The transmutation and practice of environmental ethics

Ethics is the basic principles and rules that guide people’s behavior. The transformation of ethics depends on morality and law, which in turn confirms and guarantees ethics. Regarding the relationship between human and nature, Eastern natural ethics and Western ethics have appeared successively. Among them, Western ethics has gradually developed from an anthropocentrism that only focuses on human interests to a transcendental natural ethics that considers man and nature as a whole, and converges with the basic principles of Eastern natural ethics, and finally realizes the sustainable development of man and nature. In this process of evolution, people supplemented with different morals and laws, which exerted different influences on nature. In the end, we need to strengthen corresponding education and guidance, and finally realize the organic unity of nature, human and society


Introduction
Since the acceleration of industrialization, the disturbance and destruction of the natural environment caused by human production activities and modes of production have been increasingly intensified, and problems such as environmental pollution, resource shortage and ecological imbalance have begun to shake the foundation of human existence. Since the 1970s, people began to reflect on the root of the environmental crisis, and people began to realize that the deep root of the environmental crisis is the wrong values and world outlook. Therefore, it is imperative to reflect and coordinate the relationship between human beings and nature, and environmental ethics emerges as The Times require.

The relationship between environmental ethics and practice
Ethics involves people, people and society, between human and nature should be a what kind of relationship, and people should be based on what kind of value standard and measurement to deal with these relationships.Specifically, environmental ethics mainly refers to the relationship between human beings and nature, we should be aware of what is the right and reasonable behavior and what kind of responsibility or obligation we should have for the development of nature.
In order to practice these ethics, it is necessary to further transform these principles and rules into two rule systems of self-disciplining morality and heteronomy law.Otherwise, the necessary order of environmental ethics cannot be realized. Among them, morality is mainly aimed at social individuals and mainly emphasizes the subjective and internal integrity of social individuals, that is, every member of society should do his/her own duty well and consciously restrain his/her words and desires according to the requirements of ethical principles and norms.However, due to the huge difference in the moral level and moral ability of social individuals, it is obviously difficult to maintain the generation of the proper ethical order only by restricting the words, deeds and desires of social individuals through moral norms. One part of the most basic ethical principles and rules will rise to the legal norms, that is, through the legalization and institutionalization of the most basic ethical principles and rules, to maintain the continuous existence and development of the system of social ethical relations.

Anthropocentric natural ethics
Western environmental ethics originates from western dualism, atomism and mechanism.As early as in ancient Greece, Protagoras, a famous thinker, put forward the famous saying that "man is the measure of all things". He regarded man as the judge of the existence of all things, including the idea that he could control nature at will. In the middle Ages, The Christian doctrine believed that man was the incarnation created by God in his own image. Man was in charge of the land and the sea, and ruled over all the birds, animals, insects, fish, vegetables and fruits on the earth. All these were food given to man by God, and all natural things existed for man.After the Renaissance, with the gradual loss of the authority of God, human reason has been liberated and carried forward.The French thinker Descartes put forward the thinking mode of "subject-object" dichotomy.It not only makes it clear in concept that man is the master of nature and that nature is only the object that man conquers, but also provides a mechanical view of the decomposition of the whole nature.Nature is made up of atoms which exist independently of each other, and which, like a machine, are made up of a mass of objects which are bound together not by mutual affinity or intrinsic drive, but by purely mechanical, blind and extrinsic laws of motion.Such a world is completely quantifiable, and all things can be reduced to calculable units existing in measurable spatial relationships.
Under this world view, the western environmental view puts forward the human-centered natural ethics. The ethics of anthropocentrism holds that man is the master and owner of nature. Man has superiority over all things in nature and has no ethical relationship with other creatures.Through the utilization or transformation process of natural resources, human beings can meet their own needs of life or production, and at the same time actively promote the improvement of social productivity and material economic prosperity, and finally get rid of the constraints and control of natural forces.
Anthropocentrism is divided into egocentric ethics and human group-centered ethics. The egocentric ethic centers on the interests of the individual. The individual is an end in itself, society is only a means to an end, and an action that is good for the individual or the company as an individual is considered good for society as a whole. Human community center is based on the principles of Bentham's utilitarianism. It is human nature to seek pleasure and avoid suffering, joy is good, and pain is evil. Miserable amount can be calculated, there is "the greatest happiness principle", namely social groups interests is the sum of the individual interests. The value orientation of its behavior is to increase the "the greatest happiness of most people." Under the guidance of such ethics, human beings still regard nature as the source of resources, but different from egocentric ethics for the benefit of "individuals", it emphasizes more that the utilization of natural resources is for the benefit of "human groups".

