Environmental

Ethics: Western
Religious Beliefs,
Development of
Science and
Technology,
And Modern
Perspectives
Dr Edsel E. Sajor
Important Developments in
Western Perspectives
 The Judeo-Christian Thinking
 The Development of Scientific Thinking
 Industrialization and Development of the
Market
Evaluating the Judeo-Christian
Beliefs
1. A key assumption is that any major religious text,
such as the Bible among Christians, are open to
more than one interpretation.
2. It is important to distinguish when we speak of
Christianity between (a) the historical institution of
the Christian church on the one hand; and, (b) the
logical implications of its doctrine on the other.
3. It is important to identify a particular reading that
has become dominant historically.
4. From a historical point of view, it was the views of
the Christian thinkers such as Augustine (354-430)
and St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) that prevailed,
and not St. Francis’ (to be discussed later)
Most Relevant Biblical Passage in Man and
Nature Debate Is the Story of Creation in
Genesis I.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of
the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth and over every
creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he

created them; male and female he created them.

And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply,
and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the
sea and over the birds of the airs, and over every living thing that
moves upon the earth.”

And God said,,”Behold I have given you every plant yielding seed
which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its
fruit; you shall have them for food”
Debate Over Interpretation of Meaning of the
Word ‘Dominion’ in Genesis I
 ‘Dominion’ has been interpreted as ‘despotic mastery’ and
‘rationalization of exploitive practices’.
 On the other hand, a counterpoint interpretation of
‘dominion’ is stewardship – A caring ‘dominion’. According
to this stewardship view, therefore, there is a God who
expects us to exercise responsibility towards the earth. The
earth belongs to God, and members of the Homo sapiens
are commanded to take care of it and creatures that dwell
therein. The earth should be treated in a responsible and
virtuous way, because the earth and its creatures have
independent moral standing or inherent worth – that is,
they belong to God.
 In Judeo-Christianity, the ‘despotic mastery’ became the
dominant interpretation of ‘dominion’ and not the
stewardship.
The Medieval View of Man
and Nature: Christianity vs
Animism
 The victory of Christianity over paganism with its animistic belief was
the greatest psychic revolution in the history of our culture.
Especially in its Western form, Christianity is the most
anthropocentric religion the world has seen. It established not only
a dualism of man and nature, but also insisted that it is God’s will
that man exploit nature for his proper ends.

 In contrast, in antiquity every tree, every spring, every stream, every

hill had its own genius loci, its guardian spirit. These spirits where
accessible to men, but were very unlike men. Before one cut a
tree, mined a mountain, or damned a brook, it was important to
placate the spirit in charge of that particular situation, and to keep
it placated.

 By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to

exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural
objects.
Alternative Christian View: St
Francis of Assissi
 St. Francis held the most radical view in Christian
history: his belief in the virtue of humility – not
merely for the individual but for man as species.
He deposed man from his monarch y over
creation and set up a democracy of all God’s
creatures.
 His views of nature and of man rested on a unique
notion that all things animate and inanimate, were
designed for the glorification of their transcendent
Creator; thus, he tried to substitute the idea of the
equality of all creatures, including man, for the
idea of man’s limitless rule of creation. He,
however, failed.
The role of science
 Development of Science is far older than the so-called Scientific
Revolution of the 17th century or the so-called Industrial Revolution
of the 18th century. By AD 1000 the West had already translated
and studied the works of Islamic scientists in medicine, optics, and
mathematics, who earlier studied and further the works of scholars
of Ancient Greece..
 Co-simultaneously, early Western scientists, from 13th century
onward, explained their motivations in religious terms and made
science compatible with the matrix of Christian theology –
especially the dogma of creation.
 The rise of modern science tended to contribute to a kind of
human euphoria. A new era where humans could understand the
world, and nature became intelligible and controllable. Sometimes
nature came to be thought of as more like a machine, something
over which man could exert influence for one’s own ends
(Descarte, for example). With the power to understand and to
predict came to the power to control, to manipulate and to
dominate.
Industrial development and
market economies
 Scientific knowledge advancement became
harnessed by and was given further impetus by
industrialization and development of market
economies and the latter’s expansion.
 Together the three phenomena, which mutually
boosted each other, further strengthened the
contemporary cultural perspective of
anthropocentrism in society and environment
relationship.
 However, the ecological crises that these factors
have triggered are of the scale that currently forces
a fundamental rethinking of the dominant Western
perspective on society and environment, in the fields
of human behavior and policy.
Thank you.