Environmental ethics concepts and frameworks

Environmental Ethics

Environmentalism vs. Animal Rights

The 1960s was a decade for the revolutionaries; drugs were considered therapeutic, revolting against the authorities and the governments was "in," and there was a need for a change in the principles of the cultures so that these new mannerisms could not only be justified in action but maintained and encouraged with the progress of time. Nestled deep in this decade was also the initiation and the root of the environmental movement. More specifically, it was in 1967 that the UCLA historian Lynn White Jr. had printed a document where he criticized the rigid Judeo-Christian traditions and blamed those traditions for the numerous environmental hazards that the world was facing at the time. He believed that to live in a peaceful and nurtured world, everyone needed to embrace the concealed and sequestered imminence of our traditions and oust the traditions that were prevalent at the time (White, 1967).

Callicott soon after, in 1980, printed his document where he stated the probable and bound-to-spark-debates issue of the ethics behind the environmentalists and their movement. By this time, however, the animal rights advocates already had established views, in comparison, on various issues concerning the environment as well as the hazards of the decisions made keeping the "ethics" in mind views. Some of the pioneers of these views and outlooks were the following writings (some already in print and others on their way out): Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation and Stephen Clark's the Moral Status of Animals," Bernard Rollin's "Animal Rights and Human Morality," "Animals, Men and Morals edited by Stanley Godlovitch, Rosalind Godlovitch, and John Harris had been published in 1972, and Regan and Singer's first edition of the "Animal Rights and Human Obligations" had been published in 1976. By the end of 1980, authors like those mentioned above and Colin McGinn, Cora Diamond, Donald VanDeVeer, Joel Feinberg, Mary Midgley, Thomas Auxter and Timothy Sprigge had already laid down the basics and philosophies behind the animal rights and their violations. Callicott, in his document wanted to introduce a third player, "land ethic," into the game where decisions were made on the environment, and its effect on humans and animals were analyzed thereof; he wanted to dismiss what was believed to be humanitarian and moral when making these decisions and make the whole process a three-way story (Jamieson, 1997).

Callicott, in his essay highlights the similarities between the two apparently opposing groups: animal rights activist and environmental activists. The problem that Callicott pints out is the late reactions of the animal rights activists who at first approves the western environmental projects, then after they have been implemented they complain about the unfair and varying lack of attention paid to the non-human animals that exist in the same environment. However, they argue that the for majority of their academic years they have been taught within the customary setup of the Anglo-American philosophy while those that study to be environmentalists have been taught with an all round curriculum that includes the continental philosophers and/or theologians, so in essence, the dissimilarity between the two groups is not just philosophical, it as a result also is educational and communal (Jamieson, 1997).

The facts of the matter are this: there are some people who believe that environmental ethics and animal rights are two different and disjointed genres, there are still who believe that animal rights and the conservative or backward morals/principles have more in common then environmental ethics and animal right, it is also true, perhaps based on the most sound facts, that both the advocates of environmental health and animals rights have the exact identical foe, for example, an environmentalist and animal rights activist would both equally care about the hazardous effects of cutting down rainforests to evenly space the luxurious demand of lifestyles of the ever growing population, they would equally be concerned about the poisonous waste dumps in the oceans and rivers that has been one of the causes of the endangerment of whales, etc. In fact, when looking at the records of the environmental fights and debates that have been fought in the past, it is no surprise to see the aspect of animal suffering and extinction being given its due attention. It is also interesting to note that fights fought by the environmentalist and animal rights activist before the World War II took place were all based on the selfish and ruthless destruction of one of the nature's most bounty resources and the extinction of the other in order to better insure the development of weapons or forces equipments, and treating both the natural resources and animals (humans and non-humans) as expendable and insignificant goods. Both groups refused to believe in the utmost faith given to science as the solution to all the problems and it is no surprise that both these revolutions began with very little space between each other. There are people now who support both the groups; environmentalist and animal rights, and feel that there is no distinction or apprehension between the two concepts, and feel that both are concerned about the greater good of the same thing: nature (Jamieson, 1997).

However, this does not, in any way, mean that both the concepts are identical and that there are no differences between the two. The differences, in my opinion, between these two concepts are perhaps as many and as reflective as the differences within each of the concepts themselves. The dominance in terms of which is more effective or thorough can only be determined by debate on opposing elements as opposed to discussion on parallel or similar aspects nor by explanations of the aspects of each concept (Jamieson, 1997).

I could not agree more with Callicott and his view that any reasonable principle that both the environmentalist and animal rights activists can agree on should be the primary aim to achieve. However, there are certain issues that directly and hazardously affect the animals, and these issues are also given significant priority in the environmentalists' targets to achieve. The production and consumption of fish products could be one these issues. Why? Because for the sake of a healthy and balanced environment, biodiversity has to be maintained, and the ruthless hazardous dumps into the ocean, the consumption of fishes, like salmon and other fish products, which though are healthy for the humans but are creating problems for the non-human oceanic life as well as the environment at a large could be one of the issues that both the environmentalists as well as the animal rights activists could fight on with one voice (Jamieson, 1997).