CHAPTER 16 – ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
General Overview
In this final chapter our obligations to the larger non-human community and the rights that that
community may have are explored, especially practices involving animals whether it be for food, sport,
amusement, etc. What justifies our treatment of animals in this regard since many of our practices involve
inflicting pain, injury, and death? Are animals simply inferior to humans – like sticks and stones as Plato
said, or soulless machines according to Descartes – such that the pain we inflict requires little or no
justification? How important is the possession of reason? Are we separate from and superior to nature or
inextricably bound to it? Appropriately, this final chapter raises again some of the hardest questions of
moral philosophy.
Class Suggestions
There are numerous exercises that you might get students to engage in here for this topic. One popular
scenario is to get students to imagine they have landed on a new planet with all kinds of things that they
don’t recognize flying, crawling, and swimming. Some creatures appear to be very intelligent. Their food
supplies have run out and desperation will soon set in. They will have to decide what they can eat and what
they can’t. What criteria do they use? This kind of activity will bring out assumptions that are often
hidden, perhaps by the fact that animals seem to be almost invisibly embedded in every part of our lives
and that their use is taken for granted. Other activities might include getting students to work out a
hierarchy of animals based on categories like “Kill /destroy it because it interferes with your quality of
life” or “Own it or deprive it of its freedom without any reason,” “Perform harmful experiments on it,” etc.
This will bring out many of our inconsistencies regarding how we treat animals, as would a careful
consideration of pets and why this particular group of animals are given special rights and to which we, as
“owners,” have special obligations.
Chapter Summary
Nature and Morality
What relations are there between nature and morality?
What obligations, if any, do we have to nature?
Environmental Ethical Issues
There are a number of issues of concern:
1. Waste and destruction of natural resources
2. Exploiting, misusing, and polluting the environment
3. Exploiting, abusing, and destroying animals
a. Hunting and destroying animals for food and body parts
b. Raising animals for food
c. Using animals for scientific experimentation
d. Endangerment, decimation, and extinction of animal species
Our Attitudes Toward Nature and What Lies Behind it
Native Americans one with nature.
Eastern religions also see nature and humans as unified.
Western view more dualistic. Two sources of dualism.
1. Platonic dualism
2. Judeo-Christian
Rise of Science and Scientific Progress
Sources of dualism also give rise to science, technology, industrialization, and the encroachment of nature
by civilization.
Arguments For Use and Exploitation of Natural Environment
1. Dominance over nature
a. Religious basis
b. Natural order/evolution
2. Human reasoning versus nature as blind and non-reasoning
3. Civilization more important than nature
4. Moral rights and obligations – humans more important
Arguments Against the Use and Exploitation of Nature
1. Monistic wholism versus dominance and domination?
2. Reasoning should not separate humans from nature and nature should not be subordinated to
civilization.
Moderate Position
Treat nature with respect but still (carefully) use nature for human good.
Criteria for Animal Rights
1. Life and being alive
2. Having interests
3. Attributes of soul, mind, and feelings
4. Reason
Ways of Dealing with Animal Rights
1. Vegetarianism
2. Sentimentalism
3. Wholism
Use of Animals for Food
Ways of Raising Animals for Food
1. Factory farming
2. Free range
Vegetarianism – opposed to 1 and 2.
Carnivores – whichever method delivers best quality meat.
Moderate position – condone animals as food, except by clearly cruel methods like factory farming.
Use of Animals for Experimentation
Arguments for Use of Animals for Experimentation
Scientific and medical purposes.
Arguments Against Use of Animals for Experimentation
Not justified in making an animal suffer for human benefit.
Moderate Position
Not opposed to experiments but they must be absolutely necessary.
