Rank: Guest 
|
Posted By Haggis JM
I know it's not Friday yet, but...
This was posted on a thread earlier this week:
"humans first, environment a very poor second priority"
Could someone please attempt to justify the moral reasoning behind this train of thought?
Note that I did not ask for Legal reasons!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Swis
to be honest, I wouldn't be bothered about the environment (climate change, pollution etc) if there're no humans left.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Yossarian
But equally, if there was no environment left, in what sort of vacuum could a human exist?
Haggis,
It's been vexing me too ever since I read it.
I kind of know what is meant, but it doesn't sit well. If it was a case of save a human by killing a tree or save a tree by killing a human, the human would win every time in my world.
But you'd be surprised how infrequently that sort of zero-sum game comes up in real life.
Humans are an integral part of the environment due to their interactions with the environment.
Depending on your world outlook you will probably either think humans and their evolution were (and continue to be) shaped by the environment or that humans were created to care for that environment. (There are of course other options here which no doubt can be discussed if they crop up.)
In both of the above life views, mutual coexistence is intrinsically linked.
I think it must be to do with the definition of the term "environment" which can mean anything from "wildlife" in whatever fluffy form is currently popular as suggested by Swis or it can mean "the biosphere" aka planet Earth, the only home we currently have.
I'm going to lie down in a darkened room now as I've had too many thoughts for today.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Haggis JM
Let me define environment as the biosphere.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By clairel
The statement shows just why the planet is in so much trouble.
As a species we are parasitic, in that we just seemt to live off the planet (to the planet's detriment) instead of co-existing with our planet.
Watching the news and looking around at the world we live in I am often filled with disgust at what we are doing to the environment. The concept of living in harmony with the planet does not seem to occcur to many people who just want to take what they can for their own gains without thought for the long term consequences.
One area of this is over-population, which is why (my hero) David Attenborough supports the campaign to reduce the number of poeple living on the planet by reducung family size. How much longer can our population keep growing before we run out of resources?
People don't come first but the environment does not come first either. The two should co-exist in harmony.
...now I'm off to hug a tree :-)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By June-bug
Perhaps the only people who’ve got it right are indigenous tribes – they know that for humans to truly exist we have to show respect to our environment and take only what we need. Personally, I think it’s extreme organisations i.e. save the environment at any cost, don’t care if anyone dies in the process, tie myself to a tree if I have to - and the - I don’t care I just want to build another airport, who cares about the gorgeous landscape and the habitat I’m destroying - that make it difficult for us to get anywhere.
Both sides sometimes make it off-putting to want to be a part of caring for our environment because we’re all trying to ‘prove a point’ to the other side. Who do we support; the airport or the trees? I guess we all need to take individual responsibility and do our part.
Long way of saying both matter and that we can’t do without each other. The only difference is that we think we’re in charge, but every now and again nature shows us who’s boss – cyclones, hurricanes, earthquakes etc etc etc.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Jay Joshi
Sometimes, especially for emergency scenarios where one does not have the benefit of time on their side, the priority order can be Life (humans), Environment, Assets and Reputation --it depends upon what the individual organisation's priorities are.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By John Richards
I'll introduce another concept to you: Reducing birthrate will not help solve anything.
It will reduce the population, very slowly, and leave the planet with a rapidly ageing population.
The only solution to the population problem is to limit lifespan.
Not too popular, but the only solution that will work in the longterm.
In any case, reduction of the population below a threshold level will lead to a reversal of civilisation.
The one thing the country cannot afford is a healthy, retired, population. Pensions are going to bankrupt the country within 30-50 years.
The cost, to the countries taxpayers, of public service pensions alone (funds to pay those public servants now retired and those employed at the moment) is in excess of 1 trillion pounds.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By John Richards
Oh, and those companies not bothering about their employees health (the majority) are helping to reduce the burden of the elderly to the taxpayer !
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Graham Bullough
I tend to concur with June-bug. Indigenous people such as eskimos, aborigines and the groups visited by Bruce Parry for his TV series "Tribe" are the ones who seem most in tune with and respect their environment, and take care not to deplete their future supplies of food, firewood, etc.
