Are there Universal Environmental Values?

Abstract

If one were to judge from the present state of environmental ethics there is more plurality, diversity and heterogeneity to be found in environmental values than in any other field of human valuation. Plurality means that there is great number of separate values which coexist not only in the value systems of cultures and societies, but even of groups and individuals and for which it is doubtful whether they can be reduced to some one overarching monistic principle. Diversity and heterogeneity mean that these values are of different origins and belong to very different traditions, religious and secular, philosophical and popular, and that they are sometimes diametrically opposed to each other in content and direction. Even if they are compatible in theory they easily conflict in practice, calling for rules of priority to determine their relative weights and order of precedence.