scholarly journals Crisis and Environmental Philosophy

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Wolsing
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Environmental Philosophy ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Short Presentation ◽  
Selection Of

Environmental ethics began in the 1960s with a growing awareness of coming environmental problems such as pollution and the projected shortage of resources caused by an acceleration in human’s technically based exploitation of nature. In addition to becoming an issue in public debate and in politics since the 1970s, the environmental crisis, which can be laid at the door of industrialization, calls for a more basic consideration of man’s attitude to nature. In this paper I give a short presentation of the concept of crisis in a selection of the principal classical critical philosophies of history and suggest that they all connect crisis to the oppression of man’s inner nature. I go on to sketch the idea of environmental crisis as an oppression of outer nature (the natural environment) suggesting that a new, more nuanced organic concept of nature is needed as a condition for ascribing value to life on earth as a whole, which is what most non-anthropocentric ethical theories to some extent do.

scholarly journals Environmental Ethics: Anthropocentric Chauvinism as Seen in Western Ethical Theories

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (6S4) ◽  
pp. 1385-1389 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Environmental Philosophy ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Intrinsic Values ◽  
Biblical Teaching

The first ethical dogmas are imparted by parents and elders; however societies strongly believe only the documented proofs. So their ideas are attributed as document forms for historical evidences in philosophical view. These shreds of evidence have their origin from Ancient Greek Western ethical theories, and they consist of clever advices on how to live happily, to avoid unnecessary troubles, and to gain progress in one’s career. It is also helpful for rulers to judge people and treat them impartially. Unfortunately, these western ethical theories have eventually developed as more anthropocentric, and humans have started cultivating a chauvinistic attitude towards both nonhumans and natural resources or environment. Anthropocentrism plays a crucial role in the field of environmental ethics and environmental philosophy. This paper mainly deals with environmental ethics, which is the human ethical liaison between people and the natural world and the sort of opinion people create about the environment based on this relationship. Further it analyses how western ethical theories (misinterpretation of biblical teaching and applied normative ethics utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, and Aristotle’s virtue ethics) have given importance to human intrinsic values and how this anthropocentric chauvinism of the western ethical theories is the root of our present environmental crisis. It also proves that we are facing global crisis today not because how the ecosystems function but rather because of the immoral functioning of our ethical system.

scholarly journals Globalization, Greed and Glocal Ecology: A Psychological Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Olena Khrushch
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Psychological Perspective ◽  
Carpathian Mountains ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Entire Planet

Evidently, a globalized society causes global environmental crises. Undoubtedly, survival of human life on the planet Earth is threatened. Is there any connection between globalization, environmental crises and psychological manifestations? What are the psychological perspectives linking the ecological damages from local to the global scale? This article explores such intricate relationships and discusses the implications. The underlying principal cause is human’s unending greed to acquire maximum materials and power to control the planet and entire humanity. The greed is believed to be a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction. The greedy people are supposed to have biological, psychological and sociological drives. Evidently, global destruction of the ecosystems and natural environment are directly or indirectly linked to unprecedented chronic human greed and self-indulgence. Undoubtedly, unencumbered chronic greed of a few elite institutions led by top capitalists has put the entire planet in havoc and infiltrated widespread sufferings at the global scale. Conclusively, psychological basis of environmental problems has a sociological and socio-historical scope within the frame of globalization. Psychological account of the environmental crisis is explained subsequently in this article followed by a case study of deforestation of Carpathian Mountains staged by a greedy Austrian man.

scholarly journals Ecophilosophy and African traditional ecological knowledge

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 228-240
Author(s):  
Mark Omorovie Ikeke ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Traditional Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Silent Spring ◽  
The Commons ◽  
The 1960S

Ecophilosophy is concerned with the critical study of ecological issues. It critiques the human- earth relationship advocating for friendly treatment of the environment. Philosophy’s interests in the environmental crisis dates back to the late 1960s. Among those who were at the forefront are Holmes Rolston III, Thomas Berry, and Richard Routley. The philosophical movement towards the environment was also inspired by Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring, Garrett Hardin’s The Tragedy of the Commons, Lynn White’s 1967 article, The Historical Roots of the Ecological Crisis, Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb, and so forth. It is not that before the 1960s philosophers have not spoken about the environment. The unfortunate thing was that most of the philosophers that had spoken about the environment merely saw the environment or nature from a utilitarian perspective and nature was perceived as an object to be studied, evaluated and conquered without concern for environmental wellbeing. Yet, when the philosophic turn towards the environment began even till today, most of the voices are those of western and Euro-centric philosophers. Indigenous voices and wisdoms from non-western cultures are often ignored. The purpose of this paper is to argue for the place of African traditional ecological knowledge in ecophilosophy and environmental ethics. Through the method of critical analysis, what constitutes African traditional ecological knowledge and its place in global environmental ethics is examined. The paper finds and concludes that global environmental ethics will be incomplete and weakened without the inclusion of African traditional ecological knowledge.

