OUR DETERIORATING MORAL VALUES
by Anton Antonio
January 22, 2016
Is there a direct relationship between environmental
degradation and our deteriorating moral values?
If not, what then is causing environmental degradation? If yes, which among our set of moral values
that directly or indirectly contributes to environmental degradation?
Moral values are directly related to ethical standards. Ethics is a set of moral principles that
govern a person’s or a group’s behaviour.
Ethical standards are principles, that when followed, promote values
such as trust, good behaviour, fairness, and/or kindness. There is not one set of standards that the
citizens of a particular country follow; although each country/race is bestowed
with the right to develop ethical standards that could have positive meaning to
their society. Ethical standards,
however, may not always be easily enforceable as they are frequently vaguely
defined and open to individual interpretation.
Besides, ethical standards are the result of continuous practices
(traditional or new) that become part of a developed culture. In fact, some moral standards apply well to
some races/societies but have negative impacts to others. On the other hand, moral values are moral,
ethical, righteous, noble mean that conform to a standard of what is right and
good. Moral implies conformity to
established sanctioned codes or accepted notions of right and wrong.
A lot of socio-environmental scientists closely relate moral
values to the actual state of the environment.
They have also indentified the causes of environmental degradation to
concepts that are social or societal in nature.
These are: GREED – Described as
the inordinate desire to possess wealth and material possessions of abstract
value with the intention to sustain oneself far beyond the dictates of basic
survival and comfort. There are also
those who have a high degree of desire for status and power which leads them to
be greedy. The Philippine political
system does a lot in contributing to and encouraging people to embrace greed as
a way of life; APATHY – Defined as the
lack or absence of feeling, emotion, interest or concern from people. An apathetic person has an absence of
interest in or concern about the emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical
and physical life of people around him… and also the physical elements (the
world in general and the environment in particular). Most people prefer not to get involved and
stay away from contemptuous issues such as the environment simply because it is
more convenient; and, LACK OF KNOWLEDGE AND AWARENESS – Ignorance and naivete
are two of the most destructive characters of man and, because of this, it
becomes hard for him to understand negative environmental implications. It is openly said that sometimes people don’t
realize the wrongs they do and cause simply because they do not know or (at the
very least) aware that they are doing wrong.
Greed, apathy and the lack of knowledge and awareness can
only result to intellectual and real poverty.
Poverty is a condition where people’s needs for food, clothing and
shelter are not being met. There are
generally two types of poverty: (1)
Absolute poverty is synonymous with destitution and occurs when people cannot
have adequate resources to support a minimum level of physical health; and, (2)
Relative poverty which occurs when people do not enjoy a certain minimum level
of living standards as determined by a government. Relative poverty, however, varies from
country to country but is said to be increasing and could never be eradicated.
Social scientists often use the state of a country’s
environment as a yardstick to measure the level of their moral values. The Philippines, hardly a developing country
and one of the first to be affected by climate change-related disasters, has
given less attention and concern to its environment and has abused and
exploited its natural resources.
Philippine urban centers are good models on how to pollute land, air and
water and mismanage the ecosystem. Is
this also a sign of our deteriorating moral values?
Thoughts to
promote positive action…
(Please
visit, like and share Pro-EARTH Crusaders on Facebook or follow me at http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/
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REFERENCE:
Antonio, A. C., (2014). “Intangible Causes of
Deforestation”. Retrieved on January 22,
2016 from http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/2014/04/intangible-causes-of-deforestation.html
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