Non-anthropocentric natural ethics
With the development of society, people realize that nature has a value that is not measured by man, and that it does not exist for man.People believe that nature has the same ability to feel pain and pleasure as human beings, and should be given moral concern, requiring human beings to assume moral responsibility for all life. Under the guidance of these values, after the 1970s, people began to extend the concept of human rights to the natural world, emphasizing the intrinsic value of nature, and three schools emerged, namely, animal liberation theory and animal rights theory, biocentrism and ecocentrism. Animal liberation considers that all species of animal rights should be equal, should be equally concerned about or concern the interests of all the animals, Biocentrism considers that humans should be expanded scope of moral obligation to all human beings, animals, plants, microorganisms, such as all living organisms, Ecocentrism further the scope extended to the whole nature, the entire nature as objects of moral obligations.

Transcendental natural ethics
After the 1990s, people began to thoroughly reflect on the basic assumption of "duality" in the western traditional philosophy. Systematic science shows that subjectivity generally exists in the part with complex organization and is not unique to human beings.Many scholars realize that the world is no longer seen as consisting of two separate and mutually exclusive parts; all beings are seen to contain and be contained by other beings, and each individual acquires his or her attributes through interaction with other individuals.Nature is no longer just a resource pool for human beings. Human beings are not placed above or outside nature, but within nature.
As for the relationship between man and nature, there are two perspectives, holism and relationalism. Holism sees the individual as being integrated with the larger whole. They either see nature as an extension of the self, incorporating nature into the self, or they see the self as an extension of nature, dissolving the self into nature. The interests of nature and self are inseparable, the defense of ecology is human self-defense, and the interests of nature are human or self interests. The relational view holds that nature does not manifest itself as a field or stream of being, but as a community in which individuals are intrinsically connected to each other, like members of a large family, but at the same time maintain their unique identities.
The transcendent natural ethics began to study the environmental problems from a broader perspective, rerationing, explaining and discussing the environmental implications of western philosophical theories, and attempted to reflect and explain the philosophical root of the modern environmental crisis from the perspectives of world outlook, ontology, epistemology, axiology and methodology.

Oriental natural ethics
Here mainly refers to the ancient Chinese natural ethics.Ancient Chinese agriculture was very developed, agricultural production decided that we must comply with and respect the laws of nature, and gradually formed in the consciousness of the "unity of man and nature" of the simple overall system view.Among them, Confucianism regards all things as being of the same origin, same structure and same body with human beings, and advocates that human beings extend their moral feelings of benevolence and love to all natural things.Put forward the "heaven and earth all things into one" theory.It is believed that people not only have the duty of "loving", but also assume the responsibility of "benefiting".
Taoism opposed human arrogancy and eliminated egocentrism, and finally returned to the state of harmonious coexistence between human and nature.Taoism believes that all human behaviors should be in harmony with the heaven and the earth, follow the "tao of Heaven" and conform to the "nature", and object to the fact that human beings regard nature as the object of domination and conquest.
The Buddhist concept of nature conservation contains the idea that all things in nature coexist equally and mutually beneficial, and that all things have value and buddhahood. The Buddhist view of life advocates the wholeness of all living beings and their natural environment, which influences and restricts each other. The Buddhist view of nature conservation is to provide believers with a healthy life concept fundamentally from the perspective of the root cause and The Dharma.
Although these thinkers of different schools in ancient China had different theories and ideas, they all advocated extending ethical principles to the living world and even the whole nature.The value of human beings, the existence dimension and the meaning space of human beings should be reflected not only in the relationship between human beings but also in the relationship between human beings and nature.

Practice of anthropocentrism ethics
Guided by the ethics of anthropocentrism, human beings have become accomplice in harming the ecological environment. They often regard nature as the supplier of "raw materials", which can be transformed into commodities by human beings to make profits for individuals or human groups, while no one considers the impact of natural losses and wastes on the environment.
Under the control of anthropocentric ethics, there is no moral constraint on individuals or companies or groups that are free to profit.The vast majority of people regard it as a matter of course and call out all kinds of desires in people's biological instinct. People blindly demand from nature, which makes it expand infinitely, intensifies the contradiction between human and nature, and leads to the extreme deterioration of the environment.
On the legal level, the legal interests protected by environmental law are only the interests of human beings. The purpose of environmental protection law is not to protect the environment, but to protect the rights and interests of natural persons and natural persons' aggregate.For example, in the 47 years after World War II, from the Geneva Conference in 1947 to the Uruguay Round in 1994, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was signed, which refers to the reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers to promote international trade liberalization and the full utilization of the world's resources for economic growth.The word "environment" is nowhere to be found in many texts, and in the event of a conflict between specific provisions and the environment, the GATT provisions prevail in the final determination.These maximization of individual interests and group interests under the guise of human interests is the root cause of ecological environmental crisis.

