Since the 20's of the 20th century, the western environmental ethics has been constantly expanding its ethical boundaries, and the subjects of moral concern has been expanding from human beings to animals , biology and ecosystems, and it advocated that human beings should recognize natural value and moral rights. The paper is to explore environmental problems' emergence and reasons, to explore environmental movements' rising and development, mainly to explore environmental ethic thought and theory's emergence , development and evolution. We attempt to describe the historical trail of environmental ethic thought's development in the 20th-century through rearranging the development of 20th-century environmental ethic thoughts and theory. On this basis, we attempt to put forward a theoretical hypothesis of rational construction of the relationship between human beings and the natural world. This will have significance about environmental protection, and about environmental ethics' development and about harmonious relationship between human beings and the natural world.
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