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Are there any natural resources?
1School of Environment and the Departments of Geography and Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, 3534 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2A7, Canada. peter.g.brown@mcgill.ca.
Summary
Humanity
Area of Science:
- Environmental Ethics
- Philosophy of Ecology
Background:
- Traditional views consider natural resources fully available for human use.
- This perspective has historically applied to local, regional, and increasingly global environments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To critically examine arguments for full human use of natural resources across major philosophical traditions.
- To propose an alternative ethical framework for environmental stewardship.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of philosophical traditions: Judeo-Christian-liberal, Aristotelian-Cartesian-rationalist, and utilitarian/neoclassical economic.
- Development of an all-species-use argument based on Albert Schweitzer's reverence-for-life ethic.
Main Results:
- Full-human-use arguments from the examined philosophical traditions were found unsatisfactory.
- An all-species-use argument reveals a new ethical good: the commonwealth of life.
Conclusions:
- The concept of the commonwealth of life, based on reverence for all life, offers a more robust ethical foundation.
- Adopting this reasoning necessitates fundamental shifts in environmental ethics and human-environment interactions.