All three theories by Heidegger, Bookchin, and Naess are based on the normative assumption: humans perceived themselves as being distinct from a world that unites both humans and non-humans. To better understand the distinguishments that each author makes in his theory, I will reconstruct each of their assumption. After that, we will explore the rational fashioning of integrative ways and the problems that it raises. In conclusion, there may be a reiteration of the assumption in our effort to act ethically according to the ecosystem.
Heidegger’s theory orbits around the idea that humans are mortal stewards of things on the earth. He believes that humans should consider and respect non-human life forms as part of this comprehensive world in all dimensions of earth, sky, divinities, and their roles in their relative locations. In the same manner, non-humans share an undiscriminating relationship closely knit together in a network by their functions and bestowals. Because of this proximity, human’s stewardship should not promote egocentricity or superiority over non-human items. This responsibility does not seek selfish coercion, but deferential regards to such items in order to bring forth diversity and life. His assumption here implies that humans are like tenants responsible to take care of the rest of the earth as a shared home for all living things. Along with this heuristic, Heidegger supports the saving, preserving, dwelling, building, and integrating of our daily lives with respect to the whole earth.
Similarly, Bookchin believes in a respectful co-evolving community of life on earth. His theory of social ecology characterized humans as citizens of a community. Although he does not press on equality like Naess does in...
... middle of paper ...
... life for all or do we seek to use our power and values to dominate? If our treatment of our own kind is considered unjust, consider how our treatment of non-human life forms must be. As I have mentioned earlier, the consequences of our actions and values may be backfired at us and passed to future generations. Perhaps we are ignorant towards the outcome of the transformation we impose on non-human life or perhaps we are, unfortunately, ignorant towards the destruction of our own flourishing of life.
Work Cited
Sessions, George. “Arne Naess: The Deep Ecological Movement.” Deep Ecology for the 21st
Century. Ed. George Sessions. Boston: Shambhala Publication, Inc., 1995. 64-84. Print.
Sessions, George. “Arne Naess: The Eight Points Revisited.” Deep Ecology for the 21st Century. Ed. George Sessions. Boston: Shambhala Publication, Inc., 1995. 213-221. Print.
with regards to its analysis of the place of human beings in nature, whether the
Mond and his compatriots and predecessors must forge and maintain this social paradigm through careful conditioning in order to produce an efficient community of consistently wanton consumers. “The current Social Ethic, it is obvious, is merely a justification after the fact of the less desirable conse¬quences of over-organization.” Here, in Revisited, Huxley posits that in fact, the social ethics of such a World State-like society exist only to validate and vindicate the manner in which the would-be-individuals are forced to conform into their assigned roles. Huxley goes on to state, though, that it must be understood that the social organism, or rather “organization,” is an inorganic tool of society and the members of it, something that has value only so long as its parts-humans-perceive it to. Yet, over half a century later in the year 2014, the modern world has been unable to comprehend this wisdom (Or is it that it is ignorant of it?). The public educators of the day put so much emphasis on “group work” and “community service,” which seems to be an absolute prerequisite for a “higher
J. Baird Callicott is probably most famously known as an advocate for Aldo Leopold's The Land Ethic (1949.) The Land Ethic is an environmental ethic which Callicot strongly posits is a holistic and non-anthropocentric ethical theory. In other words, The Land Ethic should, if Callicotts position is correct, be an ethical theory that places collectives, as opposed to just individual living things, as having intrinsic value. It should also be an ethical theory that does not focus on, or allow, Homo sapiens to be considered the only “things” as having moral significance. The Land Ethic, originally sketched out by Leopold is a very concise, yet intricate, piece of literature and Callicott has written many pieces of literature which attempt to explain, unfold, apply and defend Leopold's Land Ethic. The purpose of this essay is to, as clearly and precisely as possible, provide an explanation as to what The Land Ethic consists of, with both references to Leopold and several of Callicot's literatures. Following this an identification of any problems that can be extracted from the theory will then be juxtaposed with Callicott's attempt to defend The Land Ethic and remedy these issues. Finally, after the presentation and analysis of The Land Ethic a decision will be made as to whether The Land Ethic is, what Callicott claims, truly an adequate non-anthropocentric environmental ethic.
