INTRODUCTION:

The domain of ethics broadly falls into two areas, namely ethics as a subject matter and ethics as an area of study-moral philosophy. Almost all the discussions and debates in ethics are concentrated on the ‘accepted standards of conduct’. This accepted standard of conduct decides the behavior of human beings. In public life, one is expected to follow some standards of behavior which is approved by the society. The interesting point is that this standard of behavior can not reflect the true nature of an individual. Morality is a discussion about such general accepted standards in society. Ethics denotes such philosophical study of morality.¹

The physical environment in an area is the deciding factor to lead a comfortable life. We are totally depending on the physical environment. The same thing is applicable to ethical environment also. There is a strong relation between physical environment and ethical environment: “Perhaps few of us are sensitive to what we might call the moral or ethical environment. This is the surrounding climate of ideas about how to live. It determines what we find acceptable or unacceptable, admirable or contemptible”.²Ethical environment is not directly experienced, but felt through our actions. It is our thought, ideas and actions that lead to a conducive ethical environment and physical environment also. Whenever the equilibrium in ethical environment becomes unbalanced, it also distorts physical environment. Applied ethics in general and environmental ethics in particular is concerned with this ethical environment. Ethical environment has the power to preserve or ruin our physical environment. To solve the problems in environment, it is important to watch the influence of ethical environment in applied ethics and environmental ethics. This paper is an analytical study of environmental ethics in the broader realm of Applied Philosophy.

APPLIED ETHICS:

Applied ethics is the most recent branch of ethics that deals with the analysis and interpretation of specific, controversial moral issues such as animal rights, euthanasia, abortion, organ-transplantation etc. Since the introduction of applied ethics in philosophical stream, the role of philosophy is expanded and the claim of the philosopher to intervene in all the problems relating to man, society and nature is being justified. The role of philosophy, especially applied ethics is considered as having public role which is evident from the fact that applied ethics is being called upon on different levels of decision making in society. Therefore, more than working in the realms of academic moral philosophy, applied ethics surpasses academic moral philosophy and achieves the status of philosophy of social purpose. This working of applied ethics as fulfilling the demands of social purpose is regular, systematic and continuous one.

Applied ethics is viewed as the reflective philosophy of modern age. It gives importance to reflective actions of human beings, both as an individual and as a group, so as to reduce the negative consequences of actions. The historical reasons for the development of applied ethics are rather complex and diverse than simple and single source. The main point behind developing applied ethics is that ‘how best we can do those things that we all agree ought to be done’.³

The great deal of problems related with applied ethics is directed towards professions associated with medicine, law, environment, business etc. which shows the integrations of applied ethics with all these professions. The social context of the 1960’s played a large part in developing applied ethics. This period onwards the politicization of moral philosophy became deeper and this led to expand the philosophical landscape of moral philosophy. The development of media also played a vital part by promoting hot discussions and debate centered on applied ethics.

Kurt Bayertz points out about the characteristics of modern societies in developing applied ethics. He formulates it in the following manner: “Modern societies are reflective societies; nearly everything in them can become the object of communications and reflection. In a first approximation, applied ethics can be understood as one part of this communication and reflection process which tries to apply philosophical methods to a growing number of problems. Although ethics has reacted to social problems (as has philosophy in general), this reaction was mostly abstract and indirect. The difference between traditional and applied ethics lies in the latter’s direct approach to social problems”.⁴Kurtz argues further that the fear that applied ethics will disappear without trace is unfounded and as society is divided into various sub systems and institutions like bio, business, environmental etc. so the stream of applied ethics will continue to grow as society encounters new problems.⁵

Applied ethics’ main concentration is self-reflection and self-observation of all the actions in society and in this way, applied ethics transcends traditional formulation of ethics and tries to offer practical solutions or contributing viable alternatives in society. Subsequently, there is an increased tendency in institutionalizing applied ethics which is a welcoming point as far as philosophy is concerned. So far, philosophy means that which is concerned with the intricate patterns of thinking realms alone. Now, applied ethics created the new ways of looking at philosophy and this new ways is expanding its horizons through various sub-disciplines like bio-ethics, environmental ethics, business ethics, computer ethics, ethics of technology, genetical ethics etc. Applied ethics is proving the fact that there is enough space for discussing the issues in social development under the background of practical philosophy.

