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Case Studies

More than 70 cases pair ethics concepts with real world situations. From journalism, performing arts, and scientific research to sports, law, and business, these case studies explore current and historic ethical dilemmas, their motivating biases, and their consequences. Each case includes discussion questions, related videos, and a bibliography.

A Million Little Pieces

James Frey’s popular memoir stirred controversy and media attention after it was revealed to contain numerous exaggerations and fabrications.

Abramoff: Lobbying Congress

Super-lobbyist Abramoff was caught in a scheme to lobby against his own clients. Was a corrupt individual or a corrupt system – or both – to blame?

Apple Suppliers & Labor Practices

Is tech company Apple, Inc. ethically obligated to oversee the questionable working conditions of other companies further down their supply chain?

Approaching the Presidency: Roosevelt & Taft

Some presidents view their responsibilities in strictly legal terms, others according to duty. Roosevelt and Taft took two extreme approaches.

Appropriating “Hope”

Fairey’s portrait of Barack Obama raised debate over the extent to which an artist can use and modify another’s artistic work, yet still call it one’s own.

Arctic Offshore Drilling

Competing groups frame the debate over oil drilling off Alaska’s coast in varying ways depending on their environmental and economic interests.

Banning Burkas: Freedom or Discrimination?

The French law banning women from wearing burkas in public sparked debate about discrimination and freedom of religion.

Birthing Vaccine Skepticism

Wakefield published an article riddled with inaccuracies and conflicts of interest that created significant vaccine hesitancy regarding the MMR vaccine.

Blurred Lines of Copyright

Marvin Gaye’s Estate won a lawsuit against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams for the hit song “Blurred Lines,” which had a similar feel to one of his songs.

Bullfighting: Art or Not?

Bullfighting has been a prominent cultural and artistic event for centuries, but in recent decades it has faced increasing criticism for animal rights’ abuse.

Buying Green: Consumer Behavior

Do purchasing green products, such as organic foods and electric cars, give consumers the moral license to indulge in unethical behavior?

Cadavers in Car Safety Research

Engineers at Heidelberg University insist that the use of human cadavers in car safety research is ethical because their research can save lives.

Cardinals’ Computer Hacking

St. Louis Cardinals scouting director Chris Correa hacked into the Houston Astros’ webmail system, leading to legal repercussions and a lifetime ban from MLB.

Cheating: Atlanta’s School Scandal

Teachers and administrators at Parks Middle School adjust struggling students’ test scores in an effort to save their school from closure.

Cheating: Sign-Stealing in MLB

The Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scheme rocked the baseball world, leading to a game-changing MLB investigation and fallout.

Cheating: UNC’s Academic Fraud

UNC’s academic fraud scandal uncovered an 18-year scheme of unchecked coursework and fraudulent classes that enabled student-athletes to play sports.

Cheney v. U.S. District Court

A controversial case focuses on Justice Scalia’s personal friendship with Vice President Cheney and the possible conflict of interest it poses to the case.

Christina Fallin: “Appropriate Culturation?”

After Fallin posted a picture of herself wearing a Plain’s headdress on social media, uproar emerged over cultural appropriation and Fallin’s intentions.

Climate Change & the Paris Deal

While climate change poses many abstract problems, the actions (or inactions) of today’s populations will have tangible effects on future generations.

Cover-Up on Campus

While the Baylor University football team was winning on the field, university officials failed to take action when allegations of sexual assault by student athletes emerged.

Covering Female Athletes

Sports Illustrated stirs controversy when their cover photo of an Olympic skier seems to focus more on her physical appearance than her athletic abilities.

Covering Yourself? Journalists and the Bowl Championship

Can news outlets covering the Bowl Championship Series fairly report sports news if their own polls were used to create the news?

Cyber Harassment

After a student defames a middle school teacher on social media, the teacher confronts the student in class and posts a video of the confrontation online.

Defending Freedom of Tweets?

Running back Rashard Mendenhall receives backlash from fans after criticizing the celebration of the assassination of Osama Bin Laden in a tweet.

Dennis Kozlowski: Living Large

Dennis Kozlowski was an effective leader for Tyco in his first few years as CEO, but eventually faced criminal charges over his use of company assets.

Digital Downloads

File-sharing program Napster sparked debate over the legal and ethical dimensions of downloading unauthorized copies of copyrighted music.

Dr. V’s Magical Putter

Journalist Caleb Hannan outed Dr. V as a trans woman, sparking debate over the ethics of Hannan’s reporting, as well its role in Dr. V’s suicide.

East Germany’s Doping Machine

From 1968 to the late 1980s, East Germany (GDR) doped some 9,000 athletes to gain success in international athletic competitions despite being aware of the unfortunate side effects.

Ebola & American Intervention

Did the dispatch of U.S. military units to Liberia to aid in humanitarian relief during the Ebola epidemic help or hinder the process?

Edward Snowden: Traitor or Hero?

Was Edward Snowden’s release of confidential government documents ethically justifiable?

Ethical Pitfalls in Action

Why do good people do bad things? Behavioral ethics is the science of moral decision-making, which explores why and how people make the ethical (and unethical) decisions that they do.

Ethical Use of Home DNA Testing

The rising popularity of at-home DNA testing kits raises questions about privacy and consumer rights.

Flying the Confederate Flag

A heated debate ensues over whether or not the Confederate flag should be removed from the South Carolina State House grounds.

Freedom of Speech on Campus

In the wake of racially motivated offenses, student protests sparked debate over the roles of free speech, deliberation, and tolerance on campus.

Freedom vs. Duty in Clinical Social Work

What should social workers do when their personal values come in conflict with the clients they are meant to serve?

Full Disclosure: Manipulating Donors

When an intern witnesses a donor making a large gift to a non-profit organization under misleading circumstances, she struggles with what to do.

Gaming the System: The VA Scandal

The Veterans Administration’s incentives were meant to spur more efficient and productive healthcare, but not all administrators complied as intended.

German Police Battalion 101

During the Holocaust, ordinary Germans became willing killers even though they could have opted out from murdering their Jewish neighbors.

Head Injuries & American Football

Many studies have linked traumatic brain injuries and related conditions to American football, creating controversy around the safety of the sport.

Head Injuries & the NFL

American football is a rough and dangerous game and its impact on the players’ brain health has sparked a hotly contested debate.

Healthcare Obligations: Personal vs. Institutional

A medical doctor must make a difficult decision when informing patients of the effectiveness of flu shots while upholding institutional recommendations.

High Stakes Testing

In the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act, parents, teachers, and school administrators take different positions on how to assess student achievement.

In-FUR-mercials: Advertising & Adoption

When the Lied Animal Shelter faces a spike in animal intake, an advertising agency uses its moral imagination to increase pet adoptions.

Krogh & the Watergate Scandal

Egil Krogh was a young lawyer working for the Nixon Administration whose ethics faded from view when asked to play a part in the Watergate break-in.

Limbaugh on Drug Addiction

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh argued that drug abuse was a choice, not a disease. He later became addicted to painkillers.

U.S. Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte’s “over-exaggeration” of an incident at the 2016 Rio Olympics led to very real consequences.

Meet Me at Starbucks

Two black men were arrested after an employee called the police on them, prompting Starbucks to implement “racial-bias” training across all its stores.

Myanmar Amber

Buying amber could potentially fund an ethnic civil war, but refraining allows collectors to acquire important specimens that could be used for research.

Negotiating Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy lawyer Gellene successfully represented a mining company during a major reorganization, but failed to disclose potential conflicts of interest.

Pao & Gender Bias

Ellen Pao stirred debate in the venture capital and tech industries when she filed a lawsuit against her employer on grounds of gender discrimination.

Pardoning Nixon

One month after Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency, Gerald Ford made the controversial decision to issue Nixon a full pardon.

Patient Autonomy & Informed Consent

Nursing staff and family members struggle with informed consent when taking care of a patient who has been deemed legally incompetent.

Prenatal Diagnosis & Parental Choice

Debate has emerged over the ethics of prenatal diagnosis and reproductive freedom in instances where testing has revealed genetic abnormalities.

Reporting on Robin Williams

After Robin Williams took his own life, news media covered the story in great detail, leading many to argue that such reporting violated the family’s privacy.

Responding to Child Migration

An influx of children migrants posed logistical and ethical dilemmas for U.S. authorities while intensifying ongoing debate about immigration.

Retracting Research: The Case of Chandok v. Klessig

A researcher makes the difficult decision to retract a published, peer-reviewed article after the original research results cannot be reproduced.

Sacking Social Media in College Sports

In the wake of questionable social media use by college athletes, the head coach at University of South Carolina bans his players from using Twitter.

Selling Enron

Following the deregulation of electricity markets in California, private energy company Enron profited greatly, but at a dire cost.

Snyder v. Phelps

Freedom of speech was put on trial in a case involving the Westboro Baptist Church and their protesting at the funeral of U.S. Marine Matthew Snyder.

Something Fishy at the Paralympics

Rampant cheating has plagued the Paralympics over the years, compromising the credibility and sportsmanship of Paralympian athletes.

Sports Blogs: The Wild West of Sports Journalism?

Deadspin pays an anonymous source for information related to NFL star Brett Favre, sparking debate over the ethics of “checkbook journalism.”

Stangl & the Holocaust

Franz Stangl was the most effective Nazi administrator in Poland, killing nearly one million Jews at Treblinka, but he claimed he was simply following orders.

Teaching Blackface: A Lesson on Stereotypes

A teacher was put on leave for showing a blackface video during a lesson on racial segregation, sparking discussion over how to teach about stereotypes.

The Astros’ Sign-Stealing Scandal

The Houston Astros rode a wave of success, culminating in a World Series win, but it all came crashing down when their sign-stealing scheme was revealed.

The Central Park Five

Despite the indisputable and overwhelming evidence of the innocence of the Central Park Five, some involved in the case refuse to believe it.

The CIA Leak

Legal and political fallout follows from the leak of classified information that led to the identification of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

The Collapse of Barings Bank

When faced with growing losses, investment banker Nick Leeson took big risks in an attempt to get out from under the losses. He lost.

The Costco Model

How can companies promote positive treatment of employees and benefit from leading with the best practices? Costco offers a model.

The FBI & Apple Security vs. Privacy

How can tech companies and government organizations strike a balance between maintaining national security and protecting user privacy?

The Miss Saigon Controversy

When a white actor was cast for the half-French, half-Vietnamese character in the Broadway production of Miss Saigon , debate ensued.

The Sandusky Scandal

Following the conviction of assistant coach Jerry Sandusky for sexual abuse, debate continues on how much university officials and head coach Joe Paterno knew of the crimes.

The Varsity Blues Scandal

A college admissions prep advisor told wealthy parents that while there were front doors into universities and back doors, he had created a side door that was worth exploring.

Providing radiation therapy to cancer patients, Therac-25 had malfunctions that resulted in 6 deaths. Who is accountable when technology causes harm?

Welfare Reform

The Welfare Reform Act changed how welfare operated, intensifying debate over the government’s role in supporting the poor through direct aid.

Wells Fargo and Moral Emotions

In a settlement with regulators, Wells Fargo Bank admitted that it had created as many as two million accounts for customers without their permission.

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Case Studies

Case study: bhopal gas tragedy (1983-84).

Dr. Rhyddhi Chakraborty Programme Leader (Health and Social Care), London Churchill College, UK Email: [email protected]

What follows is a synopsis of the full article found in featured articles.

Please read the featured article Lesson from Bhopal Gas Tragedy (1983-84) By Dr. Rhyddhi Chakraborty Programme Leader (Health and Social Care), London Churchill College, UK describes in detail the elements of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy

Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL)

In 1970, in the North adjacent to the slums and railway station, a pesticide plant was set up by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL). From late 1977, the plant started manufacturing Sevin (Carbaryl) by importing primary raw materials, viz. alpha-naphtol and methyl isocyanate (MIC) in stainless steel drums from the Union Carbide's MIC plant in USA. However, from early 1980, the Bhopal plant itself started manufacturing MIC using the know-how and basic designs supplied by Union Carbide Corporation, USA (UCC). The Bhopal UCIL facility housed three underground 68,000 liters liquid MIC storage tanks: E610, E611, and E619 and were claimed to ensure all safety from leakage.

Time Line of Occupational Hazards of the Union Carbide India Limited Plant Leading Before the Disaster

• 1976: Local trade unions complained of pollution within the plant. • 1980: A worker was reported to have accidentally been splashed with phosgene while carrying out a regular maintenance job of the plant's pipes. • 1982 (January): A phosgene leak exposed 24 workers, all of whom were admitted to a hospital. Investigation revealed that none of the workers had been ordered to wear protective masks. • 1982 (February): An MIC leak affected 18 workers. • 1982 (August): A chemical engineer came into contact with liquid MIC, resulting in burns over 30 percent of his body. • 1982 (October): In attempting to stop the leak, the MIC supervisor suffered severe chemical burns and two other workers were severely exposed to the gases. • 1983-1984: There were leaks of MIC, chlorine, monomethylamine, phosgene, and carbon tetrachloride, sometimes in combination.

In early December 1984, most of the Bhopal plant's MIC related safety systems were not functioning and many valves and lines were in poor condition. In addition, several vent gas scrubbers had been out of service as well as the steam boiler, intended to clean the pipes. For the major maintenance work, the MIC production and Sevin were stalled in Bhopal plant since Oct. 22, 1984 and major regular maintenance was ordered to be done during the weekdays’ day shifts.

The Sevin plant, after having been shut down for some time, had been started up again during November but was still running at far below normal capacity. To make the pesticide, carbon tetrachloride is mixed with methyl isocyanate (MIC) and alpha-naphthol, a coffee-colored powder that smells like mothballs. The methyl isocyanate, or MIC, was stored in the three partly buried tanks, each with a 15,000-gallon capacity.

During the late evening hours of December 2, 1984, whilst trying to unclog, water was believed to have entered a side pipe and into Tank E610 containing 42 tons of MIC that had been there since late October. Introduction of water into the tank began a runaway exothermic reaction, which was accelerated by contaminants, high ambient temperatures and other factors, such as the presence of iron from corroding non-stainless steel pipelines.

A Three Hour Time Line of the Disaster

December 3, 1984 12:40 am: A worker, while investigating a leak, stood on a concrete slab above three large, partly buried storage tanks holding the chemical MIC. The slab suddenly began to vibrate beneath him and he witnessed at least a 6 inche thick crack on the slab and heard a loud hissing sound. As he prepared to escape from the leaking gas, he saw gas shoot out of a tall stack connected to the tank, forming a white cloud that drifted over the plant and toward nearby neighborhoods where thousands of residents were sleeping. In short span of time, the leak went out of control.

December 3, 1984 12:45 am: The workers were aware of the enormity of the accident. They began to panic both because of the choking fumes, they said, and because of their realization that things were out of control; the concrete over the tanks cracked as MIC turned from liquid to gas and shot out the stack, forming a white cloud. Part of it hung over the factory, the rest began to drift toward the sleeping neighborhoods nearby.

December 3, 1984 12:50 am: The public siren briefly sounded and was quickly turned off, as per company procedure meant to avoid alarming the public around the factory over tiny leaks. Workers, meanwhile, evacuated the UCIL plant. The control room operator then turned on the vent gas scrubber, a device designed to neutralize escaping toxic gas. The scrubber had been under maintenance; the flow meter indicated there was no caustic soda flowing into the device. It was not clear to him whether there was actually no caustic soda in the system or whether the meter was broken. Broken gauges were not unusual at the factory. In fact, the gas was not being neutralized but was shooting out the vent scrubber stack and settling over the plant. December 3, 1984 1: 15- 1:30 am: At Bhopal’s 1,200-bed Hamidia Hospital, the first patient with eye trouble reported. Within five minutes, there were a thousand patients. Calls to the UCIL plant by police were twice assured that "everything is OK", and on the last attempt made, "we don't know what has happened, sir". In the plant, meanwhile, MIC began to engulf the control room and the adjoining offices.

December 3, 1984 3:00 am: The factory manager, arrived at the plant and sent a man to tell the police about the accident because the phones were out of order. The police were not told earlier because the company management had an informal policy of not involving the local authorities in gas leaks. Meanwhile, people were dying by the hundreds outside the factory. Some died in their sleep. Others ran into the cloud, breathing in more and more gas and dropping dead in their tracks.

Immediate Consequences

With the lack of timely information exchange between Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) and Bhopal authorities, the city's Hamidia Hospital was first told that the gas leak was suspected to be ammonia, then phosgene. They were then told that it was methyl isocyanate (MIC), which hospital staff had never heard of, had no antidote for, and received no immediate information about. The gas cloud, composed mainly of materials denser than air, stayed close to the ground and spread in the southeasterly direction affecting the nearby communities. Most city residents who were exposed to the MIC gas were first made aware of the leak by exposure to the gas itself.

Subsequent Actions

Formal statements were issued that air, water, vegetation and foodstuffs were safe, but warned not to consume fish. The number of children exposed to the gases was at least 200,000. Within weeks, the State Government established a number of hospitals, clinics and mobile units in the gas-affected area to treat the victims.

Legal proceedings involving UCC, the United States and Indian governments, local Bhopal authorities, and the disaster victims started immediately after the catastrophe. The Indian Government passed the Bhopal Gas Leak Act in March 1985, allowing the Government of India to act as the legal representative for victims of the disaster, leading to the beginning of legal proceedings.

Initial lawsuits were generated in the United States federal court system in April 1985. Eventually, in an out-of-court settlement reached in February 1989, Union Carbide agreed to pay US$470 million for damages caused in the Bhopal disaster. The amount was immediately paid.

Post-settlement activity

UCC chairman and CEO Warren Anderson was arrested and released on bail by the Madhya Pradesh Police in Bhopal on 7 December 1984. Anderson was taken to UCC's house after which he was released six hours later on $2,100 bail and flown out on a government plane. Anderson, eight other executives and two company affiliates with homicide charges were required to appear in Indian court.

In response, Union Carbide said the company is not under Indian jurisdiction. In 1991, the local Bhopal authorities charged Anderson, who had retired in 1986, with manslaughter, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. He was declared a fugitive from justice by the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal on 1 February 1992 for failing to appear at the court hearings in a culpable homicide case in which he was named the chief defendant. Orders were passed to the Government of India to press for an extradition from the United States. From 2014, Dow is a named respondent in a number of ongoing cases arising from Union Carbide’s business in Bhopal.

A US Federal class action litigation, Sahu v. Union Carbide and Warren Anderson, had been filed in 1999 under the U.S. Alien Torts Claims Act (ATCA), which provides for civil remedies for "crimes against humanity." It sought damages for personal injury, medical monitoring and injunctive relief in the form of clean-up of the drinking water supplies for residential areas near the Bhopal plant. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2012 and subsequent appeal denied. Anderson died in 2014.

Long-term Health Effects

A total of 36 wards were marked by the authorities as being "gas affected," affecting a population of 520,000. Of these, 200,000 were below 15 years of age, and 3,000 were pregnant women. The official immediate death toll was 2,259, and in 1991, 3,928 deaths had been officially certified. The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release. Later, the affected area was expanded to include 700,000 citizens. A government affidavit in 2006 stated the leak caused 558,125 injuries including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.

Ethical Negligence

The Corporate Negligence Argument: This point of view argues that management (and to some extent, local government) underinvested in safety, which allowed for a dangerous working environment to develop.

Safety audits: In September 1984, an internal UCC report on the West Virginia plant in the USA revealed a number of defects and malfunctions. It warned that "a runaway reaction could occur in the MIC unit storage tanks, and that the planned response would not be timely or effective enough to prevent catastrophic failure of the tanks". This report was never forwarded to the Bhopal plant, although the main design was the same.

The Disgruntled Employee Sabotage Argument:  Now owned by Dow Chemical Company, Union Carbide maintains a website dedicated to the tragedy and claims that the incident was the result of sabotage, stating that sufficient safety systems were in place and operative to prevent the intrusion of water.

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Environmental Ethics

Environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its non-human contents. This entry covers: (1) the challenge of environmental ethics to the anthropocentrism (i.e., human-centeredness) embedded in traditional western ethical thinking; (2) the development of the discipline from the 1960s and 1970s; (3) the connection of deep ecology, feminist environmental ethics, animism and social ecology to politics; (4) the attempt to apply traditional ethical theories, including consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, to support contemporary environmental concerns; (5) the broader concerns of some thinkers with wilderness, the built environment and the politics of poverty; and (6) the ethics of sustainability and climate change.

1. Introduction: The Challenge of Environmental Ethics

2. the development of environmental ethics, 3.1 deep ecology, 3.2 feminism and the environment, 3.3 disenchantment and the new animism, 3.4 social ecology and bioregionalism.

Supplementary Document: Biodiversity Preservation

5. Wilderness, the Built Environment, Poverty and Politics

• Supplementary Document: Pathologies of Environmental Crisis – Theories and Empirical Research

Other Internet Resources

Related entries.

Suppose putting out natural fires, culling feral animals or removing some individual members of overpopulated species is necessary for the protection of the integrity of a certain ecosystem. Will these actions be morally permissible or even required? Is it morally acceptable for farmers in non-industrial countries to practise slash and burn techniques to clear areas for agriculture? Consider a mining company which has performed open pit mining in some previously unspoiled area. Does the company have a moral obligation to restore the landform and surface ecology? And what is the value of a humanly restored environment compared with the originally natural environment? Many people think that it is morally wrong for human beings to pollute and destroy parts of the natural environment and to consume a huge proportion of the planet’s natural resources. If that is wrong, is it simply because a sustainable environment is essential to human existence and well-being? Or is such behaviour also wrong because the natural environment and/or its various contents have certain values in their own right so that these values ought to be respected and protected in any case? These are among the questions investigated by environmental ethics. Some of them are specific questions faced by individuals in particular circumstances, while others are more global questions faced by groups and communities. Yet others are more abstract questions concerning the value and moral standing of the natural environment and its non-human components.