The generalized nature of Gray’s description points to the conclusion that we act cooperatively as an intrinsic part of our common humanity and furthermore, that such behavior can be interpreted as a deed that recognizes our own limited and small position and rather seeks to protect humanity in a larger framework. In other words, we consistently act in a manner that chooses to preserve life and because the preservation of life associates with the maximization of good, our deeds may be falsely interpreted as purely
In order words, Nature is beautiful in the more simple way, but at the same time if nature starts to recognize danger or the feeling of dying, she will defend herself. Humanity need the use of ethics and humility at the same time in order to have a good ecological environment. During “Thinking Like A Mountain” Leopold describes the intricate of a mountain’s biomes and the consequences of disturbing their ecological balances, describe specifically with a wolf and a deer. Leopold use the wolf and the deer as an example of how human treats nature. Referring to the wolf way of think, “he has not learned to think like a mountain” like humanity has not learned to think in the way that Mother Nature want us to think (140). Leopold describes how “a land, ethic, reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and… Reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land” giving an exact example by having a group A and a group B (258). Group A describes what one needs when on the other hand, group B “worries about a whole series of biotic side-issues” (259). By having this two groups being described, humanity today is like the group A, when one really need to change their way of mind and start to be like the group B. Society needs to use the ethics with humility in order to conserve the health of the natural
The moral community is comprised of a body of people who are self-aware enough to make moral decisions and contribute to and obey moral mandates laid down by the community. According to philosopher Carl Cohen, human beings are the only known moral creatures that, "lay down moral laws; for others and for themselves. Human beings are self-legislative, morally auto-nomous" (897). It is important to distinguish that it is being self-legislative and morally autonomous and not the mere fact of being biologically human that distinguishes members of the moral community. Theoretically, any species of creatures that had the same measure of self-awareness and moral thought should be granted equal membership into the moral community and all the privileges that member...
...r these are “a cause to validate everyone’s life” (Assignment). Both suggest that humans must enjoy an original relation to nature and oppose the pre-established lives that come with increasing rationalization and urbanization.
In the process of production, human beings work not only upon nature, but also upon one another. They produce only by working together in a specified manner and reciprocally exchanging their activities. In order to produce, they enter into definite connections and relations to one another, and only within these social connections and relations does their influence upon nature operate (Marx).
A certain state of nature existed for much of the history of the earth where ecosystems and species competed and selected for/against each other, causing evolutionary change. At the point where humans started to domesticate other creatures (by selecting based on simplified understandings of characteristics which was different from those previously selected for), a new era began. This new era created new ethical questions because we developed an inter-species relationship previously non-existent. J. Baird Callicott’s extension of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic addresses a possible ethic toward wild and domestic animals, but doesn’t sufficiently examine why we should treat domestic animals differently than humans and wild animals. Accepting Callicott’s ethic toward wild animals, I argue that domestic animals have evolved to become members in the human ecosystem and should be treated in that way, rather than eliminated (Callicott), treated poorly (factory farms), or liberated (animals libera...
Analyzing human obligation pertaining to all that is not man made, apart from humans, we discover an assortment of concerns, some of which have been voiced by philosophers such as Tom Regan, Peter Singer and Aldo Leopold. Environmentally ethical ideals hold a broad spectrum of perspectives that, not only attempt to identify a problem, but also focus on how that problem is addressed through determining what is right and wrong.
It is imperative to recognize our impact on our surroundings and their impact on us. Wirzba says “…these bodies, in turn, necessarily live through the bodies of others- wheat, rice, steer, fish, microorganisms, bees, chickens. We simply cannot avoid or override the ecological truth…” (Wirzba 86). Our lives depend on the resources around us. In order to flourish, we must take care of them, or we are not living ethically. When we take into consideration the needs of our surroundings, we are considering what we need ourselves because of our direct connection.
This view, that humans are of special moral status, is constantly attempted to be rationalized in various ways. One such defense is that we are not morally wrong to prioritize our needs before the needs of nonhuman animals for “the members of any species may legitimately give their fellows more weight than they give members of other species (or at least more weight than a neutral view would grant them). Lions, too, if they were moral agents, could not then be criticized for putting other lions first” (Nozick, 79). This argument, that we naturally prefer our own kind, is based on the same fallacy used by racists while defending their intolerant beliefs and therefore should be shown to have no logical merit.
... our way when we are trying to do something such as deforestations. We should respect living creatures in our world because they have a life they should enjoy. People never want to see the dark side of an industry which is why society doesn’t seem to care or be informed. What this reminds me of personally is the show Scooby Doo which is about monsters and teenagers investigating them, trying to figure out what it is and at the end of every show it’s always a human which gives a powerful message because at the end of the day humans are the monsters, are we the monsters today? We need to open our eyes before it's too late. Life is valuable and we need to cherish every moment.
* Daily, Gretchen C., ed. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997.
Every day we are confronted with questions of right and wrong. These questions can appear to be very simple (Is it always wrong to lie?), as well as very complicated (Is it ever right to go to war?). Ethics is the study of those questions and suggests various ways we might solve them. Here we will look at three traditional theories that have a long history and that provide a great deal of guidance in struggling with moral problems; we will also see that each theory has its own difficulties. Ethics can offer a great deal of insight into the issues of right and wrong; however, we will also discover that ethics generally won’t provide a simple solution on which everyone can agree (Mosser, 2013).