Title: Important Questions In Environmental Ethics
1Introduction to Environmental Ethics Key
questions regarding diagnoses prescriptions
Bron Taylor The University of Florida www.brontayl
or.com
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3Key Questions In Environmental Ethics
- 1) Diagnosis What is/are the cause/s of
environmental decline (diagnosis). - 2) Prescription How to slow, halt, and reverse
these trends? - 3) Which environmental ethics are best?
Individualistic/holistic? - 4) Who/what has standing? Humans? Sentient
creatures? Plants? Ecosystems? - 5) What trumps what? (see above)
4Types of diagnoses (sometimes seen as related and
mutually reinforcing)
- Transformations in technology and livelihoods /
modes of production. - E.g. Agriculture/domestication.
Capitalism/Industrialization. Population growth
related. - Maladaptive human-social relations precipitate
decline. - E.g. injustice, hierarchy, patriarchy
- Maladaptive (bad) ideas and corresponding
practices. - E.g. religious, philosophical, economic,
ethical, scientific - Population dynamics (boom/bust), perhaps
exacerbated by the above. - E.g. carrying capacity and biology-focused
explanations
5Key Questions In Environmental Ethics on ideas
- What role (if any) does religion, and especially
religious ideas, play in environmental decline? - Can religion be part of the solution?
6Is western religion the culprit?
- Critics cite 4 anti-nature tendencies in western
religions
71) Domination of Nature
- Genesis God commands humans to "fill the earth
and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of
the sea and over the birds of the air and over
every living thing...
82) Rejection of animism and pantheism
- Animists believe that every part of the
environment, living and non-living, has
consciousness or spirit. Therefore, all beings
deserve reverence. - Pantheists believe the world (or cosmos) as a
whole is divine. Therefore nature is sacred or
holy and people should have reverence for it.
93) Wilderness is cursed Pastoral, agricultural,
and City landscapes are Holy, Promised Lands
4) The sacred is beyond the world - earth is
devalued in favor of heavenly hopes
10Lynn White (1973)
Yet a man-nature dualism is deep-rooted in us. .
. . Until it is eradicated not only from our
minds but also from our emotions, we shall
doubtless be unable to make fundamental changes
in our attitudes and actions affecting ecology.
The religious problem is to find a viable
equivalent to animism (White 1973 62).
11Christians Jews respond
- Our traditions promote a care-giving stewardship
not domination of nature. (Noah story) - Some admit the general destructive tendency, but
say - Minority "traditions within the wider tradition"
are nature-beneficent. - But these religions are currently mutating. Some
new forms have emerged that are concerned about
the environment. Will they prove to be adaptive
and survive?
12Is western philosophy -another culprit?
- Critics blame its dualism, viewing humans as
separate from and superior to nature.
13Rene Descartes is often blamed
- Rene Descartes (1596-1650) believed that animals
have no minds and cannot suffer - Humans have minds and souls, they are different
from animals
- So for Descartes, HUMANS are separate from nature
and superior to it. - And the natural world became an objectified
"thing." - Some critics say this objectification of nature
is a key to science and progress
14Francis Bacon is also blamed
- Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was the father of the
Scientific method. - Critics say he promoted a view of nature as a
machine.
- Many passages reveal that he likened nature to
women and slaves, and implied all should be bound
into the service of men - Many scholars think such thinking shaped the
anti-nature views of Judaism and Christianity,
and thus warped human-nature relations in the
west
15The main divide in both religious and secular
environmental ethics
16Both holistic and individualistic environmental
ethics address --
- Whose interests count?
- Whose interests must we consider?
17I.e. Who has standing? Human Individuals?
- Anthropocentrism The environment is valuable to
the extent is useful or necessary for human well
being - Usually "rationality" or some "intellectual"
criterion is critical in the West for moral
standing - Not much new here in the overall approach
18Who has standing?
Sentient animals?
- Sentient animals are those who can experience
pleasure and/or pain - Jeremy Bentham early utilitarian theorist,
provided a basis for extending moral standing
beyond humans - Peter Singer "Animal Liberation" theory
provided a utilitarian argument pro-Animal
Liberation
19Who has Standing?Entities with Interests
- Living entities that have "interests" -- a good
that can be harmed -- have moral standing - Wm Blackstone Humans do, and have a right to a
liveable environment, upon which all other rights
depend - Joel Feinberg (1974) Those with conscious
wishes, desires, hopes (etc.) have interests, and
HBs have duties to them. Animals and unborn
humans have such interests. - Christopher Stone (1972/74) Individual natural
objects, including trees, can have standing - Conservator/trustee notion analogous to mentally
deficient humans - Tom Regan Animals who are "subjects of a life"
have a "right" to that life.
