Reference no: EM131010520

Minimum of 150 words, and be sure to quote from the readings to illustrate your points, followed by MLA citation, both in-text and on a Works Cited page.

Do you think that a book, a plant, or a building can be said to have a good of its own? Can things be done in its best interest? Does it have interests?

I do believe a book, plant or even a building can be said to have a good of its own.  I believe everything has a purpose in life.  Whether one is to believe it is good or not depends on their angle.  By this I say that it is generally agreed upon that AIDs is a bad disease because it kills, but it could be viewed as a good thing because it is a mechanism that helps control the human population.  So a bad thing could become a good thing depending on your point of view.  This falls under Environmental Ethics which "is the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its non-human contents" (Brennan, 3 June '02).  I would also use the Teleological school of thought for the reason that everything and every action taken has an end result that can be good or bad or both.  If you wipe out the forests then humans, and everything else, would not be able to survive.  If all insects were destroyed it would have a ripple effect throughout the food-chain and eco systems that would be very detrimental, but you would never have to worry about bugs destroying your crops.  All living things have interests and they correlate with their needs, such as to procreate, eat, or sleep.  I do not believe non-living things have interest, but that doesn't mean they do not have a purpose or a good of their own.  "Paul Taylor's version of this view (1981 and 1986), which we might call biocentrism, is a deontological example. He argues that each individual living thing in nature-whether it is an animal, a plant, or a micro-organism-is a "teleological-center-of-life" having a good or well-being of its own which can be enhanced or damaged, and that all individuals who are teleological-centers-of life have equal intrinsic value (or what he calls "inherent worth") which entitles them to moral respect" (Brennan, 3 June '02). 

Works Cited:

Brennan, Andrew. "Environmental Ethics." Stanford University. Stanford University, 03 June 2002. Web. 26 Mar. 2016. <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-environmental/>.