How can the global and local be conceptualized using African Environmental Ethics to allow for just and effective environmental policymaking? This thesis argues that the current concepts of global...Show moreHow can the global and local be conceptualized using African Environmental Ethics to allow for just and effective environmental policymaking? This thesis argues that the current concepts of global and the local promote anthropocentric policymaking. Good environmental policymaking necessitates deconstructing underlying anthropocentrism and creating a conceptual framework in which environmental challenges are both global and local, and where the two can entangle into a constructive whole. The question is approached by first reimagining the global and the local in regards to environmental problems using African Environmental Ethics. Secondly, it is argued successful global policymaking is possible, by suggesting an alternative underlying conceptual scheme informed by ethics of care, ubuntu philosophy, eco-bio-communitarianism, and eco-collective responsibility theory.Show less
Value in nature has often been studied from two perspectives, either externally or internally. Schools of intrinsic value like deep ecology have been found extreme in the past, their implications...Show moreValue in nature has often been studied from two perspectives, either externally or internally. Schools of intrinsic value like deep ecology have been found extreme in the past, their implications undesirable to humans. External perspectives like anthropocentric value judgements, for example ecosystem-service arguments, or considerations of intergenerational justice have become increasingly common and well researched. However, this thesis starts from the observation that anthropocentric value based morality does little to protect ecosystems for their own sake. Instead, it merely focuses on those parts that either appeal, service, or otherwise are useful to humans. It is especially this perception of ecosystems that lies at the root of current and past exploitation of the ecosystem. The result is nearly irreversible damage to the ecosystem. This thesis argues for pro tanto moral rights for the ecosystem, on the basis of interest-based moral considerability. I will show that previous arguments for or against the moral considerability of nature lack sufficient knowledge of ecological processes. If ecological processes are properly understood, the ecosystem can be said to have an interest. This interest, or wellbeing, is the striving towards homeostasis. This means that the ecosystem has moral considerability and is a moral patient. It is therefore eligible for moral rights. These rights-relations occur between moral agents and moral patient when there is contact. This will be explained through developing the Contact-Theory.Show less
In this thesis, I claim that the recently emerged perspective of environmental pragmatism is nonviable. For many years, it was deemed impossible for environmental ethics to formulate justified...Show moreIn this thesis, I claim that the recently emerged perspective of environmental pragmatism is nonviable. For many years, it was deemed impossible for environmental ethics to formulate justified environmental policy. Environmental pragmatism, and its primary scholar Bryan G. Norton, has promoted a new outlook in that debate by proposing an ideal methodology based upon classic American pragmatism. In this methodology, a community can determine what is morally righteous by (i) conducting open-ended inquiry and (ii) considering all relevant stakeholders in a rational discourse. Environmental pragmatism must therefore accommodate reasonable value pluralism. Moreover, Norton claims that these criteria should be complemented with what I call the ‘sustainability criterion’. However, this principle of righteous decisionmaking appears inconsistent with the two aforementioned commitments. This thesis considers the extent to which this is the case. As it turns out, environmental pragmatism is unable to reconcile the commitment of sustainability with reasonable value pluralism, when its ideal methodology is applied in practical terms. And, because environmental pragmatism aims to do so, I conclude that it is nonviable.Show less
