Environmental ethics is the discipline that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman contents[1]. Though what is ethical is itself unresolved philosophical question because of its highly contextual nature within history, geography and culture (time, space and cultural context), it is taken to mean, having to consider an evaluation of human conduct vis a vis environment as how it is, as against, how it ought to be. What people ought to and ought not to do with the environment. As such it’s an interface between humans and environment and their impact on each other (through lenses of gender, class, race, sex and ability) at a moral level.
As a discipline environmental ethics adheres a recipe consisting of the meaning, scope and definitions of environmental ethics, its development, the theories and philosophies (like deep ecology, eco-feminism etc), challenges and the politics of environmental ethics. Further it deals with important things as small and simple as the way we look at the environment to larger issues of global warming, climate change, global diseases etc from different vantage points.
Environmental Ethics as a discipline was born in the 1970s posing challenge to the Human centred world. It questioned the moral superiority of man over nature. It grew out as a response to works that put forward the coming of a doomsday which would eventually and drastically affect the human race. Rachel Carson’s Silent Springs in 1963 that spoke about the use of pesticides and their impact on environment and public health, Lynn White Jr’s essay The Historical Roots of Ecological Crisis in which he argued that it was basically the Judeo- Christian thinking that humans are above other life forms and that the earth is basically made for the enjoyment of man that resulted in ecological crisis, Paul Ehrlich’s work The Population Bomb in 1968 and Dennis Medows’ Limits to Growth in 1972 both which spoke about population growth and environmental crisis, that the days that were to come were numbered for the human race if they did not stop and re look at their relationship with the environment.
The call for a “basic change of values” in connection to the environment reflected a need for the development of environmental ethics as a new sub-discipline of philosophy.[2] The new subdiscipline emerged in three countries – The US, Australia and Norway looking into the ethical ways in which we need to look and redefine our relationship with the environment. As time went on, new philosophies took shape from different vantage points- Deep ecology as a critique of shallow ecology that failed to look beyond pollution and resource depletion; Eco Feminism critiquing the partiarchal oppression on nature and women.
For me, given this history of the subdiscipline and situating within my own time-space- culture contexts, environmental ethics as a discipline then is just another western hegemonic discourse that was born out of the situations and panics created in the western society, and that which has been exported to us in the east. I can only wonder, which I did throughout the course, why am I studying something that isnt unfamiliar to me. Living in the Asia, where the ways of life are woven into ecologically sensitive ways and where “modernity” has only partially penetrated our minds and cultures, I felt I was studying something that I wasn’t a part of but at the same time being connected to it[3]. At times not related but still connected. When I look at our own lives I see that we grow trees but hardly use much paper for our sanitary purposes. We protect our rivers but our energy consumption is much less than the west. We cook food and many a times end up sharing it with the gods (bhog, prasad), animals (Cows, dogs, cats) and plants(manure). We appreciate mountains and at the same time meditate for alteast two minutes realising the oness that we share with nature. Everytime a river is dammed, we raise our voices, everytime a tree is cut we mark our protest and everytime an animal is in danger we try our best to rescue it. And we respect animals for their “intrinsic” value (though there might be exceptions in all these eg: the state, smugglers etc). Then do we need something like a course in Environmental Ethics?
Yet on a second thought I feel the course makes us think as to how we do take steps that aren’t right enough for the environment, how our own cultures can give better options (and solutions) than we ever thought they would (we value western medicine more than our own home bred ayurveda, and only relook at it, accept it and celebrate it when the west has accepted and acknolwedged it). Given the “rationality” of western science and technology which is highly valued as “developed”, “modern” and “sophisticated” and we as given-in subjects to these highly valued western discourses often fail to look whats available in the ground beneath our own feet. Environmental ethics does the job, it takes us back to our treasures critiquing the west and its “modern” “sophiticated” “developed” ways of life. As such even as the discipline emerges out to respond and serve the western panic of environmental crises, it reaffirms the value system of the ecologically sensitive cultures and helps us to set our minds to think whether we are doing something right or wrong (a western acknolwedgement of eco-sensitive cultures to which I am bowing? Cant help, I too am from the system!). As we become more and more western centric, more consumeristic, as more Malls and Flyovers, Burgers and Pizzas, PETAs and Fabindias, ITs and MNCs –chic, swank, modern, global, cover our skyline replacing the local, common, “traditional”, environmental ethics shall play a vital role in adressing our new (western?) problems and panics that arise out in our relationship with nature and beyond. (Art of Living has already brought Indian meditation and a “Smile” back into the lives of well educated middle and higher classes). The discipline comes to our resue there giving us options to choose from to make up for the mistakes that the west created sometimes ago and transferred them to us quietly.The discipline is good as far as it invokes a sense of responsibility in us towards our surroundings and makes us sensitive enough to do what is ought to be done.
But somewhere deep down I feel that the West is selling our own property to us putting a chic brand tag name called Environmental Ethics.
References
[2] ibid
[3] ‘Women are closer to nature and men are closer to culture…..’says eco feminism. But I too am as close to nature as women are though I am not a woman. How do I negotiate my own sense of self to this argument which is basically an argument from the western scholars
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