20Problems with individualistic approaches
- (3) Why base moral standing of non-human beings
on human traits? (Why do animals matter only if
they are like us in some way we think is
important?)
- (1) Animal Liberation How can you measure
pleasure/suffering - a perennial problem with utilitarianism
- (2) Animal Rights boundary of moral
considerability is very restrictive
21Problems with individualistic approaches
- (4) How can we determine what the "interests" of
a living thing are? - who should decide?
- (5) Individualistic approaches provide no basis
for prioritizing concern for endangered species
22The trend in environmental ethics seems to be
toward holistic Approaches -- their basic idea
- The whole is greater (and more valuable) than the
constitutive parts (its the ecosystem stupid!)
233 Holistic Approaches
- Biocentrism
- life-centered ethics
- Ecocentrism
- ecosystem-centered ethics
- Deep Ecology
- identification and kinship ethics
24Excursus Aldo Leopolds Ecocentric Land Ethic
25Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) This excursus provides
key quotes from Leopold.
26Leopolds Ecocentric Land Ethic
- "All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single
premise that the individual is a member of a
community of interdependent parts.
27- The Land ethic enlarges the boundaries of the
community to include soils, waters, plants, and
animals, or collectively the land - Note the land all life, and all that
constitutes it. Therefore, with a land ethic - A land-use decision "is right when it tends to
preserve the biotic community. It is wrong when
it tends otherwise.
- Precursors
- Baruch Spinoza
- Henry David Thoreau
- John Muir
28- For Leopold
- Ethics evolve, and they involve self-imposed
limitations on freedom of action derived from the
above recognition
- Precursors
- Baruch Spinoza
- Henry David Thoreau
- John Muir
29ETHICS CAN AND SHOULD EVOLVE. In Leopolds
words I have purposely presented the land
ethic as a product of social evolution because
nothing so important as an ethic is ever
written. . . . The evolution of a land
ethic is an intellectual as well as emotional
process. AS ETHICS EVOLVE THEY NATURALLY CHANGE
OUR AESTHETHICS (SENSE OF WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL) AND
OUR EMOTIONS (WHAT WE FEEL AFFECTION FOR AND
CONNECTION TO).
30Leopolds promoted humility and feelings of
kinship with non-human organisms. In this, he
was inspired by Charles Darwin. "It is a century
now since Darwin gave us the first glimpse of the
origin of species. We know now what was unknown
to all the preceding caravan of generations that
men are only fellow-voyagers with other creatures
in the odyssey of evolution. This new knowledge
should have given us . . . a sense of kinship
with fellow-creatures a wish to live and let
live a sense of wonder over the magnitude and
duration of the biotic enterprise.
31FOR LEOPOLD, THE VIRTUE OF HUMILITY NATURALLY
FLOWS FROM AN EVOLUTIONARY / ECOLOGICAL
UNDERSTANDING The Land Ethic "changes the role
of Homo Sapiens from conqueror of the
land-community to plain member and citizen of it.
It implies respect for his fellow-members, and
also respect for the land- community as such."
32- For many, Leopold provides compelling ground for
valuing and defending biological diversity - "The outstanding scientific discovery of the 20th
century is . . . . the complexity of the land
organism. Only those who know the most about it
can appreciate how little is known about it. The
last word in ignorance is the man who says of an
animal or plant 'what good is it?
33- Aldo Leopold articulated an ecological
metaphysics of complexity, interconnection, and
mutual dependence. - This was a part of an all-encompassing
organicist metaphysics. In A Sand County Almanac
he spoke of the land as an organism, as alive.
- The land is one organism. . . . and the
outstanding discovery of the twentieth century is
. . . its complexity. If we understand the
whole is good, then every part is good, whether
we understand it or not.
34Leopolds Round River parable
- Wisconsins Round river flowed into itself "in a
never-ending circuit" symbolizing "the stream of
energy which flows out of the soil into plants,
thence into animals, thence back into the soil in
a never ending circuit of life. - The parable reflected Leopolds organicist
metaphysics even bordering on a Gaia-like
pantheism - "The land is one organism. Its parts, like our
own parts, compete with each other and co-operate
with each other. The competitions are as much a
part of the inner workings as the co-operations.
You can regulate them -- cautiously -- but not
abolish them.
35- If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then
every part is good, whether we understand it or
not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has
built something we like but do not understand,
then who but a fool would discard seemingly
useless parts? - To keep every cog in the wheel is the first
precaution of intelligent tinkering.
