Research On Holmes Rolston Ⅲ’s Natural Value Theory

In today’s society, because of the ecological crisis intensified, the problems of environmental have increasingly become the focus to people, and the relationship between human and nature has became one of the most basic problem to be solved to us. For how to re-examine the relationship between human and nature, the environmental philosophers have discussed many aspects of the problem, and"Whether nature has its intrinsic value" of this proposition became the focus of debate. And this problem in divergence forms the anfhropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism.Holmes Rolston III is a famous environmental ethics and environmental philosophers in America, and he is known as the "father of environmental ethics". Rolston was influenced by the modern western ecology, nature in organic theory and religion, he insisted that "nature has its intrinsic value", and put forward his own theory of natural value as opposed to anthropocentrism. This is because in Rolston’s view, only when people realize the nature not only have the tool value but also have the intrinsic value, human can really solve the problems of ecological environment. As a non anthropocentric theory scholars. Holmes Rolston III has been furthered the concept of natural value more deeper than Earth ethics scholars, and this made his theory became more complete.This paper wants to discuss Holmes Rolston III’s natural value theory and his environmental philosophy, the theory from the natural values of the origin, is discussed for each stage in the development of philosophy of value, and discusses the formation of natural value theory of the relationship between fact and value in the western philosophy. This part is the analysis about the Rolston’s natural value theory formation background. In the second part, this article will analysis the main content of Rolston’s natural value from his own book, especially the subjectivity and objectivity of the dialectical relationship between the natural values. Besides that, in the third part of this paper, an evaluation will be given to Rolston’s natural value theory. Although Rolston’s theory is a reflection on the traditional value of philosophy but there are still many problems in it. In the last part, this paper will discuss the Rolston’s natural value theory how to alleviate the ecological crisis, especially for the current environmental issues that Chinese may play enlightenment role in the social practice.In general, Holmes Rolston Ill’s natural value theory is a negation of anthropocentrism and has some theoretical defects, but for the establishment of a harmonious ecosystem, and make man and nature coexist, coordinate development, achieve the survival and development of a unified state, it still has some positive impact. That is why Holmes Rolston III’s natural value attacks broad attention from the theoretical circle.