In the literature on environmental ethics the distinction between instrumental value and intrinsic value (in the sense of “non-instrumental value”) is of considerable importance. The former is the value of things as means to further some other ends, whereas the latter is the value of things as ends in themselves regardless of whether they are also useful as means to other ends. For instance, certain fruits have instrumental value for bats who feed on them, since feeding on the fruits is a means to survival for the bats. However, it is not widely agreed that fruits have value as ends in themselves. We can likewise think of a person who teaches others as having instrumental value for those who want to acquire knowledge. Yet, in addition to any such value, it is normally said that a person, as a person, has intrinsic value, i.e., value in their own right independently of their prospects for serving the ends of others. For another example, a certain wild plant may have instrumental value because it provides the ingredients for some medicine or as an aesthetic object for human observers. But if the plant also has some value in itself independently of its prospects for furthering some other ends such as human health, or the pleasure from aesthetic experience, then the plant also has intrinsic value. Because the intrinsically valuable is that which is good as an end in itself, it is commonly agreed that something’s possession of intrinsic value generates a prima facie direct moral duty on the part of moral agents to protect it or at least refrain from damaging it (see O’Neil 1992 and Jamieson 2002 for detailed accounts of intrinsic value).

Many traditional western ethical perspectives, however, are anthropocentric or human-centered in that either they assign intrinsic value to human beings alone (i.e., what we might call anthropocentric in a strong sense) or they assign a significantly greater amount of intrinsic value to human beings than to any non-human things such that the protection or promotion of human interests or well-being at the expense of non-human things turns out to be nearly always justified (i.e., what we might call anthropocentric in a weak sense). For example, Aristotle ( Politics , Bk. 1, Ch. 8) apparently maintains that “nature has made all things specifically for the sake of man”. Such purposive or teleological thinking may encourage the belief that the value of non-human things in nature is merely instrumental. It is difficult for anthropocentric positions to articulate what is wrong with the cruel treatment of non-human animals, except to the extent that such treatment may lead to bad consequences for human beings. Immanuel Kant (“Duties to Animals and Spirits”, in Lectures on Ethics ), for instance, suggests that cruelty towards a dog might encourage a person to develop a character which would be desensitized to cruelty towards humans. From this standpoint, cruelty towards non-human animals would be instrumentally, rather than intrinsically, wrong. Likewise, anthropocentrism often recognizes some non-intrinsic wrongness of anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) environmental devastation. Such destruction might damage the well-being of human beings now and in the future, since our very existence and well-being is essentially dependent on a sustainable environment. This argument was made in the previous century (see Passmore 1974; Bookchin 1990; Norton et al . (eds.) 1995), and seems subsequently to have garnered wide public support (see the results of surveys in Pew 2018).

When environmental ethics emerged as a new sub-discipline of philosophy in the early 1970s, it did so by posing a challenge to traditional anthropocentrism. In the first place, it questioned the assumed moral superiority of human beings to members of other species on earth. In the second place, it investigated the possibility of rational arguments for assigning intrinsic value to the natural environment and its non-human contents. It should be noted, however, that some theorists working in the field see no need to develop new, non-anthropocentric theories. Instead, they advocate what may be called enlightened anthropocentrism (or, perhaps more appropriately called, prudential anthropocentrism). Briefly, this is the view that all the moral duties we have towards the environment are derived from our direct duties to its human inhabitants. The practical purpose of environmental ethics, they maintain, is to provide moral grounds for social policies aimed at protecting the earth’s environment and remedying environmental degradation. Enlightened anthropocentrism, they argue, is sufficient for that practical purpose, and perhaps even more effective in delivering pragmatic outcomes, in terms of policy-making, than non-anthropocentric theories given the theoretical burden on the latter to provide sound arguments for its more radical view that the non-human environment has intrinsic value (cf. Norton 1991, de Shalit 1994, Light and Katz 1996). Furthermore, some prudential anthropocentrists may hold what might be called cynical anthropocentrism, which says that we have a higher-level anthropocentric reason to be non-anthropocentric in our day-to-day thinking. Suppose that a day-to-day non-anthropocentrist tends to act more benignly towards the non-human environment on which human well-being depends. This would provide reason for encouraging non-anthropocentric thinking, even to those who find the idea of non-anthropocentric intrinsic value hard to swallow. In order for such a strategy to be effective one may need to hide one’s cynical anthropocentrism from others and even from oneself. The position can be structurally compared to some indirect form of consequentialism and may attract parallel critiques (see Henry Sidgwick on utilitarianism and esoteric morality, and Bernard Williams on indirect utilitarianism).

Although nature was the focus of much nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy, contemporary environmental ethics only emerged as an academic discipline in the 1970s. The questioning and rethinking of the relationship of human beings with the natural environment over the last thirty years reflected an already widespread perception in the 1960s that the late twentieth century faced a human population explosion as part of a serious environmental crisis. Among the accessible work that drew attention to a sense of crisis was Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1963), which consisted of a number of essays earlier published in the New Yorker magazine detailing how pesticides such as DDT, aldrin and dieldrin concentrated through the food web. Commercial farming practices using these chemicals to maximize crop yields and profits, Carson speculates, are capable of impacting simultaneously on environmental and public health. Their use, she claims, can have the side effects of killing other living things (besides the targeted insects) and causing human disease. While Carson correctly fears that over-use of pesticides may lead to increases in some resistant insect species, the intensification of agriculture, land-clearing and massive use of neonicotonoid pesticides has subsequently contributed to a situation in which, according to some reviews, nearly half of insect species are threatened with extinction (Sánchez-Bayo and Wickhuys 2019, and compare van der Sluijs and Vaage 2016, Komonen, Halme and Kotiaho 2019). Declines in insect populations not only threaten pollination of plant species, but may also be responsible for huge declines in some bird populations (Goulson 2021) and appear to go hand in hand with cascading extinctions across ecosystems worldwide (Kehoe, Frago and Sanders 2021).

In a much cited essay (White 1967) on the historical roots of the environmental crisis, historian Lynn White argued that the main strands of Judeo-Christian thinking had encouraged the overexploitation of nature by maintaining the superiority of humans over all other forms of life on earth, and by depicting all of nature as created for the use of humans. White’s thesis was widely discussed in theology, history, and has been subject to some sociological testing as well as being regularly discussed by philosophers (see Whitney 1993, Attfield 2001). Central to the rationale for his thesis were the works of the Church Fathers and The Bible itself, supporting the anthropocentric perspective that humans are the only things on Earth that matter in themselves. Consequently, they may utilize and consume everything else to their advantage without any injustice. For example, Genesis 1: 27–8 states: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Likewise, Thomas Aquinas ( Summa Contra Gentiles , Bk. 3, Pt 2, Ch 112) argued that non-human animals are “ordered to man’s use”. According to White, the Judeo-Christian idea that humans are created in the image of the transcendent supernatural God, who is radically separate from nature, also by extension radically separates humans themselves from nature. This ideology further opened the way for untrammeled exploitation of nature. Modern Western science itself, White argued, was “cast in the matrix of Christian theology” so that it too inherited the “orthodox Christian arrogance toward nature” (White 1967: 1207). Clearly, without technology and science, the environmental extremes to which we are now exposed would probably not be realized. The point of White’s thesis, however, is that given the modern form of science and technology, Judeo-Christianity itself provides the original deep-seated drive to unlimited exploitation of nature. Nevertheless, White argued that some minority traditions within Christianity (e.g., the views of St. Francis) might provide an antidote to the “arrogance” of a mainstream tradition steeped in anthropocentrism. This sentiment is echoed in later Christian writings on attitudes to nature (see for example Berry 2018, chs 10, 11, and compare Zaheva and Szasz 2015).

Around the same time, the Stanford ecologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich warned in The Population Bomb (Ehrlich 1968) that the growth of human population threatened the viability of planetary life-support systems. The sense of environmental crisis stimulated by those and other popular works was intensified by NASA’s production and wide dissemination of a particularly potent image of Earth from space taken at Christmas 1968 and featured in the Scientific American in September 1970. Here, plain to see, was a living, shining planet voyaging through space and shared by all of humanity, a precious vessel vulnerable to pollution and to the overuse of its limited capacities. In 1972 a team of researchers at MIT led by Donella Meadows published the Limits to Growth study, a work that summed up in many ways the emerging concerns of the previous decade and the sense of vulnerability triggered by the view of the earth from space. In the commentary to the study, the researchers wrote:

We affirm finally that any deliberate attempt to reach a rational and enduring state of equilibrium by planned measures, rather than by chance or catastrophe, must ultimately be founded on a basic change of values and goals at individual, national and world levels. (Meadows et al. 1972: 195)

The call for a “basic change of values” in connection to the environment (a call that could be interpreted in terms of either instrumental or intrinsic values) reflected a need for the development of environmental ethics as a new sub-discipline of philosophy. The aim of facing up to the challenge of limited resources was fostered subsequently by studies of the growing human “ecological footprint” on the earth (Rees 1992, Wackernagel et al . 2018) and by the exploration of “planetary boundaries” and the concept of a “safe operating space for humanity” (Rokström et al . 2009, Biermann and Kim 2020).

The new field emerged almost simultaneously in three countries—the United States, Australia, and Norway. In the first two of these countries, direction and inspiration largely came from the earlier twentieth century American literature of the environment. For instance, the Scottish emigrant John Muir (founder of the Sierra Club and “father of American conservation”) and subsequently the forester Aldo Leopold had advocated an appreciation and conservation of things “natural, wild and free”. Their concerns were motivated by a combination of ethical and aesthetic responses to nature as well as a rejection of crudely economic approaches to the value of natural objects (a historical survey of the confrontation between Muir’s reverentialism and the human-centred conservationism of Gifford Pinchot (one of the major influences on the development of the US Forest Service) is provided in Norton 1991; also see Cohen 1984 and Nash (ed) 1990). Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (1949), in particular, advocated the adoption of a “land ethic”:

That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics. (Leopold 1949: vii–ix) A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. (Leopold 1949: 224–5)

However, Leopold himself provided no systematic ethical theory or framework to support these ethical ideas concerning the environment. His views therefore presented a challenge and opportunity for moral theorists: could some ethical theory be devised to justify the injunction to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biosphere?

The land ethic sketched by Leopold, attempting to extend our moral concern to cover the natural environment and its non-human contents, was drawn on explicitly by the Australian philosopher Richard Routley (later Sylvan). According to Routley (1973 (cf. Routley and Routley 1980)), the anthropocentrism imbedded in what he called the “dominant western view”, or “the western superethic”, is in effect “human chauvinism”. This view, he argued, is just another form of class chauvinism, which is simply based on blind class “loyalty” or prejudice, and unjustifiably discriminates against those outside the privileged class. Echoing the plot of a popular movie some three years earlier (see Lo and Brennan 2013), Routley speculates in his “last man” (and “last people”) arguments about a hypothetical situation in which the last person, surviving a world catastrophe, acts to ensure the elimination of all other living things and the last people set about destroying forests and ecosystems after their demise. From the human-chauvinistic (or absolutely anthropocentric) perspective, the last person would do nothing morally wrong, since his or her destructive act in question would not cause any damage to the interests and well-being of humans, who would by then have disappeared. Nevertheless, Routley points out that there is a moral intuition that the imagined last acts would be morally wrong. An explanation for this judgment, he argues, is that those non-human objects in the environment, whose destruction is ensured by the last person or last people, have intrinsic value, a kind of value independent of their usefulness for humans. From his critique, Routley concluded that the main approaches in traditional western moral thinking were unable to allow the recognition that natural things have intrinsic value, and that the tradition required overhaul of a significant kind.

Leopold’s idea that the “land” as a whole is an object of our moral concern also stimulated writers to argue for certain moral obligations toward ecological wholes, such as species, communities, and ecosystems, not just their individual constituents. The U.S.-based theologian and environmental philosopher Holmes Rolston III, for instance, argued that species protection was a moral duty (Rolston 1975). It would be wrong, he maintained, to eliminate a rare butterfly species simply to increase the monetary value of specimens already held by collectors. Like Routley’s “last man” arguments, Rolston’s example is meant to draw attention to a kind of action that seems morally dubious and yet is not clearly ruled out or condemned by traditional anthropocentric ethical views. Species, Rolston went on to argue, are intrinsically valuable and are usually more valuable than individual specimens, since the loss of a species is a loss of genetic possibilities and the deliberate destruction of a species would show disrespect for the very biological processes which make possible the emergence of individual living things (also see Rolston 1989, Ch 10). Natural processes deserve respect, according to Rolston’s quasi-religious perspective, because they constitute a nature (or God) which is itself intrinsically valuable (or sacred).

Meanwhile, the work of Christopher Stone (a professor of law at the University of Southern California) had become widely discussed. Stone (1972) proposes that trees and other natural objects should have at least the same standing in law as corporations. This suggestion was inspired by a particular case in which the Sierra Club had mounted a challenge against the permit granted by the U.S. Forest Service to Walt Disney Enterprises for surveys preparatory to the development of the Mineral King Valley, which was at the time a relatively remote game refuge, but not designated as a national park or protected wilderness area. The Disney proposal was to develop a major resort complex serving 14000 visitors daily to be accessed by a purpose-built highway through Sequoia National Park. The Sierra Club, as a body with a general concern for wilderness conservation, challenged the development on the grounds that the valley should be kept in its original state for its own sake.

Stone reasoned that if trees, forests and mountains could be given standing in law then they could be represented in their own right in the courts by groups such as the Sierra Club. Moreover, like any other legal person , these natural things could become beneficiaries of compensation if it could be shown that they had suffered compensatable injury through human activity. When the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, it was determined by a narrow majority that the Sierra Club did not meet the condition for bringing a case to court, for the Club was unable and unwilling to prove the likelihood of injury to the interest of the Club or its members. In dissenting minority judgments, however, justices Douglas, Blackmun and Brennan mentioned Stone’s argument: his proposal to give legal standing to natural things, they said, would allow conservation interests, community needs and business interests to be represented, debated and settled in court. Stone’s work was later cited in the successful arguments to grant personhood to rivers and other natural features in various parts of the world. In some of these cases, Stone’s arguments—along with those of Arne Næss (see below)—have been said to provide analogues to indigenous understandings of the intrinsic value of the land and the interconnections of such understandings with human actions and ancestral spirituality (Morris and Ruru 2010, Kramm 2020). Similar suggestions have also been made about Leopold’s work, but such claims need to be interpreted with caution (White 2015).

Reacting to Stone’s proposal, Joel Feinberg (1974) raised a serious problem. Only items that have interests, Feinberg argued, can be regarded as having legal standing and, likewise, moral standing. For it is interests which are capable of being represented in legal proceedings and moral debates. This same point would also seem to apply to political debates. For instance, the movement for “animal liberation”, which also emerged strongly in the 1970s, can be thought of as a political movement aimed at representing the previously neglected interests of some animals (see Regan and Singer (eds.) 1976, Clark 1977, and also the entry on the moral status of animals ). Granted that some animals have interests that can be represented in this way, would it also make sense to speak of trees, forests, rivers, barnacles, or termites as having interests of a morally relevant kind? This issue was hotly contested in the years that followed. Meanwhile, John Passmore (1974) argued, like White, that the Judeo-Christian tradition of thought about nature, despite being predominantly “despotic”, contained resources for regarding humans as “stewards” or “perfectors” of God’s creation. Skeptical of the prospects for any radically new ethic, Passmore cautioned that traditions of thought could not be abruptly overhauled. Any change in attitudes to our natural surroundings which stood the chance of widespread acceptance, he argued, would have to resonate and have some continuities with the very tradition which had legitimized our destructive practices.

In sum, then, Leopold’s land ethic, the historical analyses of White and Passmore, the pioneering work of Routley, Stone and Rolston, and the warnings of scientists, had by the late 1970s focused the attention of philosophers and political theorists firmly on the environment. The confluence of ethical, political and legal debates about the environment, the emergence of philosophies to underpin animal rights activism and the puzzles over whether an environmental ethic would be something new rather than a modification or extension of existing ethical theories were reflected in wider social and political movements. The rise of environmental or “green” parties in Europe in the 1980s was accompanied by almost immediate schisms between groups known as “realists” versus “fundamentalists” (see Dobson 1990). The “realists” stood for reform environmentalism, working with business and government to soften the impact of pollution and resource depletion especially on fragile ecosystems or endangered species. The “fundies” argued for radical change, the setting of stringent new priorities, and even the overthrow of capitalism and liberal individualism, which were taken as the major ideological causes of anthropogenic environmental devastation. It is not clear, however, that collectivist or communist countries do particularly well in terms of their environmental record (see Dominick 1998). At the same time, the rise of “environmental authoritarianism” in some non-democratic countries appears to show that liberal democracies may not have a monopoly on effective action to support sustainability and biodiversity (Beeson 2010, Shahar 2015).

Underlying these political disagreements was the distinction between “shallow” and “deep” environmental movements, a distinction introduced in the early 1970s by another major influence on contemporary environmental ethics, the Norwegian philosopher and climber Arne Næss. Since the work of Næss has been significant in environmental politics, the discussion of his position is given in a separate section below.

3. Environmental Ethics and Politics

“Deep ecology” was born in Scandinavia, the result of discussions between Næss and his colleagues Sigmund Kvaløy and Nils Faarlund (see Næss 1973 and 1989; also see Witoszek and Brennan (eds.) 1999 for a historical survey and commentary on the development of deep ecology). All three shared a passion for the great mountains. On a visit to the Himalayas, they became impressed with aspects of “Sherpa culture” particularly when they found that their Sherpa guides regarded certain mountains as sacred and accordingly would not venture onto them. Subsequently, Næss formulated a position which extended the reverence the three Norwegians and the Sherpas felt for mountains to other natural things in general.

The “shallow ecology movement”, as Næss (1973) calls it, is the “fight against pollution and resource depletion”, the central objective of which is “the health and affluence of people in the developed countries.” The “deep ecology movement”, in contrast, endorses “biospheric egalitarianism”, the view that all living things are alike in having value in their own right, independent of their usefulness to others. The deep ecologist respects this intrinsic value, taking care, for example, when walking on the mountainside not to cause unnecessary damage to the plants.

Inspired by Spinoza’s metaphysics, another key feature of Næss’s deep ecology is the rejection of atomistic individualism. The idea that a human being is such an individual possessing a separate essence, Næss argues, radically separates the human self from the rest of the world. To make such a separation not only leads to selfishness towards other people, but also induces human selfishness towards nature. As a counter to egoism at both the individual and species level, Næss proposes an alternative relational “total-field image” of the world. According to this relationalism, organisms (human or otherwise) are best understood as “knots” in the biospherical net. The identity of a living thing is essentially constituted by its relations to other things in the world, especially its ecological relations to other living things. If people conceptualise themselves and the world in relational terms, the deep ecologists argue, then people will take better care of nature and the world in general.

As developed by Næss and others, the position also came to focus on the possibility of the identification of the human ego with nature. The idea is, briefly, that by identifying with nature I can enlarge the boundaries of the self beyond my skin. My larger—ecological—Self (the capital “S” emphasizes that I am something larger than my body and consciousness), deserves respect as well. To respect and to care for my Self is also to respect and to care for the natural environment, which is actually part of me and with which I should identify. Næss quotes the example of Saami people and their identification with the rivers on which they depend for sustenance. Recognition of such identification has underpinned the establishment in New Zealand of legal personhood for some rivers and other natural areas (Kramm 2020). “Self-realization” is thus the realization of a wider ecological Self. Næss maintains that the deep satisfaction that we receive from identification with nature and close partnership with other forms of life in nature contributes significantly to our life quality. (One historical antecedent to this kind of nature spiritualism is the romanticism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau as expressed in his last work, the Reveries of the Solitary Walker )

When Næss’s view crossed the Atlantic, it was sometimes merged with ideas emerging from Leopold’s land ethic (see Devall and Sessions 1985; also see Sessions (ed) 1995). But Næss—wary of the supposed totalitarian political implications of Leopold’s position that individual interests and well-being should be subordinated to the holistic good of the earth’s biotic community (see section 4 below)—took care to distance himself from advocating any sort of “land ethic”. (See Anker 1999 for cautions on interpreting Næss’s relationalism as an endorsement of the kind of holism displayed in the land ethic; cf. Grey 1993, Taylor and Zimmerman 2005). Some critics have argued that Næss’s deep ecology is no more than an extended social-democratic version of utilitarianism, which counts human interests in the same calculation alongside the interests of all natural things (e.g., trees, wolves, bears, rivers, forests and mountains) in the natural environment (see Witoszek 1997). However, Næss failed to explain in any detail how to make sense of the idea that oysters or barnacles, termites or bacteria could have interests of any morally relevant sort at all. Without an account of this, Næss’s early “biospheric egalitarianism”—that all living things whatsoever had a similar right to live and flourish—was an indeterminate principle in practical terms. It also remains unclear in what sense rivers, mountains and forests can be regarded as possessors of any kind of interests. This is an issue on which Næss always remained elusive.

Biospheric egalitarianism was modified in the 1980s to the weaker claim that the flourishing of both human and non-human life has value in itself, without any commitment to these values being equal. At the same time, Næss declared that his own favoured ecological philosophy—“Ecosophy T”, as he called it after his Tvergastein mountain cabin—was only one of several possible foundations for an environmental ethic. Deep ecology ceased to be a specific doctrine, but instead became a “platform” of eight simple points on which Næss hoped all deep green thinkers could agree. The platform was conceived as establishing a middle ground, between underlying orientations, whether indigenous, Christian, Buddhist, Daoist, process philosophy, or whatever, and the practical principles for action in specific situations, principles generated from the underlying philosophies. Thus the deep ecological movement became explicitly pluralist both morally and epistemologically (see Brennan 1999; c.f. Light 1996, Akamani 2020).

