The Problem of Ethical Obligation Toward the Environment in The Developing Countries

This study aims to discuss why there is a problem of ethical obligation toward the environment in the developing countries. The main argument is how the contemporary environmental ethics paradigm is not adequate to provide an active ethical relationship between humans and their environment in developing nations. Many aspects are to support this claim. The first aspect analyzes that developing countries have their own specificity that cannot be reduced to general environmental ethics. The second aspect illustrates the necessity to analyze environmental politics within the paradigm of environmental ethics. The third aspect focuses on the obstacles of normative ethics that formulate contemporary environmental ethics. Descriptive ethics paradigm is a suggested alternative ethical paradigm that can provide hybrid environmental ethics account for developing countries. In the final section of the study, an application of this suggested ethical paradigm. This application analyzes water ethics in Egypt to show the overlapping relationship between environmental politics and general ethical system. The conclusion of this study formulates a paradigm where ethical relationship toward the environment is more reachable.