Ethics is as old as Philosophy -- and older.
Environmental ethics is very new. Why is this so? Because ethics is,
in large part, the critical study of personal and collective
responsibility toward vulnerable things -- most acutely,
toward persons, social institutions and human communities.
Until recently, nature was believed to be too large and too permanent
to be vulnerable. Now, at last, the science of ecology has shown us
that this is not so. We now know that nature itself is imperiled by
deliberate human action, and, reciprocally, that human beings are
affected by the way they deal with nature. So now we see that our
dealings with nature are matters of moral responsibility. Hence
environmental ethics.
"Ethics is as old as philosophy -- and older."
Thus moral philosophy has a great deal to offer to the critical study
of mankind's responsibility to nature; namely, concepts, theories,
principles, and, most of all, methods of analysis.
"Environmental ethics is very new." Hence
strategies for applying moral philosophy to environmental issues and
concepts are now being tested, and thus unless the student and
scholar is careful, his conception of this new field and its problems
might be distorted and constrained. The philosopher should be
cautious if he proposes to place old wine in new bottles. Does the
old wine belong in the new bottles -- that is, should the
concepts, theories and principles of traditional moral philosophy be
applied to the environmental issues that have recently emerged, both
with our industrial civilization and out of our developing ecological
science and consciousness? Herein lies a point of deep division of
opinion among philosophers. Some, notably William Frankena and John
Passmore, believe that the challenges of the new ecological awareness
and conscience call for "better" use of familiar philosophical and
scientific ideas, but not a rejection or reconstruction
thereof. With refinement, they contend, "the old ways" are quite good
enough. Others (e.g., Aldo Leopold, John Rodman, Holmes Rolston and
Paul Shepard) suggest that a revolution in philosophical
thinking may be in order -- in particular, a re-orientation of
perspective. Perhaps "counter-revolution" is a better term,
in that these philosophers and ecologists are urging a
reversal of Immanuel Kant's establishment of human
consciousness as the center of philosophical attention, and, in
contrast to Kant, a new direction of attention and evaluation upon
the external context of human life and
experience.
ANTHROPOCENTRISM(1)
Anthropocentrism, the view that
humanity's needs and interests are of supreme and exclusive value and
importance in nature, so dominates the thinking of most people in our
culture that it is virtually pre-conscious -- an unexamined
presupposition of most popular reflections, feelings, and utilization
policies regarding wild nature. Anthropocentrism has both a religious
and a secular foundation. The religious theme is set rather
explicitly in a famous verse in Genesis (I:26) in which the Lord is
recorded to have said: "[Let man] have dominion . . . over
all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the
earth." And then that famous injunction, "be fruitful and multiply
and fill the earth and subdue it. . ." (Genesis I::28).
Some historians (notably Lynn White,
Jr.(2))
have focused upon those verses as typifying the Western religious
approach to humanity's place in nature. By this account, nature was
created for mankind's benefit, and it is his role to be the master of
nature. The Lord created the earth as a garden and habitat for human
beings, who are then given little restriction regarding his use of
it. Moreover, there is little acknowledgment in this tradition of the
limits of mankind's capacity to wisely manage the earth exclusively
for his own use.
The rationale and justification of the secular
approach to anthropocentrism are somewhat different, yet they lead to
essentially the same conclusion as the religious. By this account,
life has recently evolved to include a self-conscious, rational,
deliberative, personal species -- homo sapiens.
Some species have sentient lives; that is, they are capable
of feeling and, most significantly morally speaking, of feeling pain.
Most species, however, are neither sentient nor conscious. That it is
alive or not "matters" not a bit, say, to an insect or to a tree, and
perhaps very little to a hummingbird. These species haven't the
mental (which is to say the neural) capacity to "care." Life
matters most, if not exclusively, to the one species we know of that
can contemplate the past, present and future of its own life, and act
rationally and deliberatively to affect the condition of that life.
Again, that singular species is, of course, the human species.
Nature, according to this point of view, matters,
has value, has significance, only if there is a
species to whom it can have significance. It
follows, then, that values in nature are almost exclusively
human values. The only possible qualification to this rule
would be the value of avoiding cruelty to non-human sentient species
-- the so called "higher animals." Except for that proviso, that sole
personal and rational species, homo sapiens, has
acquired with its capacities the privilege, even the right, to do
with nature what it pleases. So we come, at length, to the same
conclusion as that of theological anthropocentrism: nature exists for
mankind's advantage and use. What counts exclusively is humanity --
its aspirations, its desires, its interests -- with possibly the
minor qualification that, as moral agents, human beings should not be
wantonly cruel to animals that have the capacity to
suffer.(3)
Anthropocentrism, or "human chauvinism" as it
is often called by its critics, is starkly expressed by Prof. Clare
A. Gunn in the journal Landscape Architecture:
The only reason anything is done
on this earth is for people. Did the rivers, winds, animals, rocks
or dust ever consider my wishes or needs? Surely we do all our
acts in an earthly environment, but I have never heard a tree,
valley, mountain or flower thank me for preserving
it.(4)
The anthropocentric position is supported by
the interest theory of rights proposed by the contemporary
philosopher, Joel Feinberg, who writes, "without awareness,
expectation, belief, desire, aim and purpose, a being can have no
interests; without interests, he can not be
benefitted."(5)
Of course, from all this it also follows that
without interests a being cannot be harmed either. It is
difficult to accept Feinberg's "interest theory of rights" and at the
same time reject anthropocentrism. It is difficult, but not
impossible, and we shall presently encounter attempts to do just
that.
Anthropocentrism has been regarded by many
critics as the moral equivalent of racism, and accordingly has been
dubbed with the derisive name of speciesism." The
anthropocentrist retorts that this is mere argument from analogy, and
a poor one at that. After all, he notes, people of other races are,
after all, people. In contrast, non-human species are not,
to our knowledge, personal; that is to say, they are not
self-conscious, rational, deliberative and morally responsible.
Trees, insects, rocks and landscapes have no sentient lives.
(Accordingly, solicitude for their feelings is not an issue in
environmental ethics.) Human beings, due to their rational,
deliberative consciousness, are beings apart. They are unique in
their capacity to accept and be liable to moral evaluation (that is,
to be morally responsible). Since only human beings can
evaluate nature, they alone are entitled to treat nature strictly
according to the perceived needs and purposes of their species. So
the anthropocentrist will argue.
Does the anthropocentric position offer no
safety or security for "sub-human" species and their habitats? Well,
perhaps it does -- at least for the short term. After all, we often
enjoy the company of such creatures. And so long as we feel that way
about them -- so long, that is, as they entertain and delight
us -- then we may take some trouble to keep them around.
But, again, we will do so on account of what they do for us.
But if that is the reason we protect wild species, then their safety
is hostage to our taste and modes of entertainment. But tastes and
attitudes change, as do our moral fashions.
Is there a view toward nature that does not
require an "aw gawsh" response, or other such simple-minded
projections, that will cause us to care enough to take some trouble
and expense to protect a "useless" species? Perhaps so, but
anthropocentrism does not seem to be that view, for it is doubtful
that the uncompromising human chauvinist will offer us much warrant
for protecting a species that can not readily be shown to be useful,
entertaining, or of some other value to human beings. And so if other
human values compete and conflict, say, with the integrity of some
wild species habitat, the "aw gawsh" factor might readily be
over-ridden and the tenure of that species on the earth may be placed
in great peril.
How, then, might one answer the human
chauvinist? There are several strategies for rebuttal, but many of
them will have little appeal to the modern frame of mind. For
example, one might attempt to defend the primitive belief in
animism or perhaps pan-psychism. (This
approach, after all, is not unheard of these days. Recall the book
The Secret Life of Plants.) Both positions hold that nature
is alive and sentient. Thus the animist may even believe that a cliff
"objects" to being reduced to paving stones, or that a tree "objects"
to being cut into cordwood. But few of us will be convinced of this
unless we are shown that rocks and trees have nervous systems.
Failing this, it follows that most of us will likely be disinclined
to believe that rocks and trees are capable of "caring" about their
fate. They have no interests in their own right.
A more promising answer to anthropocentrism
might be to attempt to dissolve the hard conceptual line that is
customarily drawn between human beings and "nature," and to challenge
the implicit assumption that we can somehow physically, organically,
and even psychologically, detach the fate of mankind from the fate of
nature. One might even challenge the notion that such a view of the
man-nature relationship is productive of scientific or moral insight.
(This, we will recall, was the approach of Aldo Leopold). Perhaps
there is a better way of viewing the natural order and man's place in
it. But in what sense "better"? An example from the history of
astronomy might clarify this point.
Before the days of Copernicus it was, of
course, possible to plot the positions of the planets and to forecast
the occurrence of eclipses and other celestial events, even with the
assumption that the earth was the center of the solar system. But, as
most students of the history of science are aware, the geocentric
view required the positing of an array of complicated theoretical
entities (such as "epicycles") which "adjusted" the conceptual model
to permit moderately accurate predictions. For this system to "work,"
for it to "fit" the observed data, the theoretical scaffolding had to
become quite complicated and unwieldy and was overburdened with
otherwise useless ("ad hoc") assumptions and concepts. "Suppose
instead," Copernicus asked, "we just assume that all the
planets, earth included, are satellites of the sun. What then becomes
of our capacity to make predictions and to the conceptual equipment
required to do so?" What happens is that we make better predictions
and do so with but a fraction of the theoretical baggage and the
computational fussing. We do not, for instance, need to assume that
one insignificant speck of heavy elements (the earth) stands still
while all the rest of creation moves about it. Assume further that
the very concept of motion itself, and the variables that define it
(namely time and space), are themselves functions
of the place and circumstance of observation, then still more
heretofore intractable physical problems fall within our conceptual
reach and into theoretical place. The stage is then set for yet
another scientific revolution. Enter Albert Einstein.
Is there analogously a better point of view
regarding man's function in nature (an empirical-scientific
question) and man's responsibility toward nature (a moral
question) that similarly simplifies the task of the scientist and the
moral philosopher, and which brings insoluble problems and paradoxes
within the range of resolution? Perhaps the ecological point of
view offers such a transformation of perspective. Because we
shall encounter it again, a brief review might be in
order.
The ecological point of view is, first of all,
holistic; it focuses upon the "all-ness" of nature. The
anthropocentric perspective tends to be particularistic; it focuses
upon the eachness of things. To the "human chauvinist" (and
perhaps especially the theologically oriented chauvinist), nature
might be regarded as a museum of discrete specimens, or, to mix the
metaphor, a vending machine with separate and discrete trinkets which
can be had as whim and inclination require (and with an implicit
understanding that there is a vendor on call, ever ready to restock
the machine). Extracting an item from the machine affects no other
part of the machine. The act of purchase is a discrete, disparate,
isolated event. Returning to our original simile, the specimens in
"museum earth" are viewed, contemplated, and perhaps admired
separately and in sequence, like pearls on a string. But they remain
securely in place, as the spectator leaves the museum and returns to
his resident world of personal concerns and "human
interests."
As we have noted earlier, the ecologist does
not view things this way. Rather than tallying up each part to sum up
an aggregate collection, the ecologist understands that a view of the
whole illuminates his knowledge of the parts. Species have a
function, a niche, in the life community. Particular
organisms are not specimens in museum earth, they are conduits of
energy, nutrients and information. We cannot, says the ecologist,
know what an organism is, or what a species is,
unless we know, additionally, what it does. Knowledge of the
organism does not end with the outer membrane. The whole informs the
part. Unity in system, and equilibrium and stability in and through
complexity and diversity -- these are the themes and principles of
the ecological point of view.
