There are two forms of anthropocentrism, weak and strong, and weak anthropocentrism is adequate to support an environmental ethic. Environmental ethics is, however, distinctive vis-a-vis standard British and American ethical systems because, in order to be adequate, it must be nonindividualistic. Environmental ethics involves decisions on two levels, one kind of which differs from usual decisions affecting individual fairness while the other does not.
The latter, called allocational decisions, are not reducible to the former and govern the use of resources across extended time. Weak anthropocentrism provides a basis for criticizing individual, consumptive needs and can provide the basis for adjudicating between these levels, thereby providing an adequate basis for environmental ethics without the questionable ontological commitments made by non-anthropocentrists in attributing intrinsic value to nature (Norton, 1984). Because of that complexity, humans need the environmental ethics that apply ethical standards to relationships between human and non-human entities. It is hard to resolve because it depends on the person’s ethical standards and the person’s domain of ethical concern. One suggestion of the environmental ethics is that seeing humans as important species but humans have an ethical responsibility to care for the rest of nature. Moreover, humans will probably not run out of resources, but they should not be wasted.
Besides that, humans should encourage environmentally beneficial forms of economic growth and discourage environmentally harmful forms. So human’s success depends on how well humans manage the earth’s life-support systems for human benefit and for the rest of nature.
