Harmonising with Heaven and Earth: Reciprocal Harmony and Xunzi’s Environmental Ethics

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Jonathan Chua
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Normative Basis ◽  
Heaven And Earth ◽  
Ethical Relationships

Xunzi’s philosophy provides a rich resource for understanding how ethical relationships between humans and nature can be articulated in terms of harmony. In this paper, I build on his ideas to develop the concept of reciprocal harmony, which requires us to reciprocate those who make our lives liveable. In the context of the environment, I argue that reciprocal harmony generates moral obligations towards nature, in return for the existential debt that humanity owes towards heaven and earth. This can be used as a normative basis for an environmental ethic that enables humanity and nature to flourish together.

Pathways from Environmental Ethics to Pro-Environmental Behaviours? Insights from Psychology

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chelsea Batavia ◽  
Jeremy T. Bruskotter ◽  
Michael Paul Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Sociocultural Context ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Environmental Behaviour ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
Practical Agenda

Though largely a theoretical endeavour, environmental ethics also has a practical agenda to help humans achieve environmental sustainability. Environmental ethicists have extensively debated the grounds, contents and implications of our moral obligations to nonhuman nature, offering up different notions of an 'environmental ethic' with the presumption that, if humans adopt such an environmental ethic, they will then engage in less environmentally damaging behaviours. We assess this presumption, drawing on psychological research to discuss whether or under what conditions an environmental ethic might engender pro-environmental behaviour. We focus discussion on three lines of scholarship in the environmental ethics literature, on 1) intrinsic value, 2) care ethics, and 3) the land ethic. We conclude by commenting generally on both the limits and transformative potential of an environmental ethic in its larger sociocultural context.

scholarly journals Why Teach Environmental Ethics? Because We Already Do

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 227-242
Author(s):  
Christine Benton ◽  
Raymond Benton
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Ethical Dimension ◽  
Land Ethic ◽  
The Way

AbstractIn this paper we argue for the importance of the formal teaching of environmental ethics. This is, we argue, both because environmental ethics is needed to respond to the environmental issues generated by the neoliberal movement in politics and economics, and because a form of environmental ethics is implicit, but unexamined, in that which is currently taught. We maintain that students need to become aware of the latent ethical dimension in what they are taught. To help them, we think that they need to understand how models and metaphors structure and impact their worldviews. We describe how a simple in-class exercise encourages students to experience the way metaphors organize feelings, courses of action, and cognitive understandings. This is then intellectualized by way of Clifford Geertz's concept of culture and his model for the analysis of sacred symbols. From there we present a brief interpretation of modern economics as the embodiment of the dominant modern ethos. This leads into a consideration of ecology as a science, and to the environmental ethic embodied in Aldo Leopold's "Land Ethic." We close with a personal experience that highlights how environmental teaching can make students aware of the presence of an implicit, but unexamined, environmental ethic.

A New Look at the Plight of Tropical Rain-forests

1980 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem Meijer
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Tropical Rain Forests ◽  
Rain Forests ◽  
Life Styles ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The World

While developed countries of the world are expressing growing concern about the plight of tropical rain-forests, it is necessary to understand the issues involved. They are not merely populaton growth, the world food problems, and the ever-growing demand for natural resources, but also environmental ethics and the attitudes of resource managers and other decision-makers. These last issues might be even more important in the long run than purely demographic and socio-economic problems.The Author of this essay attempts to build up a case for the need of a global environmental ethic which would incorporate existing values of respect for living creatures, sacred groves, and sacred animals—such as still survives among the cultures of the less-developed parts of the tropical world. It might well be that the life-styles of strongly vegetarian societies, and the intensive tropical lowland agriculture as practiced in and around irrigated rice-fields in Southeast Asia, could be used as a model for wiser use of renewable natural resources in the lessdeveloped tropical areas.

In Defence of Earth's Insights

1997 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-182
Author(s):  
J. Baird Callicott
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
Indigenous Worldviews

AbstractThe foregoing criticisms of Earth's Insights notwithstanding: there is an environmental crisis; reconstructed postmodern science provides a privileged discourse, more particularly, an evolutionary-ecological master narrative; in which a globally credible environmental ethic may be grounded; and by comparison with which, in turn, the several local environmental ethics grounded in traditional and indigenous worldviews may be validated.

What's Postmodern about Earth's Insights?

1997 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-129
Author(s):  
Lois Ann Lorentzen
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Postmodern Thought

AbstractCallicott convinces us that diverse religious traditions provide resources in constructing an environmental ethic. However, his use of the term postmodern, while rejecting most of postmodern thought, is not helpful for his project. Callicott also presumes that nonanthropocentrism and holism are necessary for a universal environmental ethic, and provides only one version of ecofeminism. There are reasons to prefer pluralism in environmental ethics and ecofeminism.