By examining the whole, we discover functions
of the whole that are basic to ecological science: that diversity
enhances stability, that established systems tend toward equilibrium,
that life communities are complex cybernetic systems with negative
feedback mechanisms, tending to restore stability following
externally caused disruptions. Both ecological and molecular biology
reveal, in macro and micro perspective, unimaginable degrees of
complexity and suggest, beyond the shores of our knowledge, an
unfathomable sea of fact, hypothesis, data, theory, law, function,
diversity, structure that are and will forever be beyond our
understanding and control. The biologist well knows that he is
dealing with an order of nature that can encode, in the microscopic
space of a cell nucleus, more information than is contained in an
encyclopedia. He is privileged to study the structure of life
communities and organisms that have evolved over billions of years
and through an infinitude of discrete "experiments" of selective
evolution.(6)
Both the biologist and the philosopher
appreciate that it is practically and logically impossible to
comprehend all that there is to know, even generally and abstractly,
about life communities. It is practically impossible because there is
simply too much to be known. Furthermore, biotic omniscience is
logically impossible for the simple but interesting reason
that we, the knowers, are parts of the (imperfectly)
known. Thus our very knowledge of the life community, and
our consequent activity in that community, alters that
community. We can no more encompass all knowledge of ecology than we
can catch our own shadow or stand at the end of the rainbow. And if
we cannot fully understand, then it follows that we cannot completely
manage and control. Thus Aldo Leopold is characteristically
perceptive when he writes:
. . . the conqueror role is
eventually self-defeating. Why? Because it is implicit in such a
role that the conqueror knows, ex cathedra, just what
makes the community clock tick, and just what and who is valuable,
and what and who is worthless, in community life. It always turns
out that he knows neither, and this is why his conquests
eventually defeat themselves.
The ordinary citizen today assumes that
science knows what makes the community clock tick; the scientist
is equally sure that he does not. He knows that the biotic
mechanism is so complex that its workings may never be fully
understood.(7)
Knowing this, the life scientist is generally
both epistemologically humble and technologically conservative. He is
understandably reluctant to reach blindly into the life machine and
blithely pull out and discard random parts. In Leopold's splendid
phrase, the ecologist is disinclined to remodel the Alhambra with a
steamshovel.
I write here of the science of
ecology; specifically, of the mode of knowledge characteristic of
that science, of the structure that the science displays as the
ecologist gathers, interprets, and integrates his data, as he defines
and clarifies his concepts, and as he formulates his laws, principles
and theories. But how do we move from a scientific to a moral point
of view? We move with great caution and difficulty, for here we
encounter perhaps the most formidable problem of contemporary
critical ethics (metaethics); namely, the question of the logical
bearing of facts upon values. We have surveyed some of these problems
in our Introduction to Environmental Ethics (included here)
and will return to them throughout this course.
ANIMAL LIBERATION
In the General Introduction to their text,
The Environmental Ethics and Policy Book,(8)
VanDeVeer and Pierce identify "Two Fundamental Questions"
of environmental ethics. The first question is: "What sort of things
have moral standing?" The second question inquires about the
principles by which one might adjudicate among conflicting moral
claims of such "entities possessing moral standing." Clearly, the
first "question" logically precedes the second. The essential
question of the entire section is simply this: "Is 'animal
liberation' an appropriate foundation for environmental
ethics?"
The late American philosopher, William
Frankena, listed eight "types" of environmental ethics, portrayed as
concentric "circles" describing expanding "domains" of morally
significant objects: first the individual ego ("ethical
egoism"), out to persons or humans, then further
still to sentient beings, thence to "all life," and
even further to "nature itself," and finally to "created"
nature and the creating Super-Nature (God).(9)
Accordingly, this section on "animal
liberation" might be regarded as the second of five, suggested both
by VanDeVeer and Pierce's "first fundamental question," and by
Frankena's "types" of environmental ethics. In the previous section,
we began with the smallest "circle" of moral standing, mankind ("anthropocentrism"). (Egoism, an
unpromising avenue to environmental ethics, has been omitted from
this survey). In the Section before us, the realm of proposed moral
standing expands to include all sentient animals. Subsequent sections
will explore proposals to include all of life, and then all of
nature, in the scope of morally significant entities.
The defenders of the moral standing of sentient
animals, we shall find, do not present a united front. Peter Singer
represents the utilitarian approach to "animal liberation"
-- the view that our moral duty is to maximize the good and (more
urgently) to minimize the aggregate pain, of all sentient animals.
Tom Regan defends "the rights view," which argues that, by
aggregating ("totaling up") pleasures and pains, the utilitarian
gives insufficient attention to the integrity ("inherent value") of
each individual sentient animal.
My contribution to this section ("Three Wrong
Leads...")(10)
criticizes Regan's application of the concepts of
rights and inherent value to animals. I argue that
his attempt to "extend" the notion of "moral right" from humans to
animals disregards crucial distinctions between persons and
non-personal animals. Furthermore, I argue, Regan's concept of
"inherent value" offers us little if any guidance in distinguishing
"good" from "bad" natural objects. My final objection, applying
equally to Singer and Regan, is that "animal liberation" is an
inappropriate approach to environmental ethics, since it disregards
the holistic and ecosystemic view of the natural
environment, and of mankind's responsibility toward this
environment.
"GAIA-CENTRISM" -- THE LAND
ETHIC
The individualistic approach to
environmental ethics -- directed first to human beings
(anthropocentrism), then to sentient beings ("animal liberation") and
then to living organisms ("bio-centrism") -- is now rejected in favor
of a holistic, contextual view of environmental ethics. Aldo
Leopold, and such supporters as Holmes Rolston and Baird Callicott, take the science of ecology seriously! They believe that,
just as "you can not (in fact) do just one thing," in ethics "you
can't evaluate just one thing." In ethics, as in nature,
"everything is connected to everything else" -- "the whole informs
the parts."
For this position, we have coined the
name "Gaia-Centrism." (Previously, we tried "Eco-Centrism," but this
sounds too much like the virtually opposite position,
"EGO-Centrism.") The word "Gaia," the ancient Greek name of
the "Earth Goddess," has been adopted by the British biologist, James
Lovelock, to designate his hypothesis that the Earth itself -- its
global ecosystem, along with the physical-chemical mechanisms of
soil, atmosphere and oceans -- is an integrated, self-regulating
system. Hence, "Gaia-Centrism" -- the view that the whole Earth
itself, and not any of its component organisms or species or regions
in isolation, is the focus of fundamental ethical concern.
The classical statement of this
position is, of course, Aldo Leopold's "The Land Ethic,"
which we will now, at last, encounter and assess. This widely quoted
and reprinted essay is perhaps the most influential statement of
"ecological consciousness" to gain recent public attention. And yet,
that essay was written a full generation before the first "Earth Day"
in April, 1970. Still, as environmental philosophers have noted time
and again, Aldo Leopold, who was not a professional philosopher, had
superlative philosophical intuitions. Moreover, perhaps because he
was outside the mainstream of academic philosophy of a generation
ago, he was not constrained from wondering why nature was not an
object of moral consideration, and whether it was not time at last to
include it within the circle of our moral attention. Given the
philosophical temper of the times it was an outrageous question.
Fortunately, Leopold apparently did not know this, and thus was not
deterred from writing a masterpiece.
The endurance of Leopold's ideas is
due, in no small part, to the eloquence and power of his prose. In
fact, "The Land Ethic," appears near the end of his book, A Sand
County Almanac, in which his ideas are conveyed, not directly
and explicitly, as a philosopher would, but through the vivid imagery
and meticulous description of an inspired literary talent. For a
flavor of this splendid prose, savor the following:
The skunk track enters the
woods, and crosses a glade where the rabbits have packed down the
snow with their tracks, and mottled it with pinkish urinations.
Newly exposed oak seedlings have paid for the thaw with their
newly baked stems. Tufts of rabbit-hair bespeak the year's first
battles among the amorous bucks. Further on I find a bloody spot,
encircled by a wide-sweeping ark of owl's wings. To this rabbit
the thaw brought freedom from want, but also a reckless
abandonment of fear. The owl has reminded him that thoughts of
spring are no substitute for caution.
For a preview of Leopold's thought,
consider this fragment from the Foreword to his book:
Conservation is getting
nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of
Land. 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. There is no other way for
land to survive the impact of mechanized man, nor for us to reap
from it the esthetic harvest it is capable, under science, of
contributing to culture...
Although Aldo Leopold was not a
philosopher, he has arguably inspired and provoked more significant
work in environmental ethics than any philosopher that has followed
him. This is a phenomenal accomplishment; especially so, in view of
the fact that most philosophers are disposed to regard "amateur"
attempts to "do philosophy" as banal, pretentious, and ultimately
embarrassing. Not so with Leopold. And why does his work command such
attention and respect of philosophers? First of all, contemporary
philosophers, by and large, see their work as complementary
to science, rather than competitive. Accordingly, when an
accomplished scientist presents concepts, facts and theories that
promise to hone the cutting edge of philosophical inquiry, the
philosophers take notice. In addition, Leopold displayed, in his
writing, an historical and a literary erudition far beyond the scope
of his scientific specialty. Finally, Leopold possessed an original
mix of thought and vision and literary expression that can only be
described as "genius" -- a genius that simply could not be ignored by
a moral philosopher more than casually aware of Leopold's work.
With all this, Aldo Leopold
bequeathed a rich legacy to his philosophical successors. And yet,
for all it's literary and scientific richness, this legacy
constituted a vein of philosophically unrefined ore: priceless, but
in need of devoted and painstaking assessment, development, and, to
be sure, criticism.
BIOPHILIA: "THE NATURAL
HUMAN"
Why preserve wild nature and the wild creatures
therein? One intriguing answer to this question has been proposed by
a number of biologists, geneticists, ecologists and ethologists. They
plausibly suggest that our need for nature has a genetic base. We
need, in short, the environment in which we have developed as a
species. Following E. O. Wilson, I will call this theory "Bio-Philia"
A prominent defender of this hypothesis is the botanist, Hugh Iltis,
who writes:
Let us try to define a human
environment, one in which mankind could find maximal fulfillment.
May we not say that the best environment is one in which the human
animal can have maximum contact with the type of natural
environment in which it evolved and for which it is genetically
programmed without sacrificing the major advantages of
civilization; that is, does not the optimum modern human
environment require a compromise between our genetic heritage,
which we cannot deny, and the fruits of civilization, which we are
loath to give up?
. . . Even though we live in houses, for
our physical well-being nature in our daily life must be
thought of as an indispensable biological need. [Iltis'
italics] Every basic adaptation of the human body, be it the
ear, the eye, the brain, yes, even our psyche, demands for proper
functioning access to an environment similar, at least, to the one
in which these structures evolved through natural selection over
the past 100 million years. . . .
We, who are Darwin's grandchildren, can
thus easily appreciate that, like the need for love, the need for
nature, the need for its diversity and beauty, has a genetic
basis. We cannot reject nature from our lives because we cannot
change our genes. That must be why we, citified and clothed apes
though we are, continually bring nature and its diversity and its
beauty into our civilized lives, yet without any real
understanding of why we do so.(11)
It follows from the biophilic hypothesis that a
destruction of the natural environment diminishes man's legacy and
estate by depriving him of places of refuge, fulfillment,
"re-creation" (in the literal sense of that abused word). Such
destruction, writes Paul Shepard, is "an amputation of
man."(12)
To be healthy and fulfilled, says the
biophilic, we cannot be totally detached from that which nurtured us.
