The Theoretical Value Of The Modern Human-centrism Ecological Ethics

Since the beginning of the 20th century, relying on the enormous power of the science and technology, the humanity has created the brilliant material civilization. Meanwhile, the conflict between people and nature are becoming obvious: deforestation, the overuse of natural resources, the environmental pollution, the ecological crisis and so on, which are threatening human's survival and development seriously. Environmental ethics attempts to standardize people on nature, and provides a kind of theoretical thinking of solving the ecology crisis. Environment ethics is a theoretical thinking of the urgent social realistic question, it receives people's attention along with the gradually worsening ecological crisis, and therefore there is a lot of dispute since its production. But the center of arguing concentrates in two kind of opposite views is"the human-centrism"and"the natural centrism". This article has not limited to the struggle of"the modern human-centrism"and"the natural centrism", but it seeks a better solution for solving the relation between people and nature—the establishment of the modern human-centrism environmental ethics.First, this article elaborates on the rationality and the limitation of the modern human-centrism environment ethics and the natural centrism environment ethics. The modern human-centrism environmental ethics emphasizes the human's benefit, which conforms the natural law that all species are taken itself as the centre. It also has manifested the human value fully. However, the modern human-centrism insists that only people have the value, the non-humanity world only has the external tool value. Ecological environment has no right and the value without people's need, which unilaterally emphasizes the subject position of people in conquering the transformation of nature. This thought also has neglected the natural environment, the restriction of natural law to the human own activity and the limitations of their own activities, separated the people and the natural world.The natural centrism affirms that the nature has its own intrinsic value, and the status of nature and the people's value are completely equal, people have the direct moral duty to the nature, and people should return to the nature what it should have. It indicates that humanity is seeking one new kind of benefit and value, namely caring about and loving care the whole ecosystem. But, the natural centrism ecological ethics thinks mistakenly that the environmental crisis is caused by the human-centrism, so it proposes one metaphysical solution to the environment crisis: to emphasize the pure protection of nature, but to give up the transformation of the nature. However, all the activities of the humanity revolve around their own survival and the need to develop them. Therefore only if we consider the humanity's benefit, can the environmental protection movement thoroughly last continually.On the basis of affirming and transcending the modern human-centrism and the natural centrism, this article elaborates on the connotation of the modern human-centrism environment ethical thought. The thought is called"the modern human-centrism"environment ethics, because it insists on taking the person as the center when dealing with the relation between people and nature, and insists that the person has ethical and value relations with environment. When it comes to the relation between nature and humanity, this thought insists on the value of people in terms of the relations between people, this thought also insists on the priority of people over the current and small scale interests. These two dimensions are essential to the modern human-centrism ethics, which takes as the center, and which should be considered as the reference point to measure the relation between people and nature. Based on ecology, this thought sees the interrelationship between the things in nature and the restriction of nature on people, emphasizes the long term interests for the sake of development of people. It insists that we should transform nature in reasonable ways, for example, to observe the natural laws, to protect environment by relying on science and technology, to restore the quality of environment, to maintain the ability of nature to develop economy and nature. So to insist on the central position of people is not contradictory with the practice of acknowledging the ecological laws. These should be set as the ideal to struggle for since we aim at getting out of the trouble and to sustain a healthy development.Finally, this article elaborates on the theoretical significance and the practical significance of the modern human-centrism environment ethics. Theoretically, as the most fundamental and the highest values, the modern human-centrism environment ethics has surmounted the environment ethical thoughts both of the natural centrism and the modern human- centrism. Today, in the 21st century, along with the appearance of globalization as well as the worsening of the ecological problem, the sustainable development strategy has become the consensus among many countries. These questions have become the key to human development: how people define their status, how the relation between people and nature should develop. Therefore, the modern human-centrism environment ethical thought has become the present objective to be pursued, has enriched and developed the Marxist ecological philosophy. In practice, the sustainable development does not mean to negate human rational and superiority, nor does it meant to negate the fact that the development of the ultimate goal of human race is people's own value and significance. It seems that this is similar to the human-centrism environmental ethics. The moral principle of sustainable development has manifested the superior status of humanity and the value of the central status of people. More importantly, at the practical level, this environmental philosophy also realizes the value of nature and contributes to the development of mankind. Therefore, for the sake of sustainable development, the modern human-centrism environment ethical thought is the only choice that we can have.