Environmental ethics: real-world examples
Named cases you can use in an answer, each under the syllabus point it illustrates and linked to the lesson it comes from.
HL.c Environmental ethics
HL.c.2Environmental ethics is a branch of ethical philosophy that addresses environmental issues.HL
Palm oil expansion and orangutans, Borneo
Since the 1990s, Indonesian palm oil expansion in Borneo has brought economic development and jobs. It has also destroyed rainforest habitat and pushed the orangutan towards extinction.
Demonstrates the ethical tension between human livelihoods and the rights of other species, which is central to environmental ethics.
Wolf reintroduction, Yellowstone National Park
Wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995 restored ecological balance but caused conflict with nearby ranchers losing livestock. Ecocentrics stress the wolves' intrinsic value, anthropocentrics favour hunting quotas and compensation, and technocentrics favour GPS tracking and electric fencing.
Shows how one environmental issue becomes an ethical dilemma when different value systems judge the same action as right or wrong.
HL.c.3A variety of ethical frameworks and conflicting ethical values emerge from differing fundamental beliefs concerning the relationship between humans and nature.HL
Japanese whaling
Japan continues to hunt whales, citing a cultural tradition of around 800 years and a whale-meat market of about $50 million, while anti-whaling groups argue that endangered, intelligent and social whales have a right to life and are worth more alive through whale-watching tourism (about $2.1 billion globally).
Shows how an anthropocentric belief (whales as a resource to be managed) and an ecocentric belief (whales with inherent rights) produce conflicting ethical values that rights-based ethics cannot settle, because it gives no ranking of cultural rights against animal rights.
Japan Ethical frameworks
HL.c.4Instrumental value is the usefulness an entity has for humans.HL
Elephant trophy hunting debate, Botswana
Botswana is home to about a third of Africa's elephants, and argues over whether to allow hunting so that the animals bring in money and the costs of living alongside them are reduced.
Shows wildlife being valued instrumentally (hunting revenue) and set against the view that elephants have intrinsic value and a right to life.
Botswana Ethical frameworks
HL.c.6The concepts of instrumental and intrinsic value are not exclusive.HL
Whales' instrumental and intrinsic value, Japan
Whales have instrumental value (meat, tourism, carbon storage) and intrinsic value (sentience, evolutionary uniqueness) at the same time. Japanese whalers also treat the hunt as cultural heritage that matters for its own sake.
Demonstrates that one entity can hold both kinds of value at once, and that each stakeholder chooses which value to stress.
Japan Ethical frameworks
HL.c.10Consequentialist ethics is the view that the consequences of an action determine the morality of the action.HL
Golden Rice, Southeast Asia
Golden Rice is genetically modified to produce vitamin A, so it could cut childhood blindness where rice is the staple food. Opponents warn it could contaminate thousands of traditional rice varieties and make small farmers dependent on multinational seed companies.
Shows consequentialist reasoning, where a large health benefit to many people is weighed against harm to biodiversity and to farmers' rights, and shows how technocentric and ecocentric views conflict.
Southeast Asia Ethical frameworks