Charitha Herath | Environmental Ethics: Some Philosophical Issues

The broad objective of this presentation is (a) to discuss the theoretical foundations of the subject of Environmental Ethics and (b) to give more closer examinations to some of the philosophical issues which were arisen of the later developments of this subject. It will deal with some basic phenomenon, process and concepts of environmental ethics and will examine how those concepts have been developed within the globally complex contexts. Particularly, the study examines how globally accepted meanings to the concept of environment have gone into problematic situations and how those  lead to a dispute between environmentalist and philosophers over solutions on main ethical issue on nature. It examines how the meaning crisis has led to cripple both the national and international programs and plans that have been aimed to solve environmental problems. Further, this paper focuses the main approaches of ‘conservation’ in the field of  environmental ethics, namely anthropocentric approach and extended individualistic ethical approach and argues for new theoretical position, which could be called as bio-cultural ethical approaches. This approach covers the social and cultural facets in the process of conservation and gives new inclusive meaning to the ethical foundation of conservation. The paper further recommends some (1) new definitions of the process of conservation, (2) philosophical foundation for valuing the natural resources and (3) policy framework for environmental regulating procedures.