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Environmental Values

Confucian Role-Based Ethics and Strong Environmental Ethics

Environmental Values 20 (2011): 549-566. doi: 10.3197/096327111X13150367351375

ABSTRACT

Onora O'Neill has argued that an obligations-based anthropocentric ethics can support strong environmentalism. However, the value that non-human nature has in such ethics is still ultimately instrumental. I will argue in this paper that while O'Neill's ethics is conceptually close enough to Confucian role-based ethics, the latter allows that non-human nature can have a non-instrumental value and thus can support a robust environmentalism while remaining anthropocentric.

KEYWORDS

Confucian ethics; anthropocentrism; strong environmentalism; inherent value; intrinsic value

REFERENCES to other articles in Environmental Values:

Environmental Values, Anthropocentrism and Speciesism Onora O'Neill

CITATIONS in other Environmental Values articles

Editorial: Building on the Past, Creating a Future Isis Brook

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