A role of the Environmental Ethics in the modern society

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Bioethics could be defined as the study of ethical issues and decision-making associated with the use of living organisms and medicine. It includes both medical ethics and environmental ethics. Rather than defining a correct decision it is about the process of decision-making balancing different benefits, risks and duties. The word "bioethics" was first used in 1970, however, the concept of bioethics is much older, as we can see in the ethics formulated and debated in literature, art, music and the general cultural and religious traditions of our ancestors.

Society is facing many important decisions about the use of science and technology. These decisions affect the environment, human health, society and international policy. To resolve these issues, and develop principles to help us make decisions we need to involve anthropology, sociology, biology, medicine, religion, psychology, philosophy, and economics; we must combine the scientific rigour of biological data, with the values of religion and philosophy to develop a world-view. Bioethics is therefore challenged to be a multi-sided and thoughtful approach to decision-making so that it may be relevant to all aspects of human life.

The term bioethics reminds us of the combination of biology and ethics, topics that are intertwined. New technology can be a catalyst for our thinking about issues of life, and we can think of the examples like assisted reproductive technologies, life sustaining technology, organ transplantation, and genetics, which have been stimuli for research into bioethics in the last few decades. Another stimulus has been the environmental problems.

There are large and small problems in ethics. We can think of problems that involve the whole world, and problems which involve a single person. We can think of global problems, such as the depletion of the ozone layer which is increasing UV radiation affecting all living organisms. This problem could be solved by individual action to stop using ozone-depleting chemicals, if alternatives are available to consumers. However, global action was taken to control the problem. The international convention to stop the production of many ozone-depleting chemicals is one of the best examples yet of applying universal environmental ethics.

Another problem is greenhouse warming, which results mainly from energy use. This problem however can only be solved by individual action to reduce energy use, because we cannot easily ban the use of energy. We could do this by turning off lights, turning down heaters and air conditioners, building more energy efficient buildings, shutting doors, and driving with a light foot. These are all simple actions which everyone must do if we are concerned about our planet, yet not many do so. Energy consumption could be reduced 50-80% by lifestyle change with current technology if people wanted to. New technology may help, but lifestyle change can have much more immediate affect.

Environmental ethics is a relatively new field - and the name "environmental ethics" derives from Eugene Hargrove`s journal, which was begun in late 1970s.

This field - environmental ethics, - will be subsumed as other areas of applied ethics develop more fully. The early pieces or threads of environmental ethics were disconnected...one needs a quick review to fully comprehend today`s "whole" - and know the directions in which the threads lead.

Environmental ethicists as well as policy-makers, activists etc. frequently speak about the need for preservation of various parts of nature. Two main grounds are repeatedly presented for this need:

1. Our moral responsibilities to future human beings (sometimes called sustainable development) require that we stop using technology and science for short-term gains at the expense of long-term risks of very negative ecological effects for future people. In several official declarations and policy-documents this idea has been expressed as "the precautionary principle", roughly the idea that we should not use particular means of production, distribution etc. unless they have been shown not to effect too serious risks. However, it is far from clear what is meant by this. What determines whether or not the effecting of a certain risk (in order to secure some short-term gain) is too serious or not? - and what determines whether or not this has been "shown"? Some traditional decision-theorists would say that it is a question of traditional instrumental efficiency (i.e. rationality) in relation to morally respectable aims. Some ethicists would instead claim that it is a question of whether or not the severity of the scenario illustrating an actualization of the risk in question makes the taking of this risk morally wrong in itself. Others, yet, hint that they want to take a stand in between these two extremes, however, without specifying what this could mean. There is also a rather grim debate regarding whether or not it can ever be shown that a certain action does not effect too serious risks, and this of course depends on what requirements should be laid on someone who purports to show such a thing. In both cases, the questions seem to boil down to basic issues regarding what is required of risky decisions in order to make them morally justified. But, obviously, it must be a kind of moral justification different from the one dealt with by traditional ethical theories of the rights and wrongs of actions, since these only deal with justification in terms of actual outcomes, not in terms of risks for such outcomes.

2. Natural systems possess a value in themselves which makes them worth preserving also at the expense of human well-being and man-made constructs. This idea is less common in official documents than the former (although it is explicitely set out as a part of the basis of the Swedish Environmental Policy Act) than it is among environmental philosophers and ethicists. However, also this idea is far from clear, since it is not clear neither how a natural system is to be distinguished from a non-natural one and why this difference is to be taken as morally relevant, nor why preservation is the only recommendation which follows from the placing of an intrinsic value in nature. Although there are several suggestion on what it is that makes certain systems intrinsically valuable, it is has not been sufficiently explained, first, why these characteristics (typically complexity, self-preservation/replication, beauty etc.) do not justify preservation also of systems normally not taken to be natural (such as metropolitan areas, hamburger restaurants or nuclear power-plants), secondly, why this value does not imply a recommendation to reshape rather than preserve natural systems, in order to increase the presence and magnitude of the value-making characteristics. In particular, it seems to be a challenge for a preservationist to argue in favour of restoration of certain biotic variants, without leaving the door open also for reshaping, for example by the use of modern biotechnology.

The aim of this research-project is to attack these two families of issues, both connected to the justification of common ideas regarding the importance of preserving various parts of nature. In one part (carried out by christian menthe), the project will be aimed at mapping out moral intuitions regarding the moral responsibility of the taking of risks, in order to use these for developing a normative theory of the morality of risk-taking which can be used to underpin a more specific version of the precautionary principle. The other part of the project is instead aimed at systematically reviewing various proposals (and new home-made to how to distinguish between that (i.e. nature)) which should typically be preserved according to preservationists and that which does not need to be so preserved, and to resist the conclusion that reshaping of nature might be a better idea from the point of view of typically preservationist values than actual preservation. The focus here will be on ideas ascribing a value in itself to nature or certain natural systems.

Список литературы

1. Charles Birch and John B. Cobb, Jr., The Liberation of Life: From the C ell to the Community (Denton, Tex.: Environmental Ethics Books, 1990), 357 pages.

2. Yrjo Sepanmaa, The Beauty of Environment: A General Model for Environmental Aesthetics, 2d ed. (Denton, Tex.: Environmental Ethics Books, 1993), 191 pages.

3. John B. Cobb, Jr., Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecology, rev. ed. (Denton, Tex.: Environmental Ethics Books, 1995), 112 pages.

4. Eugene C. Hargrove, Foundations of Environmental Ethics (reprint ed., Denton, Tex.: Environmental Ethics Books, 1996), 229 pages.

5. Robin Attfield, The Ethics of Environmental Concern (Denton, Tex.: Environmental Ethics Books, 1983), 237 pages.

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