2.1 Philosophical level

This ‘high’ level deals with fundamental explanatory statements: ethical claims of validity are raised that should be applied universally, that is, for all members of the ethical discourse community. In the philosophical universe of discourse on environmental ethics the pros and cons of certain positions are developed and discussed. The participants of this discussion are the academic ethics experts (environmental ethicists) and all people who have to make environmental decisions in their vocational context (politicians and jurists, but also engineers, biotechnologists, etc.). In an extended framework all people can participate in the environmental debate if they possess a developed environmental consciousness (as well as a certain scientific education) and when they wish to account for their actions towards the environment. Among the participants of the environmental discourse all non-philosophers, of course, are dependent on preparatory work from the environmental experts for a better understanding and orientation: they expect well-founded proposals for environmentally compatible behaviour and an argued solution to environmental ethical conflicts.

However, within environmental ethics—as mentioned above—there are controversies among environmental ethicists that make orientation difficult; in particular, the anthropocentric and physiocentric positions are opposed sharply. For the broader public it is not possible offhand to comprehend the pros and cons of arguments concerning the alternatives presented by philosophers. However, when the internal philosophical debate does not lead to any objectively valid results, environment-ethical counselling of the public and especially the decision-makers (politicians, engineers, etc.) is possible only in a limited way. Ultimately each person and each society has to decide for itself to what extent it wants to give—besides the anthropocentric arguments—importance to physiocentric arguments

If and how far animal and nature ethical aspects will play a role in the behaviour of people and societies has to be decided by each person individually or—on the national and international level—politically. In order that these decisions are not ill founded or made merely intuitively, it is necessary to gain a profound understanding of the controversial discussions within professional environmental ethics.