While Næss’s Ecosophy T sees human Self-realization as a solution to the environmental crises resulting from human selfishness and exploitation of nature, some of the followers of the deep ecology platform in the United States and Australia further argue that the expansion of the human self to include non-human nature is supported by the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, which is said to have dissolved the boundaries between the observer and the observed (see Fox 1984, 1990, and Devall and Sessions 1985; cf. Callicott 1985). These “relationalist” developments of deep ecology are, however, criticized by some feminist theorists. The idea of nature as part of oneself, they argue, could justify the continued exploitation of nature instead. For one is presumably more entitled to treat oneself in whatever ways one likes than to treat another independent agent in whatever ways one likes. According to these feminist critics, the deep ecological theory of the “expanded self” is in effect a disguised form of human colonialism, unable to give nature its due as a genuine “other” independent of human interest and purposes (see Plumwood 1993, Ch. 7, 1999, and Warren 1999).

Meanwhile, other critics accuse deep ecology of being elitist in its attempts to preserve wilderness experiences for only a select group of economically and socio-politically well-off people. Ramachandra Guha (1989, 1999) for instance, depicts the activities of many western-based conservation groups as a new form of cultural imperialism, aimed at securing converts to conservationism (cf. Bookchin 1987 and Brennan 1998a). “Green missionaries”, as Guha calls them, represent a movement aimed at further dispossessing the world’s poor and indigenous people. “Putting deep ecology in its place,” he writes, “is to recognize that the trends it derides as “shallow” ecology might in fact be varieties of environmentalism that are more apposite, more representative and more popular in the countries of the South.” Although Næss himself repudiates suggestions that deep ecology is committed to any form of imperialism (see Witoszek and Brennan (eds.) 1999, Ch. 36–7 and 41), Guha’s criticism raises important questions about the application of deep ecological principles in different social, economic and cultural contexts. Finally, in other critiques, deep ecology is portrayed as having an inconsistent utopian vision (see Anker and Witoszek 1998).

Broadly speaking, a feminist issue is any that contributes in some way to understanding the oppression of women. Feminist theories attempt to analyze women’s oppression, its causes and consequences, and suggest strategies and directions for women’s liberation. By the mid 1970s, feminist writers had raised the issue of whether patriarchal modes of thinking encouraged not only widespread inferiorizing and colonizing of women, but also of people of colour, animals and nature. Sheila Collins (1974), for instance, argued that male-dominated culture or patriarchy is supported by four interlocking pillars: sexism, racism, class exploitation, and ecological destruction.

Emphasizing the importance of feminism to the environmental movement and various other liberation movements, some writers, such as Ynestra King (1989a and 1989b), argue that the domination of women by men is historically the original form of domination in human society, from which all other hierarchies—of rank, class, and political power—flow. For instance, human exploitation of nature may be seen as a manifestation and extension of the oppression of women, in that it is the result of associating nature with the female, which had been already inferiorized and oppressed by the male-dominating culture. But within the plurality of feminist positions, other writers, such as Val Plumwood (1993), understand the oppression of women as only one of the many parallel forms of oppression sharing and supported by a common ideological structure, in which one party (the colonizer, whether male, white or human) uses a number of conceptual and rhetorical devices to privilege its interests over that of the other party (the colonized: whether female, people of colour, or animals). Facilitated by a common structure, seemingly diverse forms of oppression can mutually reinforce each other (Warren 1987, 1990, 1994, Cheney 1989, and Plumwood 1993).

Not all feminist theorists would call that common underlying oppressive structure “androcentric” or “patriarchal”. But it is generally agreed that core features of the structure include dichotomies, hierarchical thinking, and a “logic of domination”, which are typical of, if not essential to, male-chauvinism. These patterns of thinking and conceptualizing the world, many feminist theorists argue, also nourish and sustain other forms of chauvinism including human-chauvinism (i.e., anthropocentrism), which is responsible for much human exploitation of, and destructiveness towards, nature. Writers comment on dichotomous forms of thinking which depict the world in polar opposite terms, such as male/female, masculinity/femininity, reason/emotion, freedom/necessity, active/passive, mind/body, pure/soiled, white/coloured, civilized/primitive, transcendent/immanent, human/animal, culture/nature. When these dichotomies involve hierarchy and domination they are often labelled "dualisms". Under the influence of such dualisms all the first items in these contrasting pairs are assimilated with each other, and all the second items are likewise linked with each other. For example, the male is seen to be associated with the rational, active, creative, Cartesian human mind, and civilized, orderly, transcendent culture; whereas the female is regarded as tied to the emotional, passive, determined animal body, and primitive, disorderly, immanent nature. These interlocking dualisms are not just descriptive dichotomies, according to the feminists, but involve a prescriptive privileging of one side of the opposed items over the other. Dualism confers superiority to everything on the male side, but inferiority to everything on the female side. The “logic of domination” then dictates that those on the superior side (e.g., men, rational beings, humans) are morally entitled to dominate and utilize those on the inferior side (e.g., women, beings lacking in rationality, non-humans) as mere means.

The problem with dualistic modes of thinking, however, is not just that they are epistemically unreliable. It is not just that the dominating party often falsely sees the dominated party as lacking (or possessing) the allegedly superior (or inferior) qualities, or that the dominated party often internalizes false stereotypes of itself given by its oppressors, or that stereotypical thinking often overlooks salient and important differences among individuals. More important, according to feminist analyses, the very premise of prescriptive dualism—the valuing of attributes of one polarized side and the devaluing of those of the other, the idea that domination and oppression can be justified by appealing to attributes like masculinity, rationality, being civilized or developed, etc.—is itself problematic.

Feminism represents a radical challenge for environmental thinking, politics, and traditional social ethical perspectives. It promises to link environmental questions with wider social problems concerning various kinds of discrimination and exploitation, and fundamental investigations of human psychology. However, whether there are conceptual, causal or merely contingent connections among the different forms of oppression and liberation remains a contested issue (see Green 1994). The term “ecofeminism” (first coined by Françoise d’Eaubonne in 1974) or “ecological feminism” was for a time generally applied to any view that combines environmental advocacy with feminist analysis. However, because of the varieties of, and disagreements among, feminist theories, the label may be too wide to be informative (see the entry on feminist environmental philosophy ).

An often overlooked source of ecological ideas is the work of the neo-Marxist Frankfurt School of critical theory founded by Max Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno (Horkheimer and Adorno 1969). While classical Marxists regard nature as a resource to be transformed by human labour and utilized for human purposes, Horkheimer and Adorno saw Marx himself as representative of the problem of “human alienation”. At the root of this alienation, they argue, is a narrow positivist conception of rationality—which sees rationality as an instrument for pursuing progress, power and technological control, and takes observation, measurement and the application of purely quantitative methods to be capable of solving all problems. Such a positivistic view of science combines determinism with optimism. Natural processes as well as human activities are seen to be predictable and manipulable. Nature (and, likewise, human nature) is no longer mysterious, uncontrollable, or fearsome. Instead, it is reduced to an object strictly governed by natural laws, which therefore can be studied, known, and employed to our benefit. By promising limitless knowledge and power, the positivism of science and technology not only removes our fear of nature, the critical theorists argue, but also destroys our sense of awe and wonder towards it. That is to say, positivism “disenchants” nature—along with everything that can be studied by the sciences, whether natural, social or human.

The progress in knowledge and material well-being may not be a bad thing in itself, where the consumption and control of nature is a necessary part of human life. However, the critical theorists argue that the positivistic disenchantment of natural things (and, likewise, of human beings—because they too can be studied and manipulated by science) disrupts our relationship with them, encouraging the undesirable attitude that they are nothing more than things to be probed, consumed and dominated. According to the critical theorists, the oppression of “outer nature” (i.e., the natural environment) through science and technology is bought at a very high price: the project of domination requires the suppression of our own “inner nature” (i.e., human nature)—e.g., human creativity, autonomy, and the manifold needs, vulnerabilities and longings at the centre of human life. To remedy such an alienation, the project of Horkheimer and Adorno is to replace the narrow positivistic and instrumentalist model of rationality with a more humanistic one, in which the values of the aesthetic, moral, sensuous and expressive aspects of human life play a central part. Thus, their aim is not to give up our rational faculties or powers of analysis and logic. Rather, the ambition is to arrive at a dialectical synthesis between Romanticism and Enlightenment, to return to anti-deterministic values of freedom, spontaneity and creativity.

In his later work, Adorno advocates a re-enchanting aesthetic attitude of “sensuous immediacy” towards nature. Not only do we stop seeing nature as primarily, or simply, an object of consumption, we are also able to be directly and spontaneously acquainted with nature without interventions from our rational faculties. According to Adorno, works of art, like natural things, always involve an “excess”, something more than their mere materiality and exchange value (see Vogel 1996, ch. 4.4 for a detailed discussion of Adorno’s views on art, labour and domination). The re-enchantment of the world through aesthetic experience, he argues, is also at the same time a re-enchantment of human lives and purposes. Adorno’s work remains largely unexplored in mainstream environmental philosophy, although the idea of applying critical theory (embracing techniques of deconstruction, psychoanalysis and radical social criticism) to both environmental issues and the writings of various ethical and political theorists has spawned the field of “écocritique” or “ecocriticism” (Vogel 1996, Luke 1997, van Wyk 1997, Dryzek 1997, Garrard 2014).

Some students of Adorno’s work have argued that his account of the role of “sensuous immediacy” can be understood as an attempt to defend a “legitimate anthropomorphism” that comes close to a weak form of animism (Bernstein 2001, 196). Others, more radical, have claimed to take inspiration from his notion of “non-identity”, which, they argue, can be used as the basis for a deconstruction of the notion of nature and perhaps even its elimination from ecocritical writing. For example, Timothy Morton argues that “putting something called Nature on a pedestal and admiring it from afar does for the environment what patriarchy does for the figure of Woman. It is a paradoxical act of sadistic admiration” (Morton 2007, 5), and that “in the name of all that we value in the idea of ‘nature’, [ecocritique] thoroughly examines how nature is set up as a transcendental, unified, independent category. Ecocritique does not think that it is paradoxical to say, in the name of ecology itself: ‘down with nature!’” (ibid., 13). In this vein, some thinkers have insisted that environmental ethics makes a mistake in drawing a significant distinction between the natural and the artificial (Vogel 2015). Such an idea, however, has drawn fierce criticism from some Marxist theorists who argue that the “end of nature” thesis is deeply confused (for example Malm 2018). It remains to be seen, however, whether the radical attempt to purge the concept of nature from ecocritical work meets with success. Likewise, it is unclear whether the dialectic project on which Horkheimer and Adorno embarked is coherent, and whether Adorno, in particular, has a consistent understanding of “nature” and “rationality” (see Eckersley 1992 and Vogel 1996, for a review of the Frankfurt School’s thinking about nature, and on rationality see also the entry on critical theory ).

On the other hand, the new animists have been much inspired by the serious way in which some indigenous peoples placate and interact with animals, plants and inanimate things through ritual, ceremony and other practices (for examples see Kimmerer 2020). According to the new animists, the replacement of traditional animism (the view that personalized souls are found in animals, plants, and other material objects) by a form of disenchanting positivism directly leads to an anthropocentric perspective, which is accountable for much human destructiveness towards nature. In a disenchanted world, there is no meaningful order of things or events outside the human domain, and there is no source of sacredness or dread of the sort felt by those who regard the natural world as peopled by divinities or demons (Stone 2006). When a forest is no longer sacred, there are no spirits to be placated and no mysterious risks associated with clear-felling it. A disenchanted nature is no longer alive. It commands no respect, reverence or love. It is nothing but a giant machine, to be mastered to serve human purposes. The new animists argue for reconceptualizing the boundary between persons and non-persons. For them, “living nature” comprises not only humans, animals and plants, but also mountains, forests, rivers, deserts, and even planets.

Whether the notion that a mountain or a tree is to be regarded as a person is taken literally or not, the attempt to engage with the surrounding world as if it consists of other persons might possibly provide the basis for a respectful attitude to nature (see Harvey 2005 for a popular account of the new animism). If disenchantment is a source of environmental problems and destruction, then the new animism can be regarded as attempting to re-enchant, and help to save, nature. More poetically, David Abram has argued that a phenomenological approach of the kind taken by Merleau-Ponty can reveal to us that we are part of the “common flesh” of the world, that we are in a sense the world thinking itself (Abram 1995).

In her work, Freya Mathews has tried to articulate a version of animism or panpsychism that captures ways in which the world (not just nature) contains many kinds of consciousness and sentience. For her, there is an underlying unity of mind and matter in that the world is a “self-realizing” system containing a multiplicity of other such systems (cf. Næss). According to Mathews, we are meshed in communication, and potential communication, with the “One” (the greater cosmic self) and its many lesser selves (Mathews 2003, 45–60). Materialism (the monistic theory that the world consists purely of matter), she argues, is self-defeating by encouraging a form of “collective solipsism” that treats the world either as unknowable or as a social-construction (Mathews 2005, 12). Mathews also takes inspiration from her interpretation of the core Daoist idea of wuwei as “letting be” and bringing about change through “effortless action”. The focus in environmental management, development and commerce should be on “synergy” with what is already in place rather than on demolition, replacement and disruption. Instead of bulldozing away old suburbs and derelict factories, the synergistic panpsychist sees these artefacts as themselves part of the living cosmos, hence part of what is to be respected. Likewise, instead of trying to eliminate feral or exotic plants and animals, and restore environments to some imagined pristine state, ways should be found—wherever possible—to promote synergies between the newcomers and the older native populations in ways that maintain ecological flows and promote the further unfolding and developing of ecological processes (Mathews 2004). Panpsychism, Mathews argues, frees us from the “ideological grid of capitalism”, can reduce our desire for consumer novelties, and can allow us and the world to grow old together with grace and dignity. Again, some of Mathews work echoes indigenous understandings of an enlarged subjectivity. As Deborah Rose puts it: “subjectivity in the form of sentience and agency is not solely a human prerogative but is located throughout other species and perhaps throughout country itself” (Rose 2005, 302).

In summary, if disenchantment is a source of environmentally destructive or uncaring attitudes, then both the aesthetic and the animist/panpsychist re-enchantment of the world are intended to offer an antidote to such attitudes, and perhaps also inspirations for new forms of managing and designing for sustainability. The general project of re-enchanting the world has surprising resonances with the views of others who draw more explicitly on scientific understandings of life on earth. Earth systems science, for example, draws on the Gaia hypothesis proposed by James Lovelock (Lovelock 1972, 1979) suggesting that living things acting together regulate significant aspects of the global environment (Lovelock and Margulis 1974). Later writers describe the Gaia hypothesis as conjecturing that something overlooked by previous scientific thinking was of vital importance to understanding the one thing that supports all life on earth, namely a great stabilizing feedback system which regulates itself in a way that maintains the habitability of the planet (Lenton et al . 2020). This feedback system is itself under threat from a changing climate, human overpopulation and reductions in biodiversity (see further section 6 below and also Latour 2017). In place of a vision of a grand cosmic self, champions of Gaia theory argue for recognizing the value of Life itself, where the capital "L" draws attention to the great feedback system—a single entity comprising all the living things descended from the last universal common ancestor (Mariscal and Dolittle 2008).

Apart from feminist-environmentalist theories and Næss’s deep ecology, Murray Bookchin’s “social ecology” has also claimed to be radical, subversive, or countercultural (see Bookchin 1980, 1987, 1990). Bookchin’s version of critical theory takes the “outer” physical world as constituting what he calls “first nature”, from which culture or “second nature” has evolved. Environmentalism, in his view, is a social movement, and the problems it confronts are social problems. While Bookchin is prepared, like Horkheimer and Adorno, to regard (first) nature as an aesthetic and sensuous marvel, he regards our intervention in it as necessary. He suggests that we can choose to put ourselves at the service of natural evolution, to help maintain complexity and diversity, diminish suffering and reduce pollution. Bookchin’s social ecology recommends that we use our gifts of sociability, communication and intelligence as if we were “nature rendered conscious”, instead of turning them against the very source and origin from which such gifts derive. Exploitation of nature should be replaced by a richer form of life devoted to nature’s preservation.

John Clark has argued that social ecology is heir to a historical, communitarian tradition of thought that includes not only the anarchist Peter Kropotkin, but also the nineteenth century socialist geographer Elisée Reclus, the eccentric Scottish thinker Patrick Geddes and the latter’s disciple, Lewis Mumford (Clark 1998). Ramachandra Guha has described Mumford as “the pioneer American social ecologist” (Guha 1996, 210). Mumford adopted a regionalist perspective, arguing that strong regional centres of culture are the basis of “active and securely grounded local life” (Mumford 1944, 403). Like the pessimists in critical theory, Mumford was worried about the emergence under industrialised capitalism of a “megamachine”, one that would oppress and dominate human creativity and freedom, and one that—despite being a human product—operates in a way that is out of our control. While Bookchin is more of a technological optimist than Mumford, both writers have inspired a regional turn in environmental thinking. Bioregionalism gives regionalism an environmental twist. This is the view that natural features should provide the defining conditions for places of community, and that secure and satisfying local lives are led by those who know a place, have learned its lore and who adapt their lifestyle to its affordances by developing its potential within ecological limits. Such a life, the bioregionalists argue, will enable people to enjoy the fruits of self-liberation and self-development (see the essays in List 1993, and the book-length treatment in Thayer 2003, for an introduction to bioregional thought).

However, critics have asked why natural features should be significant in defining the places in which communities are to be built, and have puzzled over exactly which natural features these should be—geological, ecological, climatic, hydrological, and so on (see Brennan 1998b). If relatively small, bioregional communities are to be home to flourishing human societies, then a question also arises over the nature of the laws and punishments that will prevail in them, and also of their integration into larger regional and global legal, political and economic groupings. For anarchists and other critics of the predominant social order, a return to self-governing and self-sufficient regional communities is often depicted as liberating and refreshing. But for the skeptics, the worry remains that the bioregional vision is politically over-optimistic and is open to the establishment of illiberal, stifling and undemocratic communities. Further, given its emphasis on local self-sufficiency and the virtue of life in small communities, a question arises over whether bioregionalism is workable in an overcrowded planet. Later bioregional proposals have identified ways of connecting with nature by showing stewardship for green infrastructure within cities (Andersson et al. 2014).

Deep ecology, feminism, and social ecology had a considerable impact on the development of political positions in regard to the environment. Feminist analyses have often been welcomed for the psychological insight they bring to several social, moral and political problems. There is, however, considerable unease about the implications of critical theory, social ecology and some varieties of deep ecology and animism. Some writers have argued, for example, that critical theory is bound to be ethically anthropocentric, with nature as no more than a “social construction” whose value ultimately depends on human determinations (see Vogel 1996). Others have argued that the demands of “deep” green theorists and activists cannot be accommodated within contemporary theories of liberal politics and social justice (see Ferry 1998). A further suggestion is that there is a need to reassess traditional theories such as virtue ethics, which has its origins in ancient Greek philosophy (see the following section) within the context of a form of stewardship similar to that earlier endorsed by Passmore (see Barry 1999). If this last claim is correct, then the radical activist need not, after all, look for philosophical support in radical, or countercultural, theories of the sort deep ecology, feminism, bioregionalism and social ecology claim to be (but see Zimmerman 1994).

4. Traditional Ethical Theories and Contemporary Environment Ethics

Although environmental ethicists often try to distance themselves from the anthropocentrism embedded in traditional ethical views (Passmore 1974, Norton 1991 are exceptions), they also quite often draw their theoretical resources from traditional ethical systems and theories. Consider the following two basic moral questions: (1) What kinds of thing are intrinsically valuable, good or bad? (2) What makes an action right or wrong?

Consequentialist ethical theories consider intrinsic “value” / “disvalue” or “goodness” / “badness” to be more fundamental moral notions than “rightness” / “wrongness”, and maintain that whether an action is right/wrong is determined by whether its consequences are good/bad. From this perspective, answers to question (2) are informed by answers to question (1). For instance, utilitarianism, a paradigm case of consequentialism, regards pleasure (or, more broadly construed, the satisfaction of interest, desire, and/or preference) as the only intrinsic value in the world, whereas pain (or the frustration of desire, interest, and/or preference) is the only intrinsic disvalue, and maintains that right actions are those that would produce the greatest balance of pleasure over pain (see the entry on consequentialism ).

As the utilitarian focus is the balance of pleasure and pain as such, the question of to whom a pleasure or pain belongs is irrelevant to the calculation and assessment of the rightness or wrongness of actions. Hence, the eighteenth century utilitarian Jeremy Bentham (1789), and later Peter Singer (1993), have argued that the interests of all the sentient beings (i.e., beings who are capable of experiencing pleasure or pain)—including non-human ones—affected by an action should be taken equally into consideration in assessing the action. Furthermore, rather like Routley (see section 2 above), Singer argues that the anthropocentric privileging of members of the species Homo sapiens is arbitrary, and that it is a kind of “speciesism” as unjustifiable as sexism and racism. Singer regards the animal liberation movement as comparable to the liberation movements of women and people of colour. Unlike the environmental philosophers who attribute intrinsic value to the natural environment and its inhabitants, Singer and utilitarians in general attribute intrinsic value to the experience of pleasure or interest satisfaction as such, not to the beings who have the experience. Similarly, for the utilitarian, non-sentient objects in the environment such as plant species, rivers, mountains, and landscapes, all of which are the objects of moral concern for environmentalists, are of no intrinsic but at most instrumental value to the satisfaction of sentient beings (see Singer 1993, Ch. 10). Furthermore, because right actions, for the utilitarian, are those that maximize the overall balance of interest satisfaction over frustration, practices such as whale-hunting and the killing of an elephant for ivory, which cause suffering to non-human animals, might turn out to be right after all: such practices might produce considerable amounts of interest-satisfaction for human beings, which, on the utilitarian calculation, outweigh the non-human interest-frustration involved. As the result of all the above considerations, it is unclear to what extent a utilitarian ethic can also be an environmental ethic. This point may not so readily apply to a wider consequentialist approach, which attributes intrinsic value not only to pleasure or satisfaction, but also to various objects and processes in the natural environment.

