Water Ethics

Abstract

Water consumption grew twice as fast as the global population last century, and an increasing number of regions around the world are facing or will face, water scarcity. Access to water has been recognized as a major threat to world peace in the present century, and ethical issues related to water have been given high priority. Using a systematic review method, this paper examines the three fundamental perspectives of deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics in environmental philosophy and their implications for water management and policy-making. Each of the three perspectives has led to the emergence of different ethical approaches to water, but what is clear is that in all three perspectives anthropocentric view has prevailed and moral considerations about non-humans have received less attention. In addition, ethical approaches to water face weaknesses, and water management requires an integrated and holistic approach that integrates humans and aquatic ecosystems and avoids unilateralism.

Keywords

• water
• ethic
• anthropocentrism
• non-anthropocentrism