PHIL 2135 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Environmental Ethics, Invisible Hand, Environmental Policy
Document Summary
This concept is based on the recognition that both human life and business require use (exploitation) of the environment in order to survive. It also recognizes that over use is wrong, for both ethical and practical reasons. So humans and businesses need to use the environment, but this use must be an informed one. The wise use concept favors cost/benefit analysis (2) sustainability. (this is a more restrictive view than the wise use one, and proponents of sustainability usually dislike or even excoriate the wise use view. Sustainability is probably the leading view among environmentalists today. Unsustainable activities must be curtailed or prevented. (3) stewardship. (this view often has religious connotations and origins, but it need not do so. ) A steward is one who exercises authority over and cares for property that belongs to another. So we should leave things on earth in at least as good a condition as we found them.
