SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL ISSUES
3.1 Introduction
Our natural environment is endangered. The United Nations reported in 2019 that around “1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history” (UN 2019).
In this module, you will get to know some of the basic ethical approaches to protecting the natural environment and our attitude towards is. A special emphasis will be given to our relationships with animals and the ethical status of our treatment of them. At first, you will revisit the scenario of the animation.
Questions about the animated video
Here are the questions that you were asked in the animated video. You can rethink the answers you chose and, in particular, why you chose them. The questions are also relevant to the contents and assignments below.
3.2 What are environmental ethics and animal ethics
3.2.1 Environmental ethics
Environmental ethics deals with questions about
• the value of the environment (or ecosystem),
• our relationship with it (primarily with the questions of our duties
towards an ecosystem),
• and how to think about practical problems concerning the environment
and formulate solutions to preserve it.
Environmental ethics is also connected with ecology (a field in biology that
investigates the relationships between organisms and their environment)
and environmental law that investigates ways of protecting the natural
environment through legislation.
Ecosystems provide us with many of our basic needs, such as clean air, food
and water, pest control, etc. In recent decades there have been numerous
calls for more concrete, extensive, and organized efforts to limit the
pollution and other types of harm that humans are causing and to protect
the environment. One (if not the most) well-known figure in these efforts to
promote the protection of the environment is Greta Thunberg from Sweden
as an originator of the Friday environmental protection and climate change
protests that emphasize our responsibility towards future generations of
the planet.
3.2.1 Animal ethics
Animal ethics deals with questions about:
• the moral status of animals, meaning the questions about how we
should regard them,
• the moral permissibility or impermissibility of our practices that include
animals, meaning the questions about how we should treat them,
• the relationship between other animals and us, meaning the questions
about similarities and differences between them and us, and about
our interdependence.
Several approaches address these questions, and you will get to know some
of them in what follows. Questions in animal ethics (and the same goes
for environmental ethics) can and often are hotly contested and can be a
source of disputes, polarization, and violence.
Environmental ethics deals with questions about
• the value of the environment (or ecosystem),
• our relationship with it (primarily with the questions of our duties
towards an ecosystem),
• and how to think about practical problems concerning the environment
and formulate solutions to preserve it.
Environmental ethics is also connected with ecology (a field in biology that
investigates the relationships between organisms and their environment)
and environmental law that investigates ways of protecting the natural
environment through legislation.
Ecosystems provide us with many of our basic needs, such as clean air, food and water, pest control, etc. In recent decades there have been numerous calls for more concrete, extensive, and organized efforts to limit the pollution and other types of harm that humans are causing and to protect the environment. One (if not the most) well-known figure in these efforts to promote the protection of the environment is Greta Thunberg from Sweden as an originator of the Friday environmental protection and climate change protests that emphasize our responsibility towards future generations of the planet.
Assignment 1
There are several problems that we and the natural environment are facing on a global scale. Write down whether they fall under environmental ethics (EE) or animal ethics (AE); some can fall under both. In the last column, write down at least one and up to three possible solutions or changes in our behavior that you can think of that would circumvent the problem in question.
Soil degradation is the loss of soil fertility, soil biodiversity, and ultimately the loss of soil itself. Almost 40% of the soil on our planet is already degraded.
Animal experimentation and testing: over 100 million animals are used every year in experiments and product testing (a large majority of them are rodents like mice and rats, but the figure above includes fish, birds, reptiles, rabbits, monkeys, swine, sheep, etc.).
Water scarcity is caused by an increased need for water and diminishing water resources. Global water demand is expected to increase greatly in the future. It has been estimated that over two thirds of the world’s population will live in water-deprived zones ten years from now.
Three-quarters of the land-based environment and about 66% of the marine environment have been significantly altered by human actions (deforestation, intensive monoculture farming, urbanization, pollution, etc.). This is one of the causes of biodiversity loss, including the extinction of species.
3.3 Environmental ethics and attitudes towards the environment
Environmental ethics is concerned with the value of nature, the ecosystem,
the environment, and our relationship to them. One way of thinking about
these issues is through the question of what is or what should be included
within the circle of our ethical or moral concern.
• Should our moral concern include animals?
• Should our moral concern include being and things that are not sentient,
which means that they cannot feel or experience enjoyment and
pain?
There are several possible answers to these questions, as presented in the
table of views below.
