dc.description.abstract | The worldwide environmental issue which global warming causes has changed people’s traditional attitude toward the environment gradually. How to face such a change and find an ethics basis with practicability and practicality are the goals that we would work for.
This thesis tries to take the approach of utilitarianism and is based on the preference utilitarianism of Peter Singer’s and the principle of equal benefit consideration. We emphasize all the benefits of conscious lives affected by one’s behavior will not make any difference because of identity and distance. It is difficult to reach such a result, especially for global warming issues. The result that personal behaviors influence has uncertainty and delinquency and makes equal consideration not easily to be reached. Therefore, people are obligatory for our environment which bears all of the lives. However, such obligation seems indirect. For the environment itself, other unconscious lives or things of no lives, we can not ask for direct obligation. This is the deficiency for this argument.
Global warming is an environment issue which influences worldwide. We need an environmental ethics of stressing the whole theory, and the land ethics of Aldo Leopold is exactly such a concept, while it is difficult to consider the equal benefit for individuals, we should adopt the classical utilitarianism to pursue the maximization of whole benefits. Such thinking comes from the characteristics of consequentialism of the land ethics. Though there is a gap between the argumentation of utilitarianism and land ethic, we find that, as we view the land ethics from the aspect of benefits, there is no conflict and solve the problem of the naturalistic fallacy ’’ of the land ethics and ’’ the environmental fascist ’’
To reach such a goal, this thesis tries to combine both theories and practices through the methodology of connections. Then I theoretically refer to Rolston’s point of systematic value to clear the indelible value under the whole environment in order to consider the foundation before benefits. We will agree to the opinion of the land ethics to observe the influence of our behaviors under the vision of ’’ one world ’’; in practice aspect, this thesis maintains that we regard the land ethics principle as the principle of standardizing on a kind of intuition aspect. Before giving benefit consideration, we must regard the land ethics principle as top priority. Unless greater benefit consideration enters; otherwise, it is what we should pay attention to consider wholly.
Finally, we expect personal benefit consideration can be ideally shifted under the vision of ’’ one world ’’. In order to live the life which conforms to the ethics demand, we must have an overall consideration. Although we have arithmetical difficulty in an overall consideration from the view of utilitarianism, land ethics is a worthy principle for us to obey. | en_US |