| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中央大學 === 哲學研究所在職專班 === 101 === This thesis attempts to illustrate that in Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, Leopold explores the coexistence of humans and nature through the view of the Darwinian ethical evolution. Through Darwin’s evolution of the origin of ethic based on the moral sense as well as through David Hume’s theory of moral sentiment, Leopold affirms the intrinsic value of ecosystem and entails the norms of land ethic which could extend humans’ rights and obligations to the whole ecosystem. This thesis also suggests that we should give ethics more precise theoretical grounds under the background of science and this background should cover psychology and ecology so that the derived philosophical content and foundation could sustain trials through time.
This thesis adopts three reference systems. The first one is the holistic ecological community of J. Baird Callicott through which I suggest that the happiness of an individual can only be achieved when the integrity of the ecosystem as a whole is maintained, and humans as an entity of the ecosystem must exercise moderation to lower the impact on the ecosystem. The second one is the moral sentiment of David Hume through which I argue that sentiments are the roots of morality and each individual must restrict himself within the proper bound in order to achieve the state of the good defined by Aristotle’s virtue ethics, personal excellence and happiness. The third one is the psychological theory of William James through which I claim that by means of the knowledge and value of belief and introspection as the intermediary, humans could expand the fundamental ethics and bring themselves into the society’s moral norms expanded by humans.
The environmental ethics should be a constraint manifested from intrinsic beliefs to extrinsic actions before the concept can be widely accepted by all humans. In the institutions of the modern world, it should further be embraced in the general education and economic systems. Moreover, the most important action should be establishing a link between the issues interpreted by science and the fundamental concepts of philosophy as well as opening doors for cross-discipline discussion on the subject of ethics.
|
|---|