All and only rational or autonomous beings.
All and only humans.
All and only sentient beings.
All and only living beings.
All natural entities, living or non-living.
The ecocentrism or ecoholism view is part of the so-called deep ecology movement. Ecoholism also holds that the well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman Life on Earth have value in themselves, and this value is independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.
Usually, one can articulate three reasons to protect and preserve natural
environments. They can be stated in the following way:
A. Preserving natural environments is in our own economic self-interest.
B. Preserving natural environments is in the long-term interests of
humanity, even though it may not benefit you personally.
C. Nature is intrinsically valuable, independent of its effect on humans.
We will add to these views the view (D) that claims that the natural
environment (including animals) has no value and should not be part of our
moral concerns.
Assignment 2
After seeing the animated video for this module or reading the scenario that is included in this book, try to categorize the claims and views of Pieter-Jan, Lindsay, Sarah, David and others in the three categories of view above. Write down the answers (A, B, C, or D) in the right column.
Deep ecology stresses the importance of the third reason (C). One of its pioneers was Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), a conservationist, forester, and philosopher (image below).
The moto of his land-ethic was:
“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty
of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” (Leopold
1987, 224)
3.4 . Animal ethics and our relationship with animals
Animal ethics is a domain of ethics that deals with the moral status of humans, animals and the ethics of our practices that include them. It includes many topics as well as approaches. Some of the main approaches are briefly presented below (see A, B, C and D below).
3.4.1 Suffering or the ability to suffer
One of the most common approaches in animal ethics focuses on the disposition of (sentient) animals to feel pain and suffering. In this, they are similar to human beings. We must acknowledge the needless suffering that animals undergo due to many of our practices and try to change them. This idea has been most clearly expressed by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), when he said that concerning animals.
“The [relevant] question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk?, but Can they suffer?”.
A writer and a social reformer, Henry S. Salt (1851-1939) added to this a very simple line of thought that:
“[P]ain is pain ... whether be inflicted on man or on beast; and the creature that suffers it, whether man or beast, being sensible of the misery of it while it lasts, suffers evil.”
The characteristics that animals share with humans, particularly sentience (the capacity to feel, perceive or experience), followed by the fact that humans can refrain from many practices that cause animals unnecessary suffering, leading to the demand that we much change or even abandon these practices. It is hard to find sensible reasons for the exclusion of animal suffering and pain from our consideration of welfare. A view called ethical humanism or anthropocentrism that all and only all human beings deserve moral consideration claims that animals lack moral standing.
The prevalence of ethical humanism throughout most of history results in the state we are facing today, where over 80 billion nonhuman animals are killed annually, predominantly for food and as part of various testing and experimenting methods, having to endure a miserable, painful, and frustrating existence before their end. As far as the suffering of animals is concerned, we should substantially change our practices (meat production, intensive animal breeding, experiments on animals, uses of animals in zoos, etc.) that involve the latter.
What is the difference?
The crucial point in the rejection of ethical humanism is related to the search
for distinguishing characteristics between humans and nonhuman animals.
Such a characteristic would then supposedly define the (proper) set of beings
that share equal minimal moral status.
What could be offered as an explanation for why we should treat animals differently from human beings? Perhaps because they lack language and/or speech, rationality, reason, ability to agree to social and moral rules, they do not have a soul, they themselves do not have moral obligations?
Assignment 3
Us and Them
Think about and find three differences between human beings and
animals (these could be very general or specific, for example, some
animals have feathers while humans do not have them). Write down your
answers.
Think about how these differences are important (for animals and
for us). Pose to yourself questions like “Would birds still be birds (or
animals) if they lost all their feathers?” Would somebody cease to be a
human if he/she grew feathers? etc.) In doing this, try finding commonalities
between humans and animals. Write down at least three commonalities
that you share with animals and that are very important to you.
3.4.2 Rights
Another approach to the question of animals includes an appeal to the rights of animals. At least some animals have negative rights of non-interference, such as the right not to be killed, not to be harmed or not to be tortured. Most of our existing practices involving nonhuman animals involve some kind of violations of such rights and are in this regard considered morally wrong and unacceptable. A rights approach is based on the ascription of intrinsic (inherent) value to all sentient beings. The rights-based approach sees the attribution of protective rights to them as the best way to implement this general aim of securing the well-being of animals.
