Research On Foster’s Ecological Morality

Facing the increasingly serious global ecological crisis in the 21 st century,mankind urgently needs a theory to guide itself out of the ecological dilemma and realize the harmonious development of man and nature.John Bellamy Foster,an ecologist in North America,firmly points out that only Marxist theory can truly guide people to overcome the ecological crisis and move towards ecological civilization.Therefore,in the whole process of ecological crisis research,he has always been based on Marxist ecological thoughts,and integrated the Frankfurt school critical theory,the Western Environmental Ethics and other excellent ecological thoughts,forming his own unique thoughts about ecological morality.Foster takes morality as the main line to explore the root of the ecological crisis and its solution.In his view,the ultimate cause of global ecological crisis is the higher immoral of capitalism.Due to the deep-seated values and economic operation of capitalist society,people put the moral attention to the earth and the environment in the secondary position.Therefore,the ecological moral criticism of the whole capital logic and the “moral revolution” of overthrowing the capitalist system constitute the main content of Foster’s ecological moral thoughts.Firstly,he analyzed the ecological problems from the perspective of moral values,and criticized the liberalism,money worship,materialism and other self-interest values of capitalist society,which is the direct cause of the imbalance between man and nature.Furthermore,he goes on to point out that the "higher immorality" of capitalism is responsible for the ecological crisis.Foster analyzed the various immoral behavior of capitalism to the ecological environment via the treadmill of the production,metabolic rift and ecological imperialism.And he pointed out that capitalist ways such as individual moral regulation,natural marketization and technological reformism cannot fundamentally solve the ecological crisis.As a firm Marxist,he believes that we must get rid of the accumulation logic of capitalist system and fundamentally overthrow the capitalist system to solve the ecological crisis.Therefore,Foster calls for a moral revolution to repair the relationship between man and nature,by constructing the ideal ecological socialism of sustainable development to transcend the current biosphere culture of capitalism and its "higher immorality".He distinguished capitalism from ecological socialism via values,the forms of ownership,development models and economic operation mechanism,which fully demonstrated the superiority of ecological socialism.At the same time,he also clearly realized that the ecological moral revolution aimed at realizing the sustainable development of man and nature is a long process,which must be widely integrated with all forces in the world,especially with the help of the working class.Only through the combination of environmental and social movement can wearrive at the ideally ecological socialism.To sum up,Foster’s thoughts of ecological morality not only provide a unique way for human beings to solve the ecological crisis,but also give Marxism a new vitality in the current era.Although there are some limitations in theory and practice,his unique views on ecological crisis are still of great practical significance to the construction of ecological civilization of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.Therefore,it’s worthwhile to further study and discuss Foster’s thoughts about ecological morality.