Environmental Ethics: Some Prerequisite Conceptual Analyses

Abstract

This article covers some conceptual analyses made about basic issues in environmental ethics. The analyses were partly concerned with the significance and efficacy of philosophical efforts regarding environmental issues and partly with the methods, arguments, concepts, and ideas common in this field of philosophy. The findings led the researchers to conclude that a principlistic attitude is inevitable, and a doer-based or action-based attitude, instead of the common subject-based attitude, towards ethical duties would pave the way for extending human duties to non-human beings. Moreover, a right-based conception of duty would better explain our duty towards non-human beings while “right” is understood according to the notion of “need” rather than “value”.