激进与保守的生态伦理

经历会引起观念上的深刻变化,随着人类社会的发展,道德对象的范围不断扩大,非人类中心主义与人类中心主义的生态伦理观存在着激烈的争执。笔者认为,无论是各种流派的传统人类中心主义,还是各种流派的非人类中心主义,这一切的观点都无绝对的对与错,只要放在时间的座标上,每一种观点都应该有它适当的位置。化解两大阵营矛盾的关键还是时间维度问题。     

对非人类中心主义『自然界内在价值』观的质疑与辨析

自然界的内在价值和自身利益问题,是人类中心主义和非人类中心主义争论的核心问题之一。非人类中心主义从所谓自然万物都有其平等的存在权利的观点出发,认为在对待自然的态度上,应从过去的纯粹“经济的视角”转变为“伦理的视角”,尊重并承认自然界的多方面价值。人类中心主义否认自然具有“内在价值”,并不等于否认自然具有价值。人类中心主义认为,价值的主体只能是人。价值是相对于人类主体而言的,人类是自然万物的价值主体。自然是人类生存和发展的应然基础,人类中心主义赋予自然的价值以新的涵义;自然不再是处在人类活动之外的物质运动形式,它还是人类生存于其中且永远不能离开的客观环境;自然物不再只是人类物质活动的材料对象,它还是人类周围有机环境的组成部分。     

万物一体:生态伦理的存在论之基石

日趋严重的生态问题倒逼着人类把人际伦理扩展成所有生命之间乃至生命与其生存环境之间的生态伦理。而生态伦理的存在论基石就是万物一体的存在事实。因此,要超越自我中心主义、人类中心主义,把万物一体的生态伦理领悟为最根本的伦理取向,否则,现代人无法走出文明困境,也不可能拥有未来。     

生态女性主义与社会正义

生态女性主义通过对人类中心与男权中心的双重批判．进而推导出一切所谓的”中心”都是压迫结构的渊薮．因而女性主义在谋求自身的解放时,一定要寻找自己的同盟军：要走出人类中心主义．抛弃狭隘的主宰自然的意识,”走出欧洲中心主义、殖民主义、种族主义和男权主义的藩篱”。同时．在更宽泛的意义上,生态女性主义超越了性别问题,更为关注社会的公正和正义     

人类走向环境伦理

环境伦理是从道德的角度研究人与自然关系的问题,本文主要从环境伦理的产生、环境伦理要求人们走出“人类中心主义”、环境伦理的道德原则和规范三个方面来阐述。环境伦理的兴起与对人类的启示“伦理”一词代表的是人们的言论和行为要遵循的原则、规范,并与人的责任和义务相联系。传统的伦理是揭示人与人之间关系的一种规律性的认识,也就是反映人们之间的伦理关系,反映人们相互之间应该承担的责任和义务。千百年来,伦理的作用和功能主要表现在调节人际之间利益关系的层面上。所以,以往当人们谈到伦理的时候,它存在于人类之间,只起调…     

自然中心主义环境伦理思想产生的缘由探究

自然中心主义环境伦理思想作为目前最为热门的学科之一，自然同其它学科一样，有它产生的思想根源、现实缘由和直接的动因。工业社会的精神失落和蓬勃兴起的绿色运动是其思想诱因与直接动因，而它形成的现实缘由则主要是全球面临的生态困境以及对人与自然关系的重新认识。     

生态文明建设与价值观转型

生态文明是人类新文明,它由社会全面转型实现。价值观作为世界观的核心,对社会转型起先导和决定性作用。人类中心主义是工业文明的核心价值观。从工业文明社会向生态文明社会转变,首先是核心价值观的转型——突破人类中心主义,确立人与自然和谐的价值观,用以指导生态文明建设,从而实现人与自然的生态和解、人与人的社会和解,建设和谐社会。     

生态调度，实现河流健康与水资源合理利用

中国现有八万多座大大小小的水库和五万多座水闸,分布在东西南北多姿多彩的河流上。维持河流的生命,既不能人类中心主义——河流须优先满足人类供水、防洪、发电、航运、娱乐等需求．又不能激进环保主义——恢复河流的原始状态、禁止人类任何开发。实践证明,若能积极利用科学理论和技术寻求和确定河流健康的基准点,变常规调度为“生态调度”——为人类生活留出足够的水、为社会生产留出适量的水、为生态良性维系留出基本的水,就可能实现河流健康与水资源合理利用。     

道家、道教生态伦理思想与当代生态哲学

征服自然、利用自然的观念导致人们把开采演化成为掠夺,严重打乱了生态系统的有机循环,造成环境污染,影响到人类的生存。环境污染、生态系统失去平衡,是目前威胁全人类生存和发展的重大问题。这一问题的产生源于以人类中心主义为本的对待自然界的生态伦理观。解决这一问题,必须从新的视角出发对生态伦理思想进行探索,甚至上升到哲学的高度进行探讨。在探索这一问题的过程中,人们惊奇地发现,东方的伦理思想、宗教、哲学中包含有大量有关生态的伦理、哲学思想,其中尤其以道家、道教为甚。     