Deontological ethical theories, in contrast, maintain that whether an action is right or wrong is for the most part independent of whether its consequences are good or bad (see the entry on deontological ethics ). From the deontologist perspective, there are several distinct moral rules or duties (e.g., “not to kill or otherwise harm the innocent”, “not to lie”, “to respect the rights of others”, “to keep promises”), the observance/violation of which is intrinsically right/wrong; i.e., right/wrong in itself regardless of consequences. When asked to justify an alleged moral rule, duty or its corresponding right, deontologists may appeal to the intrinsic value of those beings to whom it applies. For instance, “animal rights” advocate Tom Regan (1983) argues that those animals with intrinsic value (or what he calls “inherent value”) have the moral right to respectful treatment, which then generates a general moral duty on our part not to treat them as mere means to other ends. We have, in particular, a prima facie moral duty not to harm them. Regan maintains that certain practices (such as sport or commercial hunting, and experimentation on animals) violate the moral right of intrinsically valuable animals to respectful treatment. Such practices, he argues, are intrinsically wrong regardless of whether or not some better consequences ever flow from them. Exactly which animals have intrinsic value and therefore the moral right to respectful treatment? Regan’s answer is: those that meet the criterion of being the “subject-of-a-life”. To be such a subject is a sufficient (though not necessary) condition for having intrinsic value, and to be a subject-of-a-life involves, among other things, having sense-perceptions, beliefs, desires, motives, memory, a sense of the future, and a psychological identity over time.

Some authors have extended concern for individual well-being further, arguing for the intrinsic value of organisms achieving their own good, whether those organisms are capable of consciousness or not. Paul Taylor’s version of this view (1981 and 1986), which we might call biocentrism , is a somewhat deontological example. He argues that each individual living thing in nature—whether it is an animal, a plant, or a micro-organism—is a “teleological-center-of-life” having a good or well-being of its own which can be enhanced or damaged, and that all individuals who are teleological-centers-of life have equal intrinsic value (or what he calls “inherent worth”) which entitles them to moral respect. Furthermore, Taylor maintains that the intrinsic value of wild living things generates a prima facie moral duty on our part to preserve or promote their goods as ends in themselves, and that any practices which treat those beings as mere means and thus display a lack of respect for them are intrinsically wrong. For a summary and overview of Taylor’s biocentric ethic, see Brennan and Lo 2010, 69—86. A biologically detailed defence of the idea that living things have representations and goals and hence have moral worth is found in Agar 2001. Unlike Taylor’s egalitarian and deontological biocentrism, Robin Attfield (1987) argues for a hierarchical view that while all beings having a good of their own have intrinsic value, some of them (e.g., persons) have intrinsic value to a greater extent. Attfield also endorses a form of consequentialism which takes into consideration, and attempts to balance, the many and possibly conflicting goods of different living things (see also Varner 1998 for a defense of biocentric individualism with affinities to both consequentialist and deontological approaches). However, some critics have pointed out that the notion of biological good or well-being is only descriptive not prescriptive (see Williams 1992 and O’Neill 1993, Ch. 2). For instance, even if HIV has a good of its own this does not mean that we ought to assign any positive moral weight to the realization of that good.

Subsequently the distinction between these two traditional approaches has taken its own specific form of development in environmental philosophy. Instead of pitting conceptions of value against conceptions of rights, it has been suggested that there may be two different conceptions of intrinsic value in play in discussion about environmental good and evil. One the one side, there is the intrinsic value of states of affairs that are to be promoted—and this is the focus of the consequentialist thinkers. On the other (deontological) hand there is the intrinsic values of entities to be respected (see Bradley 2006, McShane 2014). These two different foci for the notion of intrinsic value still provide room for fundamental argument between deontologists and consequentialist to continue, albeit in a somewhat modified form.

Note that the ethics of animal liberation or animal rights and biocentrism are both individualistic in that their various moral concerns are directed towards individuals only—not ecological wholes such as species, populations, biotic communities, and ecosystems. None of these is sentient, a subject-of-a-life, or a teleological-center-of-life, but the preservation of these collective entities is a major concern for many environmentalists. Moreover, the goals of animal liberationists, such as the reduction of animal suffering and death, may conflict with the goals of environmentalists. For example, the preservation of the integrity of an ecosystem may require the culling of feral animals or of some indigenous animal populations that threaten to destroy fragile habitats. So there are disputes about whether the ethics of animal liberation is a proper branch of environmental ethics (see Callicott 1980, 1988, Sagoff 1984, Jamieson 1998, Crisp 1998 and Varner 2000).

Criticizing the individualistic approach in general for failing to accommodate conservation concerns for ecological wholes, J. Baird Callicott (1980) once advocated a version of land-ethical holism which takes Leopold’s statement “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise” to be the supreme deontological principle. In this theory, the earth’s biotic community per se is the sole locus of intrinsic value, whereas the value of its individual members is merely instrumental and dependent on their contribution to the “integrity, stability, and beauty” of the larger community. A straightforward implication of this version of the land ethic is that an individual member of the biotic community ought to be sacrificed whenever that is needed for the protection of the holistic good of the community. For instance, Callicott maintains that if culling a white-tailed deer is necessary for the protection of the holistic biotic good, then it is a land-ethical requirement to do so. But, to be consistent, the same point also applies to human individuals because they are also members of the biotic community. Not surprisingly, the misanthropy implied by Callicott’s land-ethical holism was widely criticized and regarded as a reductio of the position (see Aiken (1984), Kheel (1985), Ferré (1996), and Shrader-Frechette (1996)). Tom Regan (1983, p.362), in particular, condemned the holistic land ethic’s disregard of the rights of the individual as “environmental fascism”. Since then commentators have noted the links between fascism and conservation thinking (Biehl and Staudenmaier 2011). The subsequent emergence of explicitly ecofascist on-line movements and terrorist acts that claim to be ecologically-inspired (Lawton 2019) lead one writer to declare that there is a danger the world will enter an age of “climate barbarism”(Klein 2019).

Under pressure from the charge of ecofascism and misanthropy, Callicott (1989 Ch. 5, and 1999, Ch. 4) later revises his neo-Leopodian position to maintain that the biotic community (indeed, any community to which humans belong) as well as its individual members (indeed, any individual who shares with us membership in some common community) all have intrinsic value. To further distance himself from the charge of ecofascism, Callicott introduced explicit principles which prioritize obligations to human communities over those to natural ones. He called these “second-order” principles for specifying the conditions under which the land ethic’s holistic and individualistic obligations were to be ranked. As he put it:

... obligations generated by membership in more venerable and intimate communities take precedence over these generated in more recently-emerged and impersonal communities... The second second-order principle is that stronger interests (for lack of a better word) generate duties that take precedence over duties generated by weaker interests. (Callicott 1999, 76)

Lo 2001 provides an overview and critique of Callicott’s changing position over two decades, while Ouderkirk and Hill (eds.) 2002 gives an overview of debates between Callicott and others concerning the metaethical and metaphysical foundations for the land ethic and also its historical antecedents. As Lo points out, the final modified version of the land ethic needs more than two second-order principles, since a third-order principle is needed to specify Callicott’s implicit view that the second second-order principle generally countermands the first one when they come into conflict (Lo 2001, 345). In later work, Callicott follows Lo’s suggestion, while cautioning against aiming for too much precision in specifying the demands of the land ethic (Callicott 2013, 66–7). While Callicott’s reading of Leopold is widely regarded as authoritative, later writers have queried whether Leopold might be better interpreted a a moral pluralist (Dixon 2017) and have also raised doubts about the form of Darwinism that Leopold is supposed to have espoused (Millstein 2015). For further critique of Callicott on Leopold, see also Newman, Varner and Linquist 2017, ch.10.

The controversy surrounding Callicott’s original position, however, has inspired efforts in environmental ethics to investigate possibilities of attributing intrinsic value to ecological wholes, not just their individual constituent parts. Following in Callicott’s footsteps, and inspired by Næss’s relational account of value, Warwick Fox has championed a theory of “responsive cohesion” which aims to give supreme moral priority to the maintenance of ecosystems and the biophysical world (Fox 2007). It remains to be seen if this position escapes the charges of misanthropy and totalitarianism laid against earlier holistic and relational theories of value.

Individual natural entities (whether sentient or not, living or not), Andrew Brennan (1984, 2014) argues, are not designed by anyone to fulfill any purpose and therefore lack “intrinsic function” (i.e., the function of a thing that constitutes part of its essence or identity conditions). This, he proposes, is a reason for thinking that individual natural entities should not be treated as mere instruments, and thus a reason for assigning them intrinsic value. Furthermore, he argues that the same moral point applies to the case of natural ecosystems, to the extent that they lack intrinsic function. In the light of Brennan’s proposal, Eric Katz (1991 and 1997) argues that all natural entities, whether individuals or wholes, have intrinsic value in virtue of their ontological independence from human purpose, activity, and interest, and maintains the deontological principle that nature as a whole is an “autonomous subject” which deserves moral respect and must not be treated as a mere means to human ends. Carrying the project of attributing intrinsic value to nature to its ultimate form, Robert Elliot (1997) argues that naturalness itself is a property in virtue of possessing which all natural things, events, and states of affairs, attain intrinsic value. Furthermore, Elliot argues that even a consequentialist, who in principle allows the possibility of trading off intrinsic value from naturalness for intrinsic value from other sources, could no longer justify such kind of trade-off in reality. This is because the reduction of intrinsic value due to the depletion of naturalness on earth, according to him, has reached such a level that any further reduction of it could not be compensated by any amount of intrinsic value generated in other ways, no matter how great it is.

As the notion of “natural” is understood in terms of the lack of human contrivance and is often opposed to the notion of “artifactual”, one much contested issue concerns the value of those parts of nature that have been touched by human artifice—for instance, previously degraded natural environments which have been humanly restored. Based on the premise that the properties of being naturally evolved and having a natural continuity with the remote past are “value adding” (i.e., adding intrinsic value to those things which possess those two properties), Elliot argues that even a perfectly restored environment would necessarily lack those two value-adding properties and therefore be less valuable than the originally undegraded natural environment. Katz, on the other hand, argues that a restored nature is really just an artifact designed and created for the satisfaction of human ends, and that the value of restored environments is instrumental. He further argues that restoration is a form of the “domination of reality” and controversially compares such domination to Nazi policies of xenophobia, nativism and eliminationsm (Katz 2021). Critics have pointed out that advocates of a moral dichotomy between the natural and the artifactual run the risk of diminishing the value of human life and culture, and fail to recognize that the natural environments interfered with by humans may still have morally important qualities other than pure naturalness (see Lo 1999, and Katz’s response in Katz 2012).

Two other issues central to this debate are that the key concept “natural” seems ambiguous in many different ways (see Hume 1751, App. 3; Mill 1874; Brennan [1988] 2014; Ch. 6; Elliot 1997, Ch. 4), and that those who argue that human interference reduces the intrinsic value of nature seem to have simply assumed the crucial premise that naturalness is a source of intrinsic value. Some thinkers maintain that the natural, or the “wild” construed as that which “is not humanized” (Hettinger and Throop 1999, p. 12) or to some degree “not under human control” (ibid., p. 13) is intrinsically valuable. Yet, as Bernard Williams points out (Williams 1992), we may, paradoxically, need to use our technological powers to retain a sense of something not being in our power. The retention of wild areas may thus involve planetary and ecological management to maintain, or even “imprison” such areas (Birch 1990), raising a question over the extent to which national parks and wilderness areas are free from our control. An anlogy with gardening has sometimes been used to explore the nature of restoration (Allison 2004).

Given the significance of the concept of naturalness in these debates, it is perhaps surprising that there has been relatively little analysis of that concept itself in environmental thought. In his pioneering work on the ethics of the environment, Holmes Rolston has worked with a number of different conceptions of the natural (see Brennan and Lo 2010, pp.116–23, for an analysis of three senses of the term “natural” that may be found in Rolston’s work). An explicit attempt to provide a conceptual analysis of a different sort is found in Siipi 2008, while an account of naturalness linking this to historical narratives of place is given in O’Neill, Holland and Light 2008, ch. 8 (compare the response to this in Siipi 2011). For reflections on how to protect “one nature with several representations” from the perspective of science policy see Ducarme and Couvet 2020.

Finally, as an alternative to consequentialism and deontology both of which consider “thin” concepts such as “goodness” and “rightness” as essential to morality, virtue ethics proposes to understand morality—and assess the ethical quality of actions—in terms of “thick” concepts such as “kindness”, “honesty”, “sincerity” and “justice”. These, and other excellent traits of character are virtues (see the entry on virtue ethics ). As virtue ethics speaks quite a different language from the other two kinds of ethical theory, its theoretical focus is not so much on what kinds of things are good/bad, or what makes an action right/wrong. Indeed, the richness of the language of virtues, and the emphasis on moral character, is sometimes cited as a reason for exploring a virtues-based approach to the complex and always-changing questions of sustainability and environmental care (Hill 1983, Wensveen 2000, Sandler 2007). One question central to virtue ethics is what the moral reasons are for acting one way or another. For instance, from the perspective of virtue ethics, kindness and loyalty would be moral reasons for helping a friend in hardship. These are quite different from the deontologist’s reason (that the action is demanded by a moral rule) or the consequentialist reason (that the action will lead to a better over-all balance of good over evil in the world). From the perspective of virtue ethics, the motivation and justification of actions are both inseparable from the character traits of the acting agent. Furthermore, unlike deontology or consequentialism the moral focus of which is other people or states of the world, one central issue for virtue ethics is how to live a flourishing human life, this being a central concern of the moral agent himself or herself. “Living virtuously” is Aristotle’s recipe for flourishing. Versions of virtue ethics advocating virtues such as “benevolence”, “piety”, “filiality”, and “courage”, have also been held by thinkers in the Chinese Confucian tradition. The connection between morality and psychology is another core subject of investigation for virtue ethics. It is sometimes suggested that human virtues, which constitute an important aspect of a flourishing human life, must be compatible with human needs and desires, and perhaps also sensitive to individual affection and temperaments. As its central focus is human flourishing as such, virtue ethics may seem unavoidably anthropocentric and unable to support a genuine moral concern for the non-human environment. But just as Aristotle has argued that a flourishing human life requires friendships and one can have genuine friendships only if one genuinely values, loves, respects, and cares for one’s friends for their own sake, not merely for the benefits that they may bring to oneself, some have argued that a flourishing human life requires the moral capacities to value, love, respect, and care for the non-human natural world as an end in itself (see O’Neill 1992, O’Neill 1993, Barry 1999). Not only Aristotle, but also Kant can be used in support of such a position. Toby Svoboda argues, for example, that even indirect duties to protect nature can be the basis of good moral reasons to promote the flourishing of natural things, regardless of whether doing so promotes human interests (Svoboda 2019). Other virtue ethicists claim to be able to provie an account of what it is to feel guilt about damage people have done to the environment and to make sense of the idea of a genuine feeling of gratitude toward nature “for being what it is” (Wood 2019).

Despite the variety of positions in environmental ethics developed over the last thirty years, they have often focused on issues concerned with wilderness and the reasons for its preservation (see Callicott and Nelson 1998 for a collection of essays on the ideas and moral significance of wilderness). The importance of wilderness experience to the human psyche has been emphasized by many environmental philosophers. Næss, for instance, urges us to ensure we spend time dwelling in situations of intrinsic value, whereas Rolston seeks “re-creation” of the human soul by meditating in the wilderness. Likewise, the critical theorists believe that aesthetic appreciation of nature has the power to re-enchant human life. As wilderness becomes increasingly rare, people’s exposure to wild things in their natural state has become reduced, and according to some authors this may reduce the chance of our lives and other values being transformed as a result of interactions with nature. An argument by Bryan Norton draws attention to an analogy with music. Someone exposed for the first time to a new musical genre may undergo a transformation in musical preferences, tastes and values as a result of the experience (Norton 1987. Such a transformation can affect their other preferences and desires too, in both direct and indirect ways (see Sarkar 2005, ch. 4, esp. pp. 82–7). In the attempt to preserve opportunities for experiences that can change or enhance people’s valuations of nature, there has been a move since the early 2000s to find ways of rewilding degraded environments, and even parts of cities (Fraser 2009, Monbiot 2013). Note that such rewilding is distinct from more traditional forms of restoration, since it need not be pursued with the intention of re-creating some original landscape or biological system (duToit and Pettorelli 2019). A spectacular form of rewilding may be associated with efforts to resurrect some long-dead species by using genetic technology to combine the DNA of an extinct species with the DNA of some closely-related contemporary species. For a review of some of the issues about de-extinction see Minteer 2015, and also Siipi and Finkelman 2017. Cautions about thinking of de-extinction as radically different from more conventional conservation and restoration practices are expressed in Novak 2018.

By contrast to the focus on wild places, relatively little attention has been paid to the built environment, although this is the one in which most people spend most of their time. In post-war Britain, for example, cheaply constructed new housing developments were often poor replacements for traditional communities. They have been associated with lower amounts of social interaction and increased crime compared with the earlier situation. The destruction of highly functional high-density traditional housing, indeed, might be compared with the destruction of highly diverse ecosystems and biotic communities. Likewise, the loss of the world’s huge diversity of natural languages has been mourned by many, not just professionals with an interest in linguistics. Urban and linguistic environments are just two of the many “places” inhabited by humans. Some philosophical theories about natural environments and objects have potential to be extended to cover built environments and non-natural objects of several sorts (see King 2000, Light 2001, Palmer 2003, while Fox 2007 aims to include both built and natural environments in the scope of a single ethical theory). Certainly there are many parallels between natural and artificial domains: for example, many of the conceptual problems involved in discussing the restoration of natural objects such as landscapes and ecosystems also appear in the parallel context of restoring human-made objects such as buildings and works of art (Vogel 2015).

Lovers of wilderness sometimes consider the high human populations in some developing countries as a key problem underlying the environmental crisis. Rolston (1996), for instance, claims that (some) humans are a kind of planetary “cancer”. He maintains that while “feeding people always seems humane, ... when we face up to what is really going on, by just feeding people, without attention to the larger social results, we could be feeding a kind of cancer.” This remark is meant to justify the view that saving nature should, in some circumstances, have a higher priority than feeding people. But such a view has been criticized for seeming to reveal a degree of misanthropy, directed at those human beings least able to protect and defend themselves (see Attfield 1998, Brennan 1998a). The empirical basis of Rolston’s claims has been queried by work showing that poor people are often extremely good environmental managers (Martinez-Alier 2002). Guha’s worries about the elitist and “missionary” tendencies of some kinds of deep green environmentalism in certain rich western countries can be quite readily extended to theorists such as Rolston (Guha 1999). Can such an apparently elitist sort of wilderness ethics ever be democratised? How can the psychically-reviving power of the wild become available to those living in the slums of Kolkata or São Paolo? These questions so far lack convincing answers.

Connections between environmental destruction, unequal resource consumption, poverty and the global economic order have been discussed by political scientists, development theorists, geographers and economists as well as by philosophers. Links between economics and environmental ethics are particularly well established. Work by Mark Sagoff (1988), for instance, has played a major part in bringing the two fields together. He argues that “as citizens rather than consumers” people are concerned about values, which cannot plausibly be reduced to mere ordered preferences or quantified in monetary terms. Sagoff’s distinction between people as consumers and people as citizens was intended to blunt the use of cost-benefit analysis as the final arbiter in discussions about nature’s value. Of course, spouses take out insurance on each others’ lives. We pay extra for travel insurance to cover the cost of cancellation, illness, or lost baggage. Such actions are economically rational. They provide us with some compensation in case of loss. No-one, however, would regard insurance payments as replacing lost limbs, a loved one or even the joys of a cancelled vacation. So it is for nature, according to Sagoff. We can put dollar values on a stand of timber, a reef, a beach, a national park. We can measure the travel costs, the money spent by visitors, the real estate values, the park fees and all the rest. But these dollar measures do not tell us the value of nature any more than my insurance premiums tell you the value of a human life (also see Shrader-Frechette 1987, O’Neill 1993, and Brennan 1995). If Sagoff is right, cost-benefit analysis cannot be a basis for an ethic of sustainability any more than for an ethic of biodiversity. The potentially misleading appeal to economic reason used to justify the expansion of the corporate sector has also come under critical scrutiny by globalisation theorists (see Korten 1999). These critiques do not aim to eliminate economics from environmental thinking; rather, they resist any reductive, and strongly anthropocentric, tendency to believe that all social and environmental problems are fundamentally or essentially economic. The development of ecological economics explores the scope for common ground between economists and environmental policy-makers, and also the role of environmental ethics in such discussions (Washington and Maloney 2020).

Other interdisciplinary approaches link environmental ethics with biology, policy studies, public administration, political theory, cultural history, post-colonial theory, literature, geography, and human ecology (for some examples, see Norton, Hutchins, Stevens, Maple 1995, Shrader-Frechette 1984, Gruen and Jamieson (eds.) 1994, Karliner 1997, Diesendorf and Hamilton 1997, Schmidtz and Willott 2002). Many assessments of issues concerned with biodiversity, ecosystem health, poverty, environmental justice and sustainability look at both human and environmental issues, eschewing in the process commitment either to a purely anthropocentric or purely ecocentric perspective (see Hayward and O’Neill 1997, and Dobson 1999 for collections of essays looking at the links between sustainability, justice, welfare and the distribution of environmental goods). The future development of environmental ethics depends on these, and other interdisciplinary synergies, as much as on its anchorage within philosophy (Dereniowska and Matzke 2014).

