Open AccessBeyond Application. The Case of Environmental Ethics
Author(s) -
Luca Valera,
Gabriel Vidal,
Yuliana Leal
Publication year - 2020
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2007-8498
DOI - 10.21555/top.v0i60.1122
Subject(s) - scope (computer science) , realm , applied ethics , ethics of technology , information ethics , meta ethics , normative ethics , environmental health ethics , context (archaeology) , environmental ethics , engineering ethics , epistemology , sociology , bridge (graph theory) , kantian ethics , political science , law , computer science , philosophy , engineering , geography , medicine , health care , archaeology , health policy , programming language
Environmental ethics is often seen as a branch of applied ethics whose task is to offer solutions to emerging ethical dilemmas in the context of ecology. In this paper, we challenge this assumption, showing how the object of environmental ethics raises questions that go beyond that of applied ethics. We explore how the environmental issues bring up the need to inquire into the ontological status of Nature and the place of human beings in it, raising more general and far-reaching questions that do not get entrapped in the mere application. In this regard, it appears that “dwelling”, in its ontological sense, is at the bottom of these questions, creating a bridge between the ontological and the practical realm. Finally, we review classical environmental ethics’ paradigms highlighting the elements that go beyond applied ethics. And so, taking into account the different environmental ethics paradigms, we have two options: reducing the scope of the discipline and exclude the models that exceed it, or reconsidering it as an environmental philosophy tout court.