The sack of skin that encloses the human organism does not contain
all of "human nature." In "Ecology and Man -- A Viewpoint," an
eloquent statement of our biotic legacy and sustenance (included
here), Shepard writes:
Ecological thinking requires a
kind of vision across boundaries. The epidermis of the skin is
ecologically like a pond surface or a forest soil, not a shell so
much as a delicate interpenetration. It reveals the self ennobled
and extended, rather than threatened, as part of the landscape,
because the beauty and complexity of nature are continuous with
ourselves.(13)
Thus, in a significant sense, the human
organism is the natural world which created it. If nature,
which nourished us as a species, sustains us still, there may be more
truth than poetry in the worn metaphor, "Mother Nature."
Could we survive in an entirely artificial
environment? On a planet wholly domesticated, with every last vestige
of wilderness crowded out? Perhaps we could. In his essay, "What's
Wrong With Plastic Trees?", Martin Krieger comes close to saying that
we might manage quite well without wilderness. Hugh Iltis, of course,
disagrees. In "Can One Love a Plastic Tree?," he contends that a
totally artificial environment would severely diminish the quality of
human life. The distinguished Harvard zoologist, Edward O. Wilson
concurs. In an eloquent excerpt from his book, Biophilia,
(his name for the hypothesis), Wilson enriches the theory with
specific suggestions as the nature of the environments from which we
evolved, and thus in which, even today, we feel most "at home" --
"responding," he writes, "to a deep genetic memory of mankind's
optimal environment."(14)
The biophilic hypothesis, while plausible and
even persuasive, has not been conclusively demonstrated. In fact, it
is quite controversial. One fanciful reply to the question, "Can One
Love a Plastic Tree?" might be "certainly -- provided one is
a plastic person." (The word "plastic" is intended here in its
etymological sense: namely, pliable, malleable, able to assume an
infinitude of forms, like plasticene, the sculptor's clay.).
Only a generation ago, it was commonly believed that homo
sapiens was "plastic" in this sense. Support for this notion has
come from a variety of cultural anthropologists, sociologists, and
behavioral psychologists, many of whom have argued that there is
scarcely a behavior trait or belief that is not simultaneously found
to be praised and condemned in different cultures or at different
times in the history of the same culture. And yet, all human beings
are essentially alike in their genetic inheritance.
The hypothesis of biophilia will be difficult
either to confirm or refute because of the persistent and
recalcitrant difficulty of separating and isolating the respective
roles of heredity and environment -- "nature and nurture" -- in
determining behavior and taste. And yet it is urgent that we attempt
to determine just how much we need to be in the presence of wild
nature. In the meantime, the very plausibility of the bio-philic
hypothesis mandates caution and conservatism with regard to our
policies of exploitation and development. If, at length, we conclude
that mankind can manage quite well without wilderness, there will be
time enough to dismantle it, if that is what we choose to do.
However, if we eventually discover that mankind has a deep need to be
in the presence of the kind of natural species, landscapes and
ecosystems that produced him, we may arrive at the realization too
late to reclaim and enjoy our lost natural legacy.
HOLISM AND CONTEXTUALISM IN
ETHICS
Among the essential messages that the biologist
and the ecologist offer the moral philosopher is that man evolved
from, and remains a member of, the natural community. Man is a
natural being and thus remains subject to nature's laws.
This is so whether or not we are aware of this dependence or desire
it. We have long believed that this was not so; that mankind was of a
special and separate order from nature. Recently, while we have
acknowledged our natural origins, we have allowed ourselves to
believe that with our remarkable growth in scientific knowledge and
technical power we could declare our independence from the life
community. The hard facts seem to indicate that we can not, and that
we will continue to believe otherwise at our great peril.
Ecological science also recommends, by example,
the holistic point of view -- a perspective effectively and
productively employed by the ecologist in his work. However, the
moral philosopher need not learn of this approach solely from the
ecologist, since many moral philosophers have long recognized that
morality makes no sense when viewed reductively; that is to say, that
a rational code of morality is not to be comprehended simply by
summing up the separate tastes, preferences, desires and wills of
each member of the community. On the contrary, most moral
philosophers have learned that if morality is to be understood and
justified at all it must be viewed in the context of the
system of the community, of the role of
the institution of morality in that community, and of the agent's
understanding of his function in that community. In short,
morality, moral principle, moral instruction, are intelligible only
when human conduct is viewed holistically, systemically,
contextually, from the point of view of an integrated community of
persons.(15)
This point has been persuasively argued in the
past by such social contract theorists as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke
and Jean Jacques Rousseau. It has been reiterated in the present by
game theorists and systems analysts, and by such contemporary
philosophers as Kurt Baier, John Rawls, Kai Nielsen and Steven
Toulmin. Because of this philosophical interest in the systems
approach to morality, those philosophers who wish to derive norms of
conduct toward nature (that is to say, an environmental
ethic) might be inclined to adopt the ecologists' preferred mode
of holistic and systematic thinking. The moral philosopher, after
all, is used to such modes of thought in his examination,
articulating and justification of social norms. Articulating
such an ecological ethic should thus present little difficulty.
However, the moral philosopher faces his greatest challenge as he
attempts to justify such an ethic. Then he must face, and
take account of, some significant differences between social
communities and life communities.
The ecologist, as we have repeatedly noted,
seeks to understand the parts from the point of view of the
whole -- of the system in which the part (species or
organism) functions. Similarly, the moral philosophers that we have
just mentioned view morality, not from the point of view of the
individual, but rather from the point of view of the system
-- of the community. To "look out for number one" by calculating a
maximization of "payoffs" for oneself, or alternatively, to apply
values exclusively in terms of one's own conduct, is to take what
might be called "the egocentric perspective." On the other hand, to
look toward the maximization of goods for the entire community, or to
apply moral rules for each with regard for the optimum
function of these rules in regulating the whole, is to adopt
the perspective of "the moral spectator," or, more directly, "the
moral point of view." The points of view of the egocentric agent and
of the moral spectator are notoriously in conflict. This conflict and
the attempt to resolve it give immediate rise to the necessity for
moral deliberation and thus to moral philosophy.
It can be readily demonstrated, I believe, that
life in a community of persons assuming and acting in accordance with
the point of view of the moral spectator is to be preferred to life
in a community of persons each acting from the point of view of
individual, self-interested agents, however rational. Two paradigms
readily illustrate this contention.
First, there is the celebrated case of "the
tragedy of the commons," vividly and effectively presented by Garrett
Hardin. To simplify and generalize Hardin's point: there are numerous
circumstances in human communal life in which uncoordinated,
self-seeking activity by each member of a community destroys the
resource base and thereby the community itself. To use Hardin's
initial example, herdsmen utilizing an overstocked common pasture
will, by adding to their personal flock (a decision of the
self-interested agent), degrade the common resource and thus
the wealth of all others (a harmful act from the point of view of the
moral spectator). Of course, the same self-serving decision
on the part of the others (i.e., the decision to increase their own
flocks) harms the interests of the first herdsman. And yet, given the
lack of communal rules of management or procedures of rule
enforcement (i.e., no effective moral or legal restraints on range
use) the rational decision must be to add to one's personal
flock. (After all, the pasture will be ruined in any case due to the
independent acts of "the others"). But once an enforceable regulative
order is accepted by each, and imposed upon all, the welfare of each
herdsman will be enhanced through this system of "mutual coercion
mutually agreed upon." The collective good may be realized more
economically (and in some cases it will be accomplished
only) if the mutual restraint is effected through moral
forbearance; that is, through an operative sense of loyalty to the
community and to its moral values by "enough" (though not necessarily
all) members of the community.(16)
And so we find, in the case of the tragedy of
the commons, further warrant for the paradox of morality; that is,
the conclusion that one's self interest might not be best served by
directly seeking his self interest.
A second illustration of the advantage of the
moral point of view comes from the experience of military combat.
Imagine that you are an infantryman about to be assigned to the
front. Your overriding interest is to survive your one-year tour of
duty in the combat zone. You are given the choice of being assigned
either to a platoon of twelve egoists or to a platoon of twelve
altruists. Assuming that you would accept the moral position of the
members of your platoon (you would be, respectively, an egoist or an
altruist), which assignment would you choose -- given again, that
your primary motive is personal survival?
Of course, the operative motive of
each member of the platoon of egoists is personal survival. And
because this motive is universally operative, there is no opportunity
for cooperation and trust to develop in the group. No one will
relinquish even a bit of his personal chances for survival for your
advantage. In contradistinction, in the platoon of altruists, each
soldier regards the value of his own life as at most equal to, but no
greater than, the value of the life of each of the others. Thus if
the greater safety of all is to be accomplished by the altruistic
sacrifice of a few, and if you are the one of those few, then you
will accept your fate and make the sacrifice knowing that the others
would have willingly done the same. You understand, and all the
others know, that this code of honor, trust and sacrifice is in
effect and thus that each member can be counted on. The question,
then, is simply this: In which platoon would your initial objective
of personal survival most likely be realized? The overwhelming
evidence of military history tells us that other factors being equal,
you will more wisely choose the platoon of altruists. The life of the
altruistic soldier is protected by eleven others acting in common
purpose; the egoist can look only to himself for protection. And so,
again, we arrive at the paradox of morality. For when one joins the
group of altruists and relinquishes total responsibility for his own
personal safety and welfare while accepting shared responsibility for
the safety and welfare of all others (that is, as he shifts his moral
point of view from that of the self-serving agent to that of the
spectator), and as he correctly perceives that others have adopted
the same perspective, his personal well-being will be enhanced by
this operative shift in moral perspective. (A similar and striking
argument for the moral paradox can be made from the intriguing
game-theory example of "the prisoner's dilemma").
The tragedy of the commons and the platoon case
are but two of many paradigms that illustrate and confirm the rule
that the individual's prospect for maximizing his own safety and
welfare is enhanced by membership in a moral community; i.e., in a
community in which the preponderant operative sentiment is to act for
the maximization of the good of all.
Accordingly, to the psychological, psychiatric
and sociological arguments for self-transcendent concern (encountered
in the previous section) we add now these arguments from systems
theory. All converge upon the conclusion that human life is more
fulfilled in a moral community -- in a community in which each member
has loyalty to principles that serve the common good and which
effectively override exclusive concern for his self interest. This is
what Aristotle meant when he proclaimed that man is a political
animal, and what Hobbes meant when he observed that outside of
society, life for humanity is "nasty, mean, brutish and short." The
advantages of social life in a moral community are obvious and
compelling, yet they must be learned anew. Many intelligent and
well-educated persons seem to have failed to appreciate the import
and implications of this lesson; hence the appeal today of such
writers as Ayn Rand and Robert Nozick.
And so the value of individual human life is
enhanced to the degree that one (a) has self-transcending concern,
and to the degree that (b) he subsumes his interest to that of the
community (the paradox of morality). To this second rule, I would add
two urgent provisos: First, one assumes that most members of the
community share and act in accordance with the moral point of view.
(Thus if, contrary to his rational wishes, the soldier is assigned to
the platoon of egoists, he is simply unfortunate. He then has two
choices: either to attempt to persuade and convert the others to an
altruistic point of view, or, failing that, to reluctantly assume an
egoistic point of view, correctly realizing that with no "social
contract" of reciprocal protection, he has no duty to further
endanger his own safety with acts of undeserved and unreciprocated
sacrifice). The second proviso is that it would be a grave error of
oversimplification to generalize this recommendation of communal
perspective and concern to all aspects of personal life. Such an
unqualified call for other-directedness would, in effect, lead toward
the abolishment of individualism, and that would be an intolerable
loss. By pointing out some advantages of assuming a communal point of
view and acting therefrom in matters of common interest, one is by no
means required to deny the considerable advantages to each citizen of
rights of privacy and of the right to hold non-conforming personal
tastes and beliefs. Diversity in life communities provides stability.
