Q4) Evaluate the view that Religious approaches to conservation are effective in addressing
environmental ethical concerns. (30)
This essay will evaluate whether religious approaches to conservation are effective in
addressing environmental ethical concerns by examining and evaluating these approaches
as well as comparing them to secular approaches
Environmental ethics is a topic in applied ethics, contrasting normative ethics and meta
ethics. Applied ethics refers to the application of morality to a specific field such as the
environment. There are four different approaches to environmental ethics: anthropocentric
ethics (only humans have intrinsic value), animal centred ethics (all animals including
humans have intrinsic value), life centred ethics (all life including humans, animals and
plants have intrinsic value), and ecological holism (only whole ecosystems have intrinsic
value).There have been many environmental legal changes to help the environment. For
example, as a result of ‘The Great Smog’ of 1952 caused by the burning of coal, the Clean
Air Act 1956 was established. More recently, The Paris Agreement of 2015 was an
international agreement to prevent a temperature rise more than 2 degrees from pre-
industrialisation levels. Religious and secular approaches to conservation address
environmental ethical concerns differently, which will be examined in this essay.
The most influential religious approach to conservation is demonstrated through Divine
Command Theory that relies on the Bible. Divine Command Theory is a religious theory that
argues an action is right if God commands it. This links to philosophy of religion as the
teleological, cosmological and ontological arguments attempt to prove God’s existence,
which Divine Command Theory is dependent on. The idea of stewardship is explained in the
Book of Genesis, which refers to the responsibility over God’s creation. This is shown in
Genesis 2:15 which states ‘The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden
to work it and take care of it’, which links to conservation as Christians believe they have
been given stewardship, hence should take care of the environment. Moreover, Mark 12:31
states to ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. A Christian could claim this can be used as a
way of promoting environmental conservation as it is an essential part of protecting and
loving others. Protection of the natural environment provides a safe home for people, hence
is a way of ‘loving your neighbours’. Christians may argue that we have good
anthropocentric reasons for protecting the environment. Therefore, this religious approach to
conservation could be effective in addressing environmental ethical concerns.
However, this religious approach is criticised as it is seen as counterintuitive due to it only
placing value on human beings. The approach states that we should only promote
conservation as it benefits other humans. This is shown through Sylvan’s ‘Last Man’ thought
experiment which explains that all of humanity is dead, apart from one ‘last man’. This man
could decide to destroy all plants and animals as they no longer benefit humans, and the
rightness of this decision is questioned. But using DCT’s approach to conservation, it is
justifiable to destroy all plants and animals if there are no humans left, showing how the
religious approach does not support environmental conservation. However, Andrew Lindsey,
an Anglican Priest, claims that religious approaches are effective in addressing
environmental ethical concerns as Christianity supports an animal centred view. He explains
his point by arguing how animals are God’s creatures and should be protected, hence
supporting conservation as he promotes the protection of animals within the environment.
Despite this, his response is still criticised for taking a theocentric approach instead of animal
centred as he claims that animals only have value because of God. Therefore, the religious
approach only gives God intrinsic value and places no intrinsic value on the environment,
making it not effective in addressing environmental ethical concerns.
, Moreover, this religious approach to conservation could be criticised using criticisms that
undermine DCT. One of the most famous examples of this would be the Euthyphro
Dilemma. This is proposed by Plato through a dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro,
where Euthyphro attempts to define ‘good’, resulting in a dilemma. Both horns of this
dilemma are undesirable. The first horn asks ‘Is something good because God commands
it?’, which is undesirable as God could command horrible or trivial actions as good, which
allows the possibility for ‘good’ actions to go against our intuition. The second horn asks
‘Does God command something because it is good?’, which is undesirable as this entails
that morality is outside of God, Suggesting that we can use morality to judge God. However,
William Lane Craig, a contemporary American philosopher, attempts to resolve this dilemma
by offering an alternative: ‘God commands something because His is good’. This alternative
seems to be desirable as it does not suffer from the negative consequences of both the first
and second horn. This is because God cannot command us to do horrible or trivial things as
His good nature prevents him from doing such things, and morality is not independent of
God as it is based on God’s nature. However, this third horn can be criticised as God is
described to be omnipotent, yet if He cannot choose to do evil because His nature is good,
this undermines his all powerful nature. However, Craig defends his third horn as just
because God does not have the ability to do logically impossible things, this does not
undermine his omnipotence. Therefore, the Euthyphro Dilemma cannot successfully
undermine the religious theory of DCT, allowing the possibility of religious approaches to
conservation to still be effective.
To fully evaluate whether religious approaches to conservation are effective, the opposite
side of the debate must also be examined. Hence, a secular approach to conservation is
ecological holism. Naess, a Norwegian philosopher, explained how we can care for the
environment using deep ecology. He identified two types of ecology: shallow ecology, which
refers to only caring for the environment for human benefit, and deep ecology, which refers
to caring for the environment for its own sake. He criticised religious approaches such as the
Divine Command Theory for shallow ecological thinking as they take an anthropocentric
approach and only care for the environment when it benefits humans. Naess argues that all
parts of nature have intrinsic value and are dependent on each other. He believed that whole
ecosystems have value, hence conservation is important to protect it, showing how Naess’
secular approach may be effective in addressing environmental ethical concerns and
promoting conservation.
However, this secular approach from ecological holism is criticised for portraying how
groups, as a whole, matter instead of individuals. Philosophers such as Peter Singer, who
takes an animal centred approach, and Paul Taylor, who takes a life centred approach, have
criticised Naess by explaining how many things within an ecosystem, such as rivers or
mountains, are only extrinsically valuable, so ecosystem as a whole cannot be intrinsically
valuable. Furthermore, Singer also points out that we can only understand what it means to
hurt an ecosystem if life within are harmed, showing how ecosystems as a whole cannot be
intrinsically valuable. However, supporters of ecological holism may look to another secular
approach such as Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis to respond as it recognises the Earth as an
individual. They argue that damaging an ecosystem is damaging the Earth, therefore, it
harms an individual. Using the Gaia Hypothesis, we are encouraged to not harm the
individual that is Earth by conservation and the protection of environments. Therefore,
secular approaches to conservation, such as ecological holism and the Gaia hypothesis,
may be more effective in addressing environmental ethical concerns than religious
approaches.
Overall, religious approaches to conservation may be effective in addressing environmental
ethical concerns, however they do not place intrinsic value on the environment. For example,
the Book of Genesis explains that humans must take care of the environment as they are
