For this blog, I will not be updating you about the happenings in my life this 4th week. Rather, I would share to you my own idea and my own view about approaches in relation to Environmental Ethics.
Environmental Ethics is the study of the relationship of human beings and the environment and how ethics play a role in this. The approaches for this branch of Ethics can be humans (anthropocentric), animals, living things as a whole (biocentrism) or even the combination of both living and non-living things (ecocentrism)!
Biocentrism
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
-Charles Darwin
I have always believed that God gave soul to living things. And living things gave life to non-living ones. Although we cannot create them without God’s will, they won’t come to life if no one uses them. You cannot call something a writing material if you never tried to use it to write. The point is, they become useful through us. Living organisms are the ones who label the non-living things. We can use them how we want them to be and we can innovate them to how our ideas push us to do so.
As much as I would love to become more ecocentric than just biocentric, I cannot deny the fact that I value living things more than non-living ones. Before doing something completely, I always categorize my priorities. This time, I have come to realize that living things is my top priority and that Biocentrism is what I grew up to become as.
This approach simply does not see non-living things to be as important as living ones. Of course, I know for a fact that we would not be what we are today without the existence of non-living things because they are part of us now, but just like what I am trying to emphasize here, my top priority would always be Living Organisms.
In a situation wherein my business would affect non-living things, I don’t think it would concern me that much since I don’t see them to be as important as us. I would still go with my business decisions even if some of them are harmed as long as the living ones are safe. It would honestly put me at ease to think that I am not harming any of the living organisms although I harm the non-living ones. Just like what I said, we can do what we want to do with them since we brought life to them. But, it doesn’t mean I would always ruin non-living things without the need to do so. There will always be time in our businesses when we will need to choose whether to continue what we are about to do even if we harm non-living things or we can insist on cancelling our plans for their sake. From where I am right now, I would always choose to proceed to earn a living. As I bring harm to them, I save my life as a living organism.
I don’t think this is an ideal way of thinking as a businessperson but I wanted to be as honest as I can in this blog since I’m sharing it to everyone who may see it. The point is, since I’m here, it would be better to express my thoughts through honesty without sugarcoating my ideas.
To make everything clear, I love both living and non-living things. It’s just that, I don’t see them to be of equal value. If there’s always a way that I can choose not to harm any of them, of course I’d choose that path. But to be practical, still living over non-living for me.
Overall, at the end of the day, living things are more important that non-living things for me. But who knows, my ideas now may not be my ideas a day from now. Our perspectives are highly influenced by what is around us. Maybe, if I get along with people who value non-living things as much as they do with living ones, I may adapt their point of view and borrow it to form mine again. This is a proof that our way of thinking will never be permanent. I may say that “I am not the same person I was minutes ago” just like how we speedily delete tweets that we regret after 2 mins of tweeting. Lol.
That’s all for today, see you next week!
schnideris.health.blog 