While this may or may not be true in the case of human communities,
diverse societies surely tend to be more interesting places in which
to live. In fact. these arguments from moral psychology can readily
be employed to defend the maxims of personal liberty and the rights
of the minorities. It is arguable that this is precisely what
happened when the Bill of Rights was debated and ratified. Surely the
rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are intended
to allow the fullest realization of self-transcendent
concern.
The tragedy of the commons and the platoon
example offer informal, systems theory justification of "the moral
point of view." These thought experiments (and there are many more)
indicate that the perspective of "the moral spectator" of the good of
the entire community is the appropriate point of view from which to
perceive and manage our personal moral conduct and to regulate our
communal lives, either through the laws or through the restraints of
moral conscience. The "moral point of view" informs and guides our
ethical dealings with members of our social community, to the degree
that our neighbors likewise acknowledge and act according to this
point of view, and with due recognition of personal rights of privacy
and to autonomy and individuality.
But we speak here of a moral point of view
toward a human social community. Can we argue, from analogy, that the
advantages of acting from "the moral point of view" in human
communities lends warrant to adapting an "ecological point of view"
to direct our dealings with natural life communities? Human
communities and life communities are different not only in degree but
also in kind. To cite just one essential difference, human
communities are comprised of persons; i.e., of individuals
with the capacity for rational, deliberative choice, and the ability
to comprehend and to be guided by moral principles. In communities of
persons, reciprocal relationships of rights and duties can be
defined, and moral responsibility can be meaningfully ascribed. But
moral duties and responsibilities can not meaningfully be literally
ascribed to non-personal natural beings. Thus attempts to extend
moral rules by analogy from human communities to ecosystems can be
highly questionable philosophically. Still, there may be advantages
to assuming an ecosystemic point of view, to regarding ourselves not
as masters of, but as citizens in, the
life community. By assuming this point of view we may better clarify
and perhaps even direct our moral responsibilities and conduct toward
nature.
MORAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE
ENVIRONMENT
After a remarkably extended period of neglect,
moral philosophers are once again adopting a psychological
perspective and examining the perennial issues of good and bad, right
and wrong, obligations and rights, etc., in such psychological terms
as needs, fulfillments, moral sentiments, motives, habits,
capacities to comprehend and obey moral maxims, problem-solving
abilities, moral educability, etc. Many philosophers believe
that without these psychological considerations, attempts to solve
ethical questions are pointless and unavailing. And yet, by bringing
these considerations into moral contemplation and controversy, we
complicate moral issues enormously. Be that as it may, this focus of
attention on human sentiments, needs, motives, habits, capacities and
fulfillments is indispensable to moral philosophy. It is also
indispensable to environmental ethics, for surely, if the
ecological moralist would prescribe duties and
responsibilities toward nature, he should be prepared to answer
how, or even if, mankind could be motivated to
fulfill these alleged responsibilities. For if the requirements of an
environmental ethic are beyond human psychological capacity, they
might not be morally binding. "Ought implies can."
The question of human moral capacity (or "connative
adequacy") is examined in my "Why Care About the
Future?"(17)
We will return to that question later in this
Introduction.
Moral psychology also includes the
investigation and analysis of moral cognitive adequacy; that
is, of the ability of the mind to comprehend, assess, and solve moral
problems.(18)
It is a question that can be applied either to the study of
personal instruction ("moral education") or of historical moral
development. Consider first an analogy drawn from the history of
science; that is, of the growth of the "cognitive adequacy"
of scientific thought.
Earlier (in the Commentary on "Anthopocentrim")
I described how, at certain pivotal moments in the history of
science, radical reconstructions of theory and redefinitions of
concepts have accomplished "cognitive breakthroughs" -- solutions to
previously insoluble puzzles and contradictions, extensions of the
range of prediction and explanation, and a simplification of the
logical and conceptual structure of the science. Such revolutions in
scientific thought were accomplished by Copernicus in astronomy,
Galileo, Newton and Einstein in physics, Darwin in biology, and Freud
in psychology. In a similar manner, the holistic, systems-oriented
perspective of the ecologist displays significant cognitive
advantages over a particularistic, reductive approach to the life
sciences.
Does moral understanding undergo similar
transformations of structure and extensions of scope in the course of
its development? The history of ethical thought would seem to
indicate that it does. But even more startling are recent
investigations by the psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg that indicate
that a series of transformations occur in each person in the course
of the growth and development of his moral perception and cognition.
Kohlberg describes moral growth as a progression, through a series of
six distinct "stages," toward greater "cognitive adequacy." As in the
case of the theoretical scientist, the child, in the course of his
moral development, finds himself faced with a series of unresolved
puzzles and contradictions ("cognitive dissonance"). He then gropes
for a new theoretical structure that will realign and thus resolve
these puzzles and contradictions by assimilating them into a more
coherent system of thought with a larger scope of
application.
A reflection, first, upon the history of
scientific revolutions, second, upon the apparent scientific
advantages of the holistic, systemic perspective of the ecologist,
and finally, Kohlberg's studies of the psychology of moral
development yields the suggestion that the ecosystemic perspective
might offer a better mode of viewing our moral responsibilities
toward nature -- "better," that is, than the traditional and
prevalent anthropocentric view. If this is so -- if, in fact, an
ecologically oriented morality constitutes an advancement in
moral thinking over the man-centered view -- then previously
insoluble puzzles and contradictions might "fall into place" in the
new structure, thus "harmonizing" previous "cognitive dissonance."
Let's see if this may be the case.
Anthropocentrism proclaims our capacity, even
our "right," to manage the natural estate exclusively for human
advantage and use. The ecological moralist denies both the capacity
and the right to do this. Joseph Wood Krutch observes:
The whole concept of exploitation
is so false and so limited that in the end it will defeat itself
and the earth will have been plundered no matter how
scientifically and farseeingly the plundering has been done... It
is not a sentimental but a grimly literal fact that unless we
share this terrestrial globe with creatures other than ourselves,
we shall not be able to live on it for long.(19)
Support for the ecological moralist's view is
found in the accumulating, dreadful account of the cost of our
careless exploitation of nature: uncontrolled population growth,
resource depletion, species extinction, and a widespread poisoning of
the biosphere through casual dumping of the refuse of our industrial
civilization. Awareness of all this should create a "dissonance" in
the world-view of the human chauvinist. For, if man is so wise,
powerful and capable of managing his private planet, all this should
not be happening to him.
Anthropocentrism also creates a "moral
dissonance" which might well be resolved through the ecosystemic
view. While massive exploitation of nature might seem to serve the
interests of people we care about, such as our contemporary neighbors
and our children, even such "altruistic" solicitude for the welfare
of immediate and contemporary others may be felt to be inconsistent
with a "natural" and intuitive regard and admiration for natural
landscapes and species that one seems to have despite one's
anthropocentrism. (Promptings, perhaps, of "biophilic impulses"?)
Thus one might somehow feel a measure of discomfort about the casual
destruction in a few years time of species and habitats that have
evolved and endured over millions of years. But in what moral terms
does the human chauvinist articulate, much more defend, a case for
restraining such biotic destruction and exploitation? Moral concepts
such as rights, duties, justice, responsibility, emerge from
the evaluation of persons and their communities. But they seem
strained and inappropriate when applied to nature. There even appears
to be some difficulty in extending the concept of "rights" to apply
to future generations which, after all, do not exist now
when we are making decisions that will significantly affect the
quality of their lives in the future. In short, in the realm of
ethics, the anthropocentric view just does not seem to do the
cognitive work that we want it to do. It leaves us with just too many
puzzles and paradoxes. Somehow it seems inadequate to say that we
should protect endangered species simply for the sake of the
enjoyment we gain by having them around, even less to argue
for their protection in terms of the economic value they realize in
promoting tourism. Somehow these points in "defense" of these species
seem rather crass and morally irrelevant. Something essential seems
to be missing from this "defense."
The scientific "ecosystemic view"
informs even the anthropocentric approach to environmental ethics.
For when we talk of DDT in mother's milk and Strontium 90 from the
Faralon Island dump site appearing in our tuna fish, we are employing
the concept of the "community of nature" (specifically, the concept
of the "trophic pyramid") in a manner that even a human chauvinist
can appreciate. But an ecological moralist goes beyond this. He holds
that the ecological point of view, as a methodology and perspective,
need not and should not simply display and serve our
purposes. Furthermore, he holds that it is arbitrary to utilize the
ecologist's view of "the community of nature" just to secure
mankind's short-term, immediate advantages. Instead, the ecological
moralist attempts to draw out moral implications from the ecological
perspective, and thus he argues that humanity is not only a part of a
"web of life," but further indicates that there is a deep and basic
inconsistency in identifying oneself a community member in
fact, and yet as a master and ultimate justification for that
community in the moral sense.
Is there a basic inconsistency between an
acknowledgment of factual membership in a community and a claim of
moral mastery thereof that can not be psychologically sustained? Does
the casual application of policies that lead to the eradication of
species of millions of years of development "feed back" to affect our
attitudes and behavior toward members of our own species and toward
our own habitat? The ecological moralist might insist that, like a
species within an ecosystem, social morality and ecological morality
are interdependent. Thus, the self-seeking frame of mind that leads
to and manifests a willingness to shred and destroy ecosystems of
countless ages of standing, and which even urges an active
participation in such destruction, is not a frame of mind that is
well designed to promote moral qualities that one might prefer to
find in one's neighbors -- such qualities as mutual respect,
restraint, humility, and loyalty to one's community.
Let us return to the question of moral
motivation -- specifically, the question of whether we are,
by and large, capable of caring enough to preserve wild
nature and to make just provision for future generations. In the
essay, "Why Care About the Future?" I offer some hope that we may
have such a capacity (albeit recent events suggest that these
"capacities" have been overridden by more self-serving motives). My
argument is based primarily upon a defense of two moral-psychological
principles: First of all, the need for self-transcendent concern, and
second, what has been called "the moral paradox" -- an observation,
reiterated throughout the history of religious and philosophical
ethics, that one's self interest is best served by not seeking one's
self interest. Through these psychological considerations we may find
that, viewed in the full systemic context, an operative,
ecologically-oriented moral policy toward nature -- a policy that
regards the "interests of nature" in addition to, and perhaps even
prior to, immediate human concerns -- is a policy that is ultimately
most fulfilling of human aspiration and most deserving of human
loyalty.
Let us approach the consideration of moral
psychology by confronting the ecological moralist with a stark
challenge which, the anthropocentrist might claim, reveals the
essential paradox of the ecological moralist's position. The
anthropocentrist asks: "Do we need to need species
that we do not need?" Assume a constant sense of that word
"need" and the answer is clearly "No." It is a simple logical truth
that we do not need what we do not need. End of question. But assign
different senses to the word "need," (as I believe we appropriately
can), and we might get this paraphrase: "Is human life enriched by
caring for things that are of no apparent use to human
beings?" Perhaps the answer is "yes" -- that a life bereft of
"useless things" is not an enviable life. How shall one argue this?
Possibly by looking deeply into the logic and psychology of
motivation and "need," and discovering therein that fundamental to
the human condition is a need to care for things outside of oneself.