3.4.3 Abolition
The abolition approach in animal ethics advocates the abolition of the use of animals. The main issue is that they merely focus on how we should treat nonhuman animals and not on a more pressing issue that we should not treat and use them at all. In a consumer society, we often focus on “animalfriendly” products, such as “free-range meat”, “cage-free eggs”, “happy meat”, and alike. Abolitionism takes a more radical stance of seeing any use of animals as morally unacceptable and claims that any “humane treatment” or “humane consumption” is merely an illusion.
Assignment 4
Animal Room
(First, choose a room in which you will do this assignment. It can be your
room or any other room in your home).
Do you know of any product made from animals, substances derived from
animals or their labor (e.g., leather shoes or bags)? Many other things are
also made in a way that uses animals or their products (e.g., toothpaste,
chewing gum, crayons) are often made from substances derived from
animals; almost all plastic bags include substances from animals. Also,
things colored in red, orange juice, varnish, sugar, fabric softener that we
use for washing our clothes have a high chance of including at least some
animal substance. Do some research on your own using the internet. What
else might be on the list? Now use post-it notes or removable stickers and
mark and stick them to the things that are on the list. Try to mark as many
as possible. Now sit down where you feel the most comfortable in the room.
Take at least 30 seconds to just observe what the room with all the stickers
looks like.
Now write down the thoughts that came to you immediately after this
activity
3.4.4 Care and companionship
The approach of care ethics and similar approaches focus on seeing animals as our companions. They advocate a change in our attitudes towards them and for the elimination of barriers that our culture has put between humans and animals.
Animal liberation (liberation from pain and suffering) and the animal rights movement can be successful only in combating some of our current treatment of animals, but they cannot, on the whole, represent a new basis for establishing an inclusive model of an ethical community of animals and us. The way to achieve this is to develop an enhanced concern for human animals based on our common evolution and ways of living together. We are all part of a mutually dependent and interconnected ecosystem.
Our relationship with nonhuman animals can also be framed as a relationship of our fellow creatures or companions, which may be sought as company.
GLOSSARY
Abolitionism:
a view that argues for the complete abolition of the use of animals by humans.
Animal ethics:
a field of ethics that investigates the moral status of animals, their values and the
ethical status of our practices that include them
Anthropocentrism:
the belief (and associated practices) that only human beings should be included
in the circle of our moral concerns (values, duties, etc.) (also ethical humanism)
Biocentrism:
the belief (and associated practices) that all living beings should be included in the
circle of our moral concerns (values, duties, etc.)
Care ethics/ethics of care:
a moral theory that takes care, that is caring about individuals as the
central ethical consideration
Deep ecology:
a view that the natural environment or nature as a whole has a special, intrinsic or
inherent value and that we should change our relationship to nature
Ecocentrism/ecoholism:
the belief (and associated practices) that all nature, all natural entities,
living and non-living should be included in the circle of our moral concerns (values, duties, etc.)
Environmental ethics:
the field of ethics concerned with the value of environment (or ecosystem),
our relationship with it (primarily our duties towards it) and the application of ethical norms to
practical problems concerning the environment.
Land ethic(s):
a holistic and eco-centered approach in environmental ethics first developed by Aldo
Leopold, which argues for a change in the relationship between humans and nature so that the
human being ceases to be a conqueror of nature or land, but only part of it. It argues for respect for
the whole ecosystem (animals, plants, soil, water, the land itself, etc.).
Rationalism:
the belief (and associated practices) that only rational beings should be included in
the circle of our moral concerns (values, duties, etc.).
Sentientism:
the belief (and associated practices) that only sentient beings, meaning beings that
can feel pleasure and/or pain, should be included in the circle of our moral concerns (values, duties,
etc.).
Utilitarianism:
a moral theory that claims that the morally right action (or our duty) is the action
that brings about the most utility/value (usually understood in terms of net surplus of pleasures
over pain, happiness, or well-being of individuals).
REFERENCES
Engel, Mylan jr. and Jenni, Kathie. 2010. The Philosophy of Animal Rights. Brooklyn: Lantern
Books.
Gray, Richard. 2019. Sixth mass extinction could destroy life as we know it. Available at:
https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/sixth-mass-extinction-could-destroy-life-we-know-itbiodiversity-
expert.html
Leopold, Aldo. 1987. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1987.
UN, 2019. UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates
‘Accelerating’. Available at: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/naturedecline-
unprecedented-report/