6. Sustainability and Climate Change

The Convention on Biological Diversity discussed in the supplementary document on Biodiversity Preservation was influenced by Our Common Future , an earlier United Nations document on sustainability produced by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED 1987). The commission was chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway at the time, and the report is sometimes known as the Brundtland Report. This report noted the increasing tide of evidence that planetary systems vital to supporting life on earth were under strain. The key question it raised is whether it is equitable to sacrifice options for future well-being in favour of supporting current lifestyles, especially the comfortable, and sometimes lavish, forms of life enjoyed in the rich countries. As Bryan Norton puts it, the world faces a global challenge to see whether different human groups, with widely varying perspectives, can perhaps “accept responsibility to maintain a non-declining set of opportunities based on possible uses of the environment”. The preservation of options for the future can be readily linked to notions of equity if it is agreed that “the future ought not to face, as a result of our actions today, a seriously reduced range of options and choices, as they try to adapt to the environment that they face” (Norton 2001: 419). Note that references to “the future” need not be limited to the future of human beings only. In keeping with the non-anthropocentric focus of much environmental philosophy, a care for sustainability and biodiversity can embrace a care for opportunities available to non-human living things.

However, when the concept “sustainable development” was first articulated in the Brundtland Report, the emphasis was clearly anthropocentric. In face of increasing evidence that planetary systems vital to life-support were under strain, the concept of sustainable development is constructed in the report to encourage certain globally coordinated directions and types of economic and social development. The report defines “sustainable development” in the following way:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: the concept of “needs”, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs. Thus the goals of economic and social development must be defined in terms of sustainability in all countries—developed or developing, market-oriented or centrally planned. Interpretations will vary, but must share certain general features and must flow from a consensus on the basic concept of sustainable development and on a broad strategic framework for achieving it. (WCED 1987, Ch. 2, paragraphs 1–2)

The report goes on to argue that “the industrial world has already used much of the planet’s ecological capital. This inequality is the planet’s main ‘environmental’ problem; it is also its main ‘development’ problem” (WCED 1987, Overview, paragraph 17). In the concept of sustainable development the report combines the resource economist’s notion of “sustainable yield” with the recognition that developing countries of the world are entitled to economic growth and prosperity. The notion of sustainable yield involves thinking of forests, rivers, oceans and other ecosystems, including the natural species living in them, as a stock of “ecological capital” from which all kinds of goods and services flow. Provided the flow of such goods and services does not reduce the capacity of the capital itself to maintain its productivity, the use of the systems in question is regarded as sustainable. Thus, the report argues that “maximum sustainable yield must be defined after taking into account system-wide effects of exploitation” of ecological capital (WCED 1987, Ch. 2, paragraph 11).

There are clear philosophical, political and economic precursors to the Brundtland concept of sustainability. For example, John Stuart Mill (1848, IV. 6. 1) distinguished between the “stationary state” and the “progressive state” and argued that at the end of the progressive state lies the stationary state, since “the increase of wealth is not boundless”. Mill also recognized a debt to the gloomy prognostications of Thomas Malthus, who had conjectured that population tends to increase geometrically while food resources at best increase only arithmetically, so that demand for food will ultimately outstrip the supply (see Milgate and Stimson 2009, Ch. 7, and the discussion of Malthus in the Political Economy section of the Spring 2016 version of the entry on Mill ). Reflection on Malthus led Mill to argue for restraining human population growth:

Even in a progressive state of capital, in old countries, a conscientious or prudential restraint on population is indispensable, to prevent the increase of numbers from outstripping the increase of capital, and the condition of the classes who are at the bottom of society from being deteriorated (Mill 1848, IV. 6. 1).

Such warnings resonate with pessimism about increasing human population and its impact on the poorest people, as well as on loss of biodiversity, fresh water scarcity, overconsumption and climate change. In their controversial work The Population Bomb , Paul and Anne Ehrlich, argue that without restrictions on population growth, including the imposition of mandatory birth control, the world faced “mass starvation” in the short term (Ehrlich 1968). This prediction was not fulfilled. In a subsequent defence of their early work, the Ehrlichs declared that the most serious flaw in their original analysis “was that it was much too optimistic about the future”, and comment that “Since The Bomb was written, increases in greenhouse gas flows into the atmosphere, a consequence of the near doubling of the human population and the near tripling of global consumption, indicate that the results will likely be catastrophic climate disruption caused by greenhouse heating” (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 2009, 66). It was also in 1968 that Garrett Hardin published his much cited article on the “tragedy of the commons” arguing that common resources can always be subject to degradation and extinction in the face of the rational pursuit of self-interest. For Hardin, the increasing pressure on shared resources, and increasing pollution, are inevitable results of the fact that “there is no technical solution to the population problem” (Hardin 1968). The problem may be analysed from the perspective of the so-called prisoner’s dilemma (also see the entry on the free rider problem ). Despite the pessimism of writers at the time, and the advocacy of setting limits to population growth, there was also an optimism that echoes Mill’s own view that a “stationary state” would not be one of misery and decline, but rather one in which humans could aspire to more equitable distribution of available and limited resources. This is clear not only among those who recognize limits to economic growth (Meadows et al. 1972) but also among those who champion the move to a steady state economy (Daly 1991) or at least want to see more account taken of ecology in economics (Norgaard 1994, Rees 2020).

The Brundtland report puts less emphasis on limits than do Mill, Malthus and later writers. It depicts sustainability as a challenge and opportunity for the world to become more socially, politically and environmentally fair. In pursuit of intergenerational justice , it suggests that there should be new human rights added to the standard list, for example, that “All human beings have the fundamental right to an environment adequate for their health and well being” (WCED 1987, Annexe 1, paragraph 1). The report also argues that “The enjoyment of any right requires respect for the similar rights of others, and recognition of reciprocal and even joint responsibilities. States have a responsibility towards their own citizens and other states” (ibid., chapter 12, paragraph 83). Since the report’s publication, many writers have supported and defended the view that global and economics [normative] and economic justice require that nations which had become wealthy through earlier industrialization and environmental exploitation should allow less developed nations similar or equivalent opportunities for development especially in term of access to environmental resources (Redclift 2005). As intended by the report the idea of sustainable development has become strongly integrated into the notion of environmental conservation. The report has also set the scene for a range of subsequent international conferences, declarations, and protocols many of them maintaining the emphasis on the prospects for the future of humanity, rather than considering sustainability in any wider sense.

Some non-anthropocentric environmental thinkers have found the language of economics used in the report unsatisfactory in its implications since it already appears to assume a largely instrumental view of nature. The use of notions such as “asset”, “capital” and also the word “resources” in connection with natural objects and systems has been identified by some writers as instrumentalizing natural things which are in essence wild and free. The objection is that such language promotes the tendency to think of natural things as mere resources for humans or as raw materials with which human labour could be mixed, not only to produce consumable goods, but also to generate human ownership (Plumwood 1993, Sagoff 2004). If natural objects and systems have intrinsic value independent of their possible use for humans, as many environmental philosophers have argued, then a policy approach to sustainability needs to consider the environment and natural things not only in instrumental and but also in intrinsic terms to do justice to the moral standing that many people believe such items possess. Despite its acknowledgment of there being “moral, ethical, cultural, aesthetic, and purely scientific reasons for conserving wild beings” (WCED 1987, Overview, paragraph 53), the strongly anthropocentric and instrumental language used throughout the Brundtland report in articulating the notion of sustainable development can be criticised for defining the notion too narrowly, leaving little room for addressing sustainability questions directly concerning the Earth’s environment and its non-human inhabitants: should, and if so, how should, human beings reorganise their ways of life and the social-political structures of their communities to allow sustainability and equity not only for all humans but also for the other species on the planet?

The concern for preserving nature and non-human species is addressed to some extent by making a distinction between weaker and stronger conceptions of sustainability (Beckerman 1995). Proponents of weak sustainability argue that it is acceptable to replace natural capital with human-made capital provided that the latter has equivalent functions. If, for example, plastic trees could produce oxygen, absorb carbon and support animal and insect communities, then they could replace the real thing, and a world with functionally equivalent artificial trees would seem just as good—from an economic perpective—as one with real or natural trees in it. For weak sustainability theorists, the aim of future development should be to maintain a consistently productive stock of capital on which to draw, while not insisting that some portion of that capital be natural. Strong sustainability theorists, by contrast, generally resist the substitution of human for natural capital, insisting that a critical stock of natural things and processes be preserved. By so doing, they argue, rivers, forests and biodiverse systems are maintained, hence providing maximum options—options in terms of experience, appreciation, values, and ways of life—for the future human inhabitants of the planet (Norton 2005). The Brundtland report can also be seen as advocating a form of strong sustainability in so far as it recommends that a “first priority is to establish the problem of disappearing species and threatened ecosystems on political agendas as a major resource issue” ( ibid ., chapter 6, paragraph 57). Furthermore, despite its instrumental and economic language, the report in fact endorses a wider moral perspective on the status of and our relation to nature and non-human species, evidenced by its statement that “the case for the conservation of nature should not rest only with development goals. It is part of our moral obligation to other living beings and future generations” (WCED 1987, chapter 2, paragraph 55). Implicit in the statement is not only a strong conception of sustainability but also a non-anthropocentric conception of the notion. Over time, strong sustainability came to be focused not only on the needs of human and other living things but also on their rights (Redclift 2004, 218). In a further development, the discourses on forms of sustainability have generally given way to a more ambiguous usage, in which the term “sustainability” functions to bring people into a debate rather than setting out a clear definition of the terms of the debate itself. As globalization leads to greater integration of world economies, the world after the Brundtland report has seen greater fragmentation among viewpoints, where critics of globalization have generally used the concept of sustainability in a plurality of different ways (Sneddon, Howarth and Norgaard 2006). Some have argued that “sustainability”, just like the word “nature” itself, has come to mean very different things, carrying different symbolic meanings for different groups, and reflecting very different interests (Redclift 2004, 220). For better or for worse, such ambiguity can on occasion allow different parties in negotiations to claim a measure of agreement. For example, commenting on the connections between agricultural systems, sustainability and climate change, one writer has argued that there is exciting scope for negotiation across different world views in working out the conditions for a future sustainable form of agriculture (Thompson 2017).

Meadows’ and Daly’s arguments about the need to recognize that planetary resources are limited have continued to resonate with thinkers, especially those working in ecological economics (Daly and Farley 2011). As one author puts it, “the overriding aim [of ecological economics] ... is to seek viable responses to the biggest dilemma of our times: reconciling our aspirations for the good life with the limitations and constraints of a finite planet” (Jackson 2017, 3). While economic growth is a central focus of neoclassical economic theory (see the entry on philosophy of economics ) a minority of thinkers have joined in supporting an agenda of “de-growth” (or “degrowth”) as an alternative to what is sometimes called “growthism” (for a popular overview see Hickel 2020). From small beginnings in the late 20th century, the idea of de-growth developed from “a political slogan with theoretical implications” to become a significant challenge to the idea of sustainable development considered as a kind of sustainable growth (Martinez-Alier et al . 2010). Advocates of de-growth advocate that the transition to sustainability will be aided by pursuing de-growth instead of economic growth (D’Alisa et al. 2015, Khamara and Kronenbeg 2020). At the same time some ecological economists argue for a rejection of the anthropocentrism they claim is central to neoclassical economics and support embracing a new ecological economics that explicitly incorporates an ecological ethic (Washington and Maloney 2020). Having drawn attention to the huge impact of the human ecological footprint, Rees has gone on to gloomily ponder the kind of economics needed to deal with a situation in which “we are currently ‘financing’ economic growth by liquidating the biophysical systems upon which humanity ultimately depends” (Rees 2020, 1). He concludes that “the mainstream fantasy…...this obsession with growth, cannot end well” ( ibid. , 6). Assuming that some forms of consumption are important to a satisfying human life, some writers have explored the idea that developing more modes of virtual consumption, while reducing physical forms of consumption, might be a significant contribution to sustainable lifestyles (Pike and DesRoches 2020).

The preservation of opportunities to live well, or at least to have a minimally acceptable level of well being, is at the heart of population ethics and many contemporary conceptions of sustainability. Many people believe such opportunities for the existing younger generations, and also for the yet to arrive future generations, to be under threat from continuing environmental destruction, including loss of fresh water resources, continued clearing of wild areas, decreasing biodiversity and a changing climate thus raising questions not only about sustainability but also about environmental justice (see Gonzalez, Atapattu, and Seck 2021). Of these, climate change has come to prominence as an area of intense policy and political debate, to which applied philosophers and ethicists were slow to contribute (Heath 2021). An early exploration of the topic by John Broome shows how the economics of climate change could not be divorced from considerations of intergenerational justice and ethics (Broome 1992), and this has set the scene for subsequent discussions and analyses (see the entry on climate justice ). More than a decade later, when Stephen Gardiner analyses the state of affairs surrounding climate change in an article entitled “A Perfect Moral Storm” (Gardiner 2006), his starting point is also that ethics plays a fundamental role in all discussions of climate policy. But he argues that even if difficult ethical and conceptual questions facing climate change (such as the so-called “ non-identity problem ” along with the notion of historic injustices ) could be answered, it would still be close to politically and socially impossible to formulate, let alone to enforce, policies and action plans to deal effectively with climate change. This is due to the multi-faceted nature of a problem that involves vast numbers of agents and players. At a global level, there is first of all the practical problem of motivating shared responsibilities (see the entry on moral motivation ) in part due to the dispersed nature of greenhouse gas emissions which makes the effects of increasing levels of atmospheric carbon and methane not always felt most strongly in the regions where they originate. Add to this the fact that there is an un-coordinated and also dispersed network of agents—both individual and corporate—responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, and that there are no effective institutions that can control and limit them. But this tangle of issues constitutes, Gardiner argues, only one strand in the skein of quandaries that confronts us. There is also the fact that by and large only the future (and perhaps the current younger) generations will carry the brunt of the impacts of climate change, explaining why so many people in the current generations seem not to have strong enough incentive to act. Finally, he argues it is evident that mainstream political, economic, and ethical models are not up to the task of reaching global consensus, and in many cases not even national consensus, on how best to design and implement fair climate policies. Some consequentialist theorists, however, have argued that a form of rule consequentialism can take account of the interests of future generations who may be inhabiting a "broken world" (Mulgan 2011, 2017). Mulgan argues that by imagining a broken world of limited resources and precarious human survival, it may be possible to devise an ideal moral ooutlook that differs from the ideal code of many rule consequentialists who usually presuppose that the future will be just like the present.

However, Gardiner takes a pessimistic view of the prospects for progress on climate issues. His view includes pessimism about technical solutions, such as geoengineering as the antidote to climate problems, echoing the concerns of others that large scale interventions in—and further domination of—nature may turn out to be an even worse climate catastrophe (Gardiner 2011, ch 11, Jamieson 1996 and see also the papers in Gardiner and McKinnon 2020). A key point in Gardiner’s analysis is that the problem of climate change involves a tangle of issues, the complexity of which conspires to encourage buck-passing, weakness of will, distraction and procrastination, “mak[ing] us extremely vulnerable to moral corruption” ( ibid ., 397; cf. Gardiner 2011; see also the concept of “wicked problem” in Brennan 2004). Because of the grave risk of serious harm to current and future generations of people and other living things, our failure to take timely mitigating actions on climate issues can be seen as a major moral failing, especially in the light of our current knowledge and understanding of the problem (IPCC 2021).

In a related reinterpretation of a classic study in psychology, Russell and Bolton re-examine Milgram’s classic “obedience studies” (see the entry on the concept of evil , section 4.5). In these experiments, Milgram explored the conditions under which ordinary people would be disposed to perform evil actions (such as administering electric shocks to strangers). Russell and Bolton argue that, when properly interpreted, Milgram’s studies show that political, administrative and bureaucratic structures can lead to a general and tacit agreement for those in an advantaged situation to harm the interests of those less powerful. In Russell and Bolton’s new interpretation of the Milgram experiments, those who are in the advantaged situation are those living comfortably in wealthy countries, while the powerless are distant strangers and members of future generations. Corporate structures and long organizational chains, Russell and Bolton argue, encourage inaction, denial and diffusion of responsibility that typifies both the common responses to climate change and also the behaviour of participants in Milgram’s experiments. They conjecture that Milgram’s work thus explains the phenomenon of what they call “responsibility ambiguity” that underlies hesitancy to take action on climate change (Russell and Bolton 2019, and see also Rees 2020). While they make no mention of the work of Hannah Arendt, their analysis recalls some of Arendt’s analysis of the banality of evil (see the entry on the concept of evil , section 2.3). There appears to be scope for more empirical research and interdisciplinary study on topics such as the diffusion of responsibility and denialism. A similar analysis might also apply to inaction in the face of declining biodiversity.

John Broome tries to show some of the ways that one form of climate denialism takes, when it uses ingenious but, Broome claims, flawed reasoning to depict individuals as making no significant contribution to climate change (Broome 2019, see also McKinnon 2014). A stronger form of denialism refuses to acknowledge the fact of anthropogenic climate change at all. A puzzle remains over why much ingenuity is expended on such denial in the face of the urgent problems that now confront the world (see the entry on science and pseudo-science ). In response, some argue that the persisting denialism over the reality of the environmental and climate crises may be a product of shame or guilt over the human treatment of natural things and systems (Aaltola 2021). These emotions may interfere with and block a much-needed and honest confrontation of a frightening situation—even if it is one humans have brought upon themselves. There is also a well-known psychological phenomenon of “knowing but not knowing” which can contribute, along with other factors, to denialism (Norgaard 2011, 404, and compare the classic studyof this in Cohen 2001, ch. 2). Many countries’ initial and ongoing response to the 2020s COVID-19 pandemic, for example, appears to show that denialism, typically accompanied by widespread misinformation and unfounded hypotheses about conspiracies, may be a very human way to react in the face of a global catastrophe. Using factor analysis studies, some psychologists have claimed to demonstrate that anti-scientific views have close association with beliefs in creationism and animism. Further, they conjecture that purposive or teleological thinking is the gateway to such associations (Wagner-Egger et al. 2018). Note that the role of teleological notions in biology remains contested and subject to further research. Other research claims to show that people simply reject scientific findings that make them uncomfortable and threaten their worldviews (see Lewandowsky and Oberauer 2016).

Writers have also tried to make sense of why so much misinformation about climate change and other catastrophes is so widespread. On the part of some theorists (see McIntyre 2018), the blame for the evils of a “post-truth” era has been laid at the feet of some postmodern thinkers who endorse social epistemology . But social constructionist writers have their own diagnosis of the social forces that have given rise to the “new climatic regime” (Latour 2017), which combines science denialism and what has be called “out-of-this-world”—fanciful and over-optimistic—thinking about the human prospects for escaping climate catastrophe. One suggested remedy for these cognitve failings is to encourage the recognition that natural systems respond to human action and are not merely the material resources for economic development. It has been proposed that awareness that humans and the natural systems that support them share a dwelling place might pave the way to a new kind of “terrestrial politics” (Lenton and Latour 2018, Latour 2018). The shape of such a politics is still under-theorized, and could take many forms (Mann and Wainwright 2018). Meanwhile, some animal ethicists blame “speciesist anthropocentrism” (see the entry on the moral status of animals ) for blinding humanity to the evils of its overpopulation and denialism (Almiron and Tafalla 2019). Whatever the future holds, many thinkers insist that solving the problem of climate change is an essential ingredient of sustainability and that the alternative to decisive action may result in the degrading not only of nature and natural systems, but also of human dignity itself (see Nanda (ed.) 2011, especially chapters by Heyd, Balafrej, Gutrich and Brennan and Lo, see also section 3.4 of the entry on human rights ). As humanity faces an uncertain future of declining biodiversity and increasing extreme weather events driven by escalating planetary heating—causing suffering and alienation for humans and non-humans alike—the moral challenges listed at the start of this entry seem more pressing than ever.

Supplementary Document: Pathologies of Environmental Crisis: Theories and Empirical Research

• Aaltola, Elisa, 2021. “Defensive over Climate Change? Climate Shame as a Method of Moral Cultivation”, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics , 34. doi:10.1007/s10806-021-09844-5
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aesthetics: environmental | animals, moral status of | communitarianism | consequentialism | critical theory | ecology | ecology: biodiversity | ethics: virtue | feminist philosophy, interventions: ethics | globalization | justice: intergenerational | metaethics | panpsychism | respect | value: intrinsic vs. extrinsic

Acknowledgments

The authors are deeply grateful to the following people who gave generously of their time and advice to help shape the final structure of this entry: Clare Palmer, Mauro Grün, Lori Gruen, Gary Varner, William Throop, Patrick O’Donnell, Thomas Heyd, Dale Jamieson and Edward N. Zalta.

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Ethical Business Practices: Case Studies and Lessons Learned

Introduction

Ethical business practices are a cornerstone of any successful company, influencing not only the public perception of a brand but also its long-term profitability. However, understanding what constitutes ethical behavior and how to implement it can be a complex process. This article explores some case studies that shine a light on ethical business practices, offering valuable lessons for businesses in any industry.

Case Study 1: Patagonia’s Commitment to Environmental Ethics

Patagonia, the outdoor clothing and gear company, has long set a standard for environmental responsibility. The company uses eco-friendly materials, promotes recycling of its products, and actively engages in various environmental causes.

Lessons Learned

• Transparency : Patagonia is vocal about its ethical practices and even provides information on the environmental impact of individual products.
• Consistency: Ethics are not an “add-on” for Patagonia; they are integrated into the very fabric of the company’s operations, from sourcing to production to marketing.
• Engagement: The company doesn’t just focus on its practices; it encourages consumers to get involved in the causes it supports.

Case Study 2: Salesforce and Equal Pay

Salesforce, the cloud-based software company, took a stand on the gender pay gap issue. They conducted an internal audit and found that there was indeed a significant wage disparity between male and female employees for similar roles. To address this, Salesforce spent over $6 million to balance the scales.

• Self-Audit: It’s crucial for companies to actively review their practices. What you don’t know can indeed hurt you, and ignorance is not an excuse.
• Taking Responsibility: Rather than sweeping the issue under the rug, Salesforce openly acknowledged the problem and took immediate corrective action.
• Long-Term Benefits: Fair treatment boosts employee morale and productivity, leading to long-term profitability.

