Environmental Ethics Issues

Why This Matters

Environmental ethics sits at the intersection of nearly every major ethical framework you'll encounter on the exam. When you analyze climate change, pollution, or resource depletion, you're being tested on your ability to apply consequentialist reasoning (who bears the costs and benefits?), deontological principles (what duties do we owe to nature and future people?), and virtue ethics (what does environmental responsibility reveal about character?). These issues also force you to grapple with foundational questions about moral standing—do animals, ecosystems, or future generations have rights that constrain our actions today?

The exam loves environmental ethics because it demands comparative analysis. You'll need to distinguish between anthropocentric approaches (human-centered), biocentric views (all living things matter), and ecocentric perspectives (ecosystems and nature as wholes have value). Don't just memorize the issues below—know which ethical frameworks each issue challenges, what principles of justice apply, and how different stakeholders would argue their positions. That's what earns you points on FRQs.

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Anthropogenic Harms and Responsibility

These issues center on the ethical question of causal responsibility: when human activities cause environmental damage, who bears moral responsibility for the harm, and what obligations follow?

Climate Change and Global Warming

• Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities—primarily fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes—create a clear causal chain linking individual and collective choices to global harm
• Intergenerational justice becomes central because current generations cause harm that future generations will disproportionately suffer, raising questions about our duties to people who don't yet exist
• Vulnerable populations in developing nations contribute least to emissions but face the greatest impacts, creating a distributive justice problem that tests utilitarian and Rawlsian frameworks

Pollution (Air, Water, and Soil)

• Industrial externalities—costs imposed on third parties who didn't consent to bear them—represent a classic market failure with profound ethical dimensions
• Environmental racism describes how marginalized communities disproportionately bear pollution burdens, challenging claims that environmental harms are distributed fairly
• The polluter pays principle assigns moral and financial responsibility to those who cause harm, but struggles with diffuse causation where many actors contribute small amounts

Overpopulation and Its Environmental Impacts

• Resource consumption scales with population—but consumption patterns vary dramatically, making it unclear whether population or affluence drives environmental harm
• Reproductive rights create tension between individual autonomy and collective environmental responsibility, a conflict that resists easy resolution
• Malthusian concerns about population outstripping resources must be weighed against evidence that education and development naturally reduce birth rates

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Biodiversity and the Moral Status of Nature

These issues raise the fundamental question: does nature have intrinsic value (value in itself) or only instrumental value (value for what it provides humans)? Your answer shapes everything else.

Biodiversity Loss and Species Extinction

• The sixth mass extinction—driven by habitat loss, climate change, and overexploitation—is eliminating species at rates 100-1,000 times the natural background rate
• Ecosystem services like pollination, water purification, and carbon sequestration provide the anthropocentric case for conservation, even if you reject intrinsic value claims
• Triage ethics emerges when we can't save everything: which species deserve priority, and on what grounds—rarity, ecological importance, or human preference?

Deforestation and Habitat Destruction

• Carbon sequestration loss links habitat destruction directly to climate change, showing how environmental issues compound each other
• Indigenous land rights are often violated by deforestation, creating an intersection between environmental ethics and human rights that exam questions frequently exploit
• Intrinsic value of ecosystems is tested here: does a rainforest have moral standing independent of its usefulness to humans?

Animal Rights and Welfare in Environmental Contexts

• Sentience-based ethics—the view that capacity for suffering grounds moral consideration—extends moral standing beyond humans to many animal species
• Habitat destruction as indirect harm challenges us to consider whether we're responsible for animal suffering we cause through environmental degradation, not just direct cruelty
• Wild animal welfare raises puzzling questions: if animals matter morally, do we have obligations to reduce suffering in nature, or should we respect ecosystem autonomy?

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Justice Across Generations and Communities

Environmental ethics forces us to expand our moral circle beyond those currently alive and nearby. These issues test whether traditional ethical frameworks can handle temporal and spatial distance.

Environmental Justice and Equity

• Distributive justice demands that environmental benefits (clean air, green spaces) and burdens (pollution, climate impacts) be shared fairly across communities
• Procedural justice requires that affected communities have meaningful voice in environmental decision-making, not just equitable outcomes
• Intersectionality reveals how race, class, and geography compound to create environmental vulnerability—the same communities facing multiple forms of marginalization often face the worst environmental conditions

Resource Depletion and Overconsumption

• Intergenerational equity asks whether we can justly consume resources that future generations will need, testing whether moral obligations extend across time
• Sustainable yield—consuming only what can be regenerated—offers a principle for resource use, but determining sustainable levels involves empirical uncertainty
• Consumer responsibility distributes moral weight to individual choices, though critics argue systemic change matters more than personal virtue

Sustainable Development

• The Brundtland definition—meeting present needs without compromising future generations' ability to meet theirs—attempts to balance growth and preservation
• Weak vs. strong sustainability distinguishes whether human-made capital can substitute for natural capital (weak) or whether certain natural resources are irreplaceable (strong)
• Development rights for poorer nations create tension with global environmental limits, forcing hard conversations about who gets to industrialize

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Technology, Innovation, and Ethical Uncertainty

These issues involve risk ethics and the precautionary principle: how should we act when consequences are uncertain but potentially severe or irreversible?

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and Their Ecological Effects

• Consequentialist case for GMOs emphasizes increased yields, reduced pesticide use, and potential to address food insecurity in a warming world
• Ecological risks include gene flow to wild populations, impacts on non-target species, and reduction of agricultural biodiversity—harms that may be irreversible
• Corporate control of food systems raises justice concerns about who benefits from biotechnology and whether farmers retain autonomy over their practices

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Quick Reference Table

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Self-Check Questions

1. Which two environmental issues most directly illustrate intergenerational justice concerns, and how do their time horizons differ?

2. Compare and contrast how environmental justice and animal rights approaches would analyze a factory farm located in a low-income community. What different moral considerations does each framework prioritize?

3. If an FRQ presents a case where protecting biodiversity requires restricting indigenous land use, which ethical frameworks conflict, and how might you argue for a resolution?

4. Identify two issues where the precautionary principle applies. How does the reversibility of potential harms affect how strongly the principle should guide policy?

5. A utilitarian and a deontologist are debating climate policy. Which environmental ethics issue would they most likely agree on, and which would produce the sharpest disagreement? Defend your answer.