As for the rest of us humans - if our numbers exceed what can be sustained by the earth, nature has a crafty way of reducing our numbers sooner or later by various means. These include natural disasters - either dramatic ones such as hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes or epidemic diseases such as Black Death, the Plague and Spanish Flu. The latter just after WW1 killed more people than were killed during the fighting in WW1. Perhaps man's propensity for conflict could be classified as a natural cause of wars which also tend to reduce population numbers.
These themes generally form the basis of ideas about population growth/reduction cycles expounded by Thomas Malthus back in the late 18th Century. For more details (including debate as to how far his ideas were or remain valid) look him up on the internet.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Phil Rose
OMG haggis - this one is too 'heavy' for me even on a Friday. Thought provoking and some interesting comments though. I can't see any moral justification for the comment really - all I can say is what quality is human life without a reasonable environment to live it in?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Ron Hunter
The statement "humans first, environment a very poor second priority" is logically inconsistent and self-defeating.
In our never-ending desire to consume this island earth's finite resources at an increasibgly alarming rate, the extent of the pollution we currently create is reaching levels where our own fertility is now under serious threat, as is the effective reproduction of key elements in our food chain.
We could try John Richard's "Logan's Run" approach (good film that, Jenny Agutter is in it)- a kind of inverse lottery?
Hug a tree by all means, but spare a thought for the bees too. Without them, we're in serious trouble.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By ScotsAM
I agree that environment is important, though I think we're already snookered with changing the way we use the earth's resources. Without a serious change in the entire culture of our modern ways of life, how can we stop using resources?
Even 2000 years ago, the romans quarried massive amounts of stone and metals from the ground that couldn't be replaced.
The Rapa Nui of Easter Island used their trees quicker than they could re-grow.
The environment however will naturally limit our lifestyle and our numbers with the very resources we use.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Raymond Rapp
Environmental issues often pose a serious dilemma or moral conundrum. For example, why should a company be fined more for harming the environment than for harming a human being?
A person's opinion on these matters will depend largely on whether they are an egalitarian. Some people feel the need to save the planet...others do not.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Alan Nicholls
It took millions of years to evolve into the world capable of sustaining human life; (us). How many years has it taken for us to screw it all up. A few hundred. That must be one for the Guiness book of records. Anyone for a new ice age?
Regards Alan
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Ron Hunter
Ah ha! The old "Global Cooling" debate!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By ScotsAM
An ice age should certainly make the issue of 'maximum work temperature' mentioned in a thread last wekk a bit of a moot point.
Ultimately I think ensuring the health and safety of humans is something we should always be doing.
Preventing harm from occuring to our environment is something we should be striving for in all cases where we have the chance to change a process or introduce new equipment.
It should be a cycle of continuous improvement backed up by research in clean and sustainable technologys.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Yossarian
All very interesting, but are we any closer to the moral reasoning behind "humans first, environment a very poor second priority"?
I'm not sure we are.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Haggis JM
"If it was a case of save a human by killing a tree or save a tree by killing a human, the human would win every time in my world"
Why? By what moral code can anyone place a greater value on human life than any other form of life?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Nick Patience
To answer the question without a meaningful paradigm is difficult. The reference point that was used in the original thread was one of legal compliance. What is the reference point now? Is it really a question of morals?
It could be expressed as a simple case of survival. The argument would go "I need to survive, I am Human therefore Humans come first, everything else comes second".
Or it could be religious, the Abrahamic religions view Man having as having dominion over the plants and animals. A Jain on the other hand would have a very different outlook on this.
Those who believe in the Gaia theory (James Lovelock) would see that the question has no real meaning as Humans are part of the Gaian system and even if we do manage to completely mess up the planet, the planet will continue with or without us - just in a different form. Remember that one of the biggest toxic events that happened on this planet was the introduction into the atmosphere of oxygen by bacteria that then led to the virtual extinction of those bacteria.
There are others still who would view the environment as coming first with humans a very poor second. Animal Liberationists have before now stated that they would in time like to see the population of GB reduced to around 6 million people because at this level the GB could return to its climax ecosystem of forest.
Sorry to ramble and perhaps not really answer the question but that is how philosophy goes.
PS Logan's Run was OK but I think Soylent Green was a better film.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Pete48
Because the environment is a second priority!
Every living thing exploits the environment in some manner irrespective of religion or beliefs.
