Environmental Values Environmental Values
Environmental Values 6(1997): 127-142. doi: 10.3197/096327197776679121
Ethical reasoning of all types is anthropocentric, in that it is addressed to agents, but anthropocentric starting points vary in the preference they accord the human species. Realist claims about environmental values, utilitarian reasoning and rights-based reasoning all have difficulties in according ethical concern to certain all aspects of natural world. Obligation-based reasoning can provide quite strong if incomplete reasons to protect the natural world, including individual non-human animals. Although it cannot establish all the conclusions to which anti-speciesists aspire, it may establish many of them with some clarity.
KEYWORDS: Anthropocentrism, obligations, rights, speciesism
REFERENCES to other articles in Environmental Values:
Human Rights in an Ecological Era. William Aiken
Anthropocentrism: A Misunderstood Problem. Tim Hayward
CITATIONS in other Environmental Values articles:
Environmental Ethics - Values or Obligations? A Reply to O'Neill. Brian Baxter
What Silence Knows - Planning, Public Participation and Environmental Values Anna Davies
A Constrained-Utility Alternative to Animal Rights Joshua Frank
Confucian Role-Based Ethics and Strong Environmental Ethics. Anh Tuan Nuyen
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