面向生态文明的可持续生活方式培养与行动

<正>可持续生活方式遵循自然规律,是以可持续发展为目标,建立一种既能满足人类良性生活需求,又能维护生态平衡的生活方式。生态文明是人类遵循人、自然、社会和谐发展这一客观规律而取得的物质与精神成果的总和;是指人与自然、人与人、人与社会和谐共生、良性循环、全面发展、持续繁荣为基本宗旨的文化伦理形态。生态文明建设的实质是建设     

可持续发展与环境伦理的思考

面对环境问题与资源危机,人类社会正面临发展的文明转型.为此我国提出科学发展观,力求全面的可持续发展.我们要转变认识自然的价值观,走出“人类中心论“,构建环境伦理体系.发挥环境伦理的作用和功能,正确处理人与自然的关系,尊重与善待自然,坚持公正补偿、节约、平等和慎行等原则.社会各群体都要负担起环境责任,共同努力,实现可持续发展.     

Rights & Nature

Due to the significant and often careless human impact on the natural environment, there are serious problems facing the people of today and of future generations. To date, ethical, aesthetic, religious, and economic arguments for the conservation and protection of the natural environment have made relatively little headway. Another approach, one capable of garnering attention and motivating action, would be welcome. There is another approach, one that I will call a rights approach. Speaking generally, this approach is an attempt to address environmental issues via the language and theory of legal and moral rights. Ultimately, it is our duties to our fellow humans that explain why we have duties regarding the natural environment. There are three main contenders among theories that can be called rights approaches to environmental issues. The first identifies the (alleged) human right to a healthful environment as the source of our obligations to conserve and protect nature. The second approach has it that our duties to nature arise from the rights of the constituents of nature themselves, its flora and fauna. The third approach to addressing environmental problems via rights is, I argue, the best path to environmental conservation and protection. This approach—which grounds duties toward nature on the human right to health—has the benefits of being a straightforward, uncontroversial, and simple approach to issues and problems that desperately need to be resolved.     

论环境公益诉讼

进入21世纪以来,人们对自然环境的破坏日趋加剧,地球环境不断恶化,由此引发了层出不穷的环境争议。环境公益诉讼制度作为最有强制力、最为公平正义的终局解决办法,是解决环境问题,保护国家、社会和公众环境权益的最有效途径,并在现代法治社会中起到越来越突出的作用。从环境公益诉讼的基础理论出发,借鉴国外环境公益诉讼的经验,分析我国环境诉讼法律制度存在的问题,阐述建立环境公益诉讼制度的必要性,并提出建立环境公益诉讼制度的建议,旨在探索一条落实科学发展观的环境保护新思路。     

Heideggerian Environmental Virtue Ethics

Environmental ethics is apparently caught in a dilemma. We believe in human species partiality as a way of making sense of many of our practices. However as part of our commitment to impartialism in ethics, we arguably should extend the principle of impartiality to other species, in a version of biocentric egalitarianism of the kind advocated by Paul Taylor. According to this view, not only do all entities that possess a good have inherent worth, but they have equal inherent worth, and in particular no species is superior to any other. In this paper, I elaborate a Heideggerian environmental virtue ethics that slips between the horns of the dilemma. Central to this ethics is the relation of “dwelling” and the many virtues of dwelling, according to which the world is seen as “holy” in a variety of ways. This ethics is importantly local in respect of time and place, but also has universalistic aspects. To understand such an ethics, it is necessary to grasp Heidegger’s notion of truth as “aleithia” or opening, which enables us to escape the metaphysical dilemmas besetting ethics in the analytic tradition, including standard virtue ethics. Elaborating this notion occupies a large part of the paper.     

The Edge of “Animal Rights”

