The origins of environmental ethics began with the first Earth Day in 1970, when ôenvironmentalists started urging philosophers who were involved with environmental groups to do something about environmental ethics,ö (Brief 2002, 1). Over the past three decades the field of environmental ethics has evolved, one that includes theological and religious theories. My environmental theory is holistic, that is it emphasizes the significance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts. With respect to the environment, I truly believe that all of the parts of nature, humans, animals, plants, water systems, soil, etc. are interdependent and that to diminish are of the parts diminishes the whole.
My belief in the interdependence of the whole of the environment rather than a separation of its parts has its roots in Zen Buddhism, where each and all living things are interdependent. I believe the whole of the environment is a self-sustaining system whose parts are interdependent and cannot be diminished without impacting the overall whole system. This ethical belief is indirect contrast to nature/culture dualism which posits that humans are more important and superior to other species in the environment. As Slicer (2003) says of nature/culture dualism, it ôinvolves an emphatic and distancing form of separation which creates a sharp ontological break or radical discontinuity and opposition between the spheres of human culture and the devalued and undifferentiated order of nature,ö (3).
My personal environmental ethic views the environment as a holistic system whose parts must be given equal consideration if we are to survive as a species and as a planet. For example, many individuals believe pig farming to be permissible from an ethical standpoint because pigs are less valued than human beings and more replaceable. While this may be true in the eyes of the law, ethically and naturally nature does not distinguish pigs from h...