In my contribution to this section, I call this "the need for self
transcending concern," which I thus characterize:
By claiming that there is a basic
human need for 'self transcendence,' I am proposing that as a
result of the psychodevelopmental sources of the self and the
fundamental dynamics of social experience, well-functioning human
beings identify with, and seek to further, the well-being,
preservation, and endurance of communities, locations, causes,
artifacts, institutions, ideals, etc., which are outside
themselves and which they hope will flourish beyond their own
lifetimes. . . . Thus we cannot regard our decisions and the
values which we hold, to be restricted to and isolated within
ourselves.
This claim has a reverse side to it;
namely, that individuals who lack a sense of self-transcendence
are acutely impoverished in that they lack significant,
fundamental, and widespread capacities and features of human moral
and social experience. Such individuals are said to be
alienated, both from themselves and from their
communities. If such individuals lack concern for
self-transcending projects and ideals because of a total
absorption with themselves, they are said to be
narcissistic personalities.
"Self transcendence" describes a class
of feelings which give rise to a variety of activities. It is no
small ingredient in the production of great works of art and
literature, in the choice of careers in public service, education,
scientific research, and so forth. In all this variety, however,
there is a central generic motive; namely, for the self to be part
of, to favorably affect, and to value for itself, the well-being
and endurance of something that is not
oneself.(20)
A defense for this bold claim will be found in
that paper.
If, as I urge, self-transcendence is vital to
the human condition, then surely its absence should be seen
to exact a high price in the life quality of those who are devoid of
self-transcendent interests and concerns. And here, I think, we find
clear clinical evidence to support the claim that self-transcendent
concern is essential to psychological health and well-being. As noted
above, in psychiatric and sociological literature a lack of active
personal interest and involvement in, and valuing of, external
concerns and causes is called "alienation" -- a common and apparently
increasing phenomenon in contemporary life. When value is
turned inward and focused directly and exclusively upon oneself and
upon one's image of oneself, this is called "narcissism," a
psychological condition that is not only widespread in our culture,
it is even recommended and celebrated by such "pop philosophers" as
Ayn Rand, Robert Ringer, Richard Dyer and Werner Ehrhardt. Narcissism
has political expression in libertarianism and is reflected in that
label often used to characterize the the mood of our times: "the me generation." The clinical literature indicates that
neither alienation or narcissism describe enviable
modes of life.
Then what is the answer? How is one to find
satisfaction in one's life? Paradoxically, one is to find it by
renouncing the direct and deliberate search for personal
satisfaction. Satisfaction and fulfillment are attained by valuing
things other than oneself, not for the gratification that these
others bring us, but for themselves. Happiness is found by
reaching out, in admiration, reverence and love, rather than through
self-serving calculation. This is the paradox of morality.
The paradox is expressed in religious literature from around the
world. It is also set forth by moral philosophers from Aristotle,
through Hobbes and Butler, on to Kurt Baier, Kai Nielsen, John Rawls,
and many others in our own time.
If the paradox of morality correctly describes
moral psychology, then it follows that deliberate attempts to
directly maximize enjoyments, say through legislation, education and
policy making, may be not just unavailing; even worse, they may be
self-defeating. Such a policy paradox might appear in attempts to
manage natural landscapes and seascapes, or "useless" natural objects
and species. Thus, for example, if faced with the question of
managing natural species and ecosystems we ask, "Well, just what good
are they to us anyway?" -- "good" in the economic sense, or even
"good" in the aesthetic sense of the delight that they offer to
us, we may be systematically excluding from consideration their
greatest value. For it may be the case that, paradoxically, natural
areas and species are valuable "to us" precisely to the degree that
they are valued and admired not for our sake and gratification but
for themselves: for what they are -- independent of
us, complex, diverse, self-regulating, and with a long history of
evolution and duration. To the degree that we "lose" our
self-awareness in the contemplation of the wild, and thus cast aside
the impudent question, "But what good is all this to us?" --
to that degree we might gain the fullest advantages of visiting wild
places or even simply knowing that they exist, free, undisturbed and
wild.
Many have charged that to love nature more, one
must love mankind less (and, to be sure, there are abundant examples
of misanthropic nature-lovers). But is the capacity for love some
kind of depletable psychic resource? Or is it, like musical talent or
athletic skill, a capacity that is enhanced and strengthened through
application? Perhaps a callous indifference to the value of the
diverse and complex order of life forms in natural ecosystems, and to
their long histories of evolution and maintenance, does not leave one
with a greater capacity for love, altruistic solicitude and moral
responsibility toward humanity. Even worse, perhaps such
insensitivity to natural values is contagious and can be spread to
contaminate one's moral stance toward fellow human beings. Thus we
might well wonder if, rather than leaving a larger store of love
available for humanity, an indifference to natural history, order and
sustenance adversely affects our human relationships. Such
self-regarding callousness, reflected in disregard and destruction of
nature for economic gain, might set a pattern of behavior that can
contaminate the value and integrity of communal life. If so, then
when Thoreau wrote "in wildness is the preservation of the Earth," he
spoke a half truth. Perhaps, in addition, "in wildness is the
preservation of humanity and human virtue."
RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE
ENVIRONMENT
The phrase "Responsibility for Nature,"
employed by John Passmore in his excellent 1974 book,(21)
may touch close to the nerve of environmental
ethics. The phrase indicates reflective, normative rules of action
and forbearance toward entities and regions which exist and persist
"on their own," independent of human "management," and instead
maintained by natural processes. But the word "responsibility" also
implies that these entities and regions are vulnerable to
human action and policy. Thus we may be said to have a
"responsibility" toward the Amazon Rain Forest or to the Siberian
Tiger, but in no meaningful sense, a "responsibility" toward the sun,
the Andromeda Galaxy, or the Laws of Thermodynamics.
"Responsibility," as we have earlier (and
repeatedly) indicated, implies (a) knowledge, (b)
capacity, (c) choice, and (d) value
significance. Thus, as our sciences have increased our
knowledge, and our technology has increased our capacities to affect
the condition of the natural environment and its creatures, and thus
the quality of our lives and of the lives of our contemporaries and
posterity, so too has our burden of moral responsibility
increased.
Is "environmental responsibility" primarily an
individual or a collective burden? Despite
important differences, the three papers in this section agree that
for and individual to accurately assess his responsibility to others,
and to his environment, he must be aware of the social and
environmental context of his acts. In the pursuit of
common goods (such as "domestic tranquility," or a
sustainable yield of natural resources), the moral agent must
anticipate whether the other members will act "in common cause" --
whether, that is, the behavior of each is guided by the
requirements of all in the community. As Garret Hardin
succinctly puts it: "The morality of an act is a function of the
state of the system" -- the state of the social system and,
in the case of environmental ethics, the state of the
ecosystem. Action by the moral agent which is guided by a
perspective upon the needs and functions of the community (yet
constrained by recognition of the rights of each individual), is
called action "from the moral point of view." The fortunate
community that adopts and acts upon rules drawn from that
perspective, may be described as a "morally well-ordered
community."
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF
WILDERNESS
Does nature "speak" directly to us?
Is there something about a simple, direct encounter with nature that
is likely to evoke a direct affirmation of nature -- to convey the
impression that a healthy, diverse, functioning ecosystem is, of
itself, intrinsically valuable?
Why not go out and discover for
yourself?
Let me suggest an experiment that
might lead you to experience the intrinsic worthy of nature. Once you
have read this suggestion, put this book aside and return to it after
you have completed the experiment
To begin, don't read
anything. Don't discuss anything. At least not for
this project -- yet. (We'll get to the book work later).
Otherwise, you will contaminate the experiment. What experiment?
Well, here it is:
I. The Minimum
Experiment:
(a) find some piece of unspoiled
nature, with no sight or sound of human impact in evidence. (Forests,
deserts, mountains, beaches -- whatever). The further from a paved
road, the better.(22)
(b) Do not bring distractions: i.e.,
no loaves, no jugs, no books of verse, and (alas!) no "thous." Just
yourself -- at most, a pencil and paper, though even that is
quite dispensable. Of course, you should take appropriate clothing
and water, and let someone know where you are going. Also, if there
is any question of personal safety, go in pairs (at least) then split
at your destination. (This applies especially to female
students).
(c) Spend at least a whole
afternoon, until dusk (leaving adequate time for safe light to get
out). Or else, arrive at down and stay until noon. What to do?
Nothing! Just soak in wilderness. Experience it!
Contemplate it!
II. Maxi-
Experience: (a) and (b), as above. But (c) take a
backpack and spend the night. Take along some gorp and a packet of
freeze-dry food, but little more. Soak in the wilderness, (etc.) . .
. .
That's the easy
part.
Next, write out (in no more than
three pages) an account of your feelings. What the experience was
like. Not what you did, not what it meant
(no philosophy, please -- not yet), but how it felt. Ask
yourself, and then report, the effect of solitude and wilderness upon
your consciousness. You may write this either after the
"retreat," in retrospect, or during it. (I would recommend
after, but will not insist).
If, after you report your immediate,
uninterpreted feelings and impressions, you wish to assess and
interpret them, that's fine. Go right ahead. But before you give us
the assessment, reflect upon the pure data of experience.
But whatever you do, don't "cram" for
this exercise by reading beforehand. You want the responses and
impressions to be your own.
Good Luck.
________________________________________
(Continue --
After Completion of the Experiment)
Back again?
Splendid!
Now you can share, with others, your
solitary encounter with nature -- what I have coined the
"naturo-aesthetic experience." Some or your written accounts of your
feelings and reflections will be read in class. You will also have an
opportunity to read, interpret and reflect upon some acutely
sensitive and eloquent observations of the naturo-aesthetic
experience by outstanding writers of both the past and the present.
And finally, because I feel that no student should be asked to
undertake a project that the teacher isn't willing to try himself, I
will close this section with my own responses to the "experiment"
that I proposed to you.
Why should the "naturo-aesthetic
experience" be of interest to the student of environmental ethics?
The answer to this question should be readily apparent -- especially
to those familiar with the experience.
If, as we suggested in the previous
section on "biophilia," we have a genetically coded need for nature,
then an encounter with nature should evoke feelings of unity, of
harmony, and of affirmation with nature. That it does so is
abundantly clear in the received historical record of religion, art,
and literature.(23)
After all, was it not in the
wilderness that Moses, Gautama Buddha, Jesus and other great figures
in the world religions found their enlightenment and their mission?
Manifestations of the message of nature evoked in art and literature
are plentiful. One need only think of Beethoven's Pastoral
Symphony, or Debussy's La Mer, the poetry of Wordsworth
or Gary Snyder, the landscapes of Turner and Cezanne, the essays of
Emerson, Thoreau or Muir, and of Aldo Leopold, Joseph Wood Krutch and
Edward Abbey in our own time.
Candor requires acknowledgment of a
contrary trend. As the biologist Rene Dubos reports in these
readings, the early colonists in North America regarded the
wilderness as dreadful, alien, satanic. In so doing, they "imported"
an attitude was widespread among their predecessors in
Europe.(24)
Even today, those who live in remote
and less civilized regions such as Tanzania or southern Utah are
bewildered by the trouble and expense that Europeans and southern
Californians will tolerate just to be in the presence of their
"useless" wilderness. Such outlanders are inclined to preserve
wilderness only if obliged to do so by an oppressive foreign power,
such as the U. S. Department of the Interior, or if convinced that
there is economic benefit to be gained by attracting the
wilderness-craving tourists.(25)
Having granted that there are
contrary responses to wilderness, let us focus again on the
affirmative response to nature. It is, as I have noted, a sentiment
recorded and expressed by geniuses throughout the ages. But this
affirmation of nature, this evocation of feelings of wonder, harmony,
unity, reverence, is available to most of us. Indeed, most of my
students' experience this affirmation to some degree at least in the
"experiment" that I proposed to you earlier. Consider, as a sample,
these reflections of a student and friend of mine, an undergraduate
at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who wrote:
The place simply exists
and I go when happy or sad. It is a steep climb up to a small pool
where a creek flows year round. This is where I am, have been and
again will be. It is a place where opposites come together and
inner conflict becomes unified. For an afternoon, an evening and a
dawn I live an effortless existence both empty and marvelous. The
before and the after become one and it appears absurd to consider
anything but moments. . .
