A Study On Iwasa Shigeru's Thoughts Of Environmental Ethic

Shigeru Iwasa,representative of the contemporary Japanese scholars on the environmental ethics,proposed his own thoughts on environmental ethics of both practicality and sociality.Taking the real environmental problem of Japan into consideration,he took a new look at the relationship between man and nature by reflecting and refuting the mainstream of the western environmental ethics.He thinks,the environmental problems in essence are the problems of human's economic activities.Therefore,he advocates seeking a mode of economic activities that does not destroy the environment,and constructing the environmental ethics with the unity of the economic activities and the environmental protection.Shigeru Iwasa's views on the coexistence between man and nature,the environmental justice,the environmental practices and the sustainable development have revealed the profound ethical implications in his environmental thoughts.Hence,the in-depth study on Shigeru Iwasa's environmental ethics thoughts is useful for constructing the environmental ethical dimension in the ecological civilization construction and further exploring the roots and solutions of the environmental crisis.The thesis aims to,with the guidance of the scientific Maxist world view and methodology,make a complete and systematic summary,interpretation and comment,by text interpreting,comparing and combining theory into practice.The main contents are composed of the three major parts: the introduction,the seven-chapter systematic elaboration and the conclusion.The introduction briefly analyzes the current research home and abroad on Shigeru Iwasa's environmental ethics thoughts,and clarifies the basic ideas of the research,research purpose,significance and innovation.Chapter 1 gives a systematic survey of the social background and the origin of Shigeru Iwasa's environmental ethics thoughts.On the one hand,the increasingly serious global ecological crisis and the industrial pollution brought about by the rapid industrialization in Japan have provided the social and historical background for the environmental problems Shigeru Iwasa is concerned about and the social factors involved.On the other hand,the scientific Marxist understanding of the relationship between human and nature,the critique of the capitalism and its mode of production from the ecological Marxism around the world and the holistic standpoint of the Japanese environmental ethics have laid solid foundation for Shigeru Iwasa's environmental ethics thoughts.Chapter 2 clarifies the theoretical horizon of Shigeru Iwasa's environmental ethics thoughts.Shigeru Iwasa,after thinking dialectically over the debate on the position of the natural moral,established the holistic environmental ethics theory that abandons the “center dispute”.With the prerequisite of this logic,he thought over the question of value in the environmental problems,the social relations between human and the environmental problems and the human's economic activities,and constructed the environmental ethics thoughts which aims at promoting the coexistence between human and nature,realizing the environmental justice among human beings,the feasible modes of practices and the sustainable development among man,nature and society.Chapter 3 analyzes Shigeru Iwasa's view of coexistence between man and nature.Shigeru Iwasa gained the perspective of the coexistence between human and nature during his deep thinking over the relationship between man and nature.The essence of the holistic view on the coexistence between man and nature is that it not only surpasses the theoretical dispute on anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism and extends the human's moral concern to the nature as a sensible choice to deal with the relationship between man and nature,but also highlights the targets of practicing the relationship between man and nature,trying to construct the coexistence between man and nature by correcting the way human beings deal with the nature.Chapter 4 makes a comprehensive survey of Shigeru Iwasa's view of environmental justice.Shigeru Iwasa carried out an in-depth exploration for the root causes of the environmental injustice by analyzing the existing environmental injustice problems.He proposed that the environmental justice should be realized by clarifying environmental responsibility,suppressing capital logic and establishing eco-socialism.It reveals the dimension of the environmental justice with the unification of distributive justice and productive justice,institutional transformation and value criticism.Chapter 5 legitimately interprets Shigeru Iwasa's view of environmental practices.“Capital logic” and “life logic” are the two core concepts in Shigeru Iwasa's view of the environmental practices.Shigeru Iwasa further clarifies the deep relationship,by distinguishing the nature of capital logic and life logic,among capital logic,life logic and environmental protection.He also proposed his view of the environmental practices which surpasses capital logic but follows life logic.Chapter 6 deeply expounds Shigeru Iwasa's view of sustainable development.Shigeru Iwasa advocates the patterns of economic activities that won't destroy the environment.He interpreted the ethical implications of sustainable development,elaborates on how coexistence between man and nature can promote sustainable development of the environment,how environmental justice can guide sustainable development of a society and how life logic can ensure sustainable development of human beings,and finally proposed some feasible approaches to construct the value of sustainable development,separate from the alienated industrialization and build a eco-friendly recycling society.Chapter 7 briefly reviews Shigeru Iwasa's environmental ethics thoughts and reveals its inspiration for the ecological civilization construction in China.Shigeru Iwasa's environmental ethics thoughts have deepened the holistic environmental ethics,intensified the targets of the environmental ethics and been a positive guide to solve the real problems.China is now at the key stage of ecological civilization construction.If Shigeru Iwasa's advanced thoughts of coexistence between man and nature,environmental justice,environmental practices and sustainable development can be used for reference,it will be of great significance for China to construct the ecological ethics culture of harmonious coexistence,practice the ecological ethics norm of environmental justice,surpass ecological ethics idea of capital logic and realize the ecological ethics goal of green development.The conclusion firstly summarizes the holistic and practical features of Shigeru Iwasa's environmental ethics thoughts,then points out the thesis' referential,contributive and informative function for the later study on Shigeru Iwasa's thoughts,and finally proposed that the emphasis and difficulty in studying Shigeru Iwasa's thoughts lies in its theoretical traits of the Japanese environmental ethics and the comparison with the theoretical traits of the western environmental ethics.