Environmental philosophy is the branch of philosophy concerned with the natural environment and humanity's place within it, asking questions such as what is meant by nature, what value the non-human environment holds for us or in itself, how we should respond to environmental challenges such as degradation, pollution and climate change, and how to understand the relationship between the natural world and human technology and development. It encompasses environmental ethics, environmental aesthetics, ecofeminism, environmental hermeneutics and environmental theology, with environmental philosophers focusing on questions such as the moral status of animals and plants, endangered species, environmentalism and deep ecology, the aesthetic and intrinsic value of nature, wilderness, the restoration of nature, and consideration for future generations.
Facts
Central QuestionSourced to the subject's own accountWhat is humanity's proper place in, and relationship to, the natural world? 1 Key DebateWhether traditional western ethics is right to treat only human beings as bearing full intrinsic value, so that the rest of nature has merely instrumental worth, the anthropocentric position, or whether non-human things possess intrinsic value in their own right, independent of any human use for them. 2 Key DebateSourced to the subject's own accountWhether wilderness is a real, objective category of nature or whether it is instead a cultural construct carrying colonialist implications, a dispute associated with William Cronon. 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Environmental Philosophy (Wikipedia)
Source Environmental Philosophy (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Environmental Philosophy (Wikipedia)
WikipediaLead section
Environmental philosophy is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with the natural environment and humans' place within it.
Wilderness discussion
Another debate that arose at this time was the debate over whether there really is such a thing as wilderness or not, or whether it is merely a cultural construct with colonialist implications as suggested by William Cronon.
View the Source 2. Environmental Ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and InformationSection 1, Introduction: The Challenge of Environmental EthicsQuote, Section 1, Introduction: The Challenge of Environmental Ethics
Many traditional western ethical perspectives, however, are anthropocentric or human-centered in that either they assign intrinsic value to human beings alone (i.e., what we might call anthropocentric in a strong sense) or they assign a significantly greater amount of intrinsic value to human beings than to any non-human things such that the protection or promotion of human interests or well-being at the expense of non-human things turns out to be nearly always justified (i.e., what we might call anthropocentric in a weak sense).
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