Twilight creeps slowly up and
down the mountain. It is creeping slowly inside me and the hear
and mind ebb into stillness with the silent rays. Duality is an
absurd impossibility. . . . I am no longer outside the circle but
have blended with all and am humbled. An exhilaration burns within
as the flow of the circle becomes my flow. Thoughts no longer are
linked but become separate and tranquil. There is land, life and
myself and all three create each other. I stumble in my search for
words. Darkness releases me and I stumble no more The water
whispers sleep and is easy.
A crack appears upon the
horizon and dawn escapes. I wash and drink from the creek that has
been my companion during the night. The clarity of its water
imparts a mental and spiritual clarity. I am bold and refreshed
and the mountain calls. This life of the mountain seems to have
grown overnight. Could it be an inner growth? Again the mountain
calls and I seek a spot where the whole valley may be absorbed at
a glance. .. With simple effort I relocate and relax with the
sunrise. Needs are no more than this. Wants pass into absurdity.
The sun proceeds with its artwork across the sky.
. . . . I descend into the
valley and approach what was left behind for a few brief moments.
The peace lies in knowing I will soon return. Thank Nature that
the call of the mountain is strong and sounds often in the lonely
hidden regions of my heart and mind.(26)
When we destroy wild species and
wilderness areas, we diminish the possibility of such experiences as
this. The loss of such opportunities, I submit, is grievous and
irredeemable.
ENVIRONMENTAL
AXIOLOGY
"Beauty," they say, "is in the
eye of the beholder." Is value, similarly, "in the mind of the
evaluator?" This is one of the central questions of axiology
-- the philosophical study of values. The question has been
in the background of much of the reading in the earlier part of the
book, and in the discussion that has been prompted thereby.
Specifically, in environmental ethics, this axiological puzzle
becomes: Are values discovered in nature, or are they
projected upon nature? Or are they, perhaps, constructed
from nature? Beyond that, just what sorts of values may be found
in (imposed upon, constructed from) nature?
For the larger part of this book, we
have been primarily concerned with one of the two general areas of
environmental ethics; namely, the area of deontic judgment.
This aspect of the discipline is concerned with the explication and
validation of duties, obligations, rights, and
responsibilities and the moral evaluation of acts, motives
and policies, as these ethical categories apply to our dealings
with the natural world. Yet in the background (and occasionally in
the foreground) of our examination of questions of responsible
conduct, motive and policy toward nature, have been the persistent
questions of the second general area of environmental ethics -- the
area dealing with the problem of values "in" nature, and of
the fundamental status of these values. After all, it is for
the sake of those values in nature, or in the
context of such values, that we define our responsibility
toward this planet. That nature "has value" has been
generally assumed in the foregoing. Indeed, any
environmental ethic must be based upon that assumption. Here, at
last, we deal directly with the question of the kinds and status of
values "in" and "of" nature; those values that underlie environmental
ethics.
In several chapters of his book,
Philosophy Gone Wild, (Prometheus, 1986), Holmes Rolston
argues that values in nature are objective, and then delineates
several kinds of values in nature that can enrich human experience
and culture. My paper, "Values in Nature: Is Anyone
There?"(27)
grapples with a perplexing problem for the eco-moralist: On the
one hand, the eco-moralist is determined to avoid anthropocentrism --
the view that nature and its values exist for the benefit of human
beings; and yet, on the other hand, one is hard-pressed to deny that
the existence of values presupposes evaluators. Perhaps the
dilemma might be resolved if the eco-moralist takes seriously his own
advice to adopt an "ecological" (i.e., systemic) point of
view -- not only of nature, but also of the
evaluation of nature. Such, at least, is the suggestion of
this paper.
The Rolston/Partridge debate has been
expanded in the new edition of Louis Poijman's Environmental
Ethics (Wadsworth, 1998).
ECONOMICS AND THE
ENVIRONMENT
What does Economics have to
do with Environmental Ethics? The cynic might respond that
if we think of "environmental policy" as "applied environmental
ethics," then the answer is "practically everything"! How, he asks,
are decisions of environmental policy actually made -- in Congress,
in Regulatory Agencies (most notably, the EPA), and in corporate
boardrooms? More often than not, from "the bottom line." To make such
decisions, accountants and economists are consulted aplenty, whilst
philosophers are, by and large, ignored.
The alert reader will notice,
however, that the above account (aside from being an exaggeration),
is descriptive, and not normative. Even if it were
the case (as it is not) that all environmental policies were
formulated and decided by economists, that fact would in no way
justify the practice. Such policies might nonetheless be
shown, on sound normative grounds to be "bad" policies.
However, (and fortunately), the cynic has overstated his case.
Philosophers are, in fact, being asked to contribute to
environmental policy decisions, albeit, perhaps, in
disproportionately small numbers.
But why should there be any
disputes, even normative disputes, between environmental
economists and environmental ethicists? Did we not say, in our
Introduction to this anthology, that "like economic systems, moral
codes evolve out of competition and cooperation: the
competition for scarce goods, services, satisfactions and
the security of personal interests, and cooperation to gain
and enhance mutual welfare and security"? ("Environmental Ethics: An
Introduction"). Fair enough. But I spoke there of similarities, not
identity. And the differences may be significant, beginning
with the economists' and the philosophers' diverging interpretations
of such key terms as "goods," "satisfaction," "welfare," and
"security." Furthermore, philosophers often take critical note of
what the economists exclude -- notably, questions of
desert ("deserving") and of the distribution of the
aforementioned "goods" and "services," etc.
The issue is of sufficient importance
to be continued in the following section on "Cost Benefit
Analysis."
COST-BENEFIT
ANALYSIS: POLICY-MAKING BY THE
NUMBERS(28)
The Homestake II Project -- A Case
History: The Holy Cross Wilderness, at the headwaters
of the Eagle River in central Colorado, is a place of spectacular
beauty, featuring abundant wildlife, rugged mountains, waterfalls,
alpine meadows and wetlands, and a pristine natural environment.
Rights to the water in the area are held by the cities of Aurora and
Colorado Springs. After completion in 1992, the Homestake II Project
would draw over twenty-thousand acre feet of water from the area each
year. The cities claim that the environmental impact of this project
would be minimal. The Holy Cross Wilderness Defense Fund replies that
the project would seriously damage the fragile alpine aquatic
ecosystems. Thus the issue is joined.
Some Value Issues. Behind the factual
disagreements are differing emphases in values. Both sides value
unspoiled wilderness. Both sides acknowledge that the basic needs of
growing populations should be met. The difference is in emphasis. The
cities feel that urgent human needs necessitate immediate action,
even though such action must entail some impact upon the wilderness.
The preservationists feel that the unique values of the Wilderness
mandate caution, restraint and careful review and, ultimately,
alternative means of extracting the water. Some may even regard the
presence of wilderness as an "urgent human need." The cities feel
that decisive action must be taken now to accommodate a rapidly
growing population. The preservationists fear that the failure to
curb population growth will, through postponement, transform a
present difficulty into a future disaster. The project proponents
feel they speak for the citizens of their municipalities, and of the
region. The opponents perceive their constituents to include, not
only some citizens of the cities and region, but also future
generations, other species, and perhaps, in a sense, the Holy Cross
Wilderness itself.
II
The Essential Facts and Values: A
Summary. The following general facts, relevant to
Homestake II Project would presumably be granted by both
sides:
-
The cities of Aurora and Colorado Springs
have experienced rapid growth of population, a growth that is
likely to continue. At current and projected rates, their
populations will exceed presently available water supplies around
1994.
-
Ground water tables in the front range are
dropping constantly.
-
The cities own the rights to the
water in the Holy Cross Wilderness, and have the legal right to
divert it for their use, despite the fact that the area of origin
has wilderness status.
-
Construction of the project would
temporarily improve the local economic conditions in Eagle County,
an area affected by mining layoffs.
-
The affected area was designated a
wilderness area in recognition of its natural and aesthetic
values. These values are recognized and cherished by many citizens
of Colorado and beyond.
-
Wilderness areas such as Holy Cross are the
source of valuable information to research scientists such as
ecologist, hydrologists, geologists, etc.
-
Natural water supply is a result of climate
(i.e., rainfall) and is thus relatively constant (within bounds of
natural fluctuation).
-
Water diverted from the Western Slope to
the Front Range is water no longer available to the population
"downstream" in the western states. (All usable water in the
Colorado River is consumed. There is virtually no flow into the
Gulf of Mexico).
The Project proponents would stress the
following value assumptions:
-
Colorado is an attractive place to live and
work, which accounts for the growing population. Those who choose
to live and raise their families in Colorado, have a right to use
the available resources necessary for a secure and abundant
life.
-
The Cities own the water rights. And yet,
they have agreed to significant concessions and have endured long
and costly delays. Further concessions and delays are
unacceptable. It is unfair for a few determined "outsiders" to
impose upon Aurora and Colorado Springs a "decision by
indecision." Such tactics are erosive to orderly civic planning
and faith in the efficacy of government.
-
Response to an urgent and present human
need for water should not be delayed by the demand of a few for an
environmentally "perfect" solution, when a minimally damaging plan
is available and ready for implementation.
The opponents of the project might appeal to
the following values:
-
Trans-basin water projects, and other
expensive and complicated "technological fixes," purchase
advantages to ourselves at the expense of harming future
generations. Such projects require constant maintenance and are
vulnerable to breakdowns. And no matter how extensive and
ingenious the engineering, there are limits to water resources. It
is better to face those limits now and attempt to curb population
growth, than to put off the day of reckoning and place the
consequences in the hands of a more numerous posterity.
-
The value of wild areas such as Holy Cross
increases as such areas become more rare, while an increasing
population desires access to them and to the experience enjoyed
therein.
-
Wild areas are best enjoyed when human
impacts (noise, pollution, etc.) are inconspicuous and when the
use is not intense.
-
Wilderness areas are necessary for
civilized humans to maintain a consciousness of their origins and
sustenance -- a sense of proportion and of place in the natural
order. Without this sense, mankind's arrogance will eventually
destroy the natural order, and with it mankind
himself.
Dr. Warren M. Hern, Past President of the Holy
Cross Wilderness Defense Fund, offers the following reflection on the
value issues:
While we are prepared to meet the
proponents claims with rigorous science and careful analysis,
those of us who oppose Homestake II do not fundamentally see this
dispute as a rational choice between alternative engineering
approaches. In fact we have a classic conflict of fundamental
values. Civic leaders and career bureaucrats of the cities see the
Holy Cross Wilderness as a "drainage basin," a "resource" which is
there to serve human exploitation and uncontrolled growth of the
human community. Maximum runoff flows are to be
"shaved."
For us, the Holy Cross Wilderness is a
place that is sacred to the point of being a religious sanctuary.
In a world that is plastic, false, exploitative, power-oriented,
commercial, insincere, and filled with predatory and mindless
destruction, this wilderness is real, it is alive, it is the way
things were and ought to be; it is a tiny remaining fragment of a
world rich in natural heritage containing endless beauty
unaffected by human vulgarity. We have seen so many similar places
destroyed before our very eyes, we know what will be lost if we do
not defend it. And defend it we will.
