Mandatory non-anthropocentrism: The political unrealism of making metaethical demands in environmental ethics

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter argues that environmental ethicists commit a serious error when they require that people hold a moral realist metaethical belief in the intrinsic value of non-human living things and non-living natural things in order to be able to behave in an ethically acceptable manner toward the environment.

Methodology

Environmental ethics regard this position as the mandatory non-anthropocentrism one must first hold in order to be in a proper moral relationship to the environment. The main reason for seeing this requirement as an error is that it is politically unrealistic insofar most people most of the time behave in political contexts on the basis of instrumental and not intrinsic reasons. To claim that people can behave in a morally acceptable manner toward the environment if and only if they first believe in its intrinsic value is not only politically unrealistic, but also actually false.

Findings

The chapter looks at recent studies measuring the behavior of political and moral philosophers which shows that they do not behave in any markedly way better than non-moral philosophers. Ethicists, whom one can assume believe in some form or another of the mind-independent reality of moral properties, are not more morally well-behaved for holding such a belief.

Implications

Ethicists, especially environmental ethicists, are in no position to require of us to believe in the intrinsic value of the environment in order to behave in more beneficial ways toward it.

Citation

Dockstader, J. (2013), "Mandatory non-anthropocentrism: The political unrealism of making metaethical demands in environmental ethics", Environmental Philosophy: The Art of Life in a World of Limits (Advances in Sustainability and Environmental Justice, Vol. 13), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 157-173. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2051-5030(2013)0000013011