Bridging the Gap between Medical Ethics and Environmental Ethics

The term and concept of bioethics (Bio-Ethik) originally were developed by Fritz Jahr, a Protestant Pastor in Halle an der Saale in 1927, long before in the 1970ties bioethics in the modern sense was recreated in the US and since has spread globally. Jahr’s bioethical imperative, influenced by Christian and humanist traditions from Assisi to Schopenhauer and by Buddhist philosophy holds its own position against Kant’s anthropological imperative and against dogmatic Buddhist reasoning: ‘Respect each living being as an end in itself and treat it, if possible, as such’. Jahr interprets the 5th Commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ offensively and liberally as ‘common morality’ which includes the obligation of caring for one’s own health, public health and health education within the wider framework of a universal bioethical Sittengesetz. Pastor Fritz Jahr, who had no immediate influence during his times, built a strong first Protestant foundation for contemporary theological and ethical concepts in medical ethics, bioethics, and environmental ethics.

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Conclusion

The Death of the Ethic of Life ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190923877.003.0008 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 183-192

Author(s):

John Basl

Keyword(s):

Medical Ethics ◽

Environmental Ethics ◽

Emerging Technologies ◽

Moral Considerability ◽

Environmental Practice ◽

Specific Species

The primary aim of this work has been to show that biocentrism is false by developing the strongest, most plausible version of the view and then exposing it to new criticisms, criticisms that are not susceptible to the standard biocentrist responses. The conclusion takes up the broader implications of the death of the ethic of life in four domains: environmental ethics and environmental practice, medicine and medical ethics, emerging technologies, and within philosophy more broadly. Given the webs of interdependence in nature, it argues that not much hangs, in terms of policy, on the fact that biocentrism or teleocentrism is false, but there are edge cases: cases where, for example, we might be thought to have an obligation to restore specific species or make reparations for past environmental wrongdoing, where the answer to questions about moral considerability matters.

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Environmental Ethics and Medical Ethics: Some Implications for End-of-Life Care, Part I

Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics ◽

10.1017/s0963180199231155 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 107-117

Author(s):

Paul Carrick

Keyword(s):

Medical Ethics ◽

Environmental Ethics ◽

End Of Life Care ◽

Terminally Ill ◽

Deep Ecology ◽

First Century ◽

Life Care ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship ◽

Dying Patient

Physicians and nurses caring for terminally ill patients are expected to center their moral concerns almost exclusively on the needs and welfare of the dying patient and the patient's family. But what about the relationship of traditional medical ethics to the emerging new theories of environmental ethics, like deep ecology? As we glide into the twenty-first century, can anyone seriously doubt that the mounting global concerns of environmental ethics will eventually influence the ethics of medicine too?

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Case-Based Environmental Ethics

The Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy ◽

10.5840/wcp20-paideia199822402 ◽

1998 ◽

pp. 94-97

Author(s):

Jack Weir

Keyword(s):

Medical Ethics ◽

Environmental Ethics ◽

The Other ◽

Theoretical Issues ◽

Case Based

Cases have been widely used in medical ethics and law. In both fields, numerous books and articles about cases have appeared, including book-length catalogs of cases. I argue that pluralistic casuistry provides an adequate approach to environmental ethics. It retains the strengths while avoiding the weaknesses of the other approaches. Importantly, it resolves some broader theoretical issues and provides a clear, explicit methodology for education and praxis.

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Applied ethics

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy ◽

10.4324/9780415249126-l005-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Brenda Almond

Keyword(s):

Medical Ethics ◽

Environmental Ethics ◽

Applied Ethics ◽

Special Focus ◽

Race And Gender ◽

Practical Concern ◽

Applied Philosophy ◽

And Gender ◽

Definition Of ◽

The Individual

Applied ethics is marked out from ethics in general by its special focus on issues of practical concern. It therefore includes medical ethics, environmental ethics, and evaluation of the social implications of scientific and technological change, as well as matters of policy in such areas as health care, business or journalism. It is also concerned with professional codes and responsibilities in such areas. Typical of the issues discussed are abortion, euthanasia, personal relationships, the treatment of nonhuman animals, and matters of race and gender. Although sometimes treated in isolation, these issues are best discussed in the context of some more general questions which have been perennial preoccupations of philosophers, such as: How should we see the world and our place in it? What is the good life for the individual? What is the good society? In relation to these questions, applied ethics involves discussion of fundamental ethical theory, including utilitarianism, liberal rights theory and virtue ethics. ‘Applied ethics’ and ‘applied philosophy’ are sometimes used as synonyms, but applied philosophy is in fact broader, covering also such fields as law, education and art, and theoretical issues in artificial intelligence. These areas include philosophical problems – metaphysical and epistemological – that are not strictly ethical. Applied ethics may therefore be understood as focusing more closely on ethical questions. Nevertheless, many of the issues it treats do in fact involve other aspects of philosophy, medical ethics, for example, including such metaphysical themes as the nature of ’personhood’, or the definition of death.

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Principled Governance

Governing Complex Systems ◽

10.7551/mitpress/9780262035934.003.0007 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Oran R. Young

Keyword(s):

Medical Ethics ◽

Environmental Ethics ◽

Precautionary Principle ◽

Legal Ethics ◽

Human Environment ◽

Governance Strategy ◽

Polluter Pays Principle ◽

Stockholm Conference ◽

Rule Making ◽

Ethical Systems

Another governance strategy features the development of principles and the coalescence of sets of principles into ethical systems (e.g. medical ethics, legal ethics). Principles provide normative guidance meant to be applied thoughtfully to the complexities of specific situations rather than to be treated as fixed prescriptions to be complied with regardless of the circumstances at hand. A series of international conferences, starting with the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment and running through the 2012 UN Conference on Environment and Development, have contributed to the development of a system of international environmental ethics. Prominent elements of this system include the polluter pays principle, the precautionary principle, and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. Principled governance is not meant to replace rule-making as the dominant approach to governance in largescale settings. But it has attractions as an approach to governance in complex systems where there is a compelling need to respond nimbly or agilely to changes that are nonlinear, often abrupt, and frequently irreversible.

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Environmental Ethics and Medical Ethics: Some Implications for End-of-Life Care, Part II

Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics ◽

10.1017/s0963180199002169 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 250-256

Author(s):

PAUL CARRICK

Keyword(s):

Medical Ethics ◽

Patient Care ◽

End Of Life ◽

Environmental Ethics ◽

End Of Life Care ◽

Deep Ecology ◽

Life Care ◽

Patient Change ◽

Dying Patient ◽

Care Of The Dying

In Part 1 of this essay, I raised the following question: How would our care of the dying patient change if environmentally inspired theories of ethics, like deep ecology, were imported into current Western norms of patient care?

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