Respect for Life from the Point of View of Naturalness

Barbora Baďurová

doi:10.21697/seb.2022.01

Published: 2022-03-08

Vol. 20 No. 1 (2022)

Respect for Life from the Point of View of Naturalness

Barbora Baďurová

Studia Ecologiae et Bioethicae

Section: Articles

https://doi.org/10.21697/seb.2022.01

Abstract

In daily debates, people often use the words “natural” and “naturalness”, and the meaning is often regarded as unproblematic. However, as the author points out, this can lead to misunderstanding in discussions, especially those regarding ethical matters. This paper relies mostly on philosophical methods of conceptual analysis and synthesis. The purpose of this study is to find answers to the question - Is respect for life natural and if so, in what sense? An analysis of several concepts of naturalness is presented, and later, applied to the concept of respect for life in environmental ethics for the purpose of synthesis. By analysing the concept of naturalness, the author is inspired, mostly by the investigations made by M. Sagoff and by H. Siipi. Regarding the findings, the author concludes that some senses of naturalness are not appropriate for the ethics of respect for life, because they are, for instance, not specific enough and ethically irrelevant in this context, while others may be useful in argumentation for respecting non-human living beings. The author claims that the most suitable sense seems to be the sense of naturalness in accordance with Aristotelian telos, although also modified for the sake of non-anthropocentric environmental ethics. Even though several authors dealt with the concept of respect for life and the concept of naturalness, this contribution enriches the discussion in the environmental ethics as it seeks answers to a question - if the respect for life is natural, in what sense of naturalness is it? The philosophical methods of asking related questions, and conceptual analysis of the term “naturalness”, as well as seeking its application and synthesis, can also be applied in schools when promoting the critical and philosophical thinking of students, who can, at once, become citizens dealing responsibly with ecological crisis and environmental problems.

Keywords:

naturalness, respect for life, nature, natural

Download files

PDF

Citation rules

Baďurová, B. (2022). Respect for Life from the Point of View of Naturalness. Studia Ecologiae Et Bioethicae, 20(1), 15–23. https://doi.org/10.21697/seb.2022.01

Cited by / Share

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

References

Aristotle. 1976. The Nicomachean ethics. Harmondsworth: Penguin
Google Scholar

Baďurová, Barbora. 2010. “O emóciách... O láske a úcte k životu.” [On emotions… On love and respect for life] In Nábytok 2010: emócie v dizajne, edited by Juraj Veselovský, 1-7. Zvolen: Vydavateľstvo TU vo Zvolene.
Google Scholar

Baďurová, Barbora. 2013. “O prirodzenosti a úcte k životu.” [On naturalness and respect for life] In (Úvahy) o ľudskosti a ekologickosti človeka a jeho ľudskej prirodzenosti a podstate, edited by Atilla Rácz, 97-102. Zvolen: Technická univerzita vo Zvolene, Fakulta ekológie a environmentalistiky.
Google Scholar

Baďurová, Barbora. 2014. “Úcta k životu a vnútorná hodnota z hľadiska vybraných koncepcií environmentálnej etiky.” [Respect for life and intrinsic value from the point of view of selected concepts of environmental ethics] In Aplikovaná etika - kontext a perspektívy II, edited by Tatiana Machalová and Martin Škára, 7-17. Košice: Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Šafárika v Košiciach.
Google Scholar

Baďurová, Barbora. 2016a. “What do we mean by respect in environmental ethics?” In Selected approaches to environmental ethics in V4 countries, edited by Barbora Baďurová, Veronika Szántó, Tereza Vandrovcová, and Zbigniew Wróblewski, 15-36. Lublin: Academicon.
Google Scholar

Baďurová, Barbora. 2016b. “The problem of respect in environmental philosophy.” Studia Ecologiae et Bioethicae 14(2): 77-89. https://doi.org/10.21697/seb.2016.14.2.05. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21697/seb.2016.14.2.05
Google Scholar

Baďurová, Barbora, and Marek Stachoň. 2020. Filozofovanie s deťmi: metodická príručka pre 2. stupeň ZŠ k príbehu Hodina života [Philosophizing with children: methodic handbook for 2. Level of elementary schools to the story An Hour of Life]. Banská Bystrica: Vydavateľstvo Univerzity Mateja Bela Belianum. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24040/2020.9788055717630
Google Scholar

Fromm, Erich. 1964. “Creators and Destroyers.” The Saturday Review, New York (04 January 1964), 22-25.
Google Scholar

Krchnák, Peter. 2011. “Je biocentrizmus humanizmus?” [Is biocentrism humanism?] In (Úvahy) o biocentrizme a humanizme, edited by Atilla Racz, 190-195. Zvolen: Technická univerzita.
Google Scholar

Lee, Keekok. 1999. The Natural and the Artefactual. The Implications of Deep Science and Deep Technology for Environmental Philosophy. Oxford: Lexington Books.
Google Scholar

Moore, Georg Edward. 1989. Principia Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar

O´Neill, John. 2001. “Meta-ethics.” In A Companion to Environmental Philosophy, edited by Dale Jamieson, 163-176. Malden: Blackwell Publishers. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470751664.ch11
Google Scholar

Pojman, Louis P., Paul Pojman, and Katie McShane. 2017. Environmental Ethics: Readings in Theory and Application. Boston: Cengage learning.
Google Scholar

Rogers, Kara. “Biophilia hypothesis.” In Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 Jun. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/science/biophilia-hypothesis. Accessed December 11, 2021.
Google Scholar

Sagoff, Mark. 2001. “Genetic Engineering and the Concept of the Natural.” Philosophy & Public Policy Quarterly 21(2/3): 2-10.
Google Scholar

Schweitzer, Albert. 1986. Kultúra a etika [Culture and ethics]. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ.
Google Scholar

Schweitzer, Albert. 1993. Náuka úcty k životu [The doctrine of reverence for life]. Praha: DharmaGaia.
Google Scholar

Siipi, Helena. 2005. Naturalness, Unnaturalness and Artifactuality in Bioethical Argumentation. Turku: University of Turku.
Google Scholar

Taylor, Paul W. 1986. Respect for Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Google Scholar

Taylor, Paul W. 1981. “The Ethics of Respect for Nature.” Environmental Ethics 3(3): 197-218. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics19813321
Google Scholar

Wilson, Edward O. 2003. Biophilia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Google Scholar