The Temporal and Spatial Scales of Global Climate Change and the Limits of Individualistic and Rationalistic Ethics

2011 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 101-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Baird Callicott
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Temporal Scales ◽  
Temporal And Spatial

Here I argue that the hyper-individualistic and rationalistic ethical paradigms – originating in the late eighteenth century and dominating moral philosophy, in various permutations, ever since – cannot capture the moral concerns evoked by the prospect of global climate change. Those paradigms are undone by the temporal and spatial scales of climate change. To press my argument, I deploy two famous philosophical tropes – John Rawls's notion of the original position and Derek Parfit's paradox – and another that promises to become famous: Dale Jamieson's six little ditties about Jack and Jill. I then go on to argue that the spatial and especially the temporal scales of global climate change demand a shift in moral philosophy from a hyper-individualistic ontology to a thoroughly holistic ontology. It also demands a shift from a reason-based to a sentiment-based moral psychology. Holism in environmental ethics is usually coupled with non-anthropocentrism in theories constructed to provide moral considerability for transorganismic entities – such as species, biotic communities, and ecosystems. The spatial and temporal scales of climate, however, render non-anthropocentric environmental ethics otiose, as I more fully explain. Thus the environmental ethic here proposed to meet the moral challenge of global climate change is holistic but anthropocentric. I start with Jamieson's six little ditties about Jack and Jill.

Environmental ethics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Specific Aspect ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Living Things ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Moral Respect

Theories of ethics try to answer the question, ‘How ought we to live?’. An environmental ethic refers to our natural surroundings in giving the answer. It may claim that all natural things and systems are of value in their own right and worthy of moral respect. A weaker position is the biocentric one, arguing that living things merit moral consideration. An ethic which restricts the possession of moral value to human persons can still be environmental. Such a view may depict the existence of certain natural values as necessary for the flourishing of present and future generations of human beings. Moral respect for animals has been discussed since the time of the pre-Socratic philosophers, while the significance to our wellbeing of the natural environment has been pondered since the time of Kant and Rousseau. The relation of the natural to the built environment, and the importance of place, is a central feature of the philosophy of Heidegger. Under the impact of increasing species loss and land clearance, the work on environmental ethics since the 1970s has focused largely on one specific aspect of the environment – nature in the wild.

Environmental ethics in the perception of urban planners: A case study of four city councils

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (14) ◽  
pp. 2850-2867 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Pineda Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
City Planning ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Case Study Methodology ◽  
City Councils ◽  
Planning Processes ◽  
Study Methodology ◽  
Depth Interviews

Urban planning plays a crucial role in rethinking the relationships between cities and ecosystems. Environmental ethics can provide a framework for rethinking these relationships. However, the integration of urban planning and environmental ethics in the literature has not been extensive. Their integration is crucial because city planning is influenced by the ethical perspectives of decision-makers. This article uses a case study methodology to explore whether and how environmental ethics informs urban planning. Urban planners from four Australian councils were interviewed. Thematic analysis of these in-depth interviews as well as of relevant planning documents for each council was conducted. The article focuses on the key finding that the perceptions of urban planners and planning processes were mainly driven by an anthropocentric rather than a non-anthropocentric environmental ethic. The article concludes by offering recommendations and a guide as to how these topics can be researched in the future.

Sustaining an Environmental Ethic: Outdoor and Environmental Education Graduates' Negotiation of School Spaces

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lou Preston
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Beginning Teachers ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Outdoor Education ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Environmental Practices ◽  
School Communities ◽  
Education Literature ◽  
Professional Experiences ◽  
Education Courses

In this article, I draw on interviews with graduates from an Outdoor and Environmental Education course to explore the ways in which their environmental ethics changed since leaving university. I do this in relation to the graduates' personal and professional experiences, particularly in the context of teaching Outdoor Education and Physical Education in secondary schools. By offering two alternative readings of graduates' experiences, this research contributes to existing education literature about the ‘wash-out effect’ of teacher education courses once beginning teachers become immersed in schools. In the first reading I find evidence of regulatory and normalising strategies of society and school communities and a ‘plateauing’ of graduates' engagement with environmental practices. In a second reading, framed by Foucault's theory of power and ethics, I discern acts of ‘tactical’ resistance. This reading foregrounds strategies graduates use to negotiate the constraining spaces of schools.

Study on Environmental Crisis and Construction of Golf Course

2012 ◽  
Vol 524-527 ◽  
pp. 3251-3255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ke Yin Shen ◽  
Xian Juan Kou
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Environmental Ethic ◽  
Paper Analysis ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Golf Course ◽  
Golf Courses ◽  
Excessive Consumption

The rapid development of golf sport in China, not only brought the illegal construction of the growing number of golf courses, also gave rise to a certain degree of environmental crisis, and questioned by the public regulation of national policy. Based on the perspective of environmental ethics, This paper analysis follow problems: construction of golf courses in the country appeared excessive consumption of water, occupying large areas of land, destruction of ecological environment and other issues of ethical by using literature, case studies and other research methods, and propose a concrete strategy of construction in environmental ethic through combining with environmental ethics properties and principles. In the present study, the author designed to call attention to the golf course environmental problems caused by construction, with a view to sustainable development and golf-related policy research to provide reference.

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