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30 — JUDIT FARKAS
Environmental philosophy posits guestions about nature, and the relationship
between nature and humans:
— What is nature? Is it an abstract notion or a tangible object?
— Does nature hold any value beyond its use value or economic value? Do
elements of nature have intrinsic worth?
— Is humankind entitled to overuse the natural resources of the world?
— Was the human-nature relationship always problematic, or can it be tied to
given historical periods or social formations? If it can, what is it: the hunting
and gathering way of life? The emergence of the land-tilling, sedentary mode
of life? The Industrial Revolution? The consumer society and globalization?
— If the relationship between humanity and nature was harmonious at some
point in the past, what kind of thinking characterized it?
— How are the ideology of modernity and the ecological crisis interrelated?
— How is social justice related to the use of natural resources?
— How does responsibility for future generations emerge?
— What kind of value order is necessary to eliminate the environmental
problems?
— Are we morally responsible to preserve the rainforests, for instance? Is it
justifiable to eradicate invasive species for the protection of native species?
Is an invasive flower less beautiful if it squeezes out local, vulnerable plants?
Is a restored landscape worse than the original virgin environment?
— Is it morally right to engineer transgenic species? (Hubbell — Ryan 2022:
110; Téth 2005: 7-20).
These questions clearly reveal that ecophilosophy is the critique of the
contemporary economic and social establishment on the one hand and that it
views itself as an applied science on the other. By intention, environmental
philosophy exposes and criticizes the ideology whose consequence is the ecological
crisis — e.g., the treatment of living nature as a thing or the idea of domination
over nature — and tries to offer feasible alternatives. How modern society is run is
determined by reason, science and philosophy. Hence it is their responsibility to
develop a worldview that protects the environment and to integrate it into both
mainstream thought and the operation of economy and society. Ecophilosophers
share the belief that the transformation of our thought about the natural world
can promote positive environment-related values, thoughts and actions including
protection, restoration, appreciation, empathy and emotional identification.
It comes as no surprise that various ecophilosophical trends are tightly linked
to practical activities, with some even generating social movements. These include
deep ecology, masterminded by Norwegian public activist Arne Naess, the animal
rights movements, and ecofeminism, for instance.
Australian ecophilosopher Richard Routley summed up all these movements
when he said that ecological philosophy rests on two key concepts: one is the
question of our moral duty; the other is the issue of the immanent worth of the
natural environment. Moral duty means our responsibility to act in accordance
with our ethical obligations to the environment. In contrast to the view that sees
instrumental value in nature, inherent value means the value of nature in its own
right. Thus, the value of an element of nature is not ascribed to it by being
processed, or by generating an aesthetic enjoyment. Its value is its own unadulterated
innermost worth. The value of a tree does not lie in the possibility of making