大学英语四册test1passage two翻译参考

Do animals have rights? Do trees? Do humans have an obligation to behave ethically (合乎道德地) to rivers? To rocks? Viruses? The entire planet?

动物有自己的权利吗？树有自己的权利吗？ 人类有责任义务尊重江河， 岩石，病毒，以及整个地球万物吗？

As this century draws to a close, these are not merely questions for abstract philosophical debate but, as Roderick Frazier Nash points out in The Rights of Nature, issues of intense interest to theologians (神学家), lawyers, legislators and even scientists. Radical environmentalists are already demanding that legal and ethical protection be extended to all of nature, and a few of them have demonstrated a willingness to fight, break the law and even die in support of this belief.

随着这个世纪即将结束，这不只是抽象的哲学辩论的问题，而是如纳什在“大自然权利”中指出的神学家、律师、立法者，甚至科学家都有强烈兴趣的议题。 激进的环保主义人士已经要求将法律和伦理的保护延伸到整个自然界，他们其中一部份人士已经向我们证明了愿意为了支持这种信念去抵抗和违反法律，甚至可以为此去牺牲的意志。

As described by Nash, the circle covered by the ethical rules governing individual and social behavior has expanded slowly and irregularly throughout history. Starting by granting rights to themselves, humans gradually enlarged the circle to include the family, the tribe, the nation and, in theory if not in practice, the entire community of human beings. When Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men were created equal and entitled to certain unalienable (不可剥夺的) rights, it was understood he was talking only about white males. Since the American Revolution, however, the right to ethical treatment has been extended, at least by law and social consensus, to include women and ethnic (民族的) minorities

正如纳什所描述的，纵观整个历史，规范个人和社会行为的道德准则所涵盖的圈子延伸（扩展）地缓慢而且无规律可循。从授予自己权力开始，人类逐渐地扩大圈子至家庭、民族、国家以及就算不是实际最起码在理论上包括整个人类社会。托马斯杰斐逊曾写道人人生而平等并且被赋予某些不可剥夺的权利，他所谈论的被解读为只包括白种族的男性。然而，因为美国独立战争的爆发，人道对待的权力范围被扩大了，至少在法律和社会共识方面囊括了女性和少数民族。

The next page in this history - the extension of ethical and legal rights to animals, plants, and the rest of the natural world - is now being written, Nash believes. For a growing number of people throughout the world but particularly in the United States, the belief is taking root.

将道德和法律（所赋予）的权利向动、植物以及自然界的其他扩展的新的历史篇章正在被书写，纳什认为。因为全世界越来越多的人（持这种信念）特别是在美国，这种信念正在深入人心。

The idea that nature has rights and is entitled to ethical consideration is

not a new one. Some Eastern religions define humans as only part of a great chain of being. But in the Christian tradition of the West, man was created to master nature, not to be part of it.

认为大自然有权利有资格得到伦理考量的思想并不是一个新鲜事物。一些东方宗教仅仅把人类定义为存在巨链的一部分。但是在西方的基督传统里，人类却被看作是为征服自然而生而不是自然的一部分。

However, as environmentalism has evolved as a social movement in recent years, Nash says, the concept of liberating nature from persecution by humanity has gained followers. U.S. law, he notes, provides legal protection to animals and plants through the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammals Protection Act. Nash points to the increasingly aggressive positions of so-called deep environmentalists and other radicals who insist that nature has intrinsic (固有的) and unalienable rights that have nothing to do with its value to people. Some of these radicals have thrown themselves before bulldozers to protect virgin forests and chained themselves to rocks on a river bank to prevent the river from being dammed.

然而，近年来随着环境保护论逐渐形成一种社会运动，纳什说，从人类的迫害中解脱大自然的理念已经得到追随者。纳什提到，美国通过《濒危物种法》和《海洋哺乳动物保护法》为动植物提供法律保护。纳什指出那些所谓的深环境保护主义者和其他坚持认为自然拥有固有的和不可剥夺的权利的激进分子渐增的咄咄逼人的立场与自然拥有的价值毫无关系。一些激进分子把自己置身于推土机前来保护原始森林以及把自己绑在河岸的礁石上去阻止在江河上建坝。

For the most part, Nash takes no position on questions of ethical duties. Only in an epilogue (跋), does he indicate where his sympathies lie. Just as the antislavery radicals in the early part of the 19th century were scorned (嘲笑) for insisting that slaves were human beings with rights, today's radical environmentalists are often laughed at for suggesting that nature is \tradition,\says. But with the groundwork now laid for\participation in environmentalism,\Nash believes, there is a real possibility of serious confrontation with those who profit from exploitation of the environment.

就大部分而言，纳什在道德责任问题上并不持立场。只是在文章的最后，他的确表明他所赞同的地方。正像19世纪早期反奴隶制的激进分子坚持认为奴隶是有权利的人而被嘲讽一样，今天的环保激进分子也常因为提出自然是“最新的应在美国自由主义传统的阳光下得到一份席位的少数群体”而受到嘲笑，他说。但是以现在奠定的基础等“更多的人参与到环保的行列中来”，纳什认为，与从开发环境中获利的人有一场严重冲突是很有可能的。

”If this situation, with its intellectual and political similarities to American before the Civil War, promises once again to endanger domestic peace,\

Nash warns, \

“如果这种和国内战争之前的美国具有知识和政治相似性的情况预示着（显示出）再一次危及国内和平。”纳什警告说，“那将不是历史的错。”

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