Environmental ethics: nature as a vital movement

Abstract

A selection of articles from the contemporary environmental bioethics produced some questions and debates on the biocentric ethics. Two axes of analysis are developed: the first one shows the relationship between the moral agent and patient with the universalization of moral maxims, including all living beings, rational and non-rational, in moral considerability . The living beings are inter-related and need one another, but only humans are capable of moral judgments and, therefore, can be considered as moral agents, although it should be considered as moral from the patient’s point of view. The second axis deals with the interest in maintaining life, which encompasses this reciprocal relationship, where killing another living being can become an operational issue of natural survival, whether right or wrong, and the natural and human values are inserted into these concerns. We conclude that the struggle to preserve the environment and respect for nature must go hand in hand with the possibility of the social emancipation of mankind. The construction of a new moral agent also involves construction of a new social life, which is where the benefit is - at the center of the philosophical thinking and attitudes of the moral agent.