Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-c9gpj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T08:35:00.091Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Saving the environment — does utilitarianism provide a justification?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Indira Mahalingam Carr
Indira Mahalingam Carr*
Affiliation:
University College of Wales, Aberystwyth
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

There is an increasing awareness of the need to save man's environment for current and future generations, both on the part of governments and of the populace generally. This has resulted in a number of enactments, both national and international, which purport to protect the environment in a number of ways - by controlling, for instance, the release of pollutants into the atmosphere, the dumping of waste products in the sea, the killing of marine life, the export of endangered species and so on.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 92 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. The effects of industrial activity on man's well-being was not unknown before this century. In the seventeenth century John Evelyn wrote of the effects of impure atmosphere on man's biological functions.

2. A number of international organisations like World Health Organisation, Food and Agriculture Organisation, International Maritime Organisation are engaged in drawing up legislations protecting the environment which are to have global effect.

3. For an interesting discussion on the various social forces in operation in relation to environmental issues see Gunningham, Neil, Pollution Social Interest and the Law (1974) London: Martin Robertson Google Scholar.

4. Utilitarianism was not an entirely new philosophy introduced by Jeremy Bentham. The constituent elements - hedonism and consequentialism - were present in Greek thought. Epicurus, for instance, promotes the idea of happiness as a goal of human action and draws a distinction between lower and higher pleasures. Moreover, these concepts are not peculiar to Western philosophy. Some of the schools of Eastern philosophy considered happiness as a way of achieving fulfilment; and some Chinese thinkers like Mo Tzu saw man's pursuit of happiness as taking place in a social context thereby propounding the need to balance the happiness of the individual against that of the society as a whole. (See Chan, Wing-Tsit, Sources of Chinese Philosophy (1969) Princeton: Princeton University Press Google Scholar.)

5. Mill, John Stuart, Utilitarianism in collection edited by Warnock, Mary (1989) London: Fontana, p 257 Google Scholar.

6. ‘Rationale of Judicia1 Evidence’ in Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol VI in a collection edited by Bowring, John (1843) Edinburgh, p 238.

7. Bentham seems to be stating here that moral statements can be derived from descriptive statements - that is, an ‘ought’ can be derived from an ‘is’.

8. Bentham, Jeremy ‘An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation’, paras 1 & 2 in Mill, Stuart, John Utilitarianism in collection edited by Warnock, Mary (1969) London: Fontana, pp 33–34 Google Scholar.

9. For an interesting debate on utilitarianism see Smart, J. J. C. & Williams, Bernard, Utilitarianism For &' Against (1973) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. Bentham, Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, para 3, pp 34–35 Google Scholar.

11. Ibid, para 4, p 35.

12. See Lyons, David In the Interest of the Governed (1991) Oxford: Clarendon Press CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a fuller discussion of parochial happiness and universal happiness.

13. Ibid, p 26.

14. Bentham, Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, para 4, p 35 Google Scholar.

15. Bentham, Jeremy, Principles of International Law in Bowring, John, Works of Jeremy Bentham.

16. Bentham, Jeremy in Bowring, John, Works of Jerry Bentham, vol 11, p 537.

17. Bentham, Jeremy in Bowring, John, Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol IV.

18. Ibid, vol IV, p 567.

19. Bentham, Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, edited by Burns, J. H. & Hart, H. L. A. (1972) New York: Methuen Google Scholar, ch XVII, paras 2 & pp 282-283.

20. Ibid, ch XVII, para 8, p 285.

21. Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method (1960) Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp 80–81.Google Scholar

22. Bentham, Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, edited by Burns, J. H. & Hart, H. L. A. (1972) ch CVII, para 4, pp 282–283 Google Scholar.

23. Mahalingam, Indira, Communication without Language - A Framework (1983) PhD thesis (Exeter University) where I discuss the possibility of ascribing beliefs and intentions to languageless creatures.

* I wish to thank Dr Brian Carr, Nottingham University for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper.