Toward Norms for Environmental Protection Principled by Immanuel Kant’s Transcendental Idealism

Abstract

This is a proposal for the inclusion of environmental duties in the Doctrine of Virtue and the Doctrine of Right of Immanuel Kant’s The Metaphysics of Morals. It takes the form of an inquiry on the possibility of appealing to transcendental idealism as a guide to determining ethical and juridical environmental duties and to contribute to the systematization of a new environmental deontic. From the general principle of the categorical imperative, four special principles of environmental ethics and three special principles of environmental right are drawn, hereby to be brought forward as guiding criterion for new norms referring to the environment.