Environmental Ethics:

Aldo Leopold, father of recent environmental ethics states that traditional Western systems of ethics have not accorded moral standing to non human beings; animals and plants, soils and waters. He states these things have not enjoyed moral standing, rights or respect.He proposes that land be ethically regarded. The effect upon ecological systems is the decisive factor in the determination of the ethical quality of actions. Leopold suggests that a society is constituted by its members, an organic body by its cells, and the ecosystem by the plants, animals, minerals, fluids and gases that compose it. One cannot affect a system as a whole without affecting at least some of its components. If diversity does indeed contribute to stability, then specimens of rare and endangered species, have a claim to preferential consideration from the perspective of the land ethic. The wellbeing of the biotic community, the biosphere as a whole, cannot be logically separated from their survival and welfare. If it is possible to value people for themselves, then it is equally possible to value land in the same way. The implementation of environmental ethics as social policy would not be easy. This would require discipline, sacrifice, retrenchment, and massive economic reform. (Callicott, J. Baird, The Land Ethic,