III
The Homestake II project presents a hard case
for the preservationist. Any way you count it, it seems that there
are far more people in Colorado Springs and Aurora desiring to wash
their cards and water their lawns, than there are likely to be
backpackers in the Holy Cross Wilderness area. Still worse, if there
were as many Holy Cross backpackers as Colorado Springs car washers,
the wilderness defender would find that the area would have lost the
very qualities that he finds most attractive: solitude and
undisturbed wildness. And if the environmentalist attempts to
enfranchise more hypothetical votes on his side by projecting into
the future, he must face the rejoinder that as long as there are
backpackers, there will likely be front-range residents wanting, even
more, needing that water. After all, as the population
increases in the front range, the water will be needed, not merely
for such luxuries as clean cars and green lawns, but for the
necessities of life.
No, the numbers apparently don't work for the
environmentalist -- not unless he awards himself and his tastes a
great many bonus points. Suppose he does; then how many proletarian
car-washers equal just one high-minded, pure-spirited
environmentalist? But we needn't follow this sort of argument very
far to discover that, in a democracy, it just won't wash. Is the
environmentalist prepared to sacrifice democracy too in defense of
his "ecological ethic"? Here we come face to face with the familiar
"elitism" charge.
Making environmental decisions "by the numbers"
-- that is, by quantifying in monetary terms, then comparing, gains
and losses -- characterizes what is known as "cost benefit analysis"
("CBA"). At first glance it seems to be an irresistible method of
making environmental policy decisions. After all, how else might we
do it? And yet, for all its immediate appeal, some particular aspects
of the economic "cost-benefit analysis approach," even the general
approach itself, have recently drawn considerable criticism. If, as I
suspect, the defenders of the Holy Cross Wilderness will lose the
"game" of "standard cost-benefit analysis," then they might do well
to reject that mode of decision-making and propose another.
Accordingly, the Homestake II Project might well be regarded as the
sort of "hard case", which may encourage the environmentalists to
refute CBA and then seek and endorse an alternative means of
environmental policy decision-making.
Economic cost-benefit analysis, a
well-established procedure of environmental policy decision-making,
developed out of public works projects in the New Deal, and later in
"operations research" during World War II. Historically, this
procedure has provided the rationale to justify a myriad of public
works projects which have transformed the face of the American West.
The use of CBA in public policy appeared to have peaked three decades
ago in the "Tocks Island Case," involving a dam project on the
Delaware River. (Though the Army Corps of Engineers CBA study yielded
a highly positive assessment, the governors of the affected states
ordered a deauthorization). However, reports of the demise of CBA
have apparently been highly exaggerated. On February 19, 1981,
President Reagan published an Executive Order requiring all agencies
and departments of his administration to justify their regulations
with positive cost-benefit analyses. The CBA approach is likewise
prominent in the assessment of the Homestake II Project and its
alternatives. CBA remains an important factor in environmental
policy-making, and thus deserves our careful examination and
scrutiny.
IV
Policy decisions are necessarily (a)
Normative, since they involve decisions among graded options
that effect the conditions of life of persons, and (b) partially
informed, since they are made by fallible and finite persons,
and not by the Almighty (or His surrogates). Policy decisions are
also generally (c) forced, since "not to decide is to
decide." (Many of the methods and presuppositions of policy-making
that are discussed and criticized herein follow from the valid
complaints "but we've got to do something" and "well, what
better way do you propose?" Value-comensuration and
future-discounting are prominent among these "forced"
practices).
The uses and abuses of "value-free
inquiry." Many scholars, scientists, and policy analysts have
rigorously attempted to exclude values from their assumptions and
their methods. Admittedly, it is difficult to quarrel with the rule
of scientific and scholarly research which insists that the
researcher confine his reports to what he observes and to
exclude from his observations those biases that might arise from what
he would like to observe. The business of science, in brief,
is to discover and report facts as they are, not as they
should be or as we wish they were. Because the task
of science is to collect data, to abstract laws, to project
hypotheses and to construct theories, human will and choice does not
and should not "mix" with the objective reporting, classification and
organization of data. Facts are facts, whatever the moral biases of
the observer. Communist missiles and capitalist missiles are subject
to the same physical laws and their trajectories are plotted with the
same mathematical formulae.(29)
And yet, all too often we find that the
discipline of "value neutral inquiry" is carelessly and
inappropriately extended beyond empirical science and objective
scholarship to applied science, environmental planning, policy-making
and legislation. When extended to these fields, "value-neutral
inquiry" is unwarranted and can have pernicious results.
And so, many government policy-makers, eager
for quick and easy solutions to complicated value-laden environmental
issues, have enthusiastically adopted a scheme of economic
"cost-benefit analysis" which claims to be "scientifically based" and
thus "value-free." Apparently it is neither. On the contrary, moral
philosophers who have studied the sort of "cost-benefit analysis"
that is enshrined in countless environmental impact statements and
items of federal regulation and legislation have generally concluded
that such procedures are built upon a structure of presuppositions
that are unexamined and, in many cases, highly questionable. The
following seem to be the most troublesome of these
assumptions:(30)
-
The "Reliable is Valid" Bias. "The
more measurable and discernible a factor, the more 'real' and
significant it is." (An engineer of my acquaintance put it this
way: "If you can't measure it, it isn't knowledge" -- and he meant
it!) This bias is particularly prominent in "educational research"
and other varieties of "applied social and behavioral science."
But a person's height and weight are more measurable and
discernible than his intelligence or his sense of justice and
duty. Therefore . . . ? It is much easier to measure, and then to
price, "usable" acre feet of water, that it is to measure
"ecological values" or "aesthetic values." By this rule, then,
water in a conduit is more valuable than water sustaining an
alpine meadow.
-
Comensuration:
"Values reduce to
costs." The value of a
"good" to you is what you are willing to pay for it, and of a
"bad" what you would pay to avoid it. The plurality of values is
thus to be measured in a single dimension: $$$. (This is called
"comensuration"). And so, in the Tocks Island Dam Case, the Corps
of Engineers devised a handy way of comparing the "recreational
value" of the wild river to a canoeist with the value of the
reservoir to a power boater; i.e., how much would the user be
willing to pay to get to use the area? Well, how many canoes,
nylon tents, cars with canoe racks (etc.) equal one Chris-Craft
and Winnebago? By this accounting, the lake trumps the river by
several orders of magnitude. But there are deeper problems with
"comensuration;" for example, by reducing all values to
costs (a non-moral value), "moral values" (e.g., virtues,
principles, rights, duties, etc.) are "factored out." This rule
leads, in turn, to:
-
"The future is to be discounted";
i.e., the further off in the future, the less a given cost or
benefit is to "count." (Thus, according to this theory of
"discounting the future," at a per-annum discount rate of 5%, one
death a year hence is equivalent to over two million deaths three
hundred years in the future). The reason this assumption follows
directly from the second (i.e., that values reduce to costs) is
that monetary costs can be, and appropriately
are discounted in the future in view of the capacity of
money to accrue interest.
-
"The
method of cost-benefit analysis
is to be regarded as detached from its
subject-matter;" i.e., the
analyst shall ignore the effects of the use of his
procedure upon the "objects" of his analysis
(viz. persons and their choices)" -- otherwise,
scientific "objectivity" will be compromised. But what is
the moral "price" of regarding persons as objects, and by
reducing their values to monetary costs? What does the application
of such a methodology do to the persons "analyzed" --
particularly to their value systems? The question itself, because
it is a "value question," is inadmissible according to the rules
of cost-benefit analysis. A troublesome result of this approach is
that it fails to account for, and thus deal with, "the moral
paradox" -- i.e., the advantage to the agent of other-directed
concern and activity. (Cf. our discussion of "Moral Psychology,"
earlier in these topics).
-
The Fallacy of Unfinished
Business. This is the assumption that technological and
environmental problems have only technical, but not social,
ethical, or political solutions. And if a policy question appears
unsettled, more "facts" from more "experts" are called for, until,
eventually, the matter is resolved "objectively." A list of the
"expert witnesses" called to testify on environmental policy
matters in Congress will indicate the strength of this
fallacy.(31)
Other examples of "the naturalistic fallacy" follow.
-
"'Valuable' means 'what is
valued'" in the subject population (or in "the market").
Prescriptive (or "normative") questions of "what should
be valued?" are not allowed, by procedural fiat. Nor are
"metaethical" questions allowed, such as "how do we justify our
values and moral beliefs?" To include these would be regarded by
many policy-makers as "unscientific." The procedure is thus, by
design, ethnocentric and conservative, and uncritically accepts
the highly controversial meta-ethical theory of cultural
relativism.
-
"'Good' is to be defined as 'the
maximization of utility,' and 'utility,' in turn, as 'the
satisfaction of valued desires.'" (For the denotation of
"valued," see the assumption" that immediately precedes this). We
find here an uncritical acceptance of the ethical theory of
utilitarianism. What we rarely find in the literature of
cost-benefit analysis is an argument in support of this highly
controversial ethical theory, or even a reply to the criticisms of
utilitarianism that are well-known to students of moral
philosophy. We search in vain for such discussions in the
literature of cost-benefit analysis.
Fortunately (perhaps), when these assumptions
and methods are rigorously applied, the resulting policies run
sufficiently afoul of "common sense" and intuitive morality that they
are blocked, on "unscientific grounds" by legislators and the
courts.
When I have presented this list of complaints
regarding the questionable methods and presuppositions of policy
consultants and policy makers, some economists, and even more
political scientists, complain that "this list is a straw man --
terribly over-simplified and unqualified. We don't think or talk like
this." They are right, of course. But that's not quite to the point.
For while I grant all this, I then ask, "but how much is your
policy-theory put into the practice of policy-making? How much of
this subtlety, complexity, qualification survives in the summaries
that appear before the legislators and the bureaucrats, or the
testimony offered in their committees?" (A common response to this
challenge is a pained look and a shrug). It is, I think, also fair to
ask, "while you, and others, find intuitive fault with this list of
(I contend) operative methods and assumptions, how well does your
discipline explicitly and systematically deal with the intuitive
objections to the above 'straw men?'" All too often, when such
intuitive qualms are raised, the expert will write a blank check:
"but that's outside the scope of our discipline," following which the
objection is set aside and forgotten.
I do maintain, therefore, that my list does
indicate some of the operative assumptions made by those who
actually make policy decisions, and that these "unfair
simplifications" reflect the stronger, "core," assumptions of some of
the more influential policy theorists.
The uncritical adoption of "value-free
analysis" to planning and policy-making, says the philosophical
critic, is unwarranted since planning and policy are essentially
about choices. While the scientist asks "What is the case?"
What are the facts?" the policy-maker necessarily asks "What
should be the case?" "Which of the available options should
we choose?" Because the task of the policy-maker is to choose among
feasible alternatives, he must ask "Which is the optimum -
the 'best' -- choice among the available options?" Listing and
explicating the "available options" is an appropriate task of the
"value-free" scientist. The problem arises with the four-letter word
"best" But what does the policy-maker mean by
"best"? "Best" on what grounds? What reasons does he offer us to
accept his evaluation or, for that matter, for accepting his method
of justifying his claim that such-and-such a policy is "the best" of
the alternatives?" These are not scientific questions; they are
unavoidably questions of moral philosophy (and of metaethics in
particular). Thus the moral philosopher would likely conclude that an
uncritical insistence by policy-analysts that their methodology,
"like scientific method, is value-neutral" will result, not in
"value-free" choices, but in choices that follow from unexamined and
unchallenged values. In short, if we think that scientific insight
alone will give us adequate guidance in our environmental
policy decisions, we will be making -- even worse,
continuing -- a dreadful error.
