The world is changing and global warming has been the cause of the greatest changes. Scientists claim that human activities have interfered with the environment to the point that it has accelerated the rate of extinction of species by 10,000 percent with the new rate amounting to between 4000 to 6000 extinction of species annually. The international community through various conventions and agreements have urged each government to mitigate the rate of GHG emissions to the environment (Clarke, 2004). Respective governments for the last two decades have focused on taxes to help reduce emissions from the industries and have invested in renewable energy to aid the transformation from fossil fuel dependency towards green energy as the primary source of energy for the increasing population and dependence in energy.
The investment of electric cars has dominated recent innovations in the bid to reduce the reliance on fossil fuel engines. The move has been growing tremendously over the past decade with the recognition that the transportation industry is the single most cause of GHG emissions (Clowney, 2006). The innovation is seen as the road mark to help reduce the emissions with most people willing to purchase the electric cars which are more expensive than fossil fuel cars to conserve the environment.
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The motivation for consumer behaviors towards the preference to buy the electric vehicles is based on human values which are guided by their ethical standards. Philosophers’ use of moral theories has tried to interpret consumer behavior towards their lifestyles and actions. Environmentalists tend to focus on acknowledging the value of nature to illustrate the need to preserve the environment and its beautiful and special content as well as the survival of life in the environment. However, the ethical guidelines towards the view of the environment will determine the success and future of electric vehicles hence the aim of this essay to focus on the biocentrism, eco-centrism and anthropocentrism to determine which ethical guidelines will be most beneficial or inhibiting on the future of electric cars. This article is divided into four sections with this chapter being the introduction that has introduced the topic. The next chapter defines and discusses the concepts of the three environmental understanding under each theory. The third section is an analysis of the application of the three theories in regards to the future of electric cars whereas the last chapter is a summary of the key issues discussed in the entire paper.
Environmental or Ecological Theories
Environmentalists view nature to be of grave importance but the value and definition of nature differs depending on the theory individuals and societies intends to align their morals. According to biocentrism eco-ethics, all forms of life have a right to exist. The theory argues that animals’ rights comes before plants’ rights. The eco-centrism eco-ethics argues that humans have a responsibility to take care of the environment since man is just a single member of the community hence man is not more important than any other species. The anthropocentrism theory is human-centered, and the complete opposite of the eco-centrism hence argue that human’s survival is dependent on exploiting the environment. The anthropocentrism only takes care of the environment by understanding that the environment is important for their current and future survival. These summaries of each theory provide the basic assumptions of each theory, but for the sake of reliable analysis in the next chapter, it is important to understand the guidelines and principles of each theory.
Biocentrism
Unlike the traditional environmental ethics that were obsessed with animals and they claimed that animals have their rights to be treated in the best way possible. Singer and Regan were adamant that animals should be treated as almost equal to the humans with their extensive arguments on animal rights to the point that it was almost impossible to determine whether their arguments were aimed at nature protection or just animal protection. Biocentrism as proposed and pioneered by the Nobel Prize winner Albert Schweitzer argues, ‘‘True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness: ‘I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live.’” (Paehlke, 2000). Therefore biocentrism is aimed at promoting relevance for all life. Biocentrism principles are based on beings who have interests to gain moral consideration.
The non-sentient beings have no interests, therefore, they are not morally considerable. The theory argues that plants have benefits but their interests are only considered after animal’s rights are considered thus depicting that animals’ rights are superior to the plant’s rights. The broad scope of biocentrism and lack of clarity results in conflict for instance in the comparison of the well-watered plant to a well-oiled car is misguided in the essence that a car does not have sentience but the term interest result in confusion. It ends up resulting in vagueness due to the lack of focusing on critical explanation leads to bold claims that are inapplicable in most scenarios.
Eco-centrism
This approach is a pro-nature theory that sees nature as a habitat for different but equal species. The approach argues that saving the last individual living species is worth more than anything else. As earlier indicated, human activities have increased the rates of extinction with between 4000 and 6000 special species becoming extinct annually. Therefore, the theory would argue that in the case of tigers whose existence is threatened by human activities hence the need to consider the remaining tigers as the most valuable creatures in the world. The approach is simple in its claim that unlike other eco-theories that use human-centered arguments, humans under eco-centrism are just an equal member of a community (Kirby Corporation, 2012). It encourages the moral responsibility of towards nature by preserving its beauty and the natural environment as special. Eco-centrism moves away from the individualistic scope of rights and interests towards awarding moral responsibility based on a wide worldview and the relationship between humans and nature. Leopold’s analysis on the need to protect natural features and the land is one of the dominating principles of eco-centrism and resulted in ecosystem analysis and protection. The definition of ecosystems as defined by the eco-centrism promoters are the inclusion of organism and the environment. The broadness of the definition results in confusion due to the failure of determining the beginning and end of the ecosystem which determines the moral responsibilities towards the environment. Critics of the theory argue that the skeptical broadness of the theoretical limits confuse whether one should all the bacteria living in his body because the bacteria has a right to exist or whether the human should terminate the bacteria by taking anti-bacterial medications. These issues tend to limit the credibility of the theory but are still applicable in the sense of environmental preservation. The dark green emphasis used to ensure that human activities do not pollute the environment makes the theory applicable in the topic of the green future of electric cars as will discussed later in the paper.
Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism is human-centered hence the arguments that nature or the environment is there to be exploited by humans to satisfy their utility or maximize their happiness. Since the industrial revolution, western civilization and improvement of the life came at the cost of environmental protection. The western lifestyle characterized by extravagant way of life and little or no regards towards nature can be considered as the cause of the current global warming. The deforestation and environmental degradation to pave the way for the industrialization of countries which satisfies individual utilities can support their actions through anthropocentrism principles. However, following the consideration that global warming is transforming the earth into a desert, anthropocentrism approach calls for moral responsibilities by every individual to ensure that the earth will be habitable for future generations of humans (Paehlke, 2000). The selfish call to ensure that human continue exploiting the environment for their existence and happiness may be viewed as unethical, but it is a starting point to limit overexploitation of resources. The theory may have promoted the industrial revolution and the tampering with the ozone layer leading to the current climatic conditions but humans have realized that the continued overexploitation and pollution is affecting their lives negatively.
Anthropocentrism promoters have therefore encouraged the introduction of light green ‘lite green’ policies that will enable the preservation of the environment without limiting the human-centeredness of the theory or diminishing the dominance of human importance overall another organism. The light green sentiments are based on the ideas that protecting the environment from pollution will ensure better conditions for human’s survival even in the future rather than abandoning the moral responsibility of the environment today and damning the future human generation to extinction. The most important point to note under this theory is that anthropocentrism calls for ecosystem preservation is based on what is right for the future generation of humans rather the thought of moral responsibilities for protecting the environment.
A pplicability and Comparison of the Three Eco-theories on the Green Future of Electric Cars
The move towards electric cars in the bid to mitigate the global warming is dominating the automotive industry with every major company investing most of their revenues to ensure the achievements of the dream transformation from gasoline dependence towards electricity dependence. The electric vehicles will ensure that GHG emissions from the transportation industry is reduced to the minimum levels but such a move is dependent on the social and political ideologies that guide the most influential decision makers. The arguments for electric cars are based on the ability to reduce emissions of GHG and the increment in investments towards renewable energy. However, the charging stations and the additional need of electricity generation would result in ethical dilemmas due to the exploitation of natural resources. The main shortcoming associated with electric cars is the inability of the LEED batteries to store power for long distances and the pollution caused by the titanium and materials used to make the batteries due to their short lifespans. These problems make it difficult to determine whether the change will eliminate the pollution entirely.
Biocentrism is difficult to apply on the issue of electric cars with its broadness and application focusing on differentiating the interests and sentience of animals and plants forming its basic concepts making it complex for the topic. Under this approach it would only be clear that politicians will endorse the innovations of electric cars to protect the environment and the living organism. However, the need to define the cars as to having interests to have available electricity and servicing may reduce its applicability.
The only way to apply biocentrism is via considering the exploitation of natural resources which will affect other living organisms, that is, the embracement of electric cars will lead to increased dependence on electricity hence the building of hydro-electric generating stations. Which requires dam construction on the source of the river faced key challenges from the German biocentrism with the allegations that the building of the dams affected the existence of the fish and other organisms down the river (Riordan, 1997). The protection would later be considered under eco-centrism which was able to demonstrate that such exploitation of the natural resources were unwarranted. Biocentrism, therefore, lacks the strength to be considered in this analysis.
Eco-centrism argues that the world is dominated by corrupt industrialist individuals who through their selfish desires are willing to exploit the environment by reducing the relationship between humans, other species and nature. The arguments calls for change in the political policies and settings to ensure that the decision makers are willing to consider the benefits of preserving the environment at all costs. The activism to protect four rivers in Norway from dam creation by acknowledging that although the hydro-electricity produced in the dams construction was important for adding needed electric energy, it was not as important as preserving the endangered species that would become extinct due to the diversion of the river flow (Mitsui & Lines, 2011). Similar arguments can be considered as a hindrance towards maximizing the production of electric cars.
