 1970s, can be thought of as a political movement aimed at representing the previously neglected interests of some animals (see Regan and Singer (eds.) 1976, Clark 1977, and also the entry on the moral status of animals ).

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Question · mentionsTragedy of the Commons

Why these topics connect

It was also in 1968 that Garrett Hardin published his much cited article on the “tragedy of the commons” arguing that common resources can always be subject to degradation and extinction in the face of the rational pursuit of self-interest.

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It was also in 1968 that Garrett Hardin published his much cited article on the “tragedy of the commons” arguing that common resources can always be subject to degradation and extinction in the face of the rational pursuit of self-interest.

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Thinker · mentionsPeter Singer

Why these topics connect

Hence, the eighteenth century utilitarian Jeremy Bentham (1789), and later Peter Singer (1993), have argued that the interests of all the sentient beings (i.e., beings who are capable of experiencing pleasure or pain)—including non-human ones—affected by an action should be taken equally into consideration in assessing the action.

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Hence, the eighteenth century utilitarian Jeremy Bentham (1789), and later Peter Singer (1993), have argued that the interests of all the sentient beings (i.e., beings who are capable of experiencing pleasure or pain)—including non-human ones—affected by an action should be taken equally into consideration in assessing the action.

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Idea · mentionsIntergenerational justice

Why these topics connect

In pursuit of intergenerational justice , it suggests that there should be new human rights added to the standard list, for example, that “All human beings have the fundamental right to an environment adequate for their health and well being” (WCED 1987, Annexe 1, paragraph 1).

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In pursuit of intergenerational justice , it suggests that there should be new human rights added to the standard list, for example, that “All human beings have the fundamental right to an environment adequate for their health and well being” (WCED 1987, Annexe 1, paragraph 1).

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Idea · mentionsIntrinsic value

Why these topics connect

In the literature on environmental ethics the distinction between instrumental value and intrinsic value (in the sense of “non-instrumental value”) is of considerable importance.

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In the literature on environmental ethics the distinction between instrumental value and intrinsic value (in the sense of “non-instrumental value”) is of considerable importance.

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Question · mentionsPrisoner's Dilemma

Why these topics connect

The problem may be analysed from the perspective of the so-called prisoner’s dilemma (also see the entry on the free rider problem ).

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The problem may be analysed from the perspective of the so-called prisoner’s dilemma (also see the entry on the free rider problem ).

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03 / READ FURTHER

Follow the sources.

These explanations synthesize philosophical discussions. Examples illustrate the ideas; connections to practical situations are editorial interpretations.

Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyEnvironmental Ethics