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Y. Wang
the basic western and Soviet views about human-centrism. When talking about the
relation between man and nature, although it admits man’s position as the main entity,
it also stresses that we can only reform nature if and when we follow its course, and
activities to reform nature must be based on the knowledge and understanding of
natural laws. It also specifies that it is man’s mission to scientifically reform nature
and also correctly understand and reform themselves. These ideas are worth drawing
on.
Like the topic above, the instrumental and intrinsic values of nature have also been
the focus of long-standing debate in ecological ethics and environmental philosophy,
each party having its own reasons. The debate, in my opinion, largely results from
the different definition of “value” or the different understanding of its essence. The
Encyclopedia Britannica (Chinese Edition) defines value as “anything useful,” which
falls under the theory of entity, but it also explains that the judgment of value is a
human cognitive activity that exists because of a person’s wish for something. Some
experts argue that the “relation theory” is closer to Marx’s definition of value. For
general workers, it is of course important to recognize nature’s intrinsic values, but
what’s more important is where these values are manifested, how to protect them in
practice so the value can be maintained and increased, and how to make proper use of
them for human benefits. A quantitative statement would be better for it can be used to
evaluate the environmental costs of various construction and development activities
to decide which can continue and which must be stopped. As mentioned earlier, the
ecosystem service value adopted by UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is a
practical guidance on the evaluation of those activities.
The debate in ecological ethics over human-centrism and nature-centrism and
whether nature has intrinsic values is a good thing in that it promotes the development
of the discipline and broadens the mind and horizon of researchers. However, some
basic understandings of the relation between man and nature must be extracted and
generalized as the ideological basis to advance concrete work.
I want to add a few more. First, man is the outcome when natural species evolve
to a certain stage, but is different from other species in that it has both natural
and social properties. Likewise, the natural world today is the outcome of human
activities, and there is almost no part of earth but has been affected by man. Second,
the humanized natural world and the nature-supported human society are a pair of
entities in a contradiction that are both closely connected with and restricted by each
other through continuous changes. The natural world is changing according to its
own laws and pace, but human activities exert immense effects on natural changes
and the effects are likely to intensify in the foreseeable future. In the natural world,
the reproduction of various creatures is subject to natural conditions, but mankind as
a thinking creature is much more capable than other creatures. Human beings exert
more effects on natural ecosystems than other creatures but are hardly restricted by
other creatures. Therefore, the mankind as an intelligent creature has to restrain its
own behaviors. The human society would have come to an end if it had to rely on
natural laws to curb the excessive human activities. Third, the ideas of humans, the
main entity of the contradiction, also change with social development. When there
isn’t enough to eat, people aspire to live an affluent urban life and forest, wilderness
Y. Wang
the basic western and Soviet views about human-centrism. When talking about the
relation between man and nature, although it admits man’s position as the main entity,
it also stresses that we can only reform nature if and when we follow its course, and
activities to reform nature must be based on the knowledge and understanding of
natural laws. It also specifies that it is man’s mission to scientifically reform nature
and also correctly understand and reform themselves. These ideas are worth drawing
on.
Like the topic above, the instrumental and intrinsic values of nature have also been
the focus of long-standing debate in ecological ethics and environmental philosophy,
each party having its own reasons. The debate, in my opinion, largely results from
the different definition of “value” or the different understanding of its essence. The
Encyclopedia Britannica (Chinese Edition) defines value as “anything useful,” which
falls under the theory of entity, but it also explains that the judgment of value is a
human cognitive activity that exists because of a person’s wish for something. Some
experts argue that the “relation theory” is closer to Marx’s definition of value. For
general workers, it is of course important to recognize nature’s intrinsic values, but
what’s more important is where these values are manifested, how to protect them in
practice so the value can be maintained and increased, and how to make proper use of
them for human benefits. A quantitative statement would be better for it can be used to
evaluate the environmental costs of various construction and development activities
to decide which can continue and which must be stopped. As mentioned earlier, the
ecosystem service value adopted by UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is a
practical guidance on the evaluation of those activities.
The debate in ecological ethics over human-centrism and nature-centrism and
whether nature has intrinsic values is a good thing in that it promotes the development
of the discipline and broadens the mind and horizon of researchers. However, some
basic understandings of the relation between man and nature must be extracted and
generalized as the ideological basis to advance concrete work.
I want to add a few more. First, man is the outcome when natural species evolve
to a certain stage, but is different from other species in that it has both natural
and social properties. Likewise, the natural world today is the outcome of human
activities, and there is almost no part of earth but has been affected by man. Second,
the humanized natural world and the nature-supported human society are a pair of
entities in a contradiction that are both closely connected with and restricted by each
other through continuous changes. The natural world is changing according to its
own laws and pace, but human activities exert immense effects on natural changes
and the effects are likely to intensify in the foreseeable future. In the natural world,
the reproduction of various creatures is subject to natural conditions, but mankind as
a thinking creature is much more capable than other creatures. Human beings exert
more effects on natural ecosystems than other creatures but are hardly restricted by
other creatures. Therefore, the mankind as an intelligent creature has to restrain its
own behaviors. The human society would have come to an end if it had to rely on
natural laws to curb the excessive human activities. Third, the ideas of humans, the
main entity of the contradiction, also change with social development. When there
isn’t enough to eat, people aspire to live an affluent urban life and forest, wilderness