The Thought Of Environmental Ethics And Its Evaluation

With the development of science and technology, the industrial civilization, and the market economy, the social developing mode has been bringing about great wealth to the human kind. But the cost of the quick development of the society is the destruction to the ecological environment. When the ecological system is under more and more serious destruction, people begin to be conscious of the environmental protection. That is the root of the environmental ethics' arising. The modern science of ecology and environment has established the science base for its development.In the early half of the 20th century, Sehwietzer presented his thought of revering life, Martin Heidegger called for "saving the earth", and Aldo Leopold developed his land ethic. These marked that the environmental ethics arose. In 9162, Silent Spring led to the quick development of the environmental ethics. Many trends of the science appeared as a result. Holmes Rolston's natural value is the masterpiece of environmental ethics. It is also the core of our attention. The basic theme of environmental ethics is why we should take the duty of protecting the nature. From the perspective of traditional ethics, the anthropocentrism believes that the human kind only take moral responsibility for themselves (including their off-springs), that their responsibility for the things in natural existence is just a kind of indirect responsibility among human beings. From the views of traditional value ethics, environmental ethics believes that the natural ecological system has its inner value, and the inner value is objective, which can't be regarded as the human beings' subjective favor. So, it is the objective duty of the mankind to maintain and promote the intactness and steadiness of the ecological system with its inner value.Through the research into the ethical relationship between human and nature, environmental ethics expands the moral attention to the whole ecological environment. It is this kind of expansion that separated environmental ethics from the traditional ethics from the perspectives of theoretical basis, moral object, moral duty, and moral standards. Moreover, the change of the mode of moral thoughts makes organiccombination of natural philosophy and moral philosophy. Thus, the thinking field of naturalism has been expanded. This is also a revolution in the history of human thoughts.Marks's theory on nature has rich implication of ecological philosophy, which has many things in common with environmental ethics. His excellent argument on the dialectic relationship between human and nature showed that he surpassed the dispute between the anthropocentrism and anti-anthropocentrism. Marks connected the thoughts on nature with communism and pointed out that communism is the real solution to the contradiction between human and nature and that among human beings. This is the essential difference between his theory and environmental ethics. If environmental ethics takes Marks's theory on nature as the theoretical basis and value guide, it would have a better development and would spread more broadly.The paper is made up of five parts. Part One is the about the origin of environmental ethics, including the social origin, thoughts origin and the cultural background. Part Two, the arising and development of environmental ethics. The process of its arising and its present situation and some main characters and trends are introduced. Part Three is about the core of environment ethics. The topics of anthropocentrism, natural rights and natural value of environmental ethics are discussed. The theoretical features of environmental ethics are illustrated. Part Four points out that environmental ethics is a revolution in the history of human thoughts. Environmental ethics surpasses the traditional ethics in the aspects of theoretical basis, moral object, moral duty, and moral standards. It realizes the change of human thoughts. It combined natural philosophy with moral philosophy. And it expanded the thinking field of naturalism. Part Five is...