Unit 9: CH 11 Environmental Ethics

Land Community

_______ is granted moral standing such that individual members can be treated as resources as long as the community itself is respected.

preserve

"A thing is right when it tends to ______ the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

Leopold's Ethical Holism

The most practical approach to take when making decisions about resource management.

implied

Ethical holism is ______ by an epistemological holism implicit in ecology.

epistemological

A branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.

wholes

Ethical holism acknowledges the metaphysical reality of ecological _______.

subjective

Mark Sagoff: values are not _______. "This is right" is not the same as "I want this."

principle

Mark Sagoff: Preference or _________? Willingness to pay doesn't make three the square root of six.

financial

Sagoff argues that we may and often do have policy concerns that are equal to or more important than _______ concerns. We should not substitute efficiency for safety, and we should never victimize our citizens or treat them like pawns to serve the interests of those in power.

money

Sagoff argues that we err when we suppose that all public policy questions (especially public policy vis-à-vis the environment) should be settled on the basis of ________.

rational

Baxter argues that we should allow our relationship with the environment to be determined by our own ________, long-term interest.

offs

Baxter: We must recognize that trade-______ are involved in environmental questions.

generations

Baxter: we do not have duties to the environment as such, but we do have duties to ourselves and to future _______ of humanity.

people

But when it is a choice between penguins and people, we must choose ______.

obligations

Bowie argues that business does have environmental _________, such as educating the consumer and not opposing environmental regulation in politics, and that satisfying those obligations could result in great good both for business and society at large.

conserve

Bowie: Business does not, however, have the obligation to ________ natural resources or to pollute less than the levels required by law.

Peter Singer

argues that nonhuman animals also have moral consideration, because like humans they experience pleasure and pain.

duties

Singer: Therefore, when we are making decisions about what happens to nonhuman animals, we must bear in mind that we have moral _________ to them.

alike

Singer: Equal consideration of interests doesn't always mean treating humans and nonhumans _____

Vertebrates

Singer: Nonhumans have interests; ______ have nervous systems like our own

suffering

Speciesism: Why should the ______ of nonhumans not have moral significance? (Singer)