Ethics: The Expanding Circle of Environmental Ethics

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Citation: Dinkins, C.S., & Sorrell, J.M. (Nov. 30, 2007). Column: Expanding Circle of Ethics OJIN: Online Journal of issues in Nursing, Vol. #13, No. #1. Available: www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/Columns/Ethics/EnvironmentalEthics.aspx ethics is the discipline that studies the moral relationship of human beings to the environment (Brennan & Lo, 2007). The articles in the May 31, 2007, OJIN topic, Environmental Health: Important Choices for a Greener World, suggest the many ways in which nursing can be instrumental in advocating for a new awareness of the need for environmental ethics. Exploitation of the environment has exposed us to a wide variety of diseases caused by chemical, physical, biological, and psychological agents; and there is increasing evidence that global climate changes are already affecting human health. Thus, we must clarify the role nursing should play in a new era of environmental health activity. asks us to live mindfully, taking care about how we act (Weston, 2002, p. 2). Through the past 30 years, the circle of our ethical concerns has grown, becoming more inclusive. The inspiration for environmental ethics was the first Earth Day in 1970 when environmentalists started urging philosophers who were involved with environmental groups to focus on ethical concerns in the environment. Today, philosophers remind us that we must begin to view all of nature ethically, taking a new look at whole ecosystems. We are becoming increasingly aware of the enormous creativity, complexity, and depth of nonhuman aspects of the world and the delicate balance of nature. Weston (2002, p. 80) points out that 30 years ago, we did not imagine something now as basic as recycling bins in our homes or whale songs on CDs, heralding a new period of unimagined ethical growth. One way to continue and strengthen this forward vision may be to look far into the past for guidance, to the ethics of the ancient Greeks. Plato's famous allegory of the cave captures well our current relationship with our environment and the means to finding a better way to live in, and live with, the world. In Plato's story, prisoners are shackled in a dark cave where firelight and shadows and echoes of distant voices are all they know. To them, the cave is the world - no exit, and no other world, can be imagined. Eventually one prisoner leaves the cave, making his way up to fresh air and sunlight, and only then does he realize that the cave in which he was shackled only seemed to be the real world. The world of sunlight is far more real. Plato's lesson here is that we are all prisoners shackled in a cave. Our morals and systems of justice are only mere shadows of the ideals that we could and should be striving toward. In order to discover and pursue those ideals, we first need to unshackle ourselves from our current misconceptions and problematic way of life. Living in today's world, it is easy to feel shackled to a way of life that will inevitably lead to further destruction of the planet and therefore of ourselves. But how do we escape our way of life? How do we change it dramatically enough to make a difference? How do we even see the light of the right way to live, when all we know are shadows, all we know is how we have always lived? We have, in the last few years, finally made the important first step toward escaping Plato's cave. We now understand that we are in a cave: we know we are shackled in a world of our own making. Indeed, the situation today with climate change and dangerous chemical and biological pollutants can begin to feel like a Cave. But are we trapped? Is this how things Have to Be? It is difficult to see a way out when, paradoxically, our quality of life seems to necessitate the creation of yet more pollution and greenhouse gasses even when those by-products at the same time threaten our quality of life, or the continuation of life at all. …