scholarly journals Implications of Some Selected Ethical Theories for Environmental Sustainability and Development in Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 150
Author(s):  
Ephraim Ahamefula Ikegbu ◽  
Maduka Enyimba
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Environmental Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Study ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Negative Implication ◽  
The Right

Human actions and conduct have both positive and negative effects on humankind and its environment. This is why ethicists have propounded different theories that are supposed to guide peoples’ conduct in order to distinguish the right from the wrong. Environmental ethics as an aspect of environmental philosophy attempts a justification of the rightness and wrongness of human activities as they affect other non-human members of the society or environment. Despite the efforts of both ethicists and environmentalist, humans have continued to conduct themselves in a manner, most unhealthy to the environmental resources. This is the problematic that informed this research on “Ethics, Environment and Philosophy:  Towards Sustainable Development in Africa”. The main objective is to apply selected ethical theories to the philosophical study of environment in order to ascertain their implications for sustainable development in Africa. To achieve this goal, philosophical methods of critical analysis, conceptual clarification and deduction were employed in the examination and exposition of the nature and tenets of the following selected ethical theories: Platonism, Hedonism, Subjectivism, Teleologism and Deontologism. It was discovered upon application that, these theories present both positive and negative implication for environment, philosophy and development. Hence, humans must be positively minded whenever they undertake any action be it from the perspective of Platonists, Hedonists, Subjectivists, Teleologists or Deontologists. If there must be development and sustainability in the environment, then the positive aspects of each of these theories must be harnessed to yield what this paper describes as environmental eclecticism. Keywords: Ethical Theories, Environment, Philosophy, Sustainable Development, Environmental Eclecticism.

Should Environmentalists Reject the Enlightenment?

2001 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 663-692 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lewis P. Hinchman ◽  
Sandra K. Hinchtnan
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Environmental Philosophy ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Aldo Leopold ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Enlightenment Project ◽  
Modes Of Life

Among environmentalists today, there is a widespread opposition to the “Enlightenment project.” Deep ecologists, in particular, aspire to ground environmental ethics and politics in premodern modes of life and thought. This move fails to account for the myriad important connections between Enlightenment themes and those of contemporary ecophilosophy. Notions of a public sphere, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, and deep time, as well as new approaches to the self and doubts about the market, persist from the Enlightenment into current environmental theory and practice. The essay warns against severing environmentalism from its Enlightenment antecedents and urges instead an ethic drawn from the revered nature writer and ecologist Aldo Leopold, who was profoundly indebted to Enlightenment ideals.In recent years a rift has opened up between some currents of environmental philosophy and the legacy of the Enlightenment. Prominent eco-philosophers have blamed the latter for our contemporary environmental crisis. William Ophuls, for example, describes the Enlightenment as a desperate attempt to defy the ecological implications of the laws of thermodynamics by erecting a political order based on untrammeled growth rather than selflimiting virtue. One of the reviewers of Ophuls's book regards this indictment as “old news”; he criticizes Ophuls, in fact, for clinging to the Enlightenment paradigm in seeking to derive environmental ethics from natural laws. It would be fair to say that many, if not most, green intellectuals have come to define their enterprise as a counter-Enlightenment.

scholarly journals Wybrane problemy holistycznej edukacji środowiskowej w świetle idei zrównoważonego rozwoju

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-156
Author(s):  
Jan Sandner
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Education ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Environmental Attitudes ◽  
Holistic Education ◽  
Environmental Philosophy ◽  
Education Development ◽  
Holistic Thinking

The article is an attempt to define the problems of holistic thinking in terms of environmental education. Development of appropriate methodology in this matter should ensure a better understanding of the environment, but also indicate the mistakes made so far in the process of environmental education. All these activities should create a new quality in the issues of land management. This should lead to more effective crisis management in the natural environment on the ideals of sustainable development. Preparation of appropriate methods of teaching about the resources of the natural environment, consistent with the idea of holistic education, becoming one of the most important goals we are currently facing. Achieving these objectives is necessary in light of the tasks that are put in the idea of sustainable development. Develop a unified methodology for the holistic environmental education, environmental philosophy and environmental ethics should ultimately affect not only the state of knowledge regarding these issues but also create future substantive grounds for studies of the process of pro-environmental attitudes.

scholarly journals Environmental Ethics

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-55
Author(s):  
Mfonobong David Udoudom ◽  
Okpe Okpe ◽  
Timothy Adie ◽  
Samuel Akpan Bassey
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Practical Ethics ◽  
Ethical Norms ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Field Of Inquiry

Environmental ethics is an area that investigates the question of which ethical norms are appropriate for governing human interactions with the natural environment. Considered a branch of applied or practical ethics, environmental ethics has only existed as a subject since the late 1970s. However, concern about environmental problems is growing, and many philosophers claimed that the mainstream of ethics' only focus on humans' relationships with other humans leaving behind clear theoretical framework for ethically evaluating the relationship among humans and the nonhuman natural world. In response to this position, they recommended that a new field of inquiry was needed to investigate this matter directly. This paper looks into the thrust of environmental ethics. 

