Social Sciences Essay: Personal Environmental Ethic

Personal Environmental Ethic
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Personal Environmental Ethic
Introduction
There is a need for humans to kindle such a sense of wonder and excitement alongside the much-needed humility towards the beauty of the ecosystem. The aspect of appreciating nature requires that an individual try to sense the connection between nature and human, through the aspect of earth’s life-sustaining processes. Consideration of the ecological, spiritual as well as the aesthetic nature of the earth is crucial in describing and implementing personal environmental ethics. Direct experiences with nature is capable of revealing the hidden complexity that defines life which cannot be evaluated from the technological point of view or generated through genetic engineering. Such high level of understanding helps on the nature of services we receive at no cost from nature help in fostering the ethical commitment within us that every human requires to live more sustainably (Merchant, 2005).
The wilderness is becoming increasingly rare, therefore, limiting human exposure to wild things in their natural status. If not controlled, such perspective may lead to a reduction of the chances of human lives alongside other values under transformation resulting from interactions with the ecosystem. In this case, the preservation of the available options for the future is connected to various aspects of equity. Environmental ethics should be entirely tied to behavioral activities that are constructed upon a set of ethical values that guide the approach towards living beings in nature. Importantly, the shifting environmental paradigms emphasize on the need for whole new ethics that defines how we ought to co-exist with nonhuman entities (Callicott, 1998).
Worldview
The worldviews are founded upon the various answers that attempt to solve fundamental questions. Such views as asking the question who am I? What should I do with my life? And where am I here? Help provide various key principles alongside values that guarantee a sense of meaning as well as purposes. Further, it helps in sorting out as well as evaluating the perpetual flow of information within the cosmos. There are numerous differing perspectives on how people think the world works and their belief concerning the place of their roles in the world. It is important to note that a section of the environmental worldview is a determination of an individual’s environmental ethics. The focus being on what an individual believes concerning what is right and wrong in the people’s behavior towards the environment. Some of the popular environmental worldviews encompass human-centeredness (anthropocentric), which focuses primarily on the needs as well as people wants. Other worldviews are life-centered or earth-centered commonly referred to as a bio-centric view. The biocentric view focuses on individual species and the general biosphere (Callicott, 1998).
The human-centered worldview represents a significant percentage of environmental worldviews. One of the common aspects of human worldview is planetary management worldview. This view focuses on the fact that human represents the planet’s most important as well as dominant species, therefore, calling for the management of the earth for personal benefits. The planetary view of nature considers that the well-being of humanity depends on the degree of control exercised over various natural processes. Human beings are the world’s most intelligent species and, therefore, can easily redesign the planet as well as the surrounding life-support systems that allow for extensive support for the evolving economies.
The other human-centered environmental worldview is referred to as the stewardship worldview. In this case, there is an assumption on the fact that humans have an ethical responsibility towards providing care and proper management of the earthly treasures. In this worldview, the utilization of the earth’s natural capital means that we are borrowing from the earth as well as future generations. The ethical responsibility, in this case, involves paying the debt as required of us through leaving the earth in a better condition as we found it. The concept of stewardship entails the actions of parents that help in the provision of a better future for their kindred (Morand & Lajaunie, 2018).
Some critics assert the fact that the human-centered worldview that points to the unregulated global free-market approach may not work well. This is since it is based on increased degradation as well as depletion of the entire earth’s natural capital. Simultaneously, the economist perspective reveals that the focus is on short-term and not long-term economic benefits. This eventually disregards the long-term detrimental effects on the environment, health as well as social consequences resulting from this worldview. However, focusing on the earth as a spaceship contributes a crucial role in creating awareness on the global environment. However, according to critics, such a view is an oversimplified and misleading way of explaining an incredible complex with the ever-evolving planet (Morand & Lajaunie, 2018).
From the critical perspective, the human knowledge of the ecosystem is still limited, since they can’t ascertain the exact number of the many plant and animal species on earth inclusive of their roles and nature of interactions within the environment. It is, therefore, very difficult to be able to demonstrate comprehensive and successful management of the world as well as understanding its entirety in theory.
The earth-centered worldview believes that the earth is independent of human activities, therefore, humanity is not entirely in charge of the world. In this case, there is the consideration that human economies are but sub-systems of the earth’s life-support systems. Such perspective considers that natural system as a holistic, interconnected and interdependent. In this case, it is the earth’s natural capital that ensures the survival of the species and the various economies. This calls for entire preservation and conservation of the natural capital since it provides the key means of promoting environmental sustainability. Therefore, the art of preserving earth’s natural capital requires the application of the principles of sustainability towards lifestyles and human economies. In this case, sustainability does not only reflect the aspect of sustaining resources for human utilization. However, it involves working towards ensuring that the entire web of life is sustainable, since, there is a connectedness in the past, present and future. It is important to recognize that there are no best solutions towards each existing environmental problems that human currently face. The principles of sustainability hold to the fact that the preservation of diversity provides the best ways towards adaptation to the earth’s unpredictable and ever-evolving conditions (Callicott, 1998).
Ethics
Environmental ethic entails the concept of providing care for the planet with all its inhabitants. Such action allows for unselfish control of the immediate self-interest that could be of harm to others. This calls for every human being to live each day with the focus of leaving the lightest possible footprints on the planet (Callicott, 1998). In this case, the concept of environmental ethics takes into account the moral obligations of human beings towards their immediate and entire environment. It is important to learn the way through which environmental ethics and human values influence an individual’s understanding abilities towards providing solutions to environmental issues. The various traditional ethical perspectives from the west incline towards anthropocentric in nature, since they assign intr...