environmental ethics
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The problem of sustainable development emerged in today’s environmental crisis is mainly caused by the Western modernist model of consumption. The later fails to preserve the environment and keeps its promises for sustaining it.Their failure questions, in myriad of ways, the ethical dimensions of human attachment to their environment. The present paper aims at investigating the contribution of people’s ethical commitment in protecting the environment in creating the fair balance between the demands of present generations and the future generations. It attempts also to approach the question of sustainable development from applied philosophy and Islamic ethics perspectives. The study uses the analytical and descriptive method to deal with the problematic relationship between ethics and sustainable development. It concludes that the lack of the environmental ethics hinders establishing a sustainable development for our environment.

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.

Every human being has the right to decent life but today there are elements in our environment that tend to militate against the attainment and enjoyment of such a life. The exacerbation of the pollution of environment can cause untold misery. Unhappiness and suffering to human beings, simply because of our lack of concerns for the common good and the absence of sense of responsibility and ethics for sustaining a balanced eco-system. If we are to aspire to a better quality of life – one which will ensure freedom from want, from disease and from fear itself, then we must all join hands to stem the increasing toxification of this earth. What we need in order to defuse this environmental time bomb is immediate concerted action of all the people, but such needed action will come only if we reorient such citizenry values, i.e., imbibe them with proper awareness and values (ethics), specifically those that will lead to a greater concern for preserving balance in the ecosystem, besides teaching them how to save the environment from further degradation, and to help, make it more healthful and progressive place to live in, springs from a strong sense of social responsibility. KEYWORD: Environmental Ethics

This chapter begins Part III, which argues that the relational moral theory of rightness as friendliness is a strong competitor to Western principles in many applied ethical contexts. Chapter 8 articulates and defends a novel, relational account of moral status, according to which an entity is owed moral consideration roughly to the degree that it is capable of being party to a communal relationship. One of its implications is that many animals have a moral status but not one as high as ours, which many readers will find attractive, but which utilitarianism and Kantianism cannot easily accommodate. Relational moral status also grounds a promising response to the ‘argument from marginal cases’ that animals have the same moral status as incapacitated humans: even if two beings have identical intrinsic properties, they can differ in the extent to which they can relate and hence differ in their degree of moral status.

The problem of ecology is one of the most common problems of the twenty-first century. No country is immune: no country has better military equipment, no country with low inflation, no country with “perfect” legislation. The purpose of the article was to clarify legislative issues: European Union legislation was outdated, general and lacking in specificity. To address these problems, this article uses different approaches to the definition of environmental security, which makes it necessary to change the concept and the actions within which the definition is adopted. The article goes on to discuss the position of realists who argue that environmental security cannot be set because of lack of accountability “the importance” of the issue of “high” issues. Thus, the paper refers to the emergence of environmental security and its long path. This article contains the following changes and provisions: Brundtland Committee (1987), Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Habitats in Europe (1979), International Tropical Timber Agreement (1983) as well as the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (1979), the Maastricht Treaty (1992), the Hazardous Substances Directives, the impact of EU measures on the environment and the Animal Protection Directive. In addition, the article exposes Programs designed to ensure and regulate environmental safety. The report of the European Environment Agency was also reviewed and a comparative analysis of the data contained in the report and the British Broadcasting Corporation estimates was made. The authors draw attention to several directives, calling them “triumvirate”, which provide the basis for countries to regulate some environmental legislation. Almost in the end of the paper the authors pay attention to the phenomenon of environmental ethics, which is a consequence of imperfect legislation. In its conclusion, the article states that the problems that arise from the lack of accountability of legal acts of a real environmental situation occur in the member states, taking into account the special case of the European Union.

<p>Over the past few decades, rising meat and dairy consumption has had increased environmental implications, ranging from soaring greenhouse gas emissions to river pollution in Aotearoa New Zealand. Recent studies suggest the importance of altering meat and dairy consumption attitudes to reduce environmental damage, and researching people’s meat and dairy consumption drivers plays a crucial role in understanding behavioural change and encouraging alteration in meat and dairy consumption attitudes. Changing people’s attitudes around meat and dairy consumption is vital to reducing environmental degradation. Furthermore, moving towards a less meat- and dairy-intensive diet can be beneficial not only for the environment but also to personal values and ethics. This research aims to understand how some people in New Zealand society perceive their attitudes around meat and dairy consumption and its implications for the environment, as well as contribute to behavioural change. Qualitative research methodology was applied to understand four drivers that define people’s attitudes towards meat and dairy consumption. These drivers stem from domain-specific value- and ethics-based attitudes. Face-to-face interviews were conducted to collect in-depth data on how individuals perceive the environmental implications of meat and dairy consumption from faith-based, health-based, environmental ethics and animal welfare viewpoints. Implications of these drivers and their combinations to inform behavioural change are discussed, as well as how findings from this research can inform behavioural change. Further, this research aims to contribute to future educational campaigns that encourage sustainable choices for individuals whose values and ethics drive their attitudes around meat and dairy consumption.</p>

<p>Over the past few decades, rising meat and dairy consumption has had increased environmental implications, ranging from soaring greenhouse gas emissions to river pollution in Aotearoa New Zealand. Recent studies suggest the importance of altering meat and dairy consumption attitudes to reduce environmental damage, and researching people’s meat and dairy consumption drivers plays a crucial role in understanding behavioural change and encouraging alteration in meat and dairy consumption attitudes. Changing people’s attitudes around meat and dairy consumption is vital to reducing environmental degradation. Furthermore, moving towards a less meat- and dairy-intensive diet can be beneficial not only for the environment but also to personal values and ethics. This research aims to understand how some people in New Zealand society perceive their attitudes around meat and dairy consumption and its implications for the environment, as well as contribute to behavioural change. Qualitative research methodology was applied to understand four drivers that define people’s attitudes towards meat and dairy consumption. These drivers stem from domain-specific value- and ethics-based attitudes. Face-to-face interviews were conducted to collect in-depth data on how individuals perceive the environmental implications of meat and dairy consumption from faith-based, health-based, environmental ethics and animal welfare viewpoints. Implications of these drivers and their combinations to inform behavioural change are discussed, as well as how findings from this research can inform behavioural change. Further, this research aims to contribute to future educational campaigns that encourage sustainable choices for individuals whose values and ethics drive their attitudes around meat and dairy consumption.</p>