Case Study 3: Starbucks and Racial Sensitivity Training

In 2018, Starbucks faced a public relations crisis when two Black men were wrongfully arrested at one of their Philadelphia stores. Instead of issuing just a public apology, Starbucks closed down 8,000 of its stores for an afternoon to conduct racial sensitivity training.

Lessons   Learned

• Immediate Action : Swift and meaningful action is critical in showing commitment to ethical behavior.
• Education: Sometimes, the problem is a lack of awareness. Investing in employee education can avoid repeated instances of unethical behavior.
• Public Accountability: Starbucks made their training materials available to the public, showing a level of transparency and accountability that helped regain public trust.

Why Ethics Matter

Ethical business practices are not just morally correct; they have a direct impact on a company’s bottom line. Customers today are more informed and more sensitive to ethical considerations. They often make purchasing decisions based on a company’s ethical standing, and word-of-mouth (or the digital equivalent) travels fast.

The case studies above show that ethical business practices should be a top priority for companies of all sizes and industries. These are not isolated examples but are representative of a broader trend in consumer expectations and regulatory frameworks. The lessons gleaned from these cases—transparency, consistency, engagement, self-audit, taking responsibility, and education—are universally applicable and offer a robust roadmap for any business seeking to bolster its ethical standing.

By implementing ethical business practices sincerely and not as a marketing gimmick, companies not only stand to improve their public image but also set themselves up for long-term success, characterized by a loyal customer base and a motivated, satisfied workforce.

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Ethics, Integrity and Policymaking: The Value of the Case Study [Internet].

Chapter 1 making a case for the case: an introduction.

Dónal O’Mathúna and Ron Iphofen .

Affiliations

Published online: November 3, 2022.

This chapter agues for the importance of case studies in generating evidence to guide and/or support policymaking across a variety of fields. Case studies can offer the kind of depth and detail vital to the nuances of context, which may be important in securing effective policies that take account of influences not easily identified in more generalised studies. Case studies can be written in a variety of ways which are overviewed in this chapter, and can also be written with different purposes in mind. At the same time, case studies have limitations, particularly when evidence of causation is sought. Understanding these can help to ensure that case studies are appropriately used to assist in policymaking. This chapter also provides an overview of the types of case studies found in the rest of this volume, and briefly summarises the themes and topics addressed in each of the other chapters.

1.1. Judging the Ethics of Research

When asked to judge the ethical issues involved in research or any evidence-gathering activity, any research ethicist worth their salt will (or should) reply, at least initially: ‘It depends’. This is neither sophistry nor evasive legalism. Instead, it is a specific form of casuistry used in ethics in which general ethical principles are applied to the specifics of actual cases and inferences made through analogy. It is valued as a structured yet flexible approach to real-world ethical challenges. Case study methods recognise the complexities of depth and detail involved in assessing research activities. Another way of putting this is to say: ‘Don’t ask me to make a judgement about a piece of research until I have the details of the project and the context in which it will or did take place.’ Understanding and fully explicating a context is vital as far as ethical research (and evidence-gathering) is concerned, along with taking account of the complex interrelationship between context and method (Miller and Dingwall 1997 ).

This rationale lies behind this collection of case studies which is one outcome from the EU-funded PRO-RES Project. 1 One aim of this project was to establish the virtues, values, principles and standards most commonly held as supportive of ethical practice by researchers, scientists and evidence-generators and users. The project team conducted desk research, workshops and consulted throughout the project with a wide range of stakeholders (PRO-RES 2021a ). The resulting Scientific, Trustworthy, and Ethical evidence for Policy (STEP) ACCORD was devised, which all stakeholders could sign up to and endorse in the interests of ensuring any policies which are the outcome of research findings are based upon ethical evidence (PRO-RES 2021b ).

By ‘ethical evidence’ we mean results and findings that have been generated by research and other activities during which the standards of research ethics and integrity have been upheld (Iphofen and O’Mathúna 2022 ). The first statement of the STEP ACCORD is that policy should be evidence-based, meaning that it is underpinned by high-quality research, analysis and evidence (PRO-RES 2021b ). While our topic could be said to be research ethics, we have chosen to refer more broadly to evidence-generating activities. Much debate has occurred over the precise definition of research under the apparent assumption that ‘non-research projects’ fall outside the purview of requirements to obtain ethics approval from an ethics review body. This debate is more about the regulation of research than the ethics of research and has contributed to an unbalanced approach to the ethics of research (O’Mathúna 2018 ). Research and evidence-generating activities raise many ethical concerns, some similar and some distinct. When the focus is primarily on which projects need to obtain what sort of ethics approval from which type of committee, the ethical issues raised by those activities themselves can receive insufficient attention. This can leave everyone involved with these activities either struggling to figure out how to manage complex and challenging ethical dilemmas or pushing ahead with those activities confident that their approval letter means they have fulfilled all their ethical responsibilities. Unfortunately, this can lead to a view that research ethics is an impediment and burden that must be overcome so that the important work in the research itself can get going.

The alternative perspective advocated by PRO-RES, and the authors of the chapters in this volume, is that ethics underpins all phases of research, from when the idea for a project is conceived, all the way through its design and implementation, and on to how its findings are disseminated and put into practice in individual decisions or in policy. Given the range of activities involved in all these phases, multiple types of ethical issues can arise. Each occurs in its own context of time and place, and this must be taken into account. While ethical principles and theories have important contributions to make at each of these points, case studies are also very important. These allow for the normative effects of various assumptions and declarations to be judged in context. We therefore asked the authors of this volume’s chapters to identify various case studies which would demonstrate the ethical challenges entailed in various types of research and evidence-generating activities. These illustrative case studies explore various innovative topics and fields that raise challenges requiring ethical reflection and careful policymaking responses. The cases highlight diverse ethical issues and provide lessons for the various options available for policymaking (see Sect.  1.6 . below). Cases are drawn from many fields, including artificial intelligence, space science, energy, data protection, professional research practice and pandemic planning. The issues are examined in different locations, including Europe, India, Africa and in global contexts. Each case is examined in detail and also helps to anticipate lessons that could be learned and applied in other situations where ethical evidence is needed to inform evidence-based policymaking.

1.2. The Case for Cases

Case studies have increasingly been used, particularly in social science (Exworthy and Powell 2012 ). Many reasons underlie this trend, one being the movement towards evidence-based practice. Case studies provide a methodology by which a detailed study can be conducted of a social unit, whether that unit is a person, an organization, a policy or a larger group or system (Exworthy and Powell 2012 ). The case study is amenable to various methodologies, mostly qualitative, which allow investigations via documentary analyses, interviews, focus groups, observations, and more.

At the same time, consensus is lacking over the precise nature of a case study. Various definitions have been offered, but Yin ( 2017 ) provides a widely cited definition with two parts. One is that a case study is an in-depth inquiry into a real-life phenomenon where the context is highly pertinent. The second part of Yin’s definition addresses the many variables involved in the case, the multiple sources of evidence explored, and the inclusion of theoretical propositions to guide the analysis. While Yin’s emphasis is on the case study as a research method, he identifies important elements of broader relevance that point to the particular value of the case study for examining ethical issues.

Other definitions of case studies emphasize their story or narrative aspects (Gwee 2018 ). These stories frequently highlight a dilemma in contextually rich ways, with an emphasis on how decisions can be or need to be made. Case studies are particularly helpful with ethical issues to provide crucial context and explore (and evaluate) how ethical decisions have been made or need to be made. Classic cases include the Tuskegee public health syphilis study, the Henrietta Lacks human cell line case, the Milgram and Zimbardo psychology cases, the Tea Room Trade case, and the Belfast Project in oral history research (examined here in Chap. 10 ). Cases exemplify core ethical principles, and how they were applied or misapplied; in addition, they examine how policies have worked well or not (Chaps. 2 , 3 and 5 ). Cases can examine ethics in long-standing issues (like research misconduct (Chap. 7 ), energy production (Chap. 8 ), or Chap. 11 ’s consideration of researchers breaking the law), or with innovations in need of further ethical reflection because of their novelty (like extended space flight (Chap. 9 ) and AI (Chaps. 13 and 14 ), with the latter looking at automation in legal systems). These case studies help to situate the innovations within the context of widely regarded ethical principles and theories, and allow comparisons to be made with other technologies or practices where ethical positions have been developed. In doing so, these case studies offer pointers and suggestions for policymakers given that they are the ones who will develop applicable policies.

1.3. Research Design and Causal Inference

Not everyone is convinced of the value of the case study. It must be admitted that they have limitations, which we will reflect on shortly. Yet we believe that others go too far in their criticisms, revealing instead some prejudices against the value of the case (Yin 2017 ). In what has become a classic text for research design, Campbell and Stanley ( 1963 ) have few good words for what they call the ‘One Shot Case Study.’ They rank it below two other ‘pre-experimental’ designs—the One-Group Pretest–Posttest and the Static-Group Comparison—and conclude that case studies “have such a total absence of control to be of almost no scientific value” (Campbell and Stanley 1963 , 6). The other designs have, in turn, a baseline and outcome measure and some degree of comparative analysis which provides them some validity. Such a criticism is legitimate if one prioritises the experimental method as the most superior in terms of effectiveness evidence and, as for Campbell and Stanley, one is striving to assess the effectiveness of educational interventions.

What is missing from that assessment is that different methodologies are more appropriate for different kinds of questions. Questions of causation and whether a particular treatment, policy or educational strategy is more effective than another are best answered by experimental methods. While experimental designs are better suited to explore causal relationships, case studies are more suited to explore “how” and “why” questions (Yin 2017 ). It can be more productive to view different methodologies as complementing one another, rather than examining them in hierarchical terms.

The case study approach draws on a long tradition in ethnography and anthropology: “It stresses the importance of holistic perspectives and so has more of a ‘humanistic’ emphasis. It recognises that there are multiple influences on any single individual or group and that most other methods neglect the thorough understanding of this range of influences. They usually focus on a chosen variable or variables which are tested in terms of their influence. A case study tends to make no initial assumptions about which are the key variables—preferring to allow the case to ‘speak for itself’” (Iphofen et al. 2009 , 275). This tradition has sometimes discouraged people from conducting or using case studies on the assumption that they take massive amounts of time and lead to huge reports. This is the case with ethnography, but the case study method can be applied in more limited settings and can lead to high-quality, concise reports.

Another criticism of case studies is that they cannot be used to make generalizations. Certainly, there are limits to their generalisability, but the same is true of experimental studies. One randomized controlled trial cannot be generalised to the whole population without ensuring that its details are evaluated in the context of how it was conducted.

Similarly, it should not be assumed that generalisability can adequately guide practice or policy when it comes to the specifics of an individual case. A case study should not be used to support statistical generalizations (that the same percentage found in the case will be found in the general public). But a case study can be used to expand and generalize theories and thus have much usefulness. It affords a method of examining the specific (complex) interactions occurring in a case which can only be known from the details. Such an analysis can be carried out for individuals, policies or interventions.

The current COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the dangers of generalising in the wrong context. Some people have very mild cases of COVID-19 or are asymptomatic. Others get seriously ill and even die. Sometimes people generalise from cases they know and assume they will have mild symptoms. Then they refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine, basically generalising from similar cases. Mass vaccination is recommended for the sake of the health of the public (generalised health) and to limit the spread of a deadly virus. Cases are reported of people having adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines, and some people generalise from these that they will not take whatever risks might be involved in receiving the vaccine themselves. It might be theoretically possible to discover which individuals WILL react adversely to immunisation on a population level. But it is highly complex and expensive to do so, and takes an extensive period of time. Given the urgency of benefitting the health of ‘the public’, policymakers have decided that the risks to a sub-group are warranted. Only after the emergence of epidemiological data disclosing negative effects of some vaccines on some individuals will it become more clear which characteristics typify those cases which are likely to experience the adverse effects, and more accurately quantify the risks of experiencing those effects.

Much literature now points to the advantages and disadvantages of case studies (Gomm et al. 2000 ), and how to use them and conduct them with adequate rigour to ensure the validity of the evidence generated (Schell 1992 ; Yin 2011 , 2017 ). At the same time, legitimate critiques have been made of some case studies because they have been conducted without adequate rigor, in unsystematic ways, or in ways that allowed bias to have more influence than evidence (Hammersley 2001 ). Part of the problem here is similar to interviewing, where some will assume that since interviews are a form of conversation, anyone can do it. Case studies have some similarities to stories, but that doesn’t mean they are quick and easy ways to report on events. That view can lead to the situation where “most people feel that they can prepare a case study, and nearly all of us believe we can understand one. Since neither view is well founded, the case study receives a lot of approbation it does not deserve” (Hoaglin et al., cited in Yin 2017 , 16).

Case studies can be conducted and used in a wide range of ways (Gwee 2018 ). Case studies can be used as a research method, as a teaching tool, as a way of recording events so that learning can be applied to practice, and to facilitate practical problem-solving skills (Luck et al. 2006 ). Significant differences exist between a case study that was developed and used in research compared to one used for teaching (Yin 2017 ). A valid rationale for studying a ‘case’ should be provided so that it is clear that the proposed method is suitable to the topic and subject being studied. The unit of study for a case could be an individual person, social group, community, or society. Sometimes that specific case alone will constitute the actual research project. Thus, the study could be of one individual’s experience, with insights and understanding gained of the individual’s situation which could be of use to understand others’ experiences. Often there will be attempts made at a comparison between cases—one organisation being compared to another, with both being studied in some detail, and in terms of the same or similar criteria. Given this variety, it is important to use cases in ways appropriate to how they were generated.

The case study continues to be an important piece of evidence in clinical decision-making in medicine and healthcare. Here, case studies do not demonstrate causation or effectiveness, but are used as an important step in understanding the experiences of patients, particularly with a new or confusing set of symptoms. This was clearly seen as clinicians published case studies describing a new respiratory infection which the world now knows to be COVID-19. Only as case studies were generated, and the patterns brought together in larger collections of cases, did the characteristics of the illness come to inform those seeking to diagnose at the bedside (Borges do Nascimento et al. 2020 ). Indeed case studies are frequently favoured in nursing, healthcare and social work research where professional missions require a focus on the care of the individual and where cases facilitate making use of the range of research paradigms (Galatzer-Levy et al. 2000 ; Mattaini 1996 ; Gray 1998 ; Luck et al. 2006 ).

1.4. Devil’s in the Detail

Our main concern in this collection is not with case study aetiology but rather to draw on the advantages of the method to highlight key ethical issues related to the use of evidence in influencing policy. Thus, we make no claim to causal ‘generalisation’ on the basis of these reports—but instead we seek to help elucidate ethics issues, if even theoretical, and anticipate responses and obstacles in similar situations and contexts that might help decision-making in novel circumstances. A key strength of case studies is their capacity to connect abstract theoretical concepts to the complex realities of practice and the real world (Luck et al. 2006 ). Ethics cases clearly fit this description and allow the contextual details of issues and dilemmas to be included in discussions of how ethical principles apply as policy is being developed.

Since cases are highly focussed on the specifics of the situation, more time can be given over to data gathering which may be of both qualitative and quantitative natures. Given the many variables involved in the ‘real life’ setting, increased methodological flexibility is required (Yin 2017 ). This means seeking to maximise the data sources—such as archives (personal and public), records (such as personal diaries), observations (participant and covert) and interviews (face-to-face and online)—and revisiting all sources when necessary and as case participants and time allows.

1.5. Cases and Policymaking

Case studies allow researchers and practitioners to learn from the specifics of a situation and apply that learning in similar situations. Ethics case studies allow such reflection to facilitate the development of ethical decision-making skills. This volume has major interests in ethics and evidence-generation (research), but also in a third area: policymaking. Cases can influence policymaking, such as how one case can receive widespread attention and become the impetus to create policy that aims to prevent similar cases. For example, the US federal Brady Law was enacted in 1993 to require background checks on people before they purchase a gun (ATF 2021 ). The law was named for White House Press Secretary James Brady, and his case became widely known in the US. He was shot and paralyzed during John Hinckley, Jr.’s 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. Another example, this time in a research context, was how the Tuskegee Syphilis Study led, after its public exposure in 1971, to the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare appointing an expert panel to examine the ethics of that case. This resulted in federal policymakers enacting the National Research Act in 1974, which included setting up a national commission that published the Belmont Report in 1976. This report continues to strongly influence research ethics practice around the world. These examples highlight the power of a case study to influence policymaking.

One of the challenges for policymakers, though, is that compelling cases can often be provided for opposite sides of an issue. Also, while the Belmont Report has been praised for articulating a small number of key ethical principles, how those principles should be applied in specific instances of research remains an ongoing challenge and a point of much discussion. This is particularly relevant for innovative techniques and technologies. Hence the importance of cases interacting with general principles and leading to ongoing reflection and debate over the applicable cases. At the same time, new areas of research and evidence generation activities will lead to questions about how existing ethical principles and values apply. New case studies can help to facilitate that reflection, which can then allow policymakers to consider whether existing policy should be adapted or whether whole new areas of policy are needed.

Case studies also can play an important role in learning from and evaluating policy. Policymakers tend to focus on practical, day-to-day concerns and with the introduction of new programmes (Exworthy and Peckam 2012 ). Time and resources may be scant when it comes to evaluating how well existing policies are performing or reflecting on how policies can be adapted to overcome shortcomings (Hunter 2003 ). Effective policies may exist elsewhere (historically or geographically) and be more easily adapted to a new context instead of starting policymaking from scratch. Case studies can permit learning from past policies (or situations where policies did not exist), and they can illuminate various factors that should be explored in more detail in the context of the current issue or situation. Chaps. 2 , 3 and 5 in this volume are examples of this type of case study.

1.6. The Moral Gain

This volume reflects the ambiguity of ethical dilemmas in contemporary policymaking. Analyses will reflect current debates where consensus has not been achieved yet. These cases illustrate key points made throughout the PRO-RES project: that ethical decision-making is a fluid enterprise, where values, principles and standards must constantly be applied to new situations, new events and new research developments. The cases illustrate how no ‘one point’ exists in the research process where judgements about ethics can be regarded as ‘final.’ Case studies provide excellent ways for readers to develop important decision-making skills.

Research produces novel products and processes which can have broad implications for society, the environment and relationships. Research methods themselves are modified or applied in new ways and places, requiring further ethical reflection. New topics and whole fields of research develop and require careful evaluation and thoughtful responses. New case studies are needed because research constantly generates new issues and new ethics questions for policymaking.

The cases found in this volume address a wide range of topics and involve several disciplines. The cases were selected by the parameters of the PRO-RES project and the Horizon 2020 funding call to which it responded. First, the call was concerned with both research ethics and scientific integrity and each of the cases addresses one or both of these areas. The call sought projects that addressed non-medical research, and the cases here address disciplines such as social sciences, engineering, artificial intelligence and One Health. The call also sought particular attention be given to (a) covert research, (b) working in dangerous areas/conflict zones and (c) behavioral research collecting data from social media/internet sources. Hence, we included cases that addressed each of these areas. Finally, while an EU-funded project can be expected to have a European focus, the issues addressed have global implications. Therefore, we wanted to include cases studies from outside Europe and did so by involving authors from India and Africa to reflect on the volume’s areas of interest.

The first case study offered in this volume (Chap. 2 ) examines a significant policy approach taken by the European Union to address ethics and integrity in research and innovation: Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). This chapter examines the lessons that can be learned from RRI in a European context. Chapter 3 elaborates on this topic with another policy learning case study, but this time examining RRI in India. One of the critiques made of RRI is that it can be Euro-centric. This case study examines this claim, and also describes how a distinctively Indian concept, Scientific Temper, can add to and contextualise RRI. Chapter 4 takes a different approach in being a case study of the development of research ethics guidance in the United Kingdom (UK). It explores the history underlying the research ethics framework commissioned by the UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO) and the Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA), and points to lessons that can be learned about the policy-development process itself.

While staying focused on policy related to research ethics, the chapters that follow include case studies that address more targeted concerns. Chapter 5 examines the impact of the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the Republic of Croatia. Research data collected in Croatia is used to explore the handling of personal data before and after the introduction of GDPR. This case study aims to provide lessons learned that could contribute to research ethics policies and procedures in other European Member States.

Chapter 6 moves from policy itself to the role of policy advisors in policymaking. This case study explores the distinct responsibilities of those elevated to the role of “policy advisor,” especially given the current lack of policy to regulate this field or how its advice is used by policymakers. Next, Chap. 7 straddles the previous chapters’ focus on policy and its evaluation while introducing the focus of the next section on historical case studies. This chapter uses the so-called “race for the superconductor” as a case study by which the PRO-RES ethics framework is used to explore specific ethical dilemmas (PRO-RES 2021b ). This case study is especially useful for policymakers because of how it reveals the multiple difficulties in balancing economic, political, institutional and professional requirements and values.

The next case study continues the use of historical cases, but here to explore the challenges facing innovative research into unorthodox energy technology that has the potential to displace traditional energy suppliers. The wave power case in Chap. 8 highlights how conducting research with integrity can have serious consequences and come with considerable cost. The case also points to the importance of transparency in how evidence is used in policymaking so that trust in science and scientists is promoted at the same time as science is used in the public interest. Another area of cutting-edge scientific innovation is explored in Chap. 9 , but this time looking to the future. This case study examines space exploration, and specifically the ethical issues around establishing safe exposure standards for astronauts embarking on extended duration spaceflights. This case highlights the ethical challenges in policymaking focused on an elite group of people (astronauts) who embark on extremely risky activities in the name of science and humanity.

