環境倫理學於1970年代的興起，象徵著人類對於自己生存其中的地球環境日漸惡化事實的察覺與重視，開始覺悟到有必要重新檢視人類與自然環境之間的關係。環境倫理學作為倫理學的一門分支，旨在系統地闡釋有關人類和自然環境之間的倫理關係，並探討人類應該如何對待環境。可是為落實每個人維護環境的義務，只是以環境倫理學理論與環保知識教導是不夠的，最重要的要在日常生活中落實愛護環境的行動，養成維護環境的良好品德，才能夠奏效。因此，環境德行倫理學的出現，就是從傳統德行倫理學的角度嘗試給予環境倫理學一個嶄新的視野。而環境德行倫理學的重點就在於促進維護環境的行動實踐，以及經由維護環境習慣的養成，進一步形成良好的環境德行。

The rise of environmental ethics in 1970s symbolized human being's perception and consciousness of the increasingly deteriorating environment of the earth in which we dwell, and a re-examination of the relationship between human being and natural environment became a necessity. The environmental ethics as a branch of ethics aims at interpreting systematically the ethical relationship between human being and natural environment, and exploring how we should deal with it. However, our obligation of environmental protection is not to be fulfilled solely by means of instruction of the environmental ethical theories and the environmental knowledge, but through our joint effort to cultivate good habit and character in environmental protecting. Therefore, the emergence of environmental virtue ethics is to offer environmental ethics a new horizon from the perspective of virtue ethics.