Conclusion

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.

scholarly journals Protestant Traditions of Bioethics Bases (Translation from German by Ganna Hubenko)

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-230
Author(s):  
Hans-Martin Sass
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Education ◽  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Buddhist Philosophy ◽  
Common Morality ◽  
The Us ◽  
Modern Sense ◽  
Living Being

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.

scholarly journals Individualist Biocentrism vs. Holism Revisited

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie McShane
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Units Of Selection ◽  
Moral Considerability ◽  
Intuitive Appeal ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Endogenous Viral Elements

While holist views such as ecocentrism have considerable intuitive appeal, arguing for the moral considerability of ecological wholes such as ecosystems has turned out to be a very difficult task. In the environmental ethics literature, individualist biocentrists have persuasively argued that individual organisms—but not ecological wholes—are properly regarded as having a good of their own . In this paper, I revisit those arguments and contend that they are fatally flawed. The paper proceeds in five parts. First, I consider some problems brought about by climate change for environmental conservation strategies and argue that these problems give us good pragmatic reasons to want a better account of the welfare of ecological wholes. Second, I describe the theoretical assumptions from normative ethics that form the background of the arguments against holism. Third, I review the arguments given by individualist biocentrists in favour of individualism over holism. Fourth, I review recent work in the philosophy of biology on the units of selection problem, work in medicine on the human biome, and work in evolutionary biology on epigenetics and endogenous viral elements. I show how these developments undermine both the individualist arguments described above as well as the distinction between individuals and wholes as it has been understood by individualists. Finally, I consider five possible theoretical responses to these problems.

Ecology and Vision

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew T. Eggemeier
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Contemplative Practice ◽  
Annie Dillard ◽  
Environmental Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

This essay analyzes the significance of contemplative practice for the development of environmental ethics. The writings of Mary Oliver, Annie Dillard, and Tim Lilburn are examined as examples of the way in which the cultivation of a contemplative way of seeing the world constitutes an important environmental practice. While Oliver, Dillard, and Lilburn differ in the strategies they employ to facilitate this contemplative experience, they converge in their view that the work of learning to see the natural world with contemplative attention is a spiritual act that is not only significant in its own right but which also serves to support the development of an environmental ethics.

How Ecological Collectives are Morally Considerable

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Baird Callicott
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Human Microbiome ◽  
First Century ◽  
Moral Considerability ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Evolutionary Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Ontology

Populations, species, biotic communities, ecosystems, landscapes, biomes, and the biosphere are the referents of “ecological collectives.” The essence-accident moral ontology prevailing in twentieth-century moral philosophy cannot, while the theory of moral sentiments originating with Hume, biologized by Darwin, and ecologized by Leopold can, endow ecological collectives with moral considerability. The Hume-Darwin-Leopold approach to environmental ethics has been validated by twenty-first-century evolutionary moral psychology, while the twenty-first-century analysis of the human microbiome has revealed that erstwhile human “individuals” are themselves ecological collectives, thus rendering future ethical theory exclusively concerned with ecological collectives. To reconceptualize ourselves as moral beings in relational, communal, and collective terms is a matter of the greatest urgency for twenty-first century moral philosophy.

Enhancing Humans and Sustainability: The Reunion of Bioethics and Environmental Ethics

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 35-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan McGregor
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Emerging Technologies ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Normative Study ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Enhancement Technologies

Emerging technologies are hyped as ‘transformative’ by their proponents, who prophesize that these new technologies will significantly and beneficially change our world. Concerns have been raised about the potential environmental impacts of these technologies. Emerging technologies and their implications on humans, society, and the environment challenge our understanding of our responsibilities to the environment and future generations. Utilizing Van Potter’s sense of bioethics that meant the normative study of humanity’s place in the biosphere, I attempt to reintegrate bioethics and environmental ethics, to address questions about human well-being in the future, its dependence on complex environmental systems, and the impact of emerging technologies particularly enhancement technologies upon it. Ultimately, I argue that the future envisioned by proponents of human enhancement technologies is not consistent with our responsibilities to future generations which including leaving certain amounts of natural capital, including human ones.

Kant and the Moral Considerability of Non-Rational Beings

1994 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 129-142
Author(s):  
Tim Hayward
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Environmental Values ◽  
Moral Consideration ◽  
General View ◽  
Moral Considerability ◽  
Kant's Ethics

Kant's ethics is widely viewed as inimical to environmental values, as arbitrary and morally impoverished, because, while exalting the value of human, rational, beings, it denies moral consideration to non-human, or non-rational, beings. In this paper I seek to show how, when specific statements of this general view are examined, they turn out to involve some significant inaccuracies or confusions. This will lead me to suggest that Kant might have more to offer to environmental ethics than has hitherto been acknowledged.

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

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?

Case-Based Environmental Ethics

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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