Week 6 ETHICS AND ECOLOGY

• Environmental ethics


  The study of ethical questions and moral issues concerning the human interactions with the environment, and moral perspectives, beliefs, values and attitudes concerning those issues
• Worldview


  A person's or group's beliefs about the meaning, purpose, operation and essence of the world
• How we view the environment is a function of culture and worldview
• Factors that influence worldviews

  • Environmental ethics
  • Economies and the environment
  • Economic growth and sustainability
  • Environmental and ecological economies
  • Religion
• Technology, ecology and economics


  If your technology messes up the environment, it can affect the health of many humans
• Some questions in environmental ethics


  • Should the present generation conserve resources for future generations?
  • Is it OK to destroy a forest to create jobs for people?
  • Is it OK for some communities to be exposed to more pollution than others?
  • Are humans justified in driving other species to extinction?
• The answers to environmental ethics questions depend, in part, upon the ethical standard you choose to use
• Environmental ethics and professionalism

  Professionals of many disciplines profess to "trade for the public good", claiming a commitment to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public
• Although predominantly motivated by self-interest, professionals also have genuine moral concern for others
• Self-interest of companies cannot be relied on to protect the environment
• Tragedy of the Commons


  Competitive, unmaliciously, but unthinking exploitation arises with all natural resources held in common
• Role of computing professionals

  • Develop technical details on environmental impact, encourage organizations to be concerned about the environment
  • Help set policy, help follow laws
  • Help make it economically feasible
• Values in the Australian Computer Society (ACS) Code of Professional Conduct

  • The Primacy of the Public Interest
  • The Enhancement of Quality of Life
• Sustainable development


  Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
• The depletion of resources will happen in the distant future, so it is better to acquire resources now while they are worth more than to let them sit and use them later
• Environmental leadership by companies

  • Efficient use of resources
  • Energy-efficient products
  • Easy disassembly for recycling
  • Waste minimization
• Communities at local and state levels have special responsibility to conserve natural resources and beauty for future generations
• The Common-Good Approach


  An approach to ethics that assumes a society comprising individuals whose own good is linked to the good of the community, and focuses on ensuring that the social policies, social systems, institutions, and environments on which humans depend are beneficial to all
• Three ethical worldviews


  • Anthropocentric/human-centered ethics
  • Biocentric/life-centered ethics
  • Ecocentric ethics
• Anthropocentric/human-centered ethics


  • Focuses exclusively on the benefits of the natural environment to humans and the threats to human beings presented by the destruction of nature
  • Assumes that among creatures on earth only human beings have inherent moral worth and hence deserve to be taken into account in making moral decisions concerning the environment
• Biocentric/life-centered ethics


  • Regards all living organisms as having inherent worth
  • Albert Schweitzer's concept of "bioemphathy" - our capacity to experience a kinship with other life, to experience other life in its struggle to survive and grow
• Four duties by Paul Taylor

  • Nonmaleficence - the duty not to kill other living things
  • Noninterference - the duty not to interfere with the freedom of living organisms
  • Fidelity - the duty not to violate the trust of wild animals
  • Restitution - the duty to make amends for violating the previous duties
• Ecocentric ethics


  • Locates inherent value in ecological systems (rather than individual organisms)
  • Aldo Leopold's view that "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."
• Other ethical worldviews


  • Utilitarianism
  • Rights ethics
  • Virtue ethics
  • Sentient-centered ethics
• Utilitarianism


  Maximizing good consequences for human beings, including aesthetic, recreational, scientific, and survival interests
• Rights ethics


  The basic rights to life and liberty entail a right to a livable environment, as a livable environment is essential for fulfilling human capacities
• Virtue ethics


  • Emphasizes prudence, humility, appreciation of beauty, gratitude toward natural world, and stewardship over resources needed for future generations
• Sentient-centered ethics


  Recognizes all sentient animals (those that feel pain and pleasure and have desires) as having inherent worth
• Religious perspectives


  • Judeo-Christian
  • Christian thinking (Teilhard de Chardin's view of creation evolving towards fulfillment in Christ)
• The old Judeo-Christian view is one of "dominion" over the earth
• The newer Judeo-Christian view suggests the role of a caretaker or steward over the earth