An Ethical Evaluation of Man's Interaction with Nature

There is a survival instinct operational in every being under the sun. The mother hen would do anything possible to protect her chicks; the female dog would attack anyone she considers a threat to her young poppies. Even the insane woman protects her young with all that is within her power. This is what obtains normally. Over the years it has been discovered that man is more developed than other inhabitants of the earth by virtue of his rationality, and ability consciously make choice of action. With rationality and choice however comes responsibility. From evolution man has exhibited his survival instinct in the way he seeks to protect and provide for himself and his kind. Thomas Hobbes says the earliest stage of man was directed by his appetites and his sense of good and evil defined by pleasure or pain. In a sense, man at this stage of evolution was hedonistic essentially, in line with the morality of the savage beast he was (Plato) at that time. More importantly, St. Thomas Aquinas has argued that moral laws are innate to a view which if true, it is the opinion of this research that man had not justified. Only a more altruistic moral principle would aid man in his interaction.

Autorentext

Ovia Ebikaboere read philosophy-B.SC, M.Phil and Ph.D at the university of Lagos.She specialized in Ethics. Her research areas include Situation Ethics and Environmental Ethics. Presently she lectures at Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria.