Henry Imler November 19th, 2005

I have always wanted to delve into the Environmental Ethics debate at some point. I have not done any official reading on the subject. Right now my best guesses on the subject spring from my personhood theory. The short version of what responsibility humans have toward the environment and why is as follows:

1. At the most basic level humans are animals.
2. The most basic responsibility / duty / instinct of an animal is the survival of it’s species.
   • Note that the survival of the individual animal is not the highest, but the survival of the species. This allows for the noticed seemingly suicidal behavior of certain animals for the greater good of the herd / family / species.
   • This line of reasoning is gleamed from the work of a Charles Darwin. In his theory, the goal is not progress, but a perpetuation of the species, survival.
3. :. The most basic level of responsibility of the human race is to ensure its own survival.

Following from that basic principal, that the most basic level of responsibility of the human race is to ensure its own survival, we can extend to the following:

1. The most basic level of responsibility of the human race is to ensure its own survival.
2. The earth has to be maintained at a minimum level X in order to ensure the survival of the human race.
3. :. Humans have a duty as a race to maintain the Earth at level X.

Humans, at the very least, have a duty to maintain the environment at the minimum level to ensure their survival as a race. However, is that all that is required of us? We are not merely Darwinian animals. We are Darwinian animals to be sure, and as such we have a responsibility to perpetuate our species, but is there more to it? If so, why do we have a greater responsibility? The environmentalists emphatically maintain that we do, to varying degrees, but often what is not stated is why humans do. I suspect that it lies in our personhood. Because humans are not only animals, but persons, and with that comes additonal rights and duties.

• Ethics
• Comments(1)