Outline
&
Shallow and Deep Ecology
Outline of environmental ethics
What is environmental ethics?
• The field of environmental ethics concerns human beings’
ethical relationship with the natural environment
• Developed into a specific discipline as late as the 1970s
• Coinciding with the acceptance of man made climate change
in the 1960s through to the 1980s
Some influencing minds and books
Rachel Carson - Silent Spring (1962):
• Alerted readers to how the widespread use of chemical
pesticides was posing a serious threat to public health and
leading to the destruction of wildlife
Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb (1968):
• Warned of the devastating effects the spiralling human
population has on the planet’s resources
What else does it include?
• Developed from just pollution and depletion of resources to
all environmental issues such as:
- Dwindling plant diversity
- Dwindling animal biodiversity
- The loss of wilderness
- The degradation of ecosystems
- Climate change
Fundamental Questions
• What duties do humans have with respect to the
environment?
• Do we have environmental obligations for the sake of human
beings living in the world today?
• For humans living in the future, or for the sake of entities
within the environment itself?
• Should we just be concerned about the quality of human life
now?
• Does the environment have rights?
Deep ecology
&
Shallow ecology
Definitions
Deep Ecology:
- an environmental movement and philosophy which regards
human life as just one of many equal components of a global
ecosystem stating that the environment should be protected
for its own sake due to its intrinsic value
Shallow Ecology:
- Suggests we should care for the environment because it will
benefit society. The environment has extrinsic value.
Arne Naess - Background
• Norwegian and lived from 1912 to 2009
• Influenced by Spinoza, Ghandi (his non-violence) and the
Buddha
• Asserts that the earth does not belong to human beings
• Humans could only attain "realisation of the Self" as part of an
entire ecosphere
• Was an activist
• He was the first chairman of Greenpeace Norway when it was
founded in 1988 and was also a Green party candidate
• First outlined this shallow-deep split in environmentalism
Arne Naess
“The smaller we come to feel ourselves
compared to the mountain, the nearer we
come to participation in its greatness. I do not
know why this is so.”- Arne Næss
• Links to the atman as being part of the ultimate
which he ties to the environment and humanity
simply being a part of creation
Deep Ecology
• Emerged from the rejection of anthropocentrism (Humancentredness)
• Arne Naess “By an ecosophy I mean a philosophy of ecological
harmony or equilibrium”
• The view nature has intrinsic value
• Aldo Leopold “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the
integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community”
• All organisms are of equal moral worth, each being an
expression of the goodness of nature
• Has been used as a radical form of protest to justify violent
and extreme action
Naess and George Sessions
Came up with a series of interconnected beliefs:
• All life has intrinsic value
• Diversity of life contributes to the planets welfare
• No single life has a right to destroy the earths diversity and
richness
• Human beings are the cause of the destruction of this
diversity
• Growth of the worlds human population is the primary cause
to this destruction
• Change is urgently needed to prevent further damage
• Change requires peaceful protest
Key Goals
Wilderness preservation:
• Linked to the ideas of David Thoreau
Population control:
• Called for a substantial decrease in the human population
Simple Living:
• Humans have no right to reduce the richness and diversity of nature
except to satisfy vital needs
Bioregionalism:
• Both nature and human society should be reconfigured in line with
naturally defined regions
Evaluation
• Debate about the topic has outweighed its
practical importance within the Green movement
• Deep ecology was attacked as "eco-la-la" by Murray
Bookchin
• Has been used as a radical form of protest to justify
violent and extreme action
• Luc Ferry referred to some deep ecologists as ecofascists
• Absolute approach would mean killing for food or using
the environment for human need would be wrong
Shallow Ecology
• Sometimes called social environmentalism
• Anthropocentric – environment matters because of
benefits it provides for society
• Conservation at the heart of shallow ecology
• Maintaining biodiversity is not a virtuous principle in
itself
• Human beings come first in the chain of existence and
therefore should have priority
• Relies on calculations about what will benefit society –
Very utilitarian
• Naess says is more influential than the deep ecology
movement
Evaluation
• Shallow ecologists led the movement for National
Parks – increased tourism may cause more damage to
the environment
• Some argue it is important morally to restore the
habitat to its natural state however others say that
nature is forever changing
• Michael LaBossiere argues that species should be
allowed to die out if their natural habitat ceases to
exist
• Impossible and possibly detrimental to stop changes
occurring
- Adaptability (Darwinian belief) is important
Key Point
Shallow ecologists take an anthropocentric
approach to conservation. Nature should be
conserved for the sake of human welfare.
Deep ecologists take an ecocentric view.
Human’s control of the environment, they
argue, is the problem not the solution
Blockbusters Game
Questions asked with the answer starting with a letter on one
of the hexagons.
If the blue team answer first then the hexagon is coloured
blue. If a team guess wrong then the question is offered to
the next team to answer, but if they don’t get it either, then
the hexagon will turn black.
Whoever answers the question then gets to pick the next
letter.
The aim is to have the most hexagons coloured in your teams
colour after the last question is answered.
Restart
C
EE
A
MB
AN
PE
IV
DE
A
E
R
SE
SE
NP
A
SS
EV
A
U
S