環境教育在本質上是一種環境倫理教育，除了可以從現代環境教育的歷史發展脈絡中的重要會議與文獻內容以及環境教育學者的論述中得到證明之外，環境教育也因著自身被賦予的、必須面對爭議性的環境議題的基本任務，而被證明必須扮演好一種環境倫理教育的角色。為了勝任此角色與任務，環境教育必須在以環境倫理理論為基礎所發展的分析與評價等專業能力上得到提昇。然而，在確立環境教育本質的同時，卻也因為本質以及其長期以人類中心主義倫理為主流倫理立場的傾向，而要面對到動物解放與權利運動和生命中心主義倫理對其發出的挑戰。對此，本文初步探討了環境教育採納生態中心主義倫理作為此類挑戰之回應的根據以及難題，並認為現代的環境教育仍亟需對於它所根據的環境倫理理論基礎進行積極的探問。

In essence, environmental education is a kind of education on environmental ethics. We could recognize this not only from the significant conferences, literature on the historical development of modern environmental education and the arguments of scholars in this academic field, but also from its basic mission to resolve controversial environmental issues. In order to accomplish its mission, environmental education must advance the professional competency of moral analysis and evaluation based on environmental ethics. However, as we identify the essence of environmental education, the education itself is confronting the challenges of animal liberation and rights movement and biocentric ethics due to its anthropocentric roots over a long period of time. Regarding this, this study aims to investigate into the reasons as well as the follow-up difficult problems about environmental education adopting the ecocentric ethics and an ＂ecological ethic＂ advocated by Holmes Rolston III, as a response to the challenges. It can be concluded in this study that there is an urgent need for more investigation on environmental education referring to the basis of environmental ethics in the future.