Virtue Ethics and the Trilemma Facing Sentiocentrism: Questioning Impartiality in Environmental Ethics

This article aims to question the value of impartiality in environmental ethics by highlighting a problem internal to the bioethics approach known as sentiocentrism. The principle that all beings with the same degree of consciousness should receive the same moral treatment would lead to a trilemma,...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Rodrigues Pereira, Rafael (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Center for Environmental Philosophy, University of North Texas 2021
In: Environmental ethics
Year: 2021, Volume: 43, Issue: 2, Pages: 165-184
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:This article aims to question the value of impartiality in environmental ethics by highlighting a problem internal to the bioethics approach known as sentiocentrism. The principle that all beings with the same degree of consciousness should receive the same moral treatment would lead to a trilemma, i.e., the need to choose among three morally unacceptable choices. I argue those problems are related to the premise, shared by Utilitarianism and rights-centered theories, that impartiality is the constitutive feature of the moral point of view. In the last part of my article, I discuss how this problem points to some advantages of a virtue ethics approach to environmental ethics.
ISSN:2153-7895
Contains:Enthalten in: Environmental ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.5840/enviroethics20215623