It is evident that the object of applied ethics is ‘real problems’ and case studies in society compared to moral theories of traditional ethics. These real problems come under applied ethics mainly because these real problems are the result of man’s actions. As the scope of ethics includes man’s actions in society, these problems come under the purview of applied ethics. Majority of these real problems are the after effects of development, especially scientific and technological development. This scientific and technological development creates new problems and challenges in relation to the value system, of which the traditional theories are not adequate to address these problems. Under applied ethics, each of these problems is evaluated separately and either re-defines the present value system or creates new ones according to the nature and context of the problem. The instruments for creating or constructing the solutions are basically ethical. “Existing morality is a historically evolved entity that can be overtaken by the development of new possibilities for action and that can, therefore, be in need of revision and adjustment. This hypothesis is the starting point of applied ethics. The other inadequacies can be corrected by ethical reflection and that it is not only necessary but also possible to create a new morality’.⁶

CLARIFICATION OF CONCEPTS:

The concepts dealt in relation with the environmental ethics have multi-dimensions. These concepts emerged from different streams of thought that do not limit in philosophy alone, but attention has been given to provide a philosophical orientation of all these concepts. Therefore, the major focus of the concepts in environmental ethics is its philosophical background or understanding, irrespective of whether they fall in the domains of ecology, geography or anthropology.

The problem of anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism in ethics is related with instrumental and intrinsic value. Anthropocentrism is human centered and therefore argues that only human beings have values in themselves. They ascribe instrumental values to nature, which means nature is for the use of human beings. The non-anthropocentric view in relation with environmental ethics argues that environment and all the species in environment possess value in themselves.

The concept of Animal rights discusses about moral status of animals as the extension of right based theories in ethics to non-human animals. Environmental movements and animal liberation movements popularized the concept of animal rights to new realms of discussion. It is this discussion of ethical rights that promoted framing of legislations against animal cruelty.

The main assumption behind Social Ecology is that social facts can be explained only with reference to other social facts. Social ecology is the result of ecological in Humanities in general. Social ecology is the meeting point of five main categories. They are

a) Ecological Infrastructure (soil, water, forest etc.)

b) Economy (forces and relations of production)

c) Social Structure (family and kinship)

d) Polity (relations of power, law, the state)

e) Culture (the arts, religion and ideology)

The philosophical aspect in social ecology is concerned with culture which includes arts, religion and ideology. It stands for an ecological society which is based on mutual co-operation between each other. It sees social and ecological process as a holistic one. Gaia hypothesis has its origins from Greek mythology. It conceives earth as a single organism and individual species including human and non-human as cells of this organism. In Gaia hypothesis, humans have a very less role and it is more oriented towards non-anthropocentrism. Deep ecology is more founded on eco-philosophy than ecology. Deep ecology is the philosophy of ecological harmony. Like Gandhian philosophy, deep ecology also stands for existence through mutual co-operation.

In philosophical perspective, ecofeminism is the rejection of man’s attitude to the natural world that is male dominated. Ecofeminism claims that women are more close to nature than man. Their view is mainly based on the assumption that domination of both women and nature are the root causes of modern crisis. According to ecofeminism, they fight against the ideology of master mentality in western thought towards women and nature. Spiritual Ecology considers environmental crisis as the result of ‘overuse’ of man’s rationality. When everything is explained on the basis of reason, our belief system and value system gets distorted. Spiritual ecology is alternative to this over rationalization process. It converts our ‘empirical ego’ to harmony. This holistic approach respects all inter-relationship between all species.

PHILOSOPHY OF ECOLOGY:

The most important challenge faced by intellectual luminaries in global level is understanding the implications of ecology in social and political thought. There is growing interest in the area of ecological philosophy. It is mainly because of the result of response to the problems of environment and man’s relation with nature. Ecological philosophy is a challenge to the enlightenment definition of correlation between man and nature.

VALUES IN ECOLOGY:

Philosophers are still in the stage of debate to determine about ecologically grounded values. How value systems can put a check on ecological deterioration is the most crucial part in ecological philosophy. Since humans are rational animals and they can think of the future denote that value systems generate a sort of obligation to act different from other organisms. Subsequently, only the value system which advocates holistic principles is able to arrive at a consensus. Tim Hayward points out three such categories, which can be articulated in terms of general imperatives.⁷

1. Live in harmony with nature–This is fundamental principle which elaborates the relationship between man and nature. Western culture viewed nature as a thing to be controlled and mastered. From ecological point of view, humans are themselves a part of nature.

2. Overcome anthropocentric prejudice – It is also a western contribution. Anthropocentrism encourages thinking like man as the masters and other species as slaves. Yet, the man, who thinks himself as part of nature, lives within it.

