Gare Arran
Department of Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology 400B221 Hawthorn campus; John St, Hawthorn VIC 3122, Melbourne, Australia; tel.: 61 3 9214 8539;
Cuad Bioet. 2016 Sep-Dec;27(91):299-317.
While environmental ethics has successfully established itself in philosophy, as presently conceived it is still largely irrelevant to grappling the global ecological crisis because, as Alasdair MacIntyre has argued, ethical philosophy itself is in grave disorder. MacIntyre's historically oriented recovery of virtue ethics is defended, but it is argued that even MacIntyre was too constrained by received assumptions to overcome this disorder. As he himself realized, his ideas need to be integrated and defended through philosophical anthropology. However, it is suggested that current defenders of philosophical anthropology have not done it justice. To appreciate its importance it is necessary accept that we are cultural beings in which the core of culture is the conception of what are humans. This is presupposed not only in thought but in social practices and forms of life. This was understood by Aristotle, but modernity has been straightjacketed by the Seventeenth Century scientific revolution and Hobbes' philosophical anthropology, identifying knowledge and with techno-science and eliminating any place for questioning this conception of humans. The only conception of humanity that could successfully challenge and replace Hobbes' philosophical anthropology, it is argued, is Hegel's philosophical anthropology reformulated and developed on naturalistic foundations. This involves subordinating science to a reconceived humanities with a fundamentally different role accorded to ethics, placing it at the center of social life, politics and economics and at the centre of the struggle to transform culture and society to create an ecologically sustainable civilization.
虽然环境伦理学已在哲学领域成功确立自身地位，但就目前的构想而言，它在应对全球生态危机方面仍基本无关紧要，因为正如阿拉斯戴尔·麦金太尔所指出的，伦理哲学本身正处于严重的混乱之中。麦金太尔对德性伦理学的历史导向性复兴得到了辩护，但有人认为，即使是麦金太尔也受到既定假设的过度限制，无法克服这种混乱。正如他自己所意识到的，他的思想需要通过哲学人类学来整合和辩护。然而，有人认为，当前哲学人类学的捍卫者并未公正地对待它。要认识到其重要性，就必须承认我们是文化存在，其中文化的核心是对人类的概念理解。这不仅在思想中是预设的，在社会实践和生活形式中也是如此。亚里士多德理解这一点，但现代性却被17世纪的科学革命和霍布斯的哲学人类学所束缚，将知识与技术科学等同起来，并消除了对这种人类概念提出质疑的任何空间。有人认为，唯一能够成功挑战并取代霍布斯哲学人类学的人类概念，是在自然主义基础上重新表述和发展的黑格尔哲学人类学。这涉及将科学置于重新构想的人文学科之下，赋予伦理学一个根本不同的角色，将其置于社会生活、政治和经济的中心，以及置于改造文化和社会以创造生态可持续文明的斗争的中心。
