Thursday, May 31, 2012
This is my first attempt at a blog...my aim is to create a discussion group that is an open and welcoming arena to carry out reasoned and supported argumentation for various political topics.
Please join me in advancing our understanding of the issues at hand and prepare to be challenged on your basic assumptions!
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Forget the term global warming/climate change and turn our attention to being responsible citizens of our planet. Remenber when recycling started, with the kids in school to the parents and now we have major recycling. The first thing needed is education, objected research and sharing of information. Above all all the special interest, political parties and money grabers need to be kept out, now that is another challenge. However the problem is, meaningful change usually does not come until there is crises.
ReplyDeletePaul L
Paul,
DeleteYour approach is a pragmatic and reasonable place to start. I might offer that even this can be difficult in today's society. Even in the absence of special interests and political pundits, each citizen has a viewpoint that requires validation.
I might offer an article published in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on the depth of intellectual arguments on this topic, entitled Environmental Ethics. It presents, evenhandedly the issues. Below is an excerpt:
"As noted above, perhaps the most fundamental question that must be asked when regarding a particular environmental ethic is simply, what obligations do we have concerning the natural environment? If the answer is simply that we, as human beings, will perish if we do not constrain our actions towards nature, then that ethic is considered to be “anthropocentric.” Anthropocentrism literally means “human-centeredness,” and in one sense all ethics must be considered anthropocentric. After all, as far as we know, only human beings can reason about and reflect upon ethical matters, thus giving all moral debate a definite “human-centeredness.” However, within environmental ethics anthropocentrism usually means something more than this. It usually refers to an ethical framework that grants “moral standing” solely to human beings. Thus, an anthropocentric ethic claims that only human beings are morally considerable in their own right, meaning that all the direct moral obligations we possess, including those we have with regard to the environment, are owed to our fellow human beings.
While the history of western philosophy is dominated by this kind anthropocentrism, it has come under considerable attack from many environmental ethicists. Such thinkers have claimed that ethics must be extended beyond humanity, and that moral standing should be accorded to the non-human natural world. Some have claimed that this extension should run to sentient (non-intellectual) animals, others to individual living organisms, and still others to holistic entities such as rivers, species and ecosystems. Under these ethics, we have obligations in respect of the environment because we actually owe things to the creatures or entities within the environment themselves. Determining whether our environmental obligations are founded on anthropocentric or non-anthropocentric reasoning will lead to different accounts of what those obligations are. This section examines the prominent accounts of moral standing within environmental ethics, together with the implications of each."
A link to the full article:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/envi-eth/