UTILITARIAN CONSEQUENTIALISM IN ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY: AN EVALUATION

Abstract

Human society is witnessing enormous challenges that are largely environmental. Environmental challenges are in various dimensions including climate change that has left rivers drying up and sometimes disappearing, and the steady depletion of the ozone layer. Forests are vanishing away with wild animals almost going into extinction mainly as a result of deforestation and bush burning. Game reserves or familiar animals and aquatic lives are almost thrown into extinction. Human life is in danger with increasing cases of deaths and terminal illnesses and other challenging health conditions as a result of contaminated air and water pollutions. There are increasing cases of erosion menace worsening the situation. Worst still is the regular occurrences of earthquakes, tsunamis, and landslides occasioned by oil explorations and poor handling of natural resources. All these are consequences of human exploitation and exploration of the environment. This situation, no doubt, shows that the protection, management, and sustenance of the environment are non-negotiable for the continued existence and survival of humanity. It calls for urgent practical solutions otherwise human extinction is undoubtedly very near. Adopting analytical and critical methods of inquiry, this paper, therefore, examines some environmental ethical principles or theories on how to regard and relate with the environment to give prospects and hope to environmental preservation and sustainability. In conclusion, the paper notes that the solutions to environmental exploitation lie in ethico-moral resolve to take environmental sustainability and protection as both an individual and a collective duty to avert human generational doom