2. Ethics and Morals

• Ethics: Latin, ethicus; ethos. Character, customs
• First principles governing right and wrong.
• Morals: Latin, moralis; pl. mores. Manners, morals.
• Personal value system; personal actions.
• Ethical questions:
• What is good?
• What is right?
• How ought we to act?
• Environmental ethics: How ought we to act toward the environment? What is right? Good?

3. Plato

• 428-348 B.C.E.
• Absolute ethics; rule- governed ethics; rational understanding.
• The Good: the ideal or pure form of goodness.
• The Good Life; the Good State; the Good Society.
• Rules on how to live.
• E.g. Passage of "good" environmental laws and living accordingly.

4. Aristotle

• 384-322 B.C.E.
• Nichomachean Ethics.
• Human nature.
• Humans are part of the natural world.
• Material, formal, efficient, final causes.
• Telos: goal, end.
• Teleological ethics: goal-oriented ethics.

5. Aristotle's Ethics

• "Virtue is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean [between two extremes] . . . this being determined by a rational principle."
• "Moral virtue is a mean . . . between two vices, the one involving excess, the other deficiency."
• E.g. The natural world as it exists is good. Maintain its balances. Use moderation in the consumption of the world's resources.

6. Thomas Aquinas

• 1224-1274 A.D.
• Good = God.
• Theological ethics.
• Divine order in nature.
• Aristotelianism integrated with Christianity.
• Natural law ethics.
• Laws of nature can be discovered by reason.
• Laws of nature prescribe human behavior.

7. Aquinas's Ethics

• Every being has a purpose within the divine order and a "natural" inclination to actualize that purpose. 
• Humans are between God and nature. They seek salvation in God; nature drags down spirit.
• Humans have natural inclinations to preserve their own lives, to procreate their own kind, to care for their fellow humans; they have needs for justice and order.
• E.g. Care for other humans and their communities; stewardship over other creatures.

8. Egocentric Ethics: Self

9. Egocentric Ethics

10. Immanuel Kant - 1724-1804

• Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785).
• Deontological ethics: ethics based on duty (Greek, deon).
• The moral law is a priori imprinted on human consciousness.
• Categorical imperative: One's actions should be governed by the same principles one would want to govern all people's actions.

11. Kant's Ethics

• "There is but one categorical imperative, namely this: Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
• The imperative of duty: "Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a Universal Law of Nature."
• E.g. Rational analysis of world hunger leads universal actions to reduce human suffering. It is our duty to supply food to the starving.

12. Jeremy Bentham

• 1748-1832
• The Principles of Morals and Legislation (1781)
• Utilitarian ethics
• Consequentialist ethics
• Look at the consequences of an action.
• Greatest good for the greatest number.

13. Bentham: The Principle of Utility

• "By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness . . . or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness. . . ."
• Pertains to the happiness of the community and the happiness of the individual.
• Government should "augment the happiness of the community. . . ."

14. John Stuart Mill

• 1806-1873
• Utilitarianism (1863)
• "Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."
• "By 'happiness' is intended pleasure and the absence of pain."

15. Homocentric Ethics: Society

16. Homocentric Ethics

17. Aldo Leopold

• 1887-1948.
• A Sand County Almanac (1949)
• "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, beauty, and stability of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

18. Leopold and Pine Tree

• "The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land."
• "A land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conquerer of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it."

19. Ecocentric Ethics: Cosmos

Eco-Scientific:
• Aldo Leopold
• Rachel Carson
• Deep Ecologists
• Restoration Ecologists
• Biological Control
• Sustainable Agriculture

Eco-Religious:

• American Indian
• Buddhism
• Spiritual Feminists
• Spiritual Greens
• Process Philosophers

20. Ecocentric Ethics

21. Feminist Ethics

• Susan Sherwin. "A Feminist Approach to Ethics." (1984)
• Nel Noddings. Caring: a Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (1984)
• Marti Kheel. "The Liberation of Nature: A Circular Affair." (1985)
• Karen Warren. "Toward an Ecofeminist Ethic." (1988)

22. Partnership Ethics: People and Nature

• The Greatest Good for the Human and Nonhuman Communities is in their Mutual Living Interdependence

23. Partnership Ethics

• Equity between the human and nonhuman communities.
• Moral consideration for both humans and other species.
• Respect for cultural diversity and biodiversity.
• Inclusion of women, minorities, and nonhuman nature in the code of ethical accountability.
• Ecologically sound management is consistent with the continued health of both the human and nonhuman communities.