Christophe Bouriau

Faced with unprecedented environmental challenges, this book offers ethical reflections that may inspire all those concerned with legal rules, whether they influence, draft, apply or comply with it. This book combines the perspectives of two disciplines, law and ethics as a branch of philosophy, both of which share a common interest in standards of human conduct. The aim of this work is both to serve as a handbook for interested readers and to explore certain current issues in greater scientific depth through collective research.
Environmental ethics links ethics as the goal of a good and happy life with morality as a theory of duties : it connects the question of living well with that of our duties towards nature and all living beings. However, this concept faces a major difficulty : until recently, the term "ethics" was used solely in relation to interpersonal relationships. Environmental ethics, however, considers that we have duties towards natural entities that are not persons according to the classical approaches.
How can it justify this upheaval ? How can we have duties towards non-human beings, who have no duties towards us ? These are the guiding questions of this book.