Darwin's Theory Of Revolution And The Formation Of The Main Ideas In Environmental Ethics

Environmental ethics is a study of ethics about people's attitudes towards nature and the relationship between man and nature. Traditional moral science holds the idea that ethical relationship exists only among people, and there is no moral relationship between man and nature. Darwin's theory of evolution introduced the factor of time into the process of our understanding of ourselves, made a scientific explanation of the common origin and the evolutionary process of life, and gave a scientific orientation of human in nature. The exposition that Darwin's theory of evolution has made about the evolution of humanity and morality provides environmental ethics with a credible theoretical background, which creates a link between Darwin's theory of evolution and environmental ethics. The issue of this paper is what influence that Darwin's theory of evolution has made on the the formation of the main ideas of environmental Ethics .The idea in Darwin's The Origin of Species that humankind and other species have the common origin and the theory of natural selection, from a scientific point of view, demonstrate that humankind is the product of natural evolution. Darwin next discussed the origin and development of human morality in his book The Descent of Man, and stated clearly that human morality evolved from lower level to higher level, which path indicated that moral consideration extended from the original kinship-based small group to the overall social group and even may to the natural world. This paper will follow the thinking path of evolution, and investigate the link between the formation of environmental ethicists Leopold and Ralston's thoughts and the theory of evolution.The introduction will briefly discuss the research background of this issue and the current research situation at home and abroad. We can see that very few scholars have systematically discussed the influence of the theory of evolution upon the formation of Leopold and Ralston's thought, which is the aim of this paper.The first part is a brief overview of Darwin's biological theory of evolution, explaining the common origin of humankind and animals, and orientating a scientific and accurate position of humankind in nature. Then the author will focus on the discussion about the origin and evolution of morality, making it clear that morality is the result of billions of years of evolution from family instinct and social instinct. Darwin believed that the beginning of the emergence of conscience from animals can also be found, any animal with social instinct having conscience. The evolution of morality has extended from the initial small group into the whole human society through group selection; hence with the constant evolution of morality, we should also give moral consideration to animals. Darwin's evolutionary path of morality constructed a theoretical premise for the following words.In the second part, Leopold's land ethics further expand the scope of morality to the natural world except for humankind and animals along the extension of Darwin's moral path, changing the role of human beings from conquerors to a equal member in nature. Leopold believed that human beings are just ordinary members of nature, thus humankind should give moral consideration to other members in nature, which required us to expand morality to the scope including land and animals as well as plants that live on land.In the third part, inspired by Darwin's theory of evolution, environmental philosopher Ralston broke the previous way of discussion of standard value, introduced the factor of time to the study of natural value, and scientifically investigated the formation and evolution of natural value from the naturalistic point of view. He illustrated that the value of nature didn't rely upon the consciousness of nature to exit but existed itself along with the long evolution. Ralston's way of clarifying natural value as same as Darwin's means of studying biological evolution, demonstrating the origin and evolution of natural value from a scientific point of view.In the process of discussing the influence of Darwin'theory of evolution upon the formation of the main ideas in environmental ethics, following the ideas of the theory of evolution, this article along the evolutionary point of view, from the scientific point of view describes the moral and natural values of the origin and evolution. Thus, we can realize the relationship between man and nature is evolving over time, the scope of ethical concern should be from the interpersonal to the natural.