Environmental Ethics

What Are Ethics?

• Ethics are principles of conduct governing an individual or a group.

"Ethics has to do with what my feelings tell me is right or wrong."

• many people tend to equate ethics with their feelings

• Can you think of a time that you did something right but felt bad?

"Ethics has to do with my religious beliefs."

• You should not identify ethics with religion. Ethics were confined to religion, then ethics would apply only to religious people.

Can you think of a situation where a religious person is unethical? And vice versa…..

"Being ethical is doing what the law requires."

• Can you think of an example where the law does not agree with what you to be morally right?

"Ethics consists of the standards of behavior our society accepts."

• In any society, most people accept standards that are, in fact, ethical. But standards of behavior in society can deviate from what is ethical. An entire society can become ethically corrupt. Nazi Germany is a good example of a morally corrupt society.

• if being ethical were doing "whatever society accepts," then to find out what is ethical, one would have to find out what society accepts. To decide what I should think about abortion, for example, I would have to take a survey of American society and then conform my beliefs to whatever society accepts.

Examples• standards that impose the reasonable

obligations to not rape, or steal, murder, assault, slander, and fraud.

• also includes those that enjoin virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty.

• And, ethical standards include standards relating to rights, such as the right to life, the right to freedom from injury, and the right to privacy.

• ethics refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards.

• As mentioned before, feelings, laws, and social norms can deviate from what is ethical. So it is necessary to constantly examine one's standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-founded.

• Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our own moral beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based.

So how does this relate to the environment?

• The western world has always followed the Frontier Ethic

Frontier Ethic

1. The world has an unlimited supply of resources for exclusive human use.

• Bigger is better• Our value as an individual is

measured by the things we possess

• Faster is best

2. Humans are apart from nature, immune to its laws.

• Science and technology can solve all problems

3. Success stems from the control and domination of nature.

• America was given to us by right and we can use it as we see fit

Homework

• Discuss how the frontier ethic has led to many of the environmental problems we face today…..then write opposite statements to each of the frontier ethic statements that would help the environment be more sustainable.