Environmental Ethics Assignment Paper

For this assignment, please do the following: From the 5 choices below, decide which offers the best ethical approach to understanding the moral status of the environment and our relationship to it. You must decide which ethic is best if you had to choose. You must explain and critique the 5 approaches to environmental ethics listed below. You can use other articles in the textbook to find critiques of the theories. You can utilize your work on previous assignments. Please read my “Table of the Development of Environmental Ethics” that is on the Assignments Page.

1. Anthropocentric Ethics (Explain Kant and some interpretations of the Bible)

2. Animal Rights and Welfare (Explain Tom Regan and Peter Singer)

3. Biocentric Ethics (Explain Paul Taylor)

4. Ecocentric Ethics (Explain Aldo Leopold and Callicott)

5. Deep Ecology (Explain Arne Naess’ articles and the article by Bill Devall and George Sessions on Deep Ecology.)

To decide, you should consider these issues:

Do only humans have intrinsic value, and everything else has value only insofar as it affects humans?

Do some animals have intrinsic value? If so, why and which ones?

Do all living individual things have intrinsic value?

Should we go further and include non-living wholes, like ecological systems, or even the whole biosphere of the planet?

Recognize the distinction between valuing living individuals (biocentrism) and wholes like forests, rivers, and mountains (ecocentrism and deep ecology).

What are the basic criteria for having moral value in each of these theories. What are their main principles? Are they good?

What are the specific arguments of the philosophers? Are they good?

Consider that the best theory should help us confront, recognize, and solve serious environmental problems.

 

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