Description

General Introduction Environmental ethics appears as a wing of practical or applied ethics. Its main objective is to retain the balance of the environment or the sustainability of environment as a whole. There are countless environments and the belief in a global environment seems inescapable. Environment exists essentially because it is inhabited by a particular living organism. Therefore, the field comprises 'an infinity of overlapping environments'.1Given this sense of environment, each human group and individual has its own environment, and each forms part of the environment of many of the others. Thus, 'environment' here actually means 'encompassing system'. 'Environment' is also used to mean the sense of eco-system, i.e., a system of interacting living organisms and non-living elements (biotic and abiotic communities respectively). Since an ecosystem is usually thought of as occurring within a selfcontained and restricted area, and since complete isolation in the real sense of the term in most general areas is impossible, it can be argued that the Earth itself is the only real ecosystem. Thus, our understanding of environment is a single ecosystem. We are talking in favor of an organic whole. Environments never exist before the environed creature does, and cannot exist without such a creature. They comprise a process rather than a fixed objective entity, and are continually under construction through the activities of the living being environed. Hence, a distinction should be made between environment and nature, and we should be wary of expressions such as 'the natural environment'. In fact, nature is a world that can exist apart from us and it can be studied in a detached, isolated and scientific manner. Environment is,