3. Recognize intrinsic values in being other than humans.

Peaceful co-operation and co-existence is possible only by recognizing values in every one. Humanism is also included in nature. Nature is the teacher of humans and without nature, humans have no other possibility to develop humanism. Man learns to respect each other by seeing the bounty of nature over man.

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS - THEORETICAL SETTING:

The most important philosophical disputes that centered on environmental ethics in its initial periods were mainly based on value orientation. The main issue is the kind of value that is attributed to the natural environment i.e. things other than humans, both living and non-living. Common questions like what kind of value should be attributed to things other than humans, do they have value because they are useful to humans or do they have value in virtue of its own merit which surpasses human values become significant. Those who attribute value to the non-humans–both living and non-living beings—argue that the present ethical system is outdated and uses only one parameter to judge value system namely humans. Therefore, they deviate from traditional ethics and calls for adopting new standards which is suitable to present needs.

Another group argues that the so called value system is decided by humans and so it is human interest which determines value system. With regard to environment, we can determine ethical standards convenient to humans and environment based on existing moral laws itself. Whatever may be the differences, the implication of environmental ethics is that “an environmentally informed ethics is one that takes full account of the fact that an individual organism, of whatever kind, is embedded in its environment, and gives full weight to this in deliberating about actions that are likely to affect the organism.⁸

These issues can be better explained as radicalism versus reformism. Reformists argue for continuing business as usual as we need, only to modify present policies in order to lead a better life. The best example for this sort of development is sustainable development. Radicalist’s response is more radical as they advocates for new and novel alternatives. Such development should be based on the back ground of ecology. Values and attitudes should be ecocentric and politics and economics should be ecologistic. The best role model for this sort of development is deep ecology.

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in the year 1992 gave a new orientation to the concept of sustainable development. It offered three operational dimensions to this concept.

1. Ecological dimension

2. Social dimension

3. Cultural dimension

These three operational dimensions helped to promote intellectual activity and cultural diversity among nations. In the global level, it created strong waves and different countries co-operated in the name of environment. This created a moral consciousness among different countries and this moral consciousness is implied in the concept of sustainable development.

Environmental ethics is having highest priority in our contemporary society. Environmental ethics as a discipline has strong links with the concept of sustainable development. The concept of sustainable development itself is a new philosophy with implication on environmental ethics. The sustainable development as a concept developed through the famous Brundtland Report–‘Our Common Future’, published in 1987. It recognizes that the natural resources are not inexhaustible and the development process should be oriented towards the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

This concept of sustainable development is a common denominator in most religions and culture. In fact, the very philosophy of sustainable development is oriented towards environmental ethics. It can be rightly claimed that philosophy of environmental ethics is a natural outcome of human thought. This philosophical orientation of environmental ethics has been developed through human experience with various dimensions of environment through many generations. Therefore, the basic philosophy of environmental ethics is the philosophy of unity, i.e., to reconcile humans with environment and to harmonies human thought with “an ethics of care”. This ethics of care fosters peace with our self and with the environment. Consequently, the main objective of environmental ethics is the sustainable development of human environment relationship.

INDIAN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS:

Generally, environmental issues are discussed and analyzed in terms of their scientific dimensions and policy frame works are carried out based on environmental impact assessment. Every one forgets that all these assessments are done based on the value that humans ascribe to nature. This value system is the crux of Indian religions and Indian philosophical systems. O.P. Dwivedi, in his article titled ‘Satyagraha for conservation: Awakening the spirit of Hinduism’, strongly criticizes the international bodies and environment agencies for neglecting the role of religion in environment. He argues:

Until very recently, the role of our cultural and spiritual heritages in environmental protection and sustainable development was ignored by International bodies, national governments, policy planners and even environmentalists many fear that bringing religion into the environmental movement will threaten objectivity, scientific investigation, professionalism or democratic values. But none of these need be displaced in order to include the spiritual dimension in environmental protection. That dimension, if introduced in the process of environmental policy planning, administration, education and law could help create a self-consciously moral society which would put conservation and respect for God’s creation first, and relegate individualism, materialism and our modern desire to dominate nature in a subordinate plane.⁹

From the perspective of Indian religious systems defeating or conquesting nature means destroying our own cultural values because the ultimate goal according to our religious systems is moksha or liberation and it is only through shanthi or peace that one can reach to this goal. “Shanthi is not a static situation; it is the other way around. It is a thousand fold shower of activating rays from everywhere – from the trees, from the sun, from the herbs below, from the river, from the earth. The environment would be good to one, who gives one’s own, as if unique existence”¹⁰. Therefore, for the sages, it is the harmony that prevails in nature, not the urge for conquest.

