Knowra Environmental ethics Environmental ethics Environmental ethics examines moral relationships between humans and the natural environment, including duties toward animals, ecosystems, and future generations.
Moral patienthood : The status of being owed direct moral consideration. Determines whether animals, species, or ecosystems can be wronged in their own right.
Consequentialism : The family of ethical theories that judges actions by their consequences. Assesses environmental choices by the harms and benefits they produce.
Climate justice : The study of fairness in the causes, impacts, and remedies of climate change. Applies environmental ethics to unequal responsibility and vulnerability in a warming world.
Deep ecology : An environmental philosophy that challenges human-centered assumptions and affirms the intrinsic value of nonhuman life. Offers a radical critique of treating nature chiefly as a resource for humans.
A Sand County Almanac : A 1949 book by Aldo Leopold that presents his land ethic and reflections on ecological relationships. Its land ethic became a foundational statement of environmental responsibility.
Intrinsic value : Value something has in itself, rather than solely as a means to something else. Separates nature valued for its own sake from nature valued for human use.
Deontology : The family of ethical theories that grounds right action in duties or rules. Can establish limits on environmental harm regardless of aggregate benefits.
Animal ethics : The branch of ethics concerned with human duties toward nonhuman animals. Examines duties to animals affected by farming, research, habitat loss, and conservation.
Land ethic : Aldo Leopold's view that soils, waters, plants, and animals belong to a moral community. Makes the biotic community, rather than only individual beings, a focus of moral duty.
Aldo Leopold : An American ecologist and writer whose land ethic expanded moral community to include the natural world. He gave environmental ethics one of its most influential early formulations.
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