Practice of non-anthropocentric natural ethics
The non-anthropocentric natural value theory criticizes anthropocentrism, provides a theoretical attempt for human to bring nature into the scope of moral concern and rights subject, and provides a new perspective for human to examine nature, which is worthy of respect.
However, non-anthropocentric ethics only focuses on the relationship between man and nature, blindly dispels man's legitimate and reasonable interest demands, and ignores the relationship between man and man.Man is both a natural existence and a social existence.Although we human everything including the body itself belongs to the nature, is also the product of natural long-term evolution, but the reason why people is people more depends on its social attributes namely the social practice of people. It is because of the social practice of people that the apes greet not. Any kind of environmental ethics must first affirm the survival and continuation of human beings, and any environmental ethics that is not human-centered has no vitality. It is inevitably fruitless to blindly give the natural things without solving problems from the human side.
From the perspective of morality, non-anthropocentrism is essentially altruistic ethics, which should be the moral standards set by people with high moral level for themselves, while people with such a high moral level are unlikely to become the majority of the society.From a legal point of view, the law can make the social order, can make the person get security, conformity, but it cannot make people live a good life, also can't make the person has a noble pursuit, forced the non anthropocentrism as the ethic foundation of environmental law and the corresponding concrete into a large number of the rule of law, is apparently lack of the vast majority of the public to obey the laws and the laws will lose the meaning of existence.

Practice of Oriental natural ethics and transcendental natural ethics
Whether it is anthropocentrism or non-anthropocentrism, most of the theoretical schools fundamentally reflect the tendency of individualism. Both the eastern natural ethics and transcendental natural ethics consider the relationship between man and nature in the whole, and fundamentally oppose to treat a part of the whole as the center of the whole.
In practice, the Oriental view of natural ethics was put forward earlier, but its thought is relatively simple, and has not yet reached the level of theorization and systematization.East natural ethics to maintain the harmonious development of man and nature, as the highest moral principles of human, but this argument of moral obligation is not according to the rational judgment, but based on the cultivation of a person's natural emotion. By the person's moral requirements, strong internal selfdiscipline, sincere self-cultivation, show respect of cultivate and realize the harmonious coexistence of man and nature.
The practice of transcending natural ethics takes the harmonious co-existence between man and nature as the value measure to understand and transform nature, and insists on realizing a dynamic development balance in the process of man's subjective and active participation in the world. Making people's activity is not only a life activity, but also a purposeful activity to understand and change the world. People can use the power of reason to understand and use objective laws to create greater space for their own activities and freedom of development.
In the process of practice, with the thinking of ecological civilization, the subjectivity of human being, the integrity of nature and the sustainable development of society are combined to dominate human behavior habits and life styles to reflect the new form of human civilization.People put forward the concept of sustainable development, emphasizing the principles of environmental justice, intergenerational equality and intergenerational equity, and elevated these concepts to the legal provisions. The promulgation of international authoritative documents such as the Rio Declaration, the Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Convention on Biological Diversity are powerful manifestations of this behavior. Especially the Rio Declaration in 1992 marked the rise of an international environmental legal system based on the principle of sustainable development.

Strengthen the education of natural ethics
Generally speaking, between ethics and practice, there are always ethical requirements before the corresponding moral principles, character standards, codes of conduct, and laws emerge. These ethics and laws, in turn, confirm and guarantee the existing ethics to a certain extent, thereby promoting the harmonious and healthy development of man and nature.
However, the establishment of ethics cannot be separated from corresponding education and guidance. Ethics education is not just a simple and general publicity, telling people to improve the environment. It is to change people's unscrupulous and indifferent way of thinking, psychological structure, and behavioral habits toward the natural environment, promote the ecologicalization of personality, cultivate ecological personality, and enhance people's sense of gratitude, confession, awe, humility and cherishment of nature. The unity of knowledge, affection and intention. Otherwise, even if laws and regulations are promulgated, there will always be incidents like the Trump administration's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement in 2019.
The ultimate goal of the education of natural ethics is to help people establish ecological values, cultivate the inherent motivation and moral spirit to protect the ecological environment, so that people can consciously restrain or control their misbehaviors from an ecologically beneficial perspective, and through "self-awareness", Self-restraint, self-regulation" conscious behavior development and application of nature, and finally realize the organic unity of nature, man and society.