Agriculture Reference
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one of these two kingdom led to the need for additional kingdoms. Ethics is
arguably even more difficult to classify. We will not all agree on which of the
virtues and vices are best or even whether something is a virtue or a vice (e.g.,
loyalty), but one concept does seem to come to the fore in most major religions
and moral philosophies: empathy. Putting oneself in another's situation is a good
metric for virtuous acts. The golden rule is at the heart of Immanuel Kant's
categorical imperative, which states in clearer English than it was given at the
beginning of the chapter: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can
at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
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A simplified way to think about the categorical imperative is as follows: When
deciding whether to act in a certain way, ask if your action (or inaction) will
make for a better world if all others in your situation acted in the same way.
An individual action's virtue or vice is seen in a comprehensive manner as a
life cycle, if you will. It is not whether one should pour a few milligrams of
a toxic substance down the drain; it is whether everyone with this amount of
toxic substances should do likewise. The overall stewardship of the environment
may cause one to rethink an action (as has been the case for decades now). A
corollary to this concept is what Elizabeth Kiss, the former Director of Duke's
Kenan Center for Ethics and now President of Agres Scott College, calls the “Six
O'clock News” imperative. That is, when deciding whether an action is ethical
or not, consider how your friends and family would feel if they heard all its details
on tonight's TV news. That may cause one to consider more fully the possible
externalities and consequences of one's decision.
The virtue of sustainability is a type of social justice. That is, we must do no
harm now or in the future. This means that we must not only avoid hurting
others by our actions, but we ought to safeguard the environment and the health
of others in what we do and what we leave undone. Further complicating matters,
biological systems, including very large ones such as biomes, consist of humans,
nonhuman oganisms, and nonliving (abiotic) material. Stresses on any of these
can affect the entire system.
Kant uses the categorical imperative maxim to underpin duty ethics (called
deontology
) with empathetic scrutiny. However, empathy is not the exclusive do-
main of duty ethics. In teleological ethics, sustainability is a palliative approach
to deal with the problem of “ends justifying the means.” Other philosophers
also incorporated this viewpoint into their frameworks. In fact, John Stuart Mill's
utilitarianism's axiom of “greatest good for the greatest number of people” is
moderated by his harm principle, which, at its heart, is empathetic. That is,
even though an act can be good for the majority, it may still be unethical if
it causes undue harm to even one person. Sustainability is also embraced by
contractarianism, as articulated by Thomas Hobbes as social contract theory. For
example, John Rawls has moderated the social contract with the “veil of igno-
rance” as a way to consider the perspective of the weakest members of society,
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