Human life must always come first. If it does not then human life will not survive. The reason why we even think about stuff like global warming is because we want our kids and grandchildren to survive and enjoy a world not too dissimilar from ours. We may worry about how we would survive without bees but it is our survival that drives that need, not the survival of the bees. Whilst looking at ways to help them survive, we will also look for ways to survive without them and if we do, goodbye bees. We just wont sit around waiting for them to die out, sad and unforgivable though that may be. It is what makes us human.
It is how the priority that evolution has bestowed upon humans is used that is the moral question not the recognition that it comes first.
As an individual I only use what I need to live my life, so I am no different from a tribesman. He, like me, exploits his environment. Some may say I am irresponsibly using the environment but if the tribesman denudes a part of his environment to survive, is he any less morally responsible?
That's a moral question, not the one implied in the O.P.
Thinking about a business/work environment. Once again human life is the first priority. Adjusting, preserving and managing the environment is done to protect life. Mostly driven by immediate or short term protection for human life but also to protect other life from the impact of the human activity that might later impact on human survival. (clean water discharge with acceptable bod and cod levels that helps to maintain life supporting water courses for example)
Time for a glass of something flown in from Chile methinks:)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By clairel
Pete, there lies the difference between you and me. I wouldn't just wait around for the bees to die if an alternative to pollination was found. All species are precious and a part of our eco system, we can't just create alternatives and expect for there not to be a consequence. So letting a species die for our own gain isn't what makes us all human at all. We all have different beliefs and ideas about what is and what isn't acceptable. Personally I like to think that even if an alternative to pollination was found there are enough poepl like me to still strive to save the bees. I don't think my lfe is more worthwhile than the environment it lives in or the other species that occupy it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Pete48
Claire, I may well agree on a personal level but I was making a societal point and not giving my personal beliefs on a specific point.
Once faced with the reality that bees may really be dying out completely, we will inevitably focus and spend more resource on finding an alternative means to survive. Thus human life above the bees.
Individuals and/or groups may decide to stick with them to the bitter end but human life must evolve or die.
One could even argue that the reason for their demise and potential disappearance may be nothing more than their natural evolution after all. What moral prerogative do we have to interfere with that--other than human survival?
Crikey!! Time for bed Zebedee said. That must be just about the longest, widest thread stretch ever! But the question did have that word moral in it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Swis
On a lighter note,
If I had to save one from ‘myself’ & ‘a tree’, Because if I save the tree, more trees will have to die to be used as tissue papers to wipe the tears of my loved ones. More pollution will be caused by escorting and cremating (need fuel anyway) etc etc.
On a serious note,
It’s not a matter of what is more valuable but which can have a bigger impact upon its extinction. Hence, you can’t compare a ‘tree’ with a ‘human life’. Hundreds/thousands of species are becoming extinct from the planet every year. This is a part of evolution, some species die, new species are formed. The extinction rate will increase if the human race gets extinct in the process.
Haggis,
In response to your statement
‘Why? By what moral code can anyone place a greater value on human life than any other form of life?’
Remember – humans grow trees, trees can’t grow humans – if humans chop down trees for their use, they also have tendency to grow more trees. And also a point not to forget is the fact that ‘food chain’ is a part of the natural ecosystem. Any interference can have detrimental consequences. So if you want to argue on the benefits of having pollution free atmosphere, by all means will agree, however argument on importance between a ‘tree’ & ‘human’ seems very bizarre.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By naveen duggal
Hi,
Very interesting interaction and various views, comments acceptable or some unacceptable.
It depends upon what you view ? How you view ? What is the response, differs from person to person with their understanding of their objectives..
Identify,verify the facts , think, practicable solutions.Do not get affected by what others are saying. Be realistic, adaptable and considerate enough to condider other's opnions.
Law of Nature, Law of Science, Law of Human....are all different aspects to evaluate or comment.Let us not become emotional, face facts as facts, look at the real problems? there can be many motives in using words, language or ideas
"We live to eat or Eat to live"...so agree with all .
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Guest
|
Posted By Hossam
"humans first, environment a very poor second priority"
it depends on what "humans" here implies..
if it means man life survival
then when was the environment an obstacle?!..
but if it means industrial boost and welfare..then a lot of things can be said
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum.
You cannot reply to topics in this forum.
You cannot delete your posts in this forum.
You cannot edit your posts in this forum.
You cannot create polls in this forum.
You cannot vote in polls in this forum.