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Should Environmental Issues Be Included in Moral Concerns?
People, as individuals, have the power to choose if they should respect environmental concerns. This is why, at a social or governmental level, people ought to be held responsible for what is right or wrong for the environment. Any harm caused by people to the ecological make-up of earth, living and non-living, is the result of ignorance. This ignorance, or to be fair unawareness, stems from a lack of moral concern applied to environmental issues. Paternalistic laws are passed to protect people from harming themselves, and the same goes for laws protecting the environment from human harm. Emissions testing for cars, smoking and fire bans in National Parks, littering penalties, are all examples of laws made to protect us from the harm we inflict on our own environment. These laws extend to protect not only the environment in itself, but also the resulting harm it causes on people. As in the case of emissions tests for cars, which protect air quality from pollutants and in turn people breath cleaner air. The studies in biology of ecological systems have revealed the direct effect of the environment on human health. Conversely, these studies have also shown the effect of industrial society on the environment. The less we do to prevent the harm people cause on the environment, the more harm we do to ourselves. Take as an example the effects of acid deposition (acid rain), caused as "a result of the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, as well as gasoline", which cause, "reduction of agricultural yields, damage to buildings, and illnesses in humans", (Mader, pg.30). Herein lies the need and reason for laws that protect not only the environment from people, but protects people from the environment they have damaged. It is laws derived from a moral sense of duty to humankind that prevent harm done to others. It is this same moral sense of duty that, when applied to issues of the environment, enacts laws to prevent harm to the earth. Consequently, environmental concerns should be considered no different from that of a moral concern because both aim to protect the quality of life for people. Read more on this essay from Jason Cangialosi. It will continue to cover:
What is a Moral Concern/ or a Definition of Moral?
Survival as a species in the Environment.
The impact of the Individual on the Environment.
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Contributor's Note
When the past meets future for Jason, the moment is fueled by a creative background in music, writing, film and philosophy providing a nexus of the complex world to come. He is currently a freelance writer and ghostwriter of books, articles and screenplays.
http://jason-cangialosi.blogspot.com
http://www.yuwie.com/cangialosi/
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Environmental Issues as Moral Concerns
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