The Qur’ān as a Source for Contemporary Islamic Environmental Ethics

2020 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-248
Author(s):  
Jakub Koláček
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Specific Problem ◽  
World View ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Sacred Scripture ◽  
The Common ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Religious Actors ◽  
Ethical View ◽  
Selection Of

Since the surge of interest in environmental problems in the 1960s the world has seen a growing concern for such issues which – from its outset – has been voiced by, among others, religious actors. This paper analyses a selection of contemporary texts on the environment and the current ecological crisis which originated in the Islamic cultural milieu, and addresses the specific problem of their relation to the ethical view of nature in the Qurʼān. To that end, the first section of the study attempts to investigate the ethical view of nature within the Qurʼanic revelation, drawing on the outline of the Qurʼanic ethical world view as well as the methodology for the study of the ethico-religious concepts in the Qurʼān devised by Toshihiko Izutsu. The second part of the study compares this view with the actual interpretation of the Qurʼanic text in contemporary ethical deliberations. The study thereby attempts to show both the differences between the ethical view of nature in the Qurʼān and its contemporary perceptions articulated by the Islamic environmental ethical discourse and the common links which enable Muslim authors to seek answers to the questions of the day in the sacred scripture of Islām.

The City of Oslo in Jan Erik Vold’s Poems

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 219-230
Author(s):  
Raluca-Daniela Duinea
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Reading Technique ◽  
Social Critical ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The City ◽  
Selection Of

"The City of Oslo in Jan Erik Vold’s Poems. The aim of this paper is to examine, from a cultural and social perspective, the Norwegian urban areas and everyday situations in Jan Erik Vold’s (b. 1939) poems. Our close-reading technique reveals important social aspects, different places and streets, located in the capital city of Norway, Oslo. These urban poems written by the contemporary Norwegian poet Jan Erik Vold contribute to the reconstruction of a new Norwegian cultural identity as it is reflected in a selection of poems taken from Mor Godhjertas glade versjon. Ja (Mother Goodhearted’s Happy Version. Yes, 1968), followed by the poet’s wanderings in the city of Oslo in En som het Abel Ek (One Named Abel Ek, 1988), and concluding with his bitter social criticism in Elg (Moose, 1989) and IKKE. Skillingstrykk fra nittitallet (Not: Broadsides from the Nineties, 1993). Vold’s urban poems emphasise the transition from nyenkle (new simple), friendly and descriptive poems which present closely the city of Oslo on foot, to short, political and social critical poems from the 90s. Thus, it is of great importance to traverse various urban ‘landscapes’ in different periods of time, beginning with the 1960s, followed by the 80s and the 90s. Keywords: Jan Erik Vold, urban poems, social criticism, Norwegian urban areas, the city of Oslo "

scholarly journals Religion, Polity, and the Natural Environment in the Anthropocene Age

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peyman Hekmatpour
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Level Of Analysis

The Anthropocene age is marked by increased human impacts on the natural environment. As social beings, humans interact with each other, and with their surrounding environments, often through organizations and institutions. Religion and the polity are among the most influential human institutions, and they tend to impact the natural environment in several ways. For instance, several thinkers have claimed that some of the central ideas of the Abrahamic traditions, such as the concept of “Domination of men over the earth,” are among the causes of several anthropogenic environmental problems. By contrast, some of the ideas of non-Abrahamic, particularly animistic, religions are found to be associated with environmental conservation and stewardship. The polity can also contribute to environmental problems. The relationship between political organizations and environmental degradation, at any level of analysis from local to global, is well studied and established in the literature. Politicizing the natural environment, however, is not without tradeoffs. Environmentalism, by certain groups of people, is considered as a “stigma,” while it is a central concept in the political ideology of another part of the population. This antagonism is harmful to the environmental protection cause. I make the case that religion, or at least a number of religious ideas, can be conducive to the process of depoliticizing the natural environment. In this paper, I strive to draw a theoretical framework to explain how religion and the polity can mutually impact the natural environment.

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