Environmental Ethics
Chapter Twenty
Syllabus topic 1, "The Idea of Environment"
Pages 79 to 82 of 595
In one line
Environmental ethics asks what, besides human beings, has a claim on our conduct, and the four standard answers each produce a different law.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: environmental ethics is the branch of moral philosophy concerned with the moral status of the non-human world. The principal positions are anthropocentrism, which extends moral concern only to human beings; sentientism or animal welfare ethics, which extends it to creatures capable of suffering; biocentrism, which extends it to all living things; and ecocentrism or deep ecology, which extends it to species, ecosystems and the biosphere as wholes.
Why a law student needs this
Because the University sets the idea of environment as a topic, and because every doctrine in this book rests on one of these positions whether or not the judgment says so.
There is a sharper reason. A candidate who can name the position a judgment adopts is doing something an examiner notices. When the Supreme Court says that a species has a value independent of human use, it has taken a side in an old argument, and saying which side is a better answer than repeating the sentence.
The four positions
Anthropocentrism. Only human beings have moral standing. Nature has instrumental value: it matters because we need it, enjoy it, or will need it later. This is the position of most environmental legislation everywhere and of the whole Article 21 line of Indian decisions.
Its strength is that it is enough for most purposes. If you take long-term human interests seriously, including those of people not yet born, almost everything worth protecting turns out to be worth protecting.
Its weakness is the residue: the species with no use, the wetland nobody visits, the last population of something in a place no one goes.
Sentientism. Moral standing follows the capacity to suffer. What matters is not being human but being able to feel, so a creature with a nervous system has a claim. This is the philosophical basis of animal welfare law, and it is close to the traditional Indian position of ahimsa although it reaches it by a different route.
Its limit is that it protects individuals and not systems. A plant, a river and an ecosystem have no nervous system, so they fall outside it, and a policy that maximises the welfare of individual creatures can be indifferent to whether the species survives.
Biocentrism. All living things have a good of their own and therefore a claim. A tree has interests, in the minimal sense that things can go well or badly for it. Albert Schweitzer's reverence for life and Paul Taylor's respect for nature are the usual references.
Environmental Ethics
Its limit is practical. If every living thing has a claim, ordinary life becomes impossible without constant justification, and the position needs a theory of when a claim may be overridden.
Ecocentrism and deep ecology. The unit of moral concern is not the individual organism but the whole: the species, the ecosystem, the biosphere. Aldo Leopold's land ethic is the classic formulation, that a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community; Arne Naess coined the term deep ecology for a position that treats the flourishing of non-human life as having value independent of its usefulness.
Its strength is that it matches what conservation actually needs to protect, which is systems rather than individuals. Its weakness is that it can be indifferent to individuals and, at its extremes, to human beings.
What Indian material contributes
Two contributions, and a candidate should be able to name both.
Ahimsa arrives at a sentientist position by a different route. The Jain and Buddhist doctrine of non-injury protects a creature because injuring it is wrong, not because the creature has a right. The conclusion is close to sentientism; the reasoning is about the moral condition of the person acting.
Article 51A(g) is a rare instance of an ethical position in a constitutional text. The duty of every citizen to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for living creatures, contains both a systems clause and a sentientist clause in a single sentence. That is unusual, and it is what allows an Indian court to reach either position without leaving the Constitution.
Worked example
A proposal will drain a shallow lake for an industrial estate. The lake supports no fishery, is not used for drinking water, and is not a recognised heritage site. It holds a large population of frogs and a stand of an aquatic plant found in only a few places in the State.
Work the four positions across the facts.
Anthropocentric: no human interest is affected unless the lake recharges groundwater, absorbs flood water or moderates local temperature, so the whole argument turns on establishing an ecosystem service.
Sentientist: the frogs can suffer, and a large population destroyed is a large quantity of suffering, so there is a claim independent of any human interest. The plant has none.
Biocentric: both the frogs and the plant have a good of their own, and the plant's rarity strengthens rather than creates the claim.
Ecocentric: the unit is the lake as a system, and the rarity of the plant matters because it makes this system irreplaceable. The frogs matter as a component rather than as individuals.
Environmental Ethics
Notice that the four positions give different answers about what has to be proved. That is the practical payoff of the distinction, and it is what a legal answer should say.
What environmental ethics does NOT do
It does not decide cases. No Indian court has decided a case by adopting Leopold or Naess. Ethics supplies the reasons behind a doctrine, and the doctrine decides the case.
It is not the same as environmental jurisprudence. Ethics asks what ought to be protected. Jurisprudence asks how a legal system in fact protects it, and by what concepts.
It does not require you to choose. An answer that maps the positions and shows what each would mean for a concrete problem is better than one that announces a preference.
Distinctions that carry marks
| Position | Who has standing | Classic figure | Indian counterpart | What it protects that the one above does not |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropocentrism | Human beings | Most legislation | Article 21 jurisprudence | Nothing beyond human interest |
| Sentientism | Creatures that can suffer | Peter Singer | Ahimsa, by a different route | Animals with no economic value |
| Biocentrism | All living things | Schweitzer, Taylor | Jain observance at its strictest | Plants and micro-organisms |
| Ecocentrism | Species, ecosystems, the biosphere | Leopold, Naess | The compassion clause read with the systems clause of Article 51A(g) | Systems, and rarity as such |
Quick revision
- Four positions: anthropocentrism, sentientism, biocentrism, ecocentrism, each extending moral standing one step further out.
- Leopold's land ethic: a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. Naess coined deep ecology.
- Ahimsa reaches a sentientist conclusion by reasoning about the moral condition of the actor rather than about the rights of the creature.
- Article 51A(g) carries a systems clause and a compassion clause in one sentence, which is why an Indian court can reach either position from the constitutional text.
- The practical payoff: the four positions differ about what has to be proved before a natural thing is protected.
- Ethics supplies reasons, not decisions. The doctrine decides the case.
Test yourself
1. Name the four positions in order of increasing scope and say what each adds.
Anthropocentrism, which gives standing to human beings only. Sentientism, which adds creatures capable of suffering. Biocentrism, which adds all living things, including plants and micro-organisms. Ecocentrism, which shifts the unit from the individual to the species, the ecosystem and the biosphere, and so protects systems and rarity as such.
2. What is the weakness of the anthropocentric position, and why does it matter in practice?
The residue: a species with no use, a wetland nobody visits, a population in a place no one goes. It matters because those are precisely the cases in which a developer faces no environmental objection at all, so the whole argument has to be reframed as an ecosystem service before the law will hear it.
Environmental Ethics
3. How does ahimsa differ from sentientism although it reaches a similar conclusion?
Sentientism grounds the claim in the creature's capacity to suffer, so the creature has something like a claim of its own. Ahimsa grounds it in the wrongness of injuring, which is a proposition about the moral condition of the person who acts. The protection is similar; the reasoning is not.
4. Why is Article 51A(g) unusual as a constitutional provision?
Because it puts an ethical position into a constitutional text, and two positions at once: a systems clause covering the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and a sentientist clause requiring compassion for living creatures. That is what lets an Indian court adopt either an ecocentric or a welfare-based reading without going outside the Constitution.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.