Environmental Ethics in Confucianism and Implications for Environmental Education

Abstract

Confucian environmental thought includes: the natural philosophy and environmental thought of the Book of Changes (Yi Chuan), and early Confucian environmental thought, which is dominated by “Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, and Zhongyong”. Confucian environmental thinking was not like the West’s emphasis on science and technology and arbitrary abuse of natural resources, but was similar to Western “conservationism” and featured “sustainable utilization”, which means that by following the natural sequence of growth of all living things, we can obtain inexhaustible natural resources, which is typical of the idea of “sustainable utilization”.
Environmental education has six core learning elements: “natural resources conservation”, “environmental management”, “ecological principles”, “interaction and interdependence “, “environmental ethics”, and “sustainability”. Therefore, Confucian environmental thinking can apply the ideas of “conservationism” and “sustainable utilization” to environmental education.