Nature and man

People maintained a close relationship with nature and this relationship has after been described as symbiotic because the very survival of the people depends on it just as a child depends on its mother. In this turn the nature is depended on the people for its preservation. The nature provides not only with our basic requirements but also our recreational, religious, social and cultural needs. Human beings have as innate affinity with nature and other forms of life. Humans are part of nature and interact constantly with it in many ways on the molecular and the larger systems level. There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology, thus the processes and activities of man and nature are not seen in isolation from one another.  Any development requires change but not every change leads to development. Sometime even the development also cannot be called growth. For example development in the industrial scenario cannot be identified as growth since it affects the eco system in one way or the other. The corrosive product of most of these developments is pollution.

Pollution, even though, is not a new problem there are much hue and cry made on its impact today everywhere. It is always inclusive, so it has become a global crisis. In addition it must be ethically evaluated since it harms the whole universe. The question is can pollution be analyzed ethically?  Pollution becomes a human act even it is done knowingly and without any compulsion as ethics requires. Yet it is difficult to determine its nature. For example, though the nuclear energy is useful it may harm the future generation. Hegel has pointed out long ago the nature of this tragedy, “it is the conflict not between right and wrong but between right and right.” But the following analysis on the repercussions of the pollution in the modern world state that it is the conflict between right and right. Thus pollution is problem in morality. Human Chauvinism also bases its arguments on features of value and morality. Since the values are determined through human interest and thus value and morality are compressed to human interest.  Since, there is no alternative possibility for human rationality the environmental pollution is easily justified as trivial trial.  This theory holds that utility or usefulness is the norm of morality because what is useful is always considered to be good. Although every good thing is useful to all sometimes every useful thing is not good to all. Ultimately, the victim of such kind is the environment. Consequently, other species in the biosphere are under risk. This theory also degrades environment as it receives just instrumental value.  Consumerism is the excessive desire possesses things, in human beings induced by the advertisement and other means of communication. The consumerist attitude is also the cause for pollution. When a new thing arrives, the old things are not properly disposed and it pollutes the land and environment and it also troubles the biosphere. The advertisements induce people to fall in consumerism and the result is pollution by improper disposal of things which become pollutants of the environment.  Consumerism is one of the expressions of human greed, which also affects the eco-system.  The only solution to solve the ethical problems caused by pollution is to respect and esteem the value of environment. Having rationality we need to transcend our ethical realm. In other words, we human have to extend the ethical horizon including the environment at large. The concept of right and wrong cannot be restricted to the human realm; ethics must go beyond human realm to the environment itself.[1]  Thus, human person is not more a master or a dictator of the Erath community but the first among the equals who is responsible for the land community and this evokes the feeling of genuine kinship.[2]  Respecting the nature is also the expression of respecting the humanity as it shows that we respect for the other human as human being and also care for the future generation.

Br. Godfrey

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