ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
Enfa Rose George
ETHICS
Moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the
conducting of an activity.
According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
ENVIRONMENT
The natural world we live in, comprising of plants, animals,
and the geographic conditions.
ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
Environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that
studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also
the value and moral status of, the environment and its
non-human contents
DIFFERENT FOCI OF
ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
ANTHROPOCENTRIC
 Human centered Value system
 Environment’s value purely on what it can give
provide for humans
BIO-CENTRIC ETHIC
 More wider view
 Value determined by the life that it contains
 Life is given an intrinsic value
 Holistic view encompasses every species and sees
value in every life.
ECO-CENTRIC
 All living and non-living things are given an intrinsic
value
 Egalitarian Approach
LAND ETHIC
 Introduced by Aldo Leopad in 1939
 He argued that non-living elements like land, water,
and air should also be given an intrinsic value
STEWARDSHIP ETHIC
 Argues since human have greater intellect, we
should act as stewards of land
 Use the earth for our needs but sustainably
DEEP ECOLOGY
 Different view from than assigning value
 Recognizes interdependence of organisms in the
ecosystem.
 Also the interdependence of various ecosystems
within the biosphere
 Asks Questions like how and why instead of just
raw science
ECOFEMINISM
 Socio-political movement that points to links
between ecology and feminism
 Points to culturally developed binaries that point to
the dominion of a so called stronger caste.
 Man over Women- Culture over Nature
OPEN DISCUSSION
 Which Foci of ethics do you most agree with?
 What counts as an ethical action, does it always
agree with science / economy?
 If not, then what weighs or decides which action to
be taken?
THANK YOU

Environmental ethics