Environmental Ethics – Genesis, Development, Directions

Abstract

The article discusses the origins of environmental ethics, including the process of its emergence from traditional ethics. At the same time, the differences between both types of ethics have been pointed out, taking into account a separate understanding of the subject of morality, the temporal aspect (i.e. the long-term nature of ethical analyses in environmental ethics) and the importance of knowledge underlying human activities, which is pointed out by advocates of environmental ethics. Moreover, the authors present the most important directions of environmental ethics, including its anthropocentric, holistic, and biocentric varieties.