Ethical Ecological Dimension

The relationship between humans and nature is a permanent and vital topic inthe human history of thoughts and culture, no lack of moral thinking about it. But it isthe western trends of thoughts in environmental ethics, which appeared in 1970'sdirectly resulting from the actual environmental and ecological crisis, that definitelymaintains the moral standing of nature and the moral relationship between humansand nature. Different schools of the western environmental ethics discuss the moralstanding of nature and the moral relationship between humans and nature fromdifferent points of view, and the American environmental ethicist Holmes Rolstonâ…¢,as the founder of environmental ethics, claims that nature possesses intrinsic valueand it is our moral duty to respect the intrinsic value of nature. In order to initiate theecological orientation of ethic, Rolston philosophically attempts to establish a kind ofdialectical environmental ethics of complementarity which ought to bridge nature andculture, natural value and human virtue, and the natural world and the human world.In the context of the western ethical thoughts' complete development, Rolston'senvironmental ethics has a moral extension toward ecosystem, makes the value theoryand the moral view have a ecological/environmental turning, has an ethical integrationof nature and culture and of natural value and human virtue, and criticizes the western'modernity' morality and the unjust modern capitalist social structure by ethicalself-reflection.On the basis of ecological theory and in the light of human moral essentials andexistences, Rolston demonstrates the legitimacy and necessity of the environmentalethical extension. That nature, being we humans' material, life and spiritual sources,becomes moral patient indicates that the extension of moral others is so extensive thatenvironmental ethics is the most altruistic, comprehensive, inclusive and vitalecological ethics, which includes individual interests when cares for the non-humanbeings' and ecosystem's existing goal and holistic interests. In view of the reversestructure of the modern western moral consciousness, Rolston's environmental ethicsinsists that the appropriate unit for moral concern is the fundamental unit of survivaland emphasizes that our outlook on nature and the world ought to be prior to ourmoral view. Rolston attempts to lay the ontological foundation for and infuse theecological intension into human moral view.Rolston believes that environmental ethics is a sign of the turning of the western ethics, whose typical concepts are intrinsic value and holism. By recognizing theintrinsic measure and the intrinsic value of nature, Rolston's environmental ethicsaccomplishes the non-anthropocentric conversion of value-paradigm from subjectiveinstrumental value theory to objective intrinsic value theory; and by recognizing thatthe ecosystem's systemic value is superior to the individual intrinsic value andinstrumental value and that the human collective environmental interests dominatesthe individual interests, Rolston's environmental ethics completes the environmentalholistic turning. The objective intrinsic value theory does not deny the humansubjective value, and the environmental holism does not either exclude but include thehuman interests and individual interests. So, Rolston's environmental ethical turninglets human ethics be endowed with more ecological intension by emphasizing therelativity and holism of morality.After the above discussion, Rolston performs the concrete theoreticalestablishment through ethical integration. First of all, he demonstrates the dialecticaland complementary ecological relationship between nature and culture, that is, theirrespective independent status and nature including culture. And then he proposes thatthe human environmental virtue results from respecting the intrinsic value of nature inenvironmental ethics. So, environmental ethics ought to be the combination of valueethic and virtue ethic and of teleology and deontology, that is, of naturalisticprinciples and humanistic ones in the environmental ethical practice. The goal ofethical integration is to establish a cosmic-natural context for humans' moralessentials and existences and to promote human morality becoming more mature andfull in the ontological sense, which is also the ecological intension of human ethic.Ethical self-reflection is to see if the western 'modernity' morality will behelpful to the theoretical formation of environmental ethics. Rolston thinks that thereexists individualistic illiberality, anthropocentric bigotry, materialistic vulgarity andvalue-blind-spot on the relationship between humans and nature in the western'modernity' morality having been formed since the European Enlightenment. Thewestern 'modernity' morality materializes and dissimilates we humans ourselves andthe relationship between humans and nature as well as nature. We could say that thewestern 'modernity' moral view is seriously inconsistent with the idea ofenvironmental ethic and that the modern capitalist social structure, on the basis ofindividualism, institutionally strengthens our moral ignorance of nature. So, Rolstonbelieves that environmental ethics can not be established on the foundation of the dualist subjective metaphysics and the individualistic moral view, and hopes to seekontological reason and ecological orientation for ethic from the eastern culture thatemphasizes a complementary, harmonious and symbiotic relationship betweenhumans and nature.Besides the moral concern for ecosystem, there are at least three importantimplications about the ecological orientation of ethic. The first one is the ecologicalorientation of our habitats. We humans not only live in cultural context but alsonatural context. Though we humans are independent cultural beings, we can notregard ourselves as being 'exodus' from nature. The second one is the ecologicalorientation of morality that is our essentials and existences. Living in the natural andcultural contexts, we humans must hold to altruism, relativity and holism of ethic,hold in the selfishness of individual ego and human ego, and insists on the logicalpriority of the interests of community, which include individual interests into holisticinterests. The existing of community is prior to that of oneself. The third one is thatmorality must work on humans' two living fields (natural and cultural), andenvironmental ethic in company with traditional human ethic finishes the integralethics. Rolston initiates the ecological orientation of ethic by emphasizing altruism,relativity and holism of oneself who lives in the natural and cultural contexts from thecosmic-natural point of view, and hopes we humans could get along with natureharmoniously, which is the theoretical contribution and actual significance ofRolston's environmental ethics.