However, eco-centrism arguments are based on protecting the ecosystem from the over exploitation of the humans though their activities and will ensure that other renewable energies are utilized to cater for the electricity need to operate the cars. According to the dark green policies and ideas, eco-centrism argue that changing the scope and political ideologies from human-centeredness that dominates the current eco-ethics will ensure that the politicians or decision makers are able to see the relevance of nature and its beauty thus invest in other forms of energy generation. For instance, following the demonstrations in Norway to ensure that the four major rivers were protected from exploitation or creating dams led to engineers developing ways to generate hydro-electricity from the waterfalls of the same rivers therefore showing that there are many ways to utilize the natural resources without tampering with the environment.
The eco-centrism dark green ideologies are central to the investment in electric cars due to their environmental preservation abilities. The eco-centrism proponents understand the value of reducing fossil fuel dependency since it is a non-renewable resource and contributes to over 50% of the total GHG emissions hence the move to propose the move from gasoline vehicles towards the renewable energy engines (Saxena, & Khandelwal, 2010). It is evident that issues such as hydro-electricity production or chemicals in the batteries may result in pollution hence lead to dilemmas in the decision making processes but the eco-centrism proponents focus on ensuring preservation of natural resources tends to dominant their reasoning thus will favor the electric cars. In other words, it is clear that eco-centrism promote promotion of ecosystem and will focus all their resources on saving an extinction threatened resource and with the predictions of fossil fuels depleting and assumed that the current energy demand will consume the remaining fossil fuels in the next 50 or 100 years is reason enough to promote the transformation from gasoline dependency towards renewable energy vehicles.
The extraction of fossil fuel also increases the extinction of organism and destroys the ecosystem thus depicting that eco-centrism policies and ideologies will ensure that by investing more on electric cars, and the transportation sector utilizing over 70% of the fossil fuels, the policies ensure preservation of the extinction threatened organisms (Kampman et al., 2005). The eco-centrism are adamant that the changes must be fast hence the need to change the inhibiting policies to ensure that governments endorse the production of electric cars and provide the needed technical and financial backing to make the change swift.
Anthropocentrism proponents are individualistic and industrial oriented but they understand that survival for humans is dependent on the environment. This understanding has led to the promotion of green or renewable energy innovations funded by the governments. The U.S. government although run by the industrial and individualistic politicians have invested billions in geothermal energy with the understanding that for the economy to continue to grow and the increasing demand of energy which is threatening the volume of the remaining fossil fuel, the government must establish ways that ensure transformation from gasoline dependency towards renewable energies. The government through subsidiaries have ensured greater investment in the electric cars which is a positive indication that human-centeredness of industrialist is not always bad for the environment. The future of electric cars at the moment when anthropocentrism proponents are cornered seems bright but with the high preference of human satisfaction the process of transformation towards electric cars is likely to be slower compared to the proposals made by the eco-centrism advocates.
The world is changing and with the electric cars still at the infant stages questions on whether the electric cars will be able to entirely replace the gasoline cars are still high. The failure of efficient and reliable charging stations have resulted in electric car uses being stranded due to low batteries after short distances and the limited accessibility of the charging stations have resulted in negative view towards electric vehicles (Dalton, 2005). The continued inability for the automotive companies to enhance the reliance of the vehicles and with the individualism dominating the anthropocentrism advocates, it is deemed to restrain the future of electric cars manufacturing due to lack of demand from the consumers.
However, recent studies demonstrate that although most of the world’s population tends to use anthropocentrism eco-ethics, over 70% of the consumers are willing to purchase the cars even for higher prices to mitigate global warming. The only limitation of the willingness to purchase the electric cars is on the unreliability of the batteries and few charging stations (Rydh, 2003). Therefore, innovations in better power storage and more charging stations will promote the production and future of electric cars in the long-run. Recent calls by government officials to limit GHG by encouraging the use of green diesel by arguing that everybody has the right to inhale clean air is evidence that the anthropocentrism proponents although guided by selfish human-centeredness and their moral obligations towards future generations will endorse investments in electric cars.
The paper discussed environmental ethics in connection with the ethical dilemmas that would either promote or inhibit the future of electric cars. The definitions and analysis of the three theories namely biocentrism, eco-centrism, and anthropocentrism indicate that each theory has specific assumptions and guidelines. Biocentrism is too broad thus not applicable in the discussion of the topic. Eco-centrism and anthropocentrism are applicable and will promote electric cars production. Eco-centrism is based on enhancing immediate electric cars to protect the environment from GHG emissions whereas anthropocentrism will endorse electric cars production to ensure suitable and suitable living conditions for the humans and future generations of humans. The motives may defer but these two theories will ensure progress in the infant electric cars production.
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