This week, After I read the Land Ethic, I noticed that it is a novel topic. Because very few people will focus on protecting the land and a new word, “egocentrism.” The basis of the egocentrism is that ecology reveals that humans and other members of nature have both diachronic and synchronic relationship, and they are part of the life system. Therefore, we should consider the ecosystem as a whole, rather than separating the individual in which the parent is contained. Unlike most modern moral theories, which focus on individual rights or interests, ecocentrism is a holistic or totalitarian approach. It judges the moral value of human behaviour based on its impact on the environment. The main problem faced by ecocentrists is how to coordinate the interests of the environment with each of us’s rights and interests. The idea is a research perspective of environmental ethics. It proposes that the central issue of environmental ethics should be the ecosystem or biological community itself or its sub-systems, rather than the individual members it includes. In response to the controversy of ecocentrism, the modern approach defended anthropocentric values on the one hand, and on the other hand, reflected on the inherent defects of modern anthropocentric values. In Leopold’s view, the anthropocentrism value itself is not a problem, because any species is always centred on its own interests. At the same time, the ultimate goal of the ecological movement is to protect the overall and long-term interests of mankind (Leopold 2). It denies and abandons the anthropocentrism values, and the ecological movement will lose its inherent power and cannot continue. Therefore, what needs to be reflected and criticized is not the anthropocentric values itself, but the modern anthropocentric values. In their view, the problem with the values of modern anthropocentrism is that it regards any requirements of human perceptual desires as reasonable and should be satisfied, which leads to the abuse of nature and ecological crisis. Therefore, it must treat modern anthropocentrism. Values are transformed, transforming what it calls “perceptual desire” into “rational desire”, so as to avoid abuse of nature and ecological crisis.

In the article Land ethnic, the ecological crisis has become a global environmental problem therefore proposed the idea that land health is one of the evaluating factors on the ethnicity of land usage. It is mainly manifested in the destruction and exhaustion of natural resources and the pollution and deterioration of the ecological environment, such as air pollution, water pollution, deforestation and vegetation reduction, soil erosion and desertification, garbage flooding, biological extinction, energy shortage, acid rain pollution, earth warming, ozone layer destruction and so on. The increasing severity of the ecological crisis has aroused our unprecedented attention to environmental issues, which has led to a global environmental movement.

All in all, through the establishment of new values, ecologism turns the overcoming of the disadvantages of the existing industrial civilization into the creation of an ecological civilization. I think ecologism is a kind of philosophy first, and then a type of politics. Ecologism is essentially an environmental value, which requires us to truly transcend the value of ourselves or local interests to respect and maintain the interests of nature and the whole. I also believe that ecologism is a kind of ecological consciousness and a kind of earth consciousness. It is a kind of heart treasure to the blue planet we live in. As most of us in the 21st century gradually recognize and accept the new ecological values, the image of we as the guardian and perfecter will surely replace the image of the conqueror and exploiter. The relationship between us and nature will move towards a new situation of harmony and unity.

Yunxiang

Works Cited

Leopold, Aldo. The land ethic. na, 1948.