Chapter 10 moves from the physical sciences to the social sciences. The Belfast Project provides a case study to explore the ethical challenges of conducting research after violent conflict. In this case, researchers promised anonymity and confidentiality to research participants, yet that was overturned through legal proceedings which highlighted the limits of confidentiality in research. This case points to the difficulty of balancing the value of research archives in understanding conflict against the value of providing juridical evidence to promote justice. Another social science case is examined in Chap. 11 , this time in ethnography. This so-called ‘urban explorer’ case study explores the justifications that might exist for undertaking covert research where researchers break the law (in this case by trespassing) in order to investigate a topic that would remain otherwise poorly understood. This case raises a number of important questions for policymakers around: the freedoms that researchers should be given to act in the public interest; when researchers are justified in breaking the law; and what responsibilities and consequences researchers should accept if they believe they are justified in doing so.

Further complexity in research and evidence generation is introduced in Chap. 12 . A case study in One Health is used to explore ethical issues at the intersection of animal, human and environmental ethics. The pertinence of such studies has been highlighted by COVID-19, yet policies lag behind in recognising the urgency and complexity of initiating investigations into novel outbreaks, such as the one discussed here that occurred among animals in Ethiopia. Chapter 13 retains the COVID-19 setting, but returns the attention to technological innovation. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the focus of these two chapters in the volume, here examining the ethical challenges arising from the emergency authorisation of using AI to respond to the public health needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Chapter 14 addresses a longer term use of AI in addressing problems and challenges in the legal system. Using the so-called Robodebt case, the chapter explores the reasons why legal systems are turning to AI and other automated procedures. The Robodebt case highlights problems when AI algorithms are built on inaccurate assumptions and implemented with little human oversight. This case shows the massive problems for hundreds of thousands of Australians who became victims of poorly conceived AI and makes recommendations to assist policymakers to avoid similar debacles. The last chapter (Chap. 15 ) draws some general conclusions from all the cases that are relevant when using case studies.

1.7. Into the Future

This volume focuses on ethics in research and professional integrity and how we can be clear about the lessons that can be drawn to assist policymakers. The cases provided cover a wide range of situations, settings, and disciplines. They cover international, national, organisational, group and individual levels of concern. Each case raises distinct issues, yet also points to some general features of research, evidence-generation, ethics and policymaking. All the studies illustrate the difficulties of drawing clear ‘boundaries’ between the research and the context. All these case studies show how in real situations dynamic judgements have to be made about many different issues. Guidelines and policies do help and are needed. But at the same time, researchers, policymakers and everyone else involved in evidence generation and evidence implementation need to embody the virtues that are central to good research. Judgments will need to be made in many areas, for example, about how much transparency can be allowed, or is ethically justified; how much risk can be taken, both with participants’ safety and also with the researchers’ safety; how much information can be disclosed to or withheld from participants in their own interests and for the benefit of the ‘science’; and many others. All of these point to just how difficult it can be to apply common standards across disciplines, professions, cultures and countries. That difficulty must be acknowledged and lead to open discussions with the aim of improving practice. The cases presented here point to efforts that have been made towards this. None of them is perfect. Lessons must be learned from all of them, towards which Chap. 15 aims to be a starting point. Only by openly discussing and reflecting on past practice can lessons be learned that can inform policymaking that aims to improve future practice. In this way, ethical progress can become an essential aspect of innovation in research and evidence-generation.

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PRO-RES is a European Commission-funded project aiming to PROmote ethics and integrity in non-medical RESearch by building a supported guidance framework for all non-medical sciences and humanities disciplines adopting social science methodologies. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 788352. Open access fees for this volume were paid for through the PRO-RES funding.

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

• Cite this Page O’Mathúna D, Iphofen R. Making a Case for the Case: An Introduction. 2022 Nov 3. In: O'Mathúna D, Iphofen R, editors. Ethics, Integrity and Policymaking: The Value of the Case Study [Internet]. Cham (CH): Springer; 2022. Chapter 1. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-15746-2_1
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In this Page

• Judging the Ethics of Research
• The Case for Cases
• Research Design and Causal Inference
• Devil’s in the Detail
• Cases and Policymaking
• The Moral Gain
• Into the Future

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Hunting for prime numbers: who cares and why, openmind books, scientific anniversaries, alice catherine evans, the pioneer of safe milk, featured author, latest book, ecology and environmental ethics.

Despite its importance in addressing the widespread global destruction of nature, contemporary environmental ethics often relies on two misguided claims. These are 1. That ecology provides reliable scientific laws for remedying environmental destruction. 2. That environmental ethics should be biocentric, not anthropocentric, and therefore that nonhuman beings should be accorded equal consideration of their interests, just as humans are. However, among other reasons: 1. Is scientifically false because ecology has no such deterministic laws, and 2. leads to “environmental fascism” and provides for no second-order criteria to adjudicate among different interests and rights of different beings. Instead of these questionable claims, the chapter argues for three new principles based on ethical default rules, scientific-case-study ethics, and human rights against pollution.

Arthur Cooper, former president of the Ecological Society of America, correctly noted that a lot of environmental ethics and policy directly relies on ecological science (Cooper 1982, 348; Shrader-Frechette and McCoy 1993, 2; Hanssen , Rouwette and van Katwijk 2009). In fact, to illustrate this point, one need think only of cases such as banning DDT, limiting acid rain, managing coastal zones and forests, and protecting endangered species. In all these environmental policies, ecological science has played a pivotal role.

Misguided appeals to ecological laws among environmental ethicists

Environmental ethicists often make erroneous appeals to ecological science, however, when they attempt to justify their specific ethics and policy conclusions. For instance, Baird Callicott (1989, 22), Aldo Leopold (1949, 224–225) Holmes Rolston (1988), Stanley Salthe (2005), Paul Taylor (1986, 50), and others subscribe to variants of the balance-of- nature thesis. Rolston (1988, 231) claims “the paramount law in ecological theory” is “homeostasis,” and he ties environmental ethics to maintaining ecological balance or stability, to actions that “maximize ecosystemic excellences.” Baird Callicott (1989, 31) says something similar, that the “organic whole” of the biosphere has rights to moral considerability based on “ecological entitlement.” Salthe (2005, 1) speaks of the natural biological world as comprising “nested homeostatic space-time systems.” De La Plante and Odenbaugh (forthcoming, 2) claim “the theoretical ecology literature” supports “a ‘balance of nature’ and that ecosystems exhibit self-organizing behaviors that are directed toward increasing complexity and stability.” Although Odenbaugh (2005, 250) admits that concepts of stability and balance are vague, he maintains that “ecological stability” provides a “conceptual framework for ecologists to study communities in the field and the lab.”

However, the biggest problem with environmental ethicists such as De La Plante, Odenbaugh, and Rolston—all of whom appeal to some sort of ecological homeostasis or balance of nature—is that there is no clear, confirmed sense in which natural ecosystems proceed toward homeostasis, stability, or balance. As a result, ecologists have rejected the diversity-stability view held by MacArthur, Hutchinson, and others. Indeed, there are dozens of empirically-based counterexamples to various ecological-stability claims, e.g., Paine and Levin (1981), May (1973), Levins (1974, 123–138), Connell (1978, 1302–1310), and others (e.g, Sagoff 1985, 107–110) have challenged them on both mathematical and field-based grounds. The result? Given that natural ecosystems do not proceed toward homeostasis, stability, or balance, the only uncontroversial basis for condemning actions such as species destruction are case-specific and precautionary—thus anthropocentric (e.g., the wrongness of wanton destruction or carelessness), as we shall argue later. The reason? There are no clear, confirmed universal theories of ecological “balance” that can be used to condemn environmental “damages.” Thus, one can support an environmental ethics, but not on the basis of some predictive, general, ecological theory—some “hard ecology.” The situation in ecology is thus a bit like that in medical science, in which one also might try to define criteria for what is “balanced” or “healthy.” Ecology is unlike medical science, however, because medicine’s goal is always the welfare of the individual patient, whereas the goal of ecology is the welfare of some whole or system—a far more difficult goal to specify because one cannot precisely define the whole that is being “balanced.” Is it species, several species, communities, populations, an ecosystem, selected ecosystems, or the biosphere? All of these entities are also continually changing— making them not amenable to precise specification—or what I call “hard ecology,” in large part because the natural-selection foundations of ecology undercut any uncontroversial notion of ecosystem holism, equilibrium, balance of nature, or species (Shrader-Frechette and McCoy 1992; Sober 2006; Calsbeek et al. 2009).

Moreover, because ecology is more empirically and theoretically underdetermined than many other sciences, it cannot provide clear, precise directives for environmental ethics. In island biogeography, for example, there are many areas of under-determination that require one to make choices among different methodological value judgments. These choices concern how to interpret data, how to practice good science, and how to apply theory in given situations, such as determining the best design for nature reserves. Such choices are evaluative because they are never wholly determined by the data. In the nature-reserve case, as already mentioned, ecologists must decide whether ethical and conservation priorities require protecting an individual species, an ecosystem, or biodiversity, when not all can be protected at once. Different design choices are usually required to protect a particular species of interest, as opposed to preserving a specific ecosystem or biotic diversity. Also, ecologists often must choose between maximizing present and future biodiversity. Currently, they are able to determine only which types of reserves, for example, contain the most species at present, not which ones will contain the most over the long term. Besides, in the absence of adequate empirical data on particular taxa and their specific autecology, ecologists must frequently decide how to evaluate the worth of general ecological theory in dictating a preferred reserve design for a particular case. They are also often forced to assess subjectively the value of different reserve shapes. Besides, reserve shape, as such, may not explain variation in species number (e.g., Hansen and DeFries 2007, Simberloff and Cox 1987; Williamson 1987; Boecklen and Simberloff 1987; Blouin and Conner 1985).

Ecologists likewise must frequently rely on subjective estimates and methodological value judgments whenever the “minimum viable population” size is not known in a precise area (Boecklen and Simberloff 1987). One of the most fundamental sources of value judgments in ecology is the fact that the island-biogeographical theory underlying current paradigms regarding reserve design has rarely been tested and is dependent primarily on correlations rather than causal explanations, on assumptions about homogeneous habitats, and on unsubstantiated turnover rates and extinction rates. Hence, whenever ecologists apply this theory, they must make a variety of methodological—and sometimes ethical—value judgments. Some of these value judgments concern the importance of factors other than those dominant in island biogeography (for example, maximum breeding habitat), factors that have often been shown to be superior predictors of species number. Making value judgments regarding reserve design is also difficult because corridors (an essential part of island biogeographic theory) have questionable overall value for species preservation. Recommending use of corridors thus requires ecologists to evaluate subjectively their effectiveness in particular situations. Also, owing to the large variance about species-area relationships, those who use island biogeographical theory are often forced to make subjective evaluations of non-testable predictions. Some of these subjective evaluations arise because islands are disanalogous in important ways with nature reserves. As a result, ecologists who apply data about islands to problems of reserve design must make a number of value judgments about the representativeness and importance of their particular data (e.g., Stouffer et al. 2011; Ale and Howe 2010; Shrader- Frechette 1995; Shrader-Frechette and McCoy 1993; Boecklen and Simberloff 1987).

Because of the empirical and theoretical underdetermination exhibited by ecological theories like island biogeography, and because of the resultant methodological value judgments necessary to interpret and apply it in specific cases, ecology does not appear to be “hard” enough or solid enough to be fully amenable to providing uncontroversial support for environmental ethics and policy. Ecology’s value judgments break the deductive connections of scientific theory. Of course, there are rough generalizations and case studies that can aid problem-solving in specific ecological situations, as a prominent United States National Academy of Sciences report recognized (Orians et al. 1986). This report remains the classic, latest source of information on ecological method. However, rough ecological generalizations and ecological case studies provide no uncontroversial support for environmental ethics, precisely because they can be challenged on grounds of subjective judgments, lack of general theory, and inability to replicate the findings (Shrader-Frechette 1995; Shrader-Frechette and McCoy 1994).

A second reason—in addition to the underdetermined, value-laden theory—why precise, universal, hypothetico-deductive laws are unlikely in ecology, is that fundamental ecological terms (like ‘community’ and ‘stability’) are imprecise and vague. As a result, they are unable to support precise empirical laws, although there are many useful ecological models (e.g., Clark and Mangel 2000). Likewise, though the term ‘species’ has a commonly accepted meaning, and though evolutionary theory gives a precise technical sense to the term, there is no general agreement in biology on an explicit definition of ‘species’. There is consensus neither on what counts as causally sufficient or necessary conditions for a set of organisms to be a species, nor on whether species are individuals. Phenetic taxonomy has failed to generate a workable taxonomy, perhaps because species are not natural kinds and because facts cannot be carved up and rearranged in accordance with the hopes of numerical taxonomists (e.g., Stamos 2003).

Ecology, more empirically and theoretically underdetermined than many other sciences, cannot provide clear, precise directives for environmental ethics.

Simple, general, precise, hypothetico-deductive laws are also unlikely in ecology because of the uniqueness of ecological phenomena. If an event is unique, it is typically difficult to specify the relevant initial conditions for it and to know what counts as relevant behavior. One must often have extensive historical information in order to do so. Hence, from an empirical point of view, complexity and uniqueness hamper the elaboration of a simple, general set of hypothetico-deductive laws to explain most or all ecological phenomena.

At the other extreme from “hard ecology,” proposed “soft ecology” likewise fails to provide adequate scientific foundations for environmental ethics because concepts like “integrity” are qualitative, unclear, and vague. These “soft ecology” terms underestimate the ecological uncertainty associated with such fuzzy terms. Arne Naess (1973) recognized this point when he claimed that the normative foundations provided by ecology are merely “basic intuitions.” The problem with intuitions is not only that they are vague and qualitative but also that one either has them or does not. They are not the sort of things amenable even to intelligent debate, much less to scientific confirmation or falsification. Hence, intuitions ask too little of ecology; their uncertainty causes us to come up short when ecologists need to defend their conclusions in an environmental courtroom.

To illustrate the difficulties with this intuitive “soft ecology,” consider some of the problems associated both with the scientific foundations of the concept of ecosystemic integrity and with its philosophical applications. Much of the scientific and ethical interest in integrity arose as a result of the famous environmental precept of Aldo Leopold (1949, 224–35): “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Numerous environmental ethicists have done analyses of the concept of ecosystem integrity (e.g. Odenbaugh 2005; De La Plante 2004; Noss, Westra, and Pimentel 2000; Callicott 1982; Rolston 1975), and De La Plante and Odenbaugh (forthcoming, 2), for instance, claim “that ecosystem theory legitimizes such notions as ‘ecosystem health’ and ‘ecosystem integrity.’ ” Unfortunately, however, these studies rely on problematic science or soft ecology—that is unable to adequately support environmental ethics. What are the problems?

Leading experts on ecosystem integrity, such as Henry Regier and James Kay (Regier 1992; Waltner-Toews and Kay 2002; Kay and Regier 2000) admitted that the term has been explicated in a variety of ways: to refer to open- system thermodynamics, to networks, to Bertalanffian general systems, to trophic systems, to hierarchical organizations, to harmonic communities, and so on. Obviously, a clear, operational scientific concept cannot be explicable in a multiplicity of ways, some of which are mutually incompatible, if one expects the concept to do explanatory and predictive duty for field ecologists and therefore philosophical and political duty for attorneys, policy-makers, and citizens involved in environmental controversies.

A second problem with ecological-integrity concepts is that when people attempt to define “integrity” precisely, often the best they can do is specify necessary conditions, such as the presence of “indicator species” for ecosystem integrity. For example, the 1987 Protocol to the 1978 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement formally specified lake trout as an indicator of a desired state of oligotrophy (Regier 1992). One difficulty— with using such species to indicate environmental integrity—is in part that tracking the presence or absence of an indicator species is imprecise and inadequately quantitative. A better idea might be to track the change in species number or taxonomic composition. Another recognized problem is that the presence or absence of an indicator species alone presumably is not sufficient to characterize everything that might be meant by “integrity;” otherwise, people would not speak of “ecosystem integrity” but merely of “ecosystem presence of lake trout.” Hence, though the meaning of “integrity” is not clear, defining the term via several indicator species appears both crude and inadequately attentive to the underlying processes likely contributing to the presence or absence of certain species and to the larger processes presumably possessing integrity (e.g., Farr 2002; Shrader-Frechette 1995).

The objections here are not to philosophical or ethical concepts of integrity or balance—which obviously may have heuristic and political power. Rather, the argument is that philosophers and soft ecologists do not call a spade a spade. They do not call soft science “soft” when it is soft, and they appear not to realize that ecology cannot meet the demands of “hard” science. They also appear not to realize that soft science, in the absence of an environmental political consensus, is unlikely to be robust enough to support precise environmental ethics and policy decisions. When a consensus supports particular environmental values, then soft ecology is obviously valuable and heuristically useful, despite the absence of “hard ecology.” But situations of consensus regarding environmental values are not those in which we most need ecology. For all these reasons, ecological theory is not an adequate basis for environmental policy-making. At best, it provides necessary, but not sufficient, scientific grounds for environmental ethics and policy. Insofar as it is uncertain and requires us to fill in our knowledge gaps with subjective judgments, it leads to incomplete hard ecology or question- begging soft ecology—neither of which can adequately support environmental ethics and policy.

Ecological theory provides necessary, but not sufficient, scientific grounds for environmental ethics and policy.

Simplistic appeals to biocentrism amd intrinsic value in environmental ethics

If ecological theory cannot provide a complete, uncontroversial basis for environmental ethics, what other resources can philosophers and ethicists provide? Are these philosophical resources adequate? This portion of the chapter attempts to answer both questions.

In the early 1970s, environmental ethics began by challenging traditional human-centered, or anthropocentric, ethics and the supposed moral superiority of humans to other beings (e.g., Stone 1974). As subsequent paragraphs reveal, many environmental ethicists argued that, instead of individual humans, the key subjects of value are ecological wholes, such as ecosystems; other environmental ethicists argued that the main subjects of value are natural things, from roaches to rocks, all of which have intrinsic value or value in themselves, apart from human considerations—or non-instrumental value, value as more than mere means to human ends.

A few environmental ethicists, however, relied on traditional ethics to challenge environmental abuses, arguing that factors such as greed and consumerism harm both humans and the natural environment (e.g.,Passmore 1974; Shrader-Frechette 1981; Norton 1991; de Shalit 1994; Light and Katz 1996). Many of these more traditional or more pragmatic environmental ethicists are anthropocentrists only in the weak sense because they believe that beings, other than humans, also have intrinsic value. (Anthropocentrists in the strong sense believe that only humans have intrinsic or non-instrumental value—value in themselves, independent of their utility to others.) Most philosophers believe that if a being has intrinsic value, then others have prima facie duties to protect it or refrain from harming it (O’Neil 1992; Jamieson 2002). Consequently, it is crucial to know whether only humans have intrinsic value. Aristotle (1948, Bk. 1, Ch. 8), for instance, is a strong anthropocentrist who claims that “nature has made all things specifically for the sake of man” and that the value of nonhuman things in nature is merely instrumental. Thomas Aquinas (1975, Bk. 3, Pt. 2, Ch. 112) likewise claims that nonhuman animals are “ordered to man’s use.” Weak anthropocentrists, however, believe that humans have greater intrinsic value than other beings, or that in cases of conflicts, human well-being often outweighs that of other beings. Immanuel Kant (1963) explains that humans (or what we here call “strong anthropocentrism”) need not ignore non-humans, however, because cruelty to other animals is wrong insofar as it might encourage people to become desensitized to cruelty towards humans.

Many environmental ethicists—who affirm the intrinsic value of all beings—also subscribe to “biocentrism.” That is, they claim that the welfare of the biosphere, rather than that of humans alone, is the key to environmental ethics. Yet each environmental ethicist defines “biocentrism” in slightly different ways. Aldo Leopold (1949, 224–225), for instance, maintained that an action is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community, but he offered no ethical theory to justify his position. Building on Leopold, Richard Routley (1973; Routley and Routley 1980) argued that typical Western anthropocentric ethics amount to “human chauvinism,” blind “loyalty” or prejudice, and thus discriminates against those outside the privileged human class. Baird Callicott (1989) argues for a holism based on Leopold’s view that “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community …,” and Callicott takes this as the supreme deontological principle for ethics. For Callicott, only the earth’s biotic community has intrinsic value, and the value of individual members is merely instrumental to their contribution to the “integrity, stability, and beauty” of the larger biotic community. Biocentrist Paul Taylor (1986, 1981; see Agar 2001), however, defends a more individualistic version of biocentrism and the intrinsic value of nature. He argues that each living thing in nature is a “teleological-center- of-life” that has a well-being of its own and that all beings who are teleological-centers-of life have equal intrinsic value (what he calls “inherent worth”). As a result, Taylor says they deserve moral respect. For example, he says this “inherent worth” means therefore that humans have a prima facie duty (a duty accepted until there are compelling reasons to the contrary) to promote the biological good—or inherent worth or intrinsic value—of these beings, as ends in themselves. Agreeing, De La Plant and Odenbaugh (2005, 2) claim that “the theoretical ecology literature” justifies such “holistic conceptions of nature.”

However, despite their differences, environmental ethicists’ appeals to biocentrism and the equal intrinsic value of nature have at least four major problems. First , as already argued in section one, and contrary to ethicists such as Callicott, De La Plante and Odenbaugh, ecological theory does not clearly justify any notion of biocentrism or the inherent worth of nature. A second problem with biocentric theory is that, contrary to Taylor, Callicott, and most other biocentrists, “biological good” is merely descriptive, not prescriptive (see Williams 1992 and O’Neill 1993, Ch. 2). Consequently, there are no obvious moral grounds for realizing that good. A third problem is that, if Callicott and others are correct, then any individual member of the biotic community could be sacrificed in order to protect the supposed integrity, beauty, or stability of the biotic community. In short, Callicott’s early views, and other biocentric views can lead to “environmental fascism,” sacrificing humans for the sake of some supposed reason of environmental welfare (Regan 1983, 362; Shrader-Frechette 1996)—a fact that led Callicott to affirm the intrinsic value of all individuals in the biotic community, as well as that of the community itself. While this response of Callicott avoids the charges of “environmental fascism,” it leads Callicott into the fourth problem, outlined below. Warwick Fox (2007), however, continues to give top moral priority to ecosystems and the biophysical world, a fact that makes him vulnerable to the charge of environmental fascism.

