The concept of moral imperative was first established by Immanuel Kant. He suggested that an action must be done because it is the right thing to do. In a situation involving the environment it would seem that the moral imperative would be to care and nurture the environment as we live in it and would like it to be sustainable for future generations. Although some people disagree and thing that the responsibility to care for the environment is not on them, and maybe that the environment doesn’t need to be looked after. A close connection to the moral imperative could be the categorical imperative (created by Kant), which implies that an action must be completed because it is completely necessary. From Kant’s perspective he believed that humans held a special place in creation as we have morality and reason. Meaning that the imperative does not apply to animals and nature and the environment is of no intrinsic value.
In my opinion I think that there is a moral imperative to care for the environment. God gave us the duty of stewardship, putting us in charge of looking after the environment. Which means that humans do have a moral imperative to care for the environment. This idea comes from the understanding that God gave humans the environment for their use, and we should respect and nurture this gift. However, Christian teachings have shown that humans were also given the role of dominion over the environment, which essentially means that we can do whatever we want to the earth, because as it states in the Bible, the earth was made for our use. The idea of stewardship and dominion could be argued that they are only ideal for a Christian. An atheist may argue that the world and our environment that we live in is not a gift, and we have no higher responsibilities to look after the environment. Meaning that there is no moral imperative to care for the environment. Due to the fact that there is no solid evidence to support the fact that God does exist, it is hard to believe that He did give us the role of dominion and stewardship. The Bible can also be interpreted differently which makes the idea of dominion and stewardship weak.
It can be argued that we must have a moral imperative to care for the environment as it keeps us alive. As humans, we depend on the environment for food, water, and substances to maintain our survival. The environment, however, does not depend on us, as we don’t provide it with its light and valuable nutrients. This represents the idea that humans rely on the environment much more than we think. We could potentially be at a higher risk if we don’t care for the environment. The theory of Gaia shows that she is capable of killing humans if it is to protect the environment. This shows that humans do need protection, possibly from the environment itself. In some cases the Gaia theory has been used as an idea of why we have natural disasters and environmental issues such as global warming. It can be argued that Gaia will eventually kill us if we continue to abuse and take the environment for granted.
Many people have come up with the argument that humans do have a moral imperative to look after the environment, this is because are responsible for the majority of the damage done to the environment. Examples of this are actions such as deforestation, or pollution. It has been argued that humans need to look after and care for the environment because we are the ones who have caused all this damage. I believe that we do have a moral imperative to care for the environment because we are the ones who have to live in it and it is our responsibility to make the environment sustainable for future generations. Also as we are all part of God’s creation we should all do our part and look after the environment. Even if a person is an atheist they should still do the moral thing.