The concept of sacredness is best employed in Indian philosophy. Although western civilization considers man as sacred animal, Indian thought considers everything as sacred, both living and non-living. From a piece of dust to most complex level of organization are considered as sacred. Therefore, there is no difficulty in viewing God in a piece of stone. In fact, the concept vasudhaivakutambakam, the view that all that is alive-whether it is a plant or a human being-belongs to one single family is unique to Indian tradition and denotes interdependence. Hence, a detailed study about these ecological traditions acquires importance.

The richness of Indian tradition is so vast that there is enough space for life long study. It is evident from the fact that even western scholars like Paul Duessen and Max Muller devoted their entire life in understanding the Vedas and Upanishads. Paul Duessen points out that Upanishads has gone beyond the western realms of subjective and objective categories to transcendent meditative process. Indian spirituality contributed to the world a large set of universal values of which any single source can contribute. “This message of India has nothing creedal, nothing dogmatic or sectarian about it, for it speaks in terms of man’s development, his progress, his achievement of the highest excellence. It is just this that the world is waiting for”¹¹.India has contributed universal values at all the times of crisis. The present day society faces the greatest threat from environmental degradation. It is to this crisis Indian orientation of ecological principles becomes relevant.

CONCLUSION:

Environmental ethics as a discipline is developing rapidly and its pace is strong and rich with philosophical debates. It often has the tendency to deviate from traditional theories and travels the path out of human centered theories. The most important challenge before environmental ethics is how environmental ethics could be used for finding solutions to actual environmental problems? It may be assumed that it is not the domain of environmental ethics to suggest solutions to actual environmental problems. But as a major area in applied ethics environmental ethics cannot escape from the responsibility towards nature. It can do lot of changes especially in the areas of environmental education, creating awareness etc. Andrew Light in his article titled ‘Environmental ethics’ points out:

The problems with contemporary environmental ethics are arguably more practical than philosophical, or at least, their resolution in more practical terms is more important than their resolution in philosophical terms, at least at the present time. For even though there are several dissenters to the dominant non-anthropocentric traditions in the field, the more important consideration is that it is widely acknowledged that the world of natural resource management takes a predominantly anthropocentric approach to assessing natural value, as do most other humans. As such, environmental ethics appears more concerned with overcoming human interests rather than redirecting them toward environmental concerns.¹²

The role of an environmental philosopher is not only creating value sense and value consciousness, but also to provide moral reasons for all environments related policy matters. Such moral reasons should reach to the commons masses in such a way that they can be called as ‘doing philosophy’. Andrew Light calls such doing philosophy as ‘methodological environmental pragmatism’ by this, he means that “environmental philosophy at any variety ought to be pursued within the context of recognition that a responsible and complete applied environmental ethics includes a public component with a clear policy emphasis”¹³. Environmental sciences and environmental studies become philosophical when we add ethics in environmental studies. The use of philosophical perspectives in environmental studies is that it expands the nature and scope of environmental studies. It gives larger dimensions to the problem.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

The author declares no conflict of interest.

REFERENCES:

1. Robert Audi, ed., The Came bridge Dictionary of philosophy (Came bridge: Came bridge University press, 1999), p.285

2. Simon Blackburn, Ethics – A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford university press, 2001), p.1

3. Albert R. Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, “The Revival of casuistry” in Ruth Chadwick and Doris Schroeder, ed., Applied Ethics Vol. I (London: Rout ledge publishers, 2002), p.84

4. Kurt Bayertz, “Self Enlightenment of Applied Ethics” in Ruth Chadwick and Doris Schroeder op. cit., p.37

5. ibid

6. ibid P.42

7. Tim Hayward, Ecological Thought (Cambridge: Black Well Publishers, 1995), p31

8. John Benson, The Environmental Ethics – An Introduction with Readings (London: Rout ledge, 2000), p.11.

9. Louis P. Pojman,Environmental Ethics – II nd Edition (United States: Wordsworth publishing Company, 1997), p.248

10. Pravin Seth, Environmentalism: Politics, Ecology and Development (New Delhi: Rawat Publications, 1997), p.28

11. Anil K. Sarkar, Dynamic Facets of Indian Thought Vol.I (Delhi: Manohar publications, 1975), p.X

12. R.G.Frey and Christopher Heathwellman, ed., A Companion to Applied Ethics (UK: Blackwell Publishing Company, 2003), p.p.640-41

13. ibid p.647

Received on 09.10.2018 Modified on 25.10.2018

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2019; 10(1):85-90.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2019.00015.9