Re-evaluating Kant’s ethics for environmental issues

Abstract

Kant’s moral theory is widely regarded as inadequate to deal with issues concerning the treatment of the environment and non-human animals. This article aims to assess these interpretations and to show that Kant’s ethics of duty does not assume human chauvinism. Both Kantian ethics and utilitarian or rights-based reasoning have difficulties in coming to terms with ethical concerns with certain aspects of the natural world. At the same time, assuming realistic demands on environmental values, as ecocentric theories do (e.g., deep ecology), commits us to insoluble metaphysical problems. In this way, Kantian reasoning based on duties and obligations is reconsidered to show that it can provide very strong, although incomplete, reasons for protecting the natural world, including individual non-human animals.