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Environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies themoral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moralstatus of, the environment and its non-human contents. This entrycovers: (1) the challenge of environmental ethics to theanthropocentrism (i.e., human-centeredness) embedded in traditionalwestern ethical thinking; (2) the early development of the disciplinein the 1960s and 1970s; (3) the connection of deep ecology, feministenvironmental ethics, animism and social ecology to politics; (4) theattempt to apply traditional ethical theories, includingconsequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, to supportcontemporary environmental concerns; (5) the preservation ofbiodiversity as an ethical goal; (6) the broader concerns of somethinkers with wilderness, the built environment and the politics ofpoverty; (7) the ethics of sustainability and climate change, and (8)some directions for possible future developments of thediscipline.