Conservation and Sustainable Use of the Biosphere - WBGU

Fundamentals of environmental ethics
H 3
In our dealings with the environment, the traditional
basic and human rights, as well as the civil rights that
have in some cases been derived from them, should
be just as much a foundation of our considerations as
in the other areas of application of ethics. However,
with regard to the issue of principles, there is a special
problem relating to the use of nature and the
environment: does the basic postulate of the sustenance
of life apply exclusively to human beings or
also to all other beings? This question does not lead
to a new primary principle, as one may suspect at first
glance. Rather, it is necessary to delineate the universally
accepted principle of the sustenance of life that
has already been laid down in the body of basic
rights. Does this principle cover only human beings
(this is the codified version valid in most legal constitutions
today) or also other living creatures? And if
so, which ones?
Should inanimate elements be included too? In
answering this question, it is at first possible to take
up two contradictory positions: anthropocentrism
and physiocentrism (Taylor, 1986; Ott, 1993; Galert,
1998). The anthropocentric view places humankind
and its needs at the fore. Nature’s own fundamental
rights are alien to this view. Interventions in nature
are allowed if they are useful to humankind. A duty
to make provision for the future and to conserve
nature exists in the anthropocentric view of the world
only to the extent that natural systems are classed as
valuable to humankind and that nature can be
regarded as the means and guarantor of human life
and survival (Norton, 1987; Birnbacher, 1991b).
In the physiocentric concept, which forms an
opposite pole to the anthropocentric view, the needs
of humankind are not placed above those of nature.
Here, every living being, whether human, animal or
plant, has the same rights with regard to the basic
opportunity to develop its own life within the framework
of a natural order. In the physiocentric view,
worthiness of protection stems from an inner value
that is unique to each living being. Nature has an
intrinsic value that does not depend on the functions
that it presently fulfils or might later fulfil from
humankind’s point of view (Devall and Sessions,
1984; Naess, 1986; Callicott, 1989; Meyer-Abich, 1996;
Rolston, 1994b).
Where the issues of environmental design and
environmental policy are concerned, anthropocentric
and physiocentric approaches in their pure form
are found only rarely; rather, they occur in different
mixtures and slants.The transitions between the concepts
are fluid. Moderate approaches certainly take
on elements from the opposite position. It may thus
be in line with a fundamentally physiocentric perspective
if the priority of human interests is not
called into question in the conflict over resources. It
is also true that the conclusions of a moderate form
of anthropocentrism may approach the implications
of the physiocentric view. The recommendations for
action of a protectionist form of anthropocentrism,
which sees nature as an object to be protected against
human intervention and uses an existential value of
nature desired by humankind beyond the conservation
of resources, will not be far removed from those
of the physiocentric view.
If we look at the behaviour patterns of people in
different cultures, physiocentric or anthropocentric
basic positions are rarely maintained consistently
(Bargatzky and Kuschel, 1994; on the convergence
theory Birnbacher, 1996). In the strongly anthropocentric
countries of the West, people spend more
money on the welfare and health of their own pets
than on saving human lives in other countries; in the
countries of the Far East that are characterized by
physiocentrism, nature is frequently exploited even
more radically than in the industrialized countries of
the West. This inconsistency is not a justification for
one view or the other, it is just a warning for caution
when laying down further rules for use so that no
extreme – and thus untenable – demands be made.
Also from an ethical point of view, radical anthropocentrism
should be rejected just as much as radical
physiocentrism. If, to take up just one argument here,
the right to human safety is largely justified by the
fact that the causing of pain by others should be seen
as something to be avoided, this consideration without
doubt has to be applied to other beings that are
also capable of feeling pain (referred to as: patho-