Abstract

During the past twenty-five years, a distinct philosophical discipline has emerged which is devoted to a normative analysis of the relation between humanity and the nonhuman natural world. This discipline has come to be known as "environmental ethics." The most recent, as well as most radical approach to environmental ethics is known as ecocentrism. The ecocentric approach to environmental ethics uses an "eco-holistic" perspective as its ontological ground, and attempts to use such a perspective to argue for an axiological stance which affirms the inherent value of nonhuman nature, as well as a normative theory, based on the "fact" that humans are simply "plain citizens" of ecosystemic communities, which asserts that humanity is morally obligated to preserve the integrity and stability of the ecosphere and its component ecosystems. ;I argue that the use of ecological modeling to generate the ontological ground of ecocentric environmental ethics creates serious problems for the subsequent axiological and normative claims made by ecocentrists. In particular, my critique of ecocentrism is advanced on two major fronts. First, I attempt to argue that, since an "eco-holistic" perspective grants to ecosystems an ontological standing independent of that of their constitutive parts , ecocentric axiological claims to the effect that both ecosystems and individual organisms are inherently valuable can be seen as conflicting in that preserving ecosystemic inherent value may, in certain common situations, demand the elimination of loci of organismic inherent value. Further, I argue that ecocentrists have no way to settle the moral dilemma that emerges from this axiological dilemma. ;On the second front, I attack the crucial premise that humans are "plain citizens" of ecological communities by using ecological modeling itself to show that, contrary to what ecocentrists claim, humans do not, for the most part, participate in ecosystems or biotic communities in an ecologically defined way. Consequently, I argue that since humans are not participants in natural ecosystemic structures, ecocentrists cannot conclude that humans are morally obligated to preserve the integrity and stability of natural ecosystems as a consequence of their inclusion in such "communal" structures