Question One
According to Leopold, “[an action] is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. Although the presented statement may seem straightforward, Leopold meant that people are not only required to value the system in which they reside but should embrace environmental values that will preserve nature. If people choose to embrace values that degrade the environment, they should be dropped and select options that will positively benefit a biotic community. When humans do not know the right thing to do with the environment, they may easily destroy it. As a result, individuals should strive to embrace actions that maintain a biotic community’s stability, integrity, and beauty.
This principle expresses the environmental, ethical view of Ecocentrism since it helps in reminding humans that all types of lives are interdependent and that both humans and non-humans depend on the ecosystem. Since every living and non-living thing depends on the ecosystem, humans should only embrace actions that will maintain its integrity, beauty, and stability. One example used by shallow ecologists to show a violation of this principle is concerned with understanding how industrial societies can increase the production of emerging without causing harm to the environment. However, the continued exploitation of the environment without addressing future challenges predisposes humans to a great risk. I agree with the overall ecocentric approach because it is tasked with protecting holistic natural entities, including all the species and ecosystems.
Question Two
A natural world that is instrumentally valuable represents an ecosystem as merely a means that can be used to reach the end. On most occasions, a natural world that is instrumentally valuable is measured in monetary terms. Leopold uses the conservation system primarily founded on economic motives that always does not have the attached value towards the end. According to Leopold, lack of value is not only attached to one species in a community but also attached to an entire biotic community. When analyzing the government sector, Leopold notes that they have wanted lands to be controlled by them. However, they have often shown no visible alternative of conserving their lands. Doing so shows how most lands have lost their economic values because of failing to institute the required measures. On the other hand, Naess notes that since most indigenous people did not exploit the environments hence leaving a sustainable society for the next thousands of years. However, the emergence of a different economic system resulted in its exploitation, which led to it losing its value.
Ecocentrism is used as an alternative to anthropocentric accounts because it finds the inherent values in all types of nature. Additionally, the fact that it considers a wider view of the world makes it preferred than the anthropocentric accounts. One unique aspect of Ecocentrism is that it goes beyond the inherent values attached to living things and includes the environmental system as a whole. Doing so offers a more detailed account of how the world is instrumentally valuable than anthropocentric accounts.
Question Three
According to Arne Naess, the expanded self tends to fluctuate between the mystical indistinguishability and other accounts that are closely related to the holistic and expanded self. Naess believes that the self consists of every aspect of the totality of our identification, including our self that we occasionally in our identities. Therefore, Naess believes that we should all strive to identify, although the expanded self is not open to critique of egoism; instead, it serves as enlargement and extension of egoism.
Val Plumwood refutes the arguments presented by Naess since he believes that deep ecology does not provide further details concerning the structures that constitute rational egoism and only continue to subscribe to the main tenets of an egoist framework. According to the egoist framework, human nature is egoistic, and the alternatives that can be used in place of egoism are self-sacrifice. Plumwood notes that based on the assumptions that have been made about egoism, one of the primary ways through which one can gain some form of human interest, especially in offering defense to nature through embracing an expanded self-operating.
The indigenous care ethics notes that most human beings empathize with nature: an aspect that may be highly pretentious. The indigenous care ethics failing to critique egoism and the disembodied non-relational self fails to draw meaningful inferences and connections with other critiques.
Question Four
Both Leopold, Naess, and the indigenous communities affirm that every individual should have a proper ethical relationship with the world. To ensure that every person embraces this aspect, the three thinkers note that every person should strictly follow the ethics of the land. Since a close relationship exists between the land and human beings, it is crucial that every person strictly follows all the laws of their land. Every man who lives on land should make an effort to obey stipulated laws and preserving the ecological balance. Leopold notes that although this is the responsibility of every human being, most members occupying different levels in the ecosystem are ignorant and do not take care of the environment.
The existing land ethics note that man is tasked with living with his surrounding ecosystem. However, most of them are ignorant and constantly harm the environment, leading to an imbalance in nature. It is also noted that land ethics play an integral role in the integration of nature. According to Leopold’s position, he encourages that nature should be preserved in a philosophical way just like it has been outlined in Darwinian ethics. Lastly, ethics lay an influential role in the preservation of nature. Based on these aspects, the three thinkers note that for every person to have an ethical relationship with the world, they should not only change how they act but also institute measures of ensuring that no harm is imposed on the environment by acting ethically and respecting all the laws.
