Philosophy and the environment
all parts of the environment are valuable to other parts of the environment without it having to be anthropocentric. However, this argument still does not answer the question whether all value is created equal (thus still not resolving the problem of applying deontological thought consistently). It could perhaps be enhanced with additions from the Buddhist thought of compassion in virtue ethics. Buddhists acknowledge that all parts of our environment, whether they be sentient or not, have a spirit about them and thus deserve a certain level of compassion from people going about their lives. This argument thus acknowledges that a) compassion is a universal value which should be afforded to everything and b) it represents an intrinsic value in all things irrespective of their consequentialist value assigned to them by others. This framework now brings us back to an enhanced version of deontological ethics. Firstly, by employing the Buddhist virtue ethics mode of thought, we can argue that certain actions are either right or wrong dependent on whether they violate the minimal degree of intrinsic value. Secondly, the combination of assigning value both from the perspective of utility to other members, as well as a certain minimal value on the basis of existence and therefore compassion, allows us to construct the following philosophical framework for decisions in countries in the circumstances of justice: 1. all members of the environment have a minimal degree of protection (no matter what the consequences) from certain acts that completely disregard intrinsic value, such as vivisection in the name of science. 2. That being said, there are degrees of right and wrong and certain members of the environment are more valuable than others. 3. Therefore, by employing both utilitarian and virtue principles of assigning value, we have a usable version of deontology which allows us to determine how right or wrong something is on the basis of who it affects, while still maintaining that certain things are wrong and intolerable. Lastly, despite us now having a usable and just way to apply philosophy, it is impractical and unjustifiable to do so in societies which have not yet reached the circumstances of justice. When we use a philosophical framework, such as the one above, we impose restrictions on ourselves in order to do only things which are morally justifiable, even though this imposition of restrictions may not be morally justifiable in and of itself. In a modern developed country people can legitimately adopt a policy of deontology or compassion towards all things. After all, developed economies such as the UK no longer need to pollute to feed their citizens; their scientists do not need to perform vivisections to advance medicine. Both pollution and vivisection would be deontologically unacceptable: pollution exhibits no compassion to marine life; vivisection disregards a being by subjecting it to terrible pain. However, it would be unfair to apply the same standard to developing countries, where the level of material well-being is not substantial enough to absorb the impact of taking actions under such principles. Let us consider pollution as a proxy for the things which are restricted when being guided by philosophy (vivisection has been rendered obsolete by means of technological exchange). Emerging economies such as India and China heavily rely on manufacturing to develop, fund education and transition to a more sustainable service-based economy. However, manufacturing goes hand in hand with pollution. Despite richer countries being able to afford to move to more environmentally sustainable methods of production and well-being (such as China investing more in green energy now that its standards of living are considerably above average), most of the developing world, including India, most of Africa and south-east Asia, would be greatly restricted in their ability to develop as a learning philosophy to shape decisions would simply illegitimize the most effective profit-making mechanism. Furthermore, beyond it being illegitimate to restrict the best profit mechanisms of these countries as their populations could not absorb the damage, it would also be fundamentally unfair. The
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