A central task of environmental ethics, which have been arising since 1960s, is to extend the objects of moral concern beyond the individuals of Homo sapiens. (Here, it involves the issue of the boundary of environmental ethics. In a narrow sense, an environmental ethic must grant moral concern to holistic environmental objects (such as ecosystems). On the other hand, if we broadly define the environmental ethic as an ethic that shows moral concern not limited to Homo sapiens and its individuals only, then, these “generalized” environmental ethics include Peter Singer’s “animal liberation” and Tom Regan’s “animal rights”. In this article, the term “environmental ethic” refers to an environmental ethic in a generalized sense.) All the objects deserving moral concern constitute the moral community. The trajectory and boundary of this extension are different among different schools. Compared to other schools, Tom Regan’s “animal rights” has a relatively smaller moral community, making it more “conservative” at first sight. Meanwhile, the rights view, like other schools, faces the question regarding the edge of moral concern. This question consists of two sub-questions: (1) where is the boundary of the moral community and (2) how ought we to treat the objects of moral concern near the boundary? Given the closeness of Regan’s theory to traditional ethics (regarding the boundary of the moral community), this study is mainly focused on analyzing the edge of moral concern within the framework of the theory of animal rights. Further, I investigate the similarities and differences in the boundary of moral concern among various schools of environmental ethics. The comparative analysis demonstrates a subtle relation between science and moral philosophy, and reveals a similar form of a metaphysical premise adopted by all environmental ethics. This research helps to clarify the moral concern of environmental ethics, which is an essential prerequisite for establishing a new ethic, and therefore helps to consolidate the reference of environmental ethics to environmental management.     

动物伦理学研究

为了构建动物伦理学，笔者考察并概括了西方动物伦理研究的本质和关键问题，认为：动物伦理学是关于人与动物关系的伦理信念、道德态度和行为规范的理论体系，是一门尊重动物的价值和权利的新的伦理学说。它的产生具有坚实的科学基础、伦理基础和现实迫切性。     

In and Of the World? Christian Theological Anthropology and Environmental Ethics

Mainstream currents within Christianity havelong insisted that humans, among all creatures, areneither fully identified with their physical bodiesnor fully at home on earth. This essay outlines theparticular characteristics of Christian notions ofhuman nature and the implications of this separationfor environmental ethics. It then examines recentefforts to correct some damaging aspects oftraditional Christian understandings of humanity'splace in nature, especially the notions of physicalembodiment and human embeddedment in earth. Theprimary goal of the essay is not to offer acomprehensive evaluation of Christian thinking aboutnature but rather to identify theological anthropologyas a crucial dimension of, and problem for, Christianenvironmental ethics.     

The Moral Philosophy of Automobiles

The ethics of technology use has tended to arise from the theory of the role of technology in human life and society and thus introduces a bias into moral assessment of such use. I propose a dialectical method of morally assessing a technology use without such a preset notion. Instead the assumption is that the moral agent is as responsible for use of a technology as for any other moral action of the agent, that is, the individual’s use of a technology is a moral action that can be morally assessed. I apply this outlook to automobile use, weighing its moral pros and cons, such as in terms of autonomy, environmental degradation, land use, health hazards, and other moral drawbacks arising from the technology’s use or non-use. Although the conclusion leaves the final moral assessment undecided, the method points to a way fairly to assess morally the use of technologies in terms of human betterment and environmental and health concerns, minimizing biases from assumptions of the role or nature of technologies.     

Environmentalism and Public Virtue

Much of the literature addressing environmental virtue tends to focus on what might be called “personal virtue”—individual actions, characteristics, or dispositions that benefit the individual actor. There has, in contrast, been relatively little interest in either “virtue politics”—collective actions, characteristics, or dispositions—or in what might be called “public virtues,” actions, characteristics, or dispositions that benefit the community rather than the individual. This focus, however, is problematic, especially in a society that valorizes individuality. This paper examines public virtue and its role in environmental virtue ethics. First, I outline different types of virtue in order to frame the discussion of public virtues and, in particular, a subclass of virtues I will refer to as political virtue. Second, I focus on practical problems and address the inadequacy of personal virtue for effecting social change and, therefore, for addressing most environmental crises. Finally, I argue that public and political virtues are necessary, if under emphasized, conditions for the flourishing of the individual, and that they are important complements to more traditional environmental virtues.     

Environmental Ethics in Poland

In the 1960s, western societies discovered that unlimited technological progress has a very high price that the environment pays. This was also the beginning of the discussions on the role of ethics in the protection of the environment and the moral aspects of nature exploitation. Even though the state of nature was not better in Poland, it took Polish philosophers a few decades to recognize the moral problem and to address it. The prevailing communistic propaganda of progress had blurred the perception of Polish people and they are unable to notice the environmental problem. Thus, only in the 1990s, after the fall of communism, Polish philosophers noticed that our approach to nature can have a moral aspect and we are exhausting the resources of the Earth. Since then, Environmental Ethics in Poland has been developed. Polish Environmental Ethics (PEE) is an interesting blend of inspiration from internationally recognized thinkers as well as original approaches to the ecological problem. The first wave of PEE addresses problems discussed abroad, namely the range of ethics (whom do we include into ethical consideration?) and the problem of values, analyzing them in the context of Polish culture and philosophical traditions. It also proposed original approaches developed by Henryk Skolimowski as well as approaches inspired by the problems considered from the perspective of Catholic theology. The article will give an insight into PEE and will present how these applied ethics have been received and cultivated in Poland in the so called first wave. It will also highlight the problems of the second wave of PEE.