Environmental Ethics

Environmental ethics is the study of the moral relations between human beings and their natural environment. Environmental ethics assumes that moral norms can and do govern human behavior toward the natural world. A theory of environmental ethics therefore seeks to provide a systematic account of such norms by explaining to whom, or to what, humans have responsibilities and how these responsibilities are justified.

Some approaches to environmental ethics argue that human responsibilities regarding the natural environment are only indirect. Anthropocentric (human centered) environmental ethics holds that only human beings have moral value. Thus, although we might have responsibilities regarding the natural world, we do not have direct responsibilities to the natural world. Anthropocentric environmental ethics typically involves the application of standard ethical principles to environmental problems. Many environmental controversies, such as air and water pollution, toxic waste disposal, and the abuse of pesticides, arise from an anthropocentric perspective, and many approaches to environmental ethics fit this standard-applied ethics model.

Much of the early work done by environmentalists and environmental ethicists followed this anthropocentric approach. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, for example, warned of the potential long-term harms to humans from pesticide use. The philosopher William Blackstone argued that environmental threats created a need to recognize a new right, the right to a livable environment. While this right emerged out of the recognition of new environmental issues, it was firmly grounded in the traditional rights of life, liberty, and freedom from harm. John Passmore argued that generally accepted ethical principles, and generally recognized ethical faults, provide sufficient ethical grounding to conclude that we have a duty to refrain from pollution and that we have been ethically remiss in not doing so. Passmore also appealed to ethical and aesthetic values in his critique of materialist and consumerist culture.

A wide range of such environmental concerns are relevant for business and thus play a role in business ethics. The responsibilities of business organizations for air and water pollution and waste disposal are the most obvious issues to fit within this standard model. The ordinary ethical and legal categories of duty, harm, negligence, liability, and compensatory justice are easily brought to bear on these environmental concerns.