Killing Animals for Sport
It Should be Allowed
1. An ancient activity of man
2. Controlling animal population
3. Desire for animal meat and other body parts
It Should Not be Allowed
1. An ancient activity no longer required
2. The animal population will control itself
3. No further need for wild game or body parts
Moderate Position
1. Killing for sport allowed on a limited basis
2. No reason to kill wild animals for meat
3. No killing animals for body parts and skins
Protection of Endangered Species
1. Irreverence for segment of life is irreverence for all life
2. Species are beautiful and should be preserved for all
3. All animals contribute to balance of nature
Conclusion
Is it possible to achieve a balance between the progress of civilization and natural environment?
KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS
Nature
Civilization
Speciesism
Sentientism
Wholism
Ecofeminism
Vegetarianism
Vegan
Environment
Hunting
Factory Farming
Dualism
Dominion
Animal Rights
Experimentation
Endangered Species
ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. What justifies our treatment of animals? Reason, intelligence, superior nature, rights? Critically
examine the basis for our practices here.
2. Is hunting justified any longer? Explore grounds for and against and try to justify your own view.
3. Is experimentation on animals morally acceptable in some/all cases? Explain and defend your view.
4. “The environment and the animals in it are a resource for human beings to use as they see fit.” Do you
agree with this claim? Say why or why not and carefully define and justify the principles that ground
your view.
5. Does nature have any value over and above the value we confer upon it? Explore in relation to the
models of dominion and wholism.
TRUE/FALSE
1. Speciesism is the belief that all species are equal.
2. There is a growing recognition that natural resources are being wasted and destroyed.
3. Sentientism is the view that only beings with bodies should be the subject of moral concern.
4. The Western view has tended to adopt an adversarial relation to nature.
5. Science and technology have tended to aid and abet the adversarial relation to nature.
6. The “evolution argument” supports the idea that human beings have dominion over nature.
7. The difference between a vegetarian and a vegan is that vegans cannot eat pinto beans or wear leather
shoes.
8. The main argument for hunting is that men like it.
9. Veal calves are raised in cruel and immoral ways.
10. It is possible to achieve a balance between the progress of civilization and sustaining the natural
environment.
MULTIPLE CHOICE
11. If you believe that humans and nature together form a moral community you are a
a) speciesist
b) wholist
c) sentientist
d) hippie
12. The different traditions approach nature in various ways. The wholistic approach has always been part
of the __________________ tradition.
a) Western
b) Native American/Eastern
c) Christian
d) Jewish
13. The predominant attitude to nature in the Bible and the Judeo-Christian tradition generally has been
a) oppositional.
b) harmonious.
c) relaxed.
d) subordinate.
14. The basis for the use and exploitation of nature is the view that
a) nature will destroy us if we don’t control it (as the poet says “nature is red in tooth and claw”).
b) we are superior reasoning beings- nature is a resource to do with as we please.
c) we can make profit from nature.
d) all of the above.
15. The moderate position on the use and exploitation of nature is that
a) nature is at our disposal.
b) humans are far more important than the environment.
c) trees have rights.
d) nature and humans are intimately related.
16. A vegan is someone who does not eat
a) meat.
b) meat and fish.
c) meat and animal products.
d) pizza.
17. The main argument for the use of animals in experiments is that
a) we would have to use humans to find cures for disease but humans are more important than animals.
b) they don’t complain (too much).
c) animals don’t have rights (since they can’t claim them).
d) none of the above.
18. Which architect tried to design buildings as an organic and integral part of nature?
a) Le Corbusier
b) Philip Johnson
c) Brunelleschi
d) Frank Lloyd Wright
19. Choose which arguments support the protection of endangered species.
a) An irreverence for a small segment of life affects one’s reverence for all life.
b) Nature always allows species to become extinct.
c) All animals contribute in some way to the balance of nature.
d) If species are going extinct as a result of what we do that is part of nature.
20. What should our relationship to nature be?
a) Wholistic
b) Dominion over
c) Use it or lose it
d) Don’t worry, be happy
Answer Key on following page.
Answer Key to Chapter 16 Test Questions
True or False:
Multiple Choice: