efficient market approach to environmental responsibilities

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1. Distinguish between the two approaches to the aspect of moral status being assigned to animals.

One approach to the aspect of moral status being assigned to animals is that animals possess some similarities between human and non-human species and that human and non-humans differ only by degree in possessing certain temperaments. There is an ancient belief that animals (non-humans) have similar intellectual capacity to humans. Even though human beings only possessed the faculty of rational thought and understanding, the non-humans did not have interests of their own. Some of these scholars have refused to eat meat because it deprived animals of life and was unjust. The stand of this approach is that animals can think, feel and sense as human beings do.

The second approach is to classify the non-humans into those that that are not self-aware and don't have any idea of continuing to exist in the future deserve some moral consideration because they feel pain and pleasure, they don't want pain and experience pleasure. In other words it is wrong to cause pain to members of this group. This group consists of most animals and fish. The idea of this approach is that organisms that value one experience more than another deserve moral consideration. These organisms have subjective experiences. The interests of such animals that are related to survival, quality of life and even trivial interests should be given moral consideration.

What is common in these approaches is that in some way non-humans are classified as different from human beings. They are "inferior" because they do not have intellectual capabilities that are similar to that of human beings and they do not have linguistic skills similar to that of human beings. This attributes a somewhat different moral treatment to the non-humans or animals.

2. Enumerate upon the features of approaching environmental responsibilities from the perspective of efficient markets.

Approaching environmental responsibilities from the perspective of efficient markets has certain features. Companies take up environment related projects and publicize these for positioning themselves as "environmentally friendly". The overall purpose of these companies is to market their products and stocks to those customers and investors that have a preference for ...