One of the most basic difficulties with all biocentric environmental ethics—at least those that claim all beings have equal intrinsic value—a fourth problem, is operational. The operational problem is that these ethics are incomplete because they provide no second-order or ultima facie criteria (criteria, all things considered) to adjudicate among the different interests of different beings. Which and whose interests should be primary in cases of conflicts in biocentric ethics? In conflicts among humans, humans are assumed to be equal, but considerations of merit, blame, negligence, compensation, and so on help ethicists and policy- makers decide whose interests ought to be accorded primacy in a given situation. In conflicts among humans, animals, and plants, however, there are no obvious, uncontroversial second-order principles because principles of merit, blame, negligence, compensation, and so on, apply only to beings with free will, who are capable of being moral agents. Bees cannot be “blamed” for stinging people, although people can be. Virtually all philosophers thus recognize that, because there are no easy, exception-free definitions of such ultima facie claims to have one’s interests protected, such protection must rely merely on prima facie claims—the very claims to which most environmental ethicists appeal.

However, such prima facie claims are not operationalizable unless one knows when they translate into ultima facie claims. For the reasons just given, one does not know these things, and biocentrism and “equal interests” fail to provide an adequate foundation for environmental ethics.

Many environmental ethicists also subscribe to “biocentrism.” That is, they claim that the welfare of the biosphere, rather than that of humans alone.

A fifth major problem with environmental ethicists’ biocentrism is that it is both empirically unfounded and can lead to elitism and insensitivity to human needs, as when Garrett Hardin or Holmes Rolston (1996) claim that some humans are cancers on the planet, especially in developing nations where the need to feed people often results in environmental destruction. Yet poor people are often excellent environmental managers who do less environmental damage than most Westerners. Indeed, Westerners seem mainly responsible for the environmental crisis (Martinez-Alier 2002; Attfield 1998; Brennan 1998a; Guha 1989; Shrader- Frechette 1981).

Three solutions

Given all the problems with ethicists’ misguided appeals to ecological laws, to biocentrism, and to equal interests, what are possible solutions? At least three come to mind: 1. ethical default rules to use in situations of ecological uncertainty, 2. scientific-case-study environmental ethics, and 3. recognizing human rights against life-threatening pollution.

Because there is so much obvious uncertainty in ecological science, one solution for environmental ethicists and policy-makers is to adopt an ethical-default rule. As a default principle for dealing with uncertainty, European Union law and many medical and citizens’ groups, including the American Public Health Association (APHA), advise adopting the “Precautionary Principle.” APHA formulates the principle as the claim that situations characterized by potentially life-threatening uncertainty should be assumed harmful until proved safe. According to this principle, one should try to prevent potentially serious environmental and public-health harm, even before all the details are known about them. The rationale is that, if one waits for potentially serious harm to become obvious or widespread before doing anything about it, it often is too late to stop the harm. As a result, AHPA recommends treating all chemicals as dangerous until they are proved otherwise. Following this principle not only protects humans and the environment against potentially serious threats but also provides an incentive for reducing future uncertainty. If polluters know that, in the absence of reliable data about their pollutants and products, government will follow the Precautionary Principle, they will be less likely to prolong uncertainty or discourage doing the requisite scientific studies.

Three solutions come to mind: 1. ethical default rules to use in situations of ecological uncertainty, 2. scientific-case-study environmental ethics, and 3. recognizing human rights against life-threatening pollution.

A related precautionary procedure is to minimize type II, rather than type I, statistical errors under conditions of uncertainty when both errors cannot be avoided. Contrary to current scientific norms, this default procedure places the burden of proof not on anyone who posits an effect, but on anyone who argues that there will be no damaging effect from a particular environmental action. One can defend this rule, despite its reversal of the norms of statistical practice, on straightforward grounds of protecting human welfare. After all, humans take precautions such as getting medical check-ups, buying insurance and carrying umbrellas just in case it rains. Humans do not wait for harm to threaten them before they take action to prevent it, and the same reasoning applies to justify all default principles in environmental ethics (Shrader-Frechette 2007, ch. 6, 1993; Fisher, Jones, and Schomberg 2006; Ricci et al. 2003).

A second means of improving environmental ethics and policy would be to base it on the “practical ecology” of case studies, even though case studies do not rely on general theory. Case studies are grounded on rules of thumb (like the norm regarding types I and II statistical error), on rough generalizations, and on detailed investigations of individual organisms. A classic National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee illustrated how case-specific, empirical, ecological knowledge, rather than an uncertain general ecological theory or model, might be used in environmental problem-solving (Orians et al. 1986). According to the NAS committee, ecology’s greatest predictive successes occur in cases that involve only one or two species, perhaps because ecological generalizations are most fully developed for relatively simple systems. This is why, for example, ecological management of game and fish populations through regulation of hunting and fishing can often be successful. Applying this insight to this discussion, ecology might be most helpful in undergirding environmental ethics and policy-making when it does not try to predict complex interactions among many species, but instead attempts only to predict what will happen for only one or two taxa in a particular case. Predictions for one or two taxa are often successful because, despite the problems with general ecological theory, there are numerous lower-level theories in ecology that provide reliable predictions. Application of lower- level theory about the evolution of cooperative breeding, for example, has provided many successes in managing red-cockaded woodpeckers. In this case, successful management and predictions appear to have come from specific information, such as data about the presence of cavities in trees that serve as habitat. Examples like that of the woodpecker suggest that, if the case studies used in the NAS report are representative, then some of the most successful ecological applications arise when (and because) scientists have a great deal of knowledge about the specific organisms investigated in a particular case study. As the authors of the NAS report put it, “the success of the cases described … depended on such information” (Orians et al. 1986, 506ff.; Shrader-Frechette and McCoy 1994; Shrader-Frechette 1995; Miao et al. 2009).

Third, one also might improve environmental ethics and policy by tying public health and environmental concerns together—by motivating environmental concern through encouraging awareness of how environmental pollution and destruction also harm humans. How does environmental pollution, for instance, harm humans? The United States National Cancer Institute (NCI) attributes about 10% of cancer deaths (about 60,000 annually, just in the United States) to industrial pollution in workplaces, public areas, and consumer products (HHS, NCI 1991). This figure has also been confirmed in 2005 United States National Academy of Sciences studies (McGinnis 2005). Claiming this NCI figure is too low, some environmental scientists say these same industrial pollutants cause up to 33% of all United States cancers (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1996, 154). United States health, education, and welfare reports are even more damning. Some of them say 38% of all cancers are caused by only five high-volume industrial carcinogens (Bridbord et al. 1978). Even if the lowest of these estimates is correct, it points, at least, to a public health problem and an ethics problem. The public health problem is that we humans are killing ourselves with environmental pollutants although these deaths are “theoretically preventable” (Lashoff et al. 1981, 3 and 6).

A key ethical problem with this massive pollutant-induced harm is that the fatalities are not borne equitably among the population. Consider a 2002 New England Journal of Medicine study, a multi-year analysis of childhood cancer among 90,000 twins. Designed to distinguish environmentally-induced cancer from those caused by genetics, infections, or viruses, the study concluded that the environment (industrial toxins but also including factors like cigarette smoke) was “overwhelmingly” implicated in causing virtually all of childhood cancers (Lichtenstein et al. 2002). Although many adults have defenses against premature disease and death caused by air, water, and other environmental pollution, children do not. Their developing organ systems, incomplete metabolic processes, and only partially developed detoxification systems are less able to withstand most toxins; yet per unit of body mass, children take in more air, water, and food (and thus more pollutants) than do adults (UNICEF 2006). Also, because many pollution regulations focus on cancer and only on adults, they ignore pollution- induced developmental and neurological disorders in children. United States National Academy of Sciences studies show that “exposure to neurotoxic compounds [like pesticides] at levels believed to be safe for adults can result in permanent loss of brain function if it occurs during the prenatal and early childhood period of brain development” (NRC 1993, 61).

In general, children are at least 10 times more sensitive to any pollutant than are adults, yet for some pollutants, like organophosphate pesticides, a lethal dose in immature animals can be only 1% of the lethal dose for adults (Spyker and Avery 1977). Similarly, neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mental retardation, and cerebral palsy are increasing, are very costly, cause lifelong disability, and are known to be associated with industrial chemicals such as lead, methylmercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), arsenic, and toluene. Exposure to these and other chemicals during early fetal development can cause human brain injury at doses much lower than those that harm adult brain function (Grandjean and Landrigan 2006). The American Public Health Association thus warns that because “children are often more susceptible to environmental contaminants than adults,” and because government “policies and decisions” often fail to reflect this “unique susceptibility,” children have “particular need for special protection from pollutants” (APHA 2000, pol. 200011). Yet, most nations of the world fail to give children this protection and thus subject them to environmental injustice, that is, to unequal and unjust pollution impacts. For instance, Lancet authors say that particulate air pollution alone annually causes 6.4% of children’s deaths, ages 0–4, in developed nations; in Europe, this means that air particulates, alone, kill 14,000 toddlers each year (Valent et al. 2004). The World Health Organization says air pollution alone is associated with up to half of all childhood cancers (WHO 2005, 155). As a consequence of children’s greater sensitivity to pollutants, although cancer is increasing 1% per year for adults, the annual rate of increase for children is 40% higher—1.4% per year (Devesa et al. 1995; Ries et al. 1998; Epstein 2002). Children are thus “the canaries in the coal mines” of industrial emissions.

How should people respond to this disproportionate environmental harm borne by the most vulnerable members of society, children, as well as by the environment? To the degree that individuals have participated in, or derived benefits from, social institutions—such as poor government pollution controls—that have helped cause life-threatening or rights-threatening environmental harm, one can argue that these individuals have prima facie duties either to stop their participation in such damaging institutions or to compensate for this harm by helping to reform the institutions that allow the harm. ( Prima facie duties are those that one has, in the absence of specific arguments to the contrary.) Yet, virtually everyone in the developed world—who enjoys at least a middle-class lifestyle—has participated in, or derived benefits from, social institutions—such as poor government pollution controls—that have helped cause life-threatening or rights-threatening environmental harm. Why are so many of us responsible for pollution harm?

In virtually every nation of the world, poor people, minorities, and children bear greater pollution burdens than the rest of the population—the middle-class population, especially in developed nations. Proportionately more landfills, power plants, toxic-waste dumps, bus and rail yards, sewage plants, and industrial facilities are sited in the neighborhoods of poor people and minorities; as a result, they bear higher levels of cancer, preventable death, infectious disease, contaminated air and contaminated tap water. Thus, “exposure to environmental risks varies based on race and … income” APHA 2005). For instance, in virtually all nations, middle- class people have their garbage removed to the neighborhoods of poor people, where it is burned or buried and causes harm. Or, for instance, poor people and minorities live in more polluted areas because wealthier people can afford not to do so. Wealthier people and adults thus “buy their way” out of many problems of environmental pollution. They are able to do so because wealthier people can pay attorneys and scientists to help them avoid noxious facilities in their own neighborhoods, whereas poor people cannot. As a result, wealthier people are able to impose these environmental burdens on the poor, through environmental injustice (Shrader-Frechette 2007, 2002; Bryant 1995; Bullard 1994).

But if people have prima facie duties to compensate for the life- threatening, rights-threatening, and unequal distributions of environmental pollution from which they unfairly benefit, one can argue that this compensation ideally ought to take the form of helping to reform social institutions that contribute to life-threatening environmental pollution and environmental injustice. As such, this argument relies on two basic claims about different types of responsibility. One claim is that if citizens have unfairly benefited from and therefore contributed to unequal pollution harm, they bear ethical responsibility for helping to stop it. The second claim is that if citizens live in a democracy, and therefore are entitled to participate in nations and institutions whose environmental policies and practices contribute to pollution harm and to environmental injustice, they also have democratic responsibility to help stop it. Although there is no space to develop this full argument here, it has been developed elsewhere, along with answers to objections to it. It clearly shows that people who are at least middle class, especially in developed, democratic nations, have duties to help stop life-threatening pollution harm, and that these duties bind us because people have basic human rights to equal consideration. Those who contribute to unequal pollution-protection consideration—as many do, by virtue of imposing pollution burdens on the most vulnerable members of society, such as poor people, minorities, and children—obviously have duties of compensatory justice to their fellow humans—duties that also would go a long way toward protecting the environment (Shrader-Frechette 2007, 2002)

The modest, practical, environmental ethics for which we have argued relies on the practice of ecologists and on their individual cases and on unavoidably human, but well-substantiated and non-stipulative judgments about environmental management. Ecology, however, may not be seriously flawed because it must sacrifice universality for utility and practicality, or because it must sacrifice generality for the precision gained through case studies. Similarly, environmental ethics is not flawed because it must rely on solutions that rely on ethical default rules and on combining human rights and public health progress with environmental progress and protection. Traditional ethics can give us powerful weapons for defending the environment.

Kristin Shrader-Frechette

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A discussion around the use of cases in teaching RCR, part of the  Instructor's Guide to Prepare Research Group Leaders as RCR Mentors .

NOTES TO THE INSTRUCTOR:

• You should feel free to choose your own case for this section, or choose several, giving each small group a distinct case to discuss. Given the time constraints of both this workshop and most lab meetings, it would be best for the cases to be relatively uncomplicated, though still nuanced.
• While this curriculum provides a basic case analysis scheme, if you use case analyses regularly, you likely know there are several ways of analyzing cases, and many frameworks out there to assist your students, depending on how you use / what you want the students to learn from using the cases. Some of those are included in the resources section of this curriculum; you could provide a couple of different evaluation schemas to determine if one is more appropriate for a particular discipline, or career stage, than another.
• If you’re using an agenda which includes an over‐lunch discussion of a case, as the agenda in this instructor’s manual shows, we used the 15 minute window just before lunch to go over the case studies section of the syllabus, coming back to the question “How might cases be introduced into the research environment?” in the after‐lunch discussion.
• It is important that the larger group discussion about the case(s) not become simply a discussion of the case per se, but that it also include a conversation about how useful this kind of discussion can be with their students. We found that our groups were eager to discuss the elements of the case, but we had to explicitly articulate the usefulness of such case discussions as tools for integrating ethics into their research environments.
• You might also ask your workshop participants if other kinds of “cases” – those drawn from current events, for instance, or those written as “two minute challenges” [https://nationalethicscenter.org/resources/146/download/2MC%20methodology.pdf] – might also work in the research environment.
• One of the evaluators of an earlier version of the curriculum noted that these workshops “could include tips on how to identify and choose in‐the‐news cases, challenges in discussing them, and bringing closure to such discussions. Of course an in‐the‐news case discussion would be modeled in the workshop as well. Alternatively, the workshop could promote the idea of providing case study (either created or found) discussion in a context similar to a journal club, or even as an occasional event in existing journal clubs.” This underscores the idea we had when creating this curriculum that all of those venues are considered “the research environment.”

What are case studies?

Based on real or contrived scenarios, case studies are a tool for discussing scientific integrity. Cases are designed to confront the readers with a specific problem that does not lend itself to easy answers. By providing a focus for discussion, cases help researchers to define or refine their own standards, to appreciate alternative approaches to identifying and resolving ethical problems, and to develop skills for dealing with hard problems on their own.

How should cases be analyzed?

Many of the skills necessary to analyze case studies can become tools for responding to real world problems. Cases, like the real world, contain uncertainties and ambiguities. Readers are encouraged to identify key issues, make assumptions as needed, and articulate various options for resolution. In addition to the specific questions accompanying some cases, an effective analysis will typically address the following criteria:

Who is affected (individuals, institutions, a field, society)? What significant interest(s) (material, financial, ethical, other) do those affected have in the situation? Which interests are in conflict ?

What specific, generalizable, and consistent principles (e.g., to tell the truth, to do no harm) are applicable to this case?

• Alternate answers

What other courses of action are open to each of those affected? What is the likely outcome of each course of action? What actions could have been taken to avoid the conflict?

Are the final choice and its consequences defensible in public (e.g., reported through the media)? 

Is there a right answer?

• Acceptable Solutions:

Most problems will have several acceptable solutions or answers, but a single perfect solution often cannot be found. At times, even the best solution will have unsatisfactory consequences.

• Unacceptable Solutions:

While more than one acceptable solution may be possible, not all solutions are acceptable. For example, obvious violations of specific rules, regulations, or generally accepted standards of conduct would typically be unacceptable. However, it is also plausible that blind adherence to accepted rules or standards would sometimes be an unacceptable course of action.

• Ethical Decision-making:

Ethical decision-making is a process rather than an outcome. The clearest instance of a wrong answer is the failure to engage in that process. Not trying to define a consistent and defensible basis for decisions or conduct is unacceptable.

How might cases be introduced into the research environment?

Cases are best seen as an opportunity to foster discussion among several individuals. As such, they might be most appropriate as an exercise to be used in the context of a research group meeting, journal club, or as part of a research lecture series.

During the lunch break, workshop participants will be assigned to small groups for the purpose of reviewing a case (scenario) describing a research ethics challenge. Ideally discussion group participants should be from diverse disciplines and people who do not already know one another well. This will increase the chance to better see challenges and find solutions for the case being reviewed. It also hopefully serves to increase personal connections among diverse members of the institution who can turn to one another with future ethics and ethics training questions or challenges.

Case for Discussion

How much is too much?

Qiao Zhi has recently arrived to work as a postdoctoral research in the United States from China. She studied English for many years as part of her schooling in China, but she had little real world experience in conversing and writing English. Qiao Zhi is a very talented scientist in her field and quickly found a position in a research group, largely consisting of other Chinese researchers and with Professor Wang, who was trained in China as well. During her first year of work, Qiao Zhi was extraordinarily lucky to have made an interesting finding and Professor Wang encouraged her to write the work up for publication in the journal Science. Qiao Zhi struggled to write the paper in English, but soon found that with the help of the Internet she could easily find phrases written well in English to express concepts that she wasn't sure of. Professor Wang lightly edited the paper written by Qiao Zhi, they submitted it to Science, and it was accepted for publication. Six months later, one of Wang's colleagues was looking at the Déjà vu website (http://dejavu.vbi.vt.edu/dejavu) and discovered that Qiao Zhi's paper received a very high score for using text duplicated from other papers. Wang took the concern of possible plagiarism to the Research Integrity Officer (RIO) at his institution. The RIO appointed a committee to determine if Qiao Zhi should be found guilty of plagiarism, an example of research misconduct. You are a member of that committee and have been asked to decide whether frequent use of phrases from other papers is plagiarism and if doing so should result in sanctions or penalties.

Recommended timetable:

During lunch:

• Introductions (5 mins):

Introduce yourselves to one another, pick someone to serve as discussion leader (responsible for keeping discussion on track and on time), and someone to keep a written summary of key conclusions. If not all members of the group have already been introduced to the case, the group leader should read the case aloud.

• Case Discussion (20 mins):

Collectively consider the (1) interests of individuals and groups in how this case is handled; (2) ethical principles or values at stake; (3) the alternative answers that might be considered as solutions; and (4) the rationales for selecting a particular choice of action agreeable to all.

• Summary (10 mins):

As a group, figure out how best to articulate your findings of interests and principles that are at stake, the alternative answers to be considered, your recommended answer, and the rationale for choosing that answer.

After lunch

• Presentation (~ variable)

Choose one member of your group to present your analysis, paying attention not just to the case per se, but also how this kind of exercise could be beneficial for your trainees.

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 2055332. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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Case Studies in Environmental Ethics

Patrick derr and edward mcnamara, also available.

#C2385 General Collection: Environmental Ethics Case Studies

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This collection has a number of interesting resources that will help me to incorporate social justice and ethics into my teaching.  I look forward to using this in my AP Biology course.  

—Jenny Sarna, Farragut Career Academy

This collection provides many case studies that can be used when discussing ethics issues in any environmental (or other science) course. Many of the cases include some that are on the forefront of the media, helping students connect to the materials.

—Diana Cryderman, Bay Mills Community College

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Redefining ethics and ethics research directions for environmental studies/sciences from student evaluations

• Original Article
• Published: 08 July 2022
• Volume 12 , pages 739–755, ( 2022 )

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• Dianne Quigley 1 ,
• David Sonnenfeld 2 ,
• Phil Brown 3 &
• Tracie Ferreira 4  

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The Northeast Ethics Education Partnership (NEEP), jointly coordinated by Brown University and SUNY-ESF from 2010 to 2017, organized and implemented short- and long-course training on research ethics and cultural competence to graduate students at four universities in the fields of environmental sciences/studies and engineering. This article provides findings from student evaluations of these ethics trainings which inform areas that students found useful to their careers, particularly for learning about their respective disciplines’ moral standards, codes, and ethical theories. In the post-assessment evaluations, NEEP findings indicate that collective concerns about environmental research will involve more study and analysis of moral reasoning for balancing the needs of diverse stakeholders and nonhuman life forces. Additionally, students believed that ethical research approaches will require much more attention to complexity and multiple dimensions of research impacts to humans, land and species. These findings support more extended development of new standards and norms for individual researcher ethics, for substantive ethics, and for political ethics as part of applied ethics in environmental studies and sciences. More interdisciplinary collaboration and ethical analysis of field and case studies are recommended for this development.

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Acknowledgements

NEEP acknowledges the funding support of NSF Ethics Education in Science and Engineering (Grant No. GEO-1338751). NEEP also acknowledges Julianne Hanavan, PhD, for evaluation design and interpretation.

National Science Foundation in Ethics Education in Science and Engineering (grant no. GEO-1338751).

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Quigley, D., Sonnenfeld, D., Brown, P. et al. Redefining ethics and ethics research directions for environmental studies/sciences from student evaluations. J Environ Stud Sci 12 , 739–755 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-022-00776-8

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