Ethical Thinking On Inter-generation Savings Of Environmental Resources

During the accelerating process of industrialization, urbanization and modernization, environmental issues have been increasingly prominent, which not only manifests the generalization of environmental damages, but also the shortage and depletion on environmental resources. The socialization of environmental issues has seriously influenced the sustainable development of our contemporary world, and even endangered the sustainable survival of the future. Under such a circumstance threatened by growing crisis, research on “inter-generational savings of environmental resources” intends to reach fundamental consensus on solving the contradiction between the survival and development of human beings and ecological environment, promote sustainable existence between people, life on earth and natural environment, and realize sustainable development of the Chinese nation. As a new strategy of sustainable development, “inter-generational savings of environmental resources” needs to acquire its practical orientation based on the reconstruction of social cognition. Therefore, it is necessary to have cognitive research on the theory of practice. From the perspective of the practical cognitive theory, the discussion on “inter-generational savings of environmental resources” is actually an integrative research on the both issues of environmental resources and inter-generational savings, which can also be expressed as integrated research of cognition and practice design on the sustainable survival of human and environment, and the sustainable living of contemporary people and future generations.From the perspective of ethics, this paper attempts to discuss on the above-mentioned content, which has been divided into three chapters. Chapter One, “Ethical Demands on Inter-generational Savings of Environmental Resources”, gives expression to the concept of “environmental resources” in the first place and the generation and function of environmental resources, and analyzes how human unlimited exploitation on environment resources to hasten the socialization of environmental resource awareness and how this awareness to breed the concept of inter-generational savings on environmental resources. On the other hand, this chapter attempts to elaborate the conceptual essence of “inter-generational savings on environmental resources”, and based on which focuses on the evolution of ethical concepts from “environmental awareness” to “cognition on environmental resources” and then the concept of “inter-generational savings on environmental resources”, and their demands for ethical practice. Chapter Two, “Ethical Cognitive Construction of Inter-generational Savings on Environmental Resources”, continues the discussion of Chapter One. Based on the logical starting point demanding for ethical requests, this chapter intends to find out the ethical cognitive orientation of inter-generational savings on environmental resources. First of all, chapter two reviews the existence concept of anthropocentrism of industrial society, the material happiness concept of scientism and the dualistic world view of mechanism, and aims to construct the co-existence concept for “human, life and nature”, and the cognitive theory of ecological unity. Secondly, it demonstrates and establishes the human right status of future generations, and presents the principle of inter-generational equality for inter-generational savings on environmental resources. Under the specification of the principle of inter-generational equality, three ingredients, sustainable development, limited survival and universal justice, respectively constitute the principles of ethical goal, ethical norm and ethical evaluation for inter-generational savings on environmental resources. Chapter Three, “Ethical Guidance and Norm for the Implementation of Inter-generational Savings on Environmental Resources”, with the guidance by inter-generational equality and the fundamental norms of sustainable development, limited survival and universal justice, investigates the primary premise, basic path and pattern of action of strategy implementation of inter-generational savings on environmental resources, constructs its criterion of social actions, and discusses the standard system for its implementation. On this basis of the above-mentioned, social and macro approaches for the implementation of inter-generational savings on environmental resources have been presented from five aspects, namely population strategy, habitat system, science and education, economy and pattern of consumption.