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ENVIRONMENTAL
ETHICS

SUBMITTED TO: SIR ASAD SHAHZAD

PRESENTED BY:
Osama Yousuf
20425

Asad Raza
201377

SECTION:
SSC 401 E
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TABLE OF CONTENT Page

1. Environmental ethics 03
2. Different concepts of environmental ethics 03
3. Anthropocentrism 04
4. Biocentrism 05
5. Ecocentrism 06
6. Cartesian views on environmental ethics 07
7. Rene descartes views on environmental ethics 08
8. Criticism 09
9. Can environment be protected in capitalism? 10
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Environmental Ethics
Environmental ethics is the part of the
environmental Philosophy that concerns human
beings’ ethical relationship with the natural
environment that includes plants, animals, and all
non living contents.

Different Concepts Of
Environmental Ethics:
Following are the three different concepts of
environmental ethics:
1. Anthropocentrism
2. Biocentrism
3. Ecocentrism
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1) Anthropocentrism:
Anthropocentrism refers to a human-centered point
of view. In philosophy, anthropocentrism can refer
to the point of view that humans are the only, or
primary, holders of moral standing. It is the idea
that the earth and its resources exists for human
consumption.
In other words it is a phenomenon in which people
think about the effect of task on human being only
and not on the plant and animal.
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2) Biocentrism:
Biocentrism views animals also as important as
human beings. They take care of human being along
animals and plants. Stereotypically, biocentrics are
against harming other life forms for their own ends -
many of them are vegetarians.
In other words it is a wider phenomenon in which
people take care of other living things also along
with the human.
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3) Ecocentrism:
Ecocentrism holds that humans are only one part of
the complicated system that is the earth.
Ecocentrism believes that everything has intrinsic
value that includes human beings, animals, plants,
and non living things and emphasized the
interconnectedness of all life.
In other words it is the phenomenon in which people
concern about the other surroundings also along
with living things.
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Cartesian Views on Environmental

Ethics:
In philosophy Cartesian means of or relating to the
French philosopher René Descartes.
Cartesian anxiety is a hope that studying the world
will give us unchangeable knowledge of ourselves
and the world.
According to Cartesians’ plants and animals are less
conscious and in Cartesian views criterion for moral
standing is consciousness. Therefore, anything not
conscious is mere physical thing and can be treated
without concern for its well being.
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Rene Descartes Views on

Environmental Ethics
René Descartes is a French philosopher,
mathematician and scientist is usually portrayed in
environmental philosophy as a thinker who had
enormous but a deadly influence on our views
concerning the relationship of humans to the
environment. The view is that animals are machines,
"thoughtless brutes," they have no moral standing,
and we thus have a right to use them to further our
own interests, is attributed to him. His vies basically
are found as anthropocentric.
Descartes anticipates the response that his
reasoning, if applicable to animal behavior, should
apply equally well to human behavior. The
mechanistic explanation of behavior does not apply
to human beings, according to Descartes, for two
reasons. First, human beings are capable of complex
and novel behavior. This behavior is not the result of
simple responses to stimuli, but is instead the result
of our reasoning about the world as we perceive it.
Second, human beings are capable of the kind of
speech that expresses thoughts. Descartes was aware
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that some animals make sounds that might be

thought to constitute speech, such as a parrot's
"request" for food, but argued that these utterances
are mere mechanically induced behaviors. Only
human beings can engage in the kind of speech that
is spontaneous and expresses thoughts.

CRITICISM:
1. Peter Harrison has recently argued that the Argument from Analogy,
one of the most common arguments for the claim that animals are
conscious. The Argument from Analogy relies on the similarities
between animals and human beings in order to support the claim that
animals are conscious.
2. Pain stimuli criticism both human beings and animals respond in the
same way when confronted with pain stimuli both animals and
human beings have brains, nerves, neurons, endorphins, and other
structures;
3. Peter Caruthers has suggested that there is another reason to doubt
that animals are conscious. Caruthers begins by noting that not all
human experiences are conscious experiences.
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Can Environment Be Protected In

Capitalism?
Capitalism an economic and political system in
which a country's trade and industry are controlled
by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
As being profit oriented system and having less
influence of government industrialists are free up to
certain part to do those things which cause profit
maximization regardless of their effects on the
environment. One of the biggest example of negative
effects of capitalism is deforestation in urban areas
to built new houses or to industrialize the area.
So it is hard to say that environment could be protect
in capitalism.

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