Albert Schweitzer’s Ethics of Respect for Life and Ecophilosophy

The subject of this discussion is the analysis of the main assumptions of Albert Schweitzer’s ethics of respect for life with emphasis on the difficulties that such ethics faces. The main difficulty lies in the moral dilemmas which result from the implementation of the obligatory respect for all manifestations of life in the world in which life is lead “from stomach to stomach”. The ethics of respect for life emphesizes man’s moral autonomy and at the same time forces man to live against the rules which govern life on Earth. How can we reconcile the inherent evil of this world with the constant feeling of guilt? Schweitzer justifies the ethics of respect for life by referring to the metaphysical will to life, which is not from this world, but he applies it to the real world. Such dualistic understanding of life gives rise to the moral dilemmas of his ethics. Ecophilosophy may overcome the duality of Schweitzer understanding of life and implements the ethics of respect for life to a limited extent, to an extent which is possible in the world as it is.