The Ecological Ethics Thoughts Of Marx And Its Modern Meaning

Nowadays, problems of the ecological environment have become an importantglobal issue and made people pay more and more attention and study on it. Scholarshave made distinctive response to the question about how to get along with the naturefrom different aspects. Karl Marx, as one of the greatest thinkers in the history ofmankind, his doctrine sparks the light of wisdom of the ecological ethics. This paper, isbased on a brief overview of the development and concept of ecological ethics, andhackles Marx’s ecological ethics and its intrinsic meaning systematically, what’s moreby absorbing the essence of traditional western ecological ethics disciplines, comparingMarx’s ecological ethics with the earth ethics of Aldo Leopold who was the pioneer ofthe contemporary western ecological ethics. This paper analyzes the commonalities anddifferences of both, and wishes to make beneficial inspiration for the development ofecological ethics in out country and the ecological environment protection.The understanding of the ecological ethics is to deal with the relationship betweenecological environment and human by using a series of moral principles, moralstandards and behavior criterion. It’s an ethic paradigm which is committed to thecoordinated development of human and the nature. At the same time, it also contains thesocial and historical factors, by taking the relationship of human and human, human andsociety, human society and natural environment into consideration. This is therecognition of the individual act as the host of evaluation and the ultimate purpose ofthe ethics study, but also the essence of Marx’s ecological ethical thought.Marx’s ecological ethical thought is higher than the purely anthropocentrism ornature centrism. It concentrated on the pursuit of the unity and harmony between humanand nature. It could be summarized as four points:(1) The relationship between humanand nature is mutual restriction and organic unity;(2) The inherent irrationalities ofCapitalism is the root of the ecological crisis;(3) Communism will achieve thereconciliation of human and human, human and nature and (4) To solve ecologicalproblems must rely on scientific and technological progress.As a famous ecologist, Leopold’s ecological ethics thought has great similaritiesand differences with Marx’s. At the level of the relationships between human and nature,both of them suggested that human must respect the nature and reverence for nature.But Marx emphasized the status of human subjectivity and Leopold suggested thathuman is only a component of nature. At the level of the communication-mode between human and nature, both of them advocated to deal with the relationship between humanand nature realistically and opposed to adapt to nature passively, but Marx emphasizedthe importance of practice and Leopold suggested that human should pay more attentionto the protection of natural resources as well as to improve the relationship between landand economic development. At the level of how to realize the harmony between humanand nature, both of them thought the ecological idea which considers the economicbenefits as the only value orientation must be changed, but Marx believed only in theCommunist society human and nature could achieve the real harmony and Leopold putforward three principles which are integrity, stability and beauty to promote theharmony between human and nature. The main reason of these differences was thehistorical background as well as the research point of view.Based on ecological ethics thoughts of Marx and Leopold, this paper presents themodern meaning of ecological ethics:(1) converts from the centrism to the holism,(2)converts from the multiple values to the conscious of value and (3) converts from theethical pursuit to the aesthetic pursuit. We should utilize the three major changes as anopportunity to summarize the latest development of the ecological ethics, update ourenvironmental awareness and ecological thinking, and provide useful and successfulexperiences for socialist ecological civilization in our country.