36Leopold also spoke in a melancholy way of the
penalty of an ecological education
- One of the penalties of an ecological education
is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.
Much of the damage inflicted on the land is quite
invisible to the layman - Many with such an education know exactly how he
felt.
37Leopold was also a social/cultural critic . .
. WHILE URGING PRUDENCE HE NOTED, IN CONCERT WITH
MUCH DARK GREEN RELIGION, THAT ABRAHIMIC
RELIGIONS ARE AN OBTACLE TO A LAND ETHIC
Misguided religion and philosophy work against
the emotional ties, felt kinship, and the sense
of loyalty to the land that his ethic demands.
But why? "Conservation is getting nowhere because
it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of
land.
38No important change in human conduct is ever
accomplished without an internal change in our
intellectual emphases, our loyalties, our
affections, and our convictions. The proof that
conservation has not yet touched these
foundations of conduct lies in the fact that
philosophy, ethics, and religion have not yet
heard of it. We abuse land because we regard
it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see
land as a community to which we belong, we may
begin to use it with love and respect.
39Leopolds land ethic practical applications
- "The whole world is so greedy for more bathtubs
that it has lost to the stability necessary to
build them, were even to turn off the tap.
Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than
a little healthy contempt for a plethora of
material blessings. - "We have no land ethic yet, but we have at least
drawn nearer to the point of admitting that birds
should continue as a matter of biotic right,
regardless of the presence or absence of economic
advantage to us. - A parallel situation exists in respect of
predatory mammals, reportorial birds, and
fish-eating birds. - Leopold continued that the development of a land
ethic that values predators, is "still in the
talk stage. In the field the extermination of
predators goes merrily on.
40THINKING LIKE A MOUNTAIN
- In this, his most famous essay, which sought to
inspire respect for predators, Leopold began by
asserting that mountains have a secret opinion
about wolves, adding, My own conviction on the
score dates from the day I saw wolf die. Then he
wrote - We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the
foot of which a turbulent river elbowed its way.
We saw what we thought was a doe fording the
torrent, her breast awash in white water. When
she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her
tail, we realized our error it was a wolf. A
half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang
from the willows and all joined in a welcoming
melee of wagging tails and playful maulings. What
was literally a pile of wolves writhed and
tumbled in the center of an open flat at the foot
of our rimrock.
41THINKING LIKE A MOUNTAIN (cont.)
- In those days we had never heard of passing up a
chance to kill a wolf. In a second we were
pumping lead into the pack, but with more
excitement than accuracy how to aim a steep
downhill shot is always confusing. When our
rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a
pup was dragging a leg into impassable
side-rocks. - "We reached the old wolf in time to watch the
green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then,
and have known ever sense, that there was
something new to me in those eyes -- something
known only to her and to the mountain. I was a
young then, and full of trigger-itch I thought
that because fewer wolves meant more deer, than
no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after
seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither
the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a
view.
42- Leopolds ethic has decisively shaped the
American conservation movement, and has become
increasingly influential around the world. The
next slide shows the land ethic as a panel at a
large exhibition at the 2002 United Nations World
Summit on Sustainable Development.
43A thing is right when it tends to preserve the
integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic
community
Aldo Leopolds Land Ethic, present in the
exhibition, Voyage to Antarctica, at the World
Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg
(2002)
44Leopolds wide influence
- is due in part by his ability to write in a way
that evoked in his readers a sympathy for life
beyond their own species. - This ability to empathize was viewed by Darwin as
an adaptive outgrowth of evolution. - That this capacity is a part of the human
repertoire both helps to explain the global
presence of dark green spirituality, as well as
its of potential as an eco-political force.
45Back from excursus to Holism more generally . . .
Lovelocks holistic planetary Gaia hypothesis
- Lovelock argued in Gaia A new look at life on
earth (1979) that the biosphere is a
self-regulating living system that maintains the
conditions for the perpetuation of life - Although not intended as an ethics, a
biosphere-centered (large-ecocentric) ethics has
been deduced from it, claiming - People ought not degrade and imperil this
wonderful system, upon which all life depends.
46Holistic Approaches -- Key criticism
- Individuals get hurt when you ignore them in
favor of wholes - This is the key criticism of all ends-focused
theories - In environmental ethics, the common charge is of
"eco-fascism"!
47Despite all the various points of view, something
new does seem to be evolving in the emergence and
evolution of environmental ethics, both secular
and sacred, involving
48The Gradual Extension of Moral Concern Beyond our
Own Species
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