V
Consumer Preferences and Community
Principles: We come, at last, to what may be the most crucial
yet controversial tenet of cost-benefit analysis; namely, the
disposition of the CBA policy-maker to identify the locus of values
with the economist's concept of "satisfaction of preferences." This
disposition displays an insensitivity to motives to act on principle
and contrary to the motive to satisfy one's personal tastes and
desires. It also dismisses "the moral point of view" (a disposition
to act "for the good of all") in favor of the egocentric view of the
"preference maximizing" consumer. (See "Environmental Justice and
Shared Fate," and "With Liberty and Justice for Some,"
this website). Mark Sagoff's experience while teaching a class in
environmental ethics illustrates this point. In one of his
undergraduate courses he discussed the celebrated Supreme Court case, Sierra Club vs. Morton which concerned an attempt by the
Disney Corporation to build a ski resort at Mineral King Valley near
(and since, absorbed into) Sequoia National Park. Sagoff
reports:
I asked the students what they
thought about the Disney proposal. They hated it. But then I asked
how many had visited or would visit Mineral King, supposing Disney
were stopped. Very few. I asked who would visit the resort were it
built. Almost everybody. The enthusiasm was boisterous. Curious.
The students were deeply opposed to the Disney project yet they
would not visit the area unless there were a bed, alcohol, a ski
tow, and a discotheque. How do you explain that? The students saw
no inconsistency. They opposed the resort on principle: they
thought it was wrong. But as a matter of personal taste or
preference they would enjoy a ski resort much more than a
wilderness. The same might be said of adultery -- you would enjoy
it, but you know it is wrong.(32)
Thus we can imagine a hypothetical future
skier, thoroughly enjoying himself at the Mikki Maus Alpenhaus,
yet regretting that it was ever built. Is this irrational? Or is
there, perhaps, alongside our "enjoyments" a place for an adherence
and loyalty to the principle that magnificent natural areas have a
presumptive claim to be left undisturbed? If so, then essential to
this sentiment may be a regard for the Wilderness, apart
from any consideration of the "payoff" in human satisfaction for
"having" the wilderness, or even in the self respect for being
"high-minded" about it all. From a moral point of view, such
calculation of the "utility payoff" to oneself of principled
sentiments, motives, policies and acts, cheapens the perceived values
thereof, since much of the moral quality of caring for another
person, place or principle resides in the focusing of attention upon
the other, or in the devotion to principle itself. This
widely-perceived (and arguably essential) quality of moral
commitment leads, once again, to the moral paradox: that the greatest
value to human beings is accrued by acts motivated to
enhance the good of others -- other persons, places, causes,
principles, etc. Sagoff's students exemplified this
principle, whether or not they recognize it as such. It was
apparently much more important to Sagoff's students (and thus,
perhaps, more satisfying) to care about and preserve the wilderness
of Mineral King Valley than it was, paradoxically, for them to enjoy it. Perhaps they sensed that a world of diminished
intrinsic natural (i.e., non-utilitarian) value is a world less worth
living in.
Very few of Sagoff's students would ever see
the wild Mineral King Valley, and most would want to visit it as a
ski resort. Yet they "hated" the Disney proposal. Why? Perhaps
because they made a distinction between utility and
principle. The economist making a cost-benefit analysis may
be systematically disinclined to recognize this distinction -- much
to the ultimate detriment of the cause of preserving wild places. To
the economist, it may be sufficient for his analysis that more would
prefer skiing at the resort to hiking in the wilderness. That many
(most?) of the skiers themselves would have preferred it had the ski
area not been built -- this makes no sense to the economist. His
theory may thus be unable to account for "actions on principle" --
acts which follow a deliberate decision not to do something
that would nonetheless maximize one's enjoyments.
So for the environmentalist, the numbers may
not work. But he should remain unmoved. The rules of the CBA game are
stacked against him from the beginning. To preserve or not to
preserve a wilderness area is a political decision which ought to be
decided by reason and appeal to principle, and not by the mechanical
application of a technical device which smuggles its conclusions into
its premises while masquerading as the value-free instrument of
scientific objectivity.
VI
"Science as "Value-Free Inquiry" --
A Postscript.(33)
I have described the content of
science and (in a restricted sense) the methodology of science as
"value neutral." It is, I think, a correct description. But lest I be
misunderstood, I hasten to add that the moral character of the
scientist is relevant to the quality of his work. Even more,
I would suggest that the activity of science (that is to
say, of science as a human institution) is highly involved with
values. Consider an example:
When Gregor Mendel published his studies of the
genetic properties of sweet peas, he apparently gave a scrupulously
factual account. Moreover, his failures and unanswered questions were
reported alongside his verified hypotheses. Had Mendel not been
impeccably honest, humble and open with his work, his reports thereof
would have been, scientifically speaking, far less valuable. In
short, the moral quality of the researcher gave explicit value to his
findings. Yet Mendel's scientific papers themselves have not a bit of
moral evaluation within them: no prescriptions, no exhortations, no
"shoulds" or "oughts" -- only the straightforward exposition of
observations and hypotheses. The accounts were value-free; but the
conditions required to produce these documents and to give them
scientific importance were profoundly moral. In contrast, consider
the case of Lysenko, who displayed neither honesty, candor, tolerance
or modesty. Because of these very failings, his work was
scientifically worthless. Once more: the primary findings of science,
and the language that reports it, are value free, but the conditions
that permit scientific work and the attitudes of the scientists
toward their work, are deeply involved in morality.
In his little book, Science and Human
Values,(34)
Jacob Bronowski gives a masterful presentation of the moral
preconditions of science. The fundamental moral premise, says
Bronowski, is "the habit of truth": the collective decision by the
body of science that "We ought to act in such a way that
what is true can be verified to be so." This habit, this
decision, gives a moral tone to the entire scientific enterprise.
Bronowski continues:
By the worldly standards of public
life, all scholars in their work are of course oddly virtuous.
They do not make wild claims, they do not cheat, they do not try
to persuade at any cost, they appeal neither to prejudice or to
authority, they are often frank about their ignorance, their
disputes are fairly decorous, they do not confuse what is being
argued with race, politics, sex or age, they listen patiently to
the young and to the old who both know everything. These are the
general virtues of scholarship, and they are peculiarly the
virtues of science. Individually, scientists no doubt have human
weaknesses. . . But in a world in which state and dogma seem
always either to threaten or to cajole, the body of scientists is
trained to avoid and organized to resist every form of persuasion
but the fact. A scientist who breaks this rule, as Lysenko has
done, is ignored. . .
The values of science derive neither
from the virtues of its members, nor from the finger-wagging codes
of conduct by which every profession reminds itself to be good.
They have grown out of the practice of science, because they are
the inescapable conditions for its practice.(35)
And this is but the beginning. For if truth
claims are to be freely tested by the community of scientists, then
this community must encourage and protect independence and
originality, and it must tolerate dissent.
THE DUTY TO
POSTERITY
The opening essay in this section is
itself an Introduction (to the anthology, Responsibilities to
Future Generations(36))
and so these notes will be brief. In that introduction we encounter,
once again, an analysis of the concept of "the morally responsible
act" (or motive or policy) as informed, effective, free, and
of value significance. By these criteria, it is suggested
that, due to our scientific knowledge and technological capacity, our
generation may bear the greatest burden of responsibility of any
generation in the past -- and, arguably, in the future.
Some particular implications of this responsibility are then spelled
out.
Though some may deny that we have
duties to the future, for the most part that claim is sufficiently
widespread to be practically beyond controversy. A more interesting
question, perhaps, is that of the moral foundation and stringency of
this duty to posterity. A strong claim of moral
responsibility to future generations would necessarily follow upon
the demonstration that our duties derive from the rights of
future persons. In his paper, "The Environment, Rights and Future
Generations,"(37)
Richard DeGeorge advises against
recognizing rights-claims now of future generations, since
to do so would place "impossible demands" upon us, the present
generation. Instead, he argues that future persons should be said to
have rights only to what they might claim when they come into
existence. Even so, he recognizes that we have duties to
preserve a viable environmental, and cultural values, for posterity.
In "The Rights of Past and Future Generations,"(38)
Annette Baier eloquently argues for
the rights of future persons and, by implication, for our
duties to the future. She does not, however, believe that much moral
force is gained by speaking of "rights" in addition to "duties." In
"On the Rights of Future Generations,"(39)
I defend the strong position that
future generations not only can (metaethically) "be said to have rights now," but moreover that they
do
(normatively) in fact have rights-claims upon us, the present
generation. Those who deny that future persons have rights-claims
now, variously commit the fallacy of hasty generalization;
that is, by correctly demonstrating that certain species of rights
(valid among contemporaries) can not be held by future persons
against the present generation, these philosophers falsely conclude
that no rights whatever can thus reach across remote
generations.
AN ECO-MORALIST'S SUMMARY
AND CREDO
In our field trip through this museum of ideas,
I have invited you to think like a philosopher about your
responsibility to nature, and I have introduced you to a rich and
varied assortment of methods, concepts and perspectives in
environmental ethics -- a menu of approaches to the common questions:
"What Good is Planet?" and "What, therefore, should we do about
this planet?" Throughout this book, in the section
commentaries and in occasional papers, I have offered reflections,
interpretations, and occasional criticisms. In other words, I have
adopted no pose of editorial detachment but have displayed my ideas
along with the others. This policy is consistent with my insistence
throughout that everyone has an environmental ethic. It
would thus be foolish, and ultimately unavailing, for me to pretend
to be an exception to this rule. If, through this exercise in moral
philosophizing about nature, and through this encounter with these
various approaches to a code of environmental responsibility, your
own environmental ethic has gained in clarity, coherence, consistency
and comprehensiveness, then the book and the course will have
accomplished the objective for which they were designed.
The scope of the book is too broad and the
viewpoints too divergent to allow an integrated summary of the large
array of perspectives, concepts and approaches to the issues of
environmental ethics that have been presented here. Instead, I invite
you to review and reflect upon some prominent themes that have
appeared throughout the book and to share some thoughts about their
implications.
First, however, by way of summary, here
are:
Some Elements of an Ecological
Morality
From Moral Philosophy we
learn:
-
A "kit of tools" -- concepts and methods
that guide our way through the thickets of moral controversy,
meaning and justification. Prominent among these concepts are:
person (contrasted with "human"), moral agents and
patients, moral and non-moral value,
descriptive, normative and critical ethics,
rights, moral cognitivism, etc.
-
Moral issues generally involve choices
among a number of "goods," or among several unavoidable "bads."
Simple characterizations of moral problems as struggles between
"right" and "wrong" generally misconceive these problems, to the
detriment of the task of finding and achieving optimum
solutions.
-
Moral principles are general and abstract,
while the cases and issues to which they apply are necessarily
particular. These particular issues and choices usually involve
clashes of general principles.
-
Acts, motives and policies may be said to
be "morally responsible" if a person (a) has
foreknowledge of the results of his actions, (b) has a
capacity to act, (c) has "free agency" -- the
ability to choose among a menu of alternative courses of action,
and (d) faces alternatives with value significance --
which, that is to say, variably affect the welfare or respect the
rights of other individuals.
From World History and Literature we
learn:
-
There is abundant evidence and record, in
great religious and secular literature and in the reflections of
ordinary people, that the experience of wild nature can profoundly
enhance the moral tone, the sense of self and the sense of
perspective -- in short, the wisdom -- of individual
human beings.
From Moral Psychology and Systems
Analysis we learn:
-
One's interests are often best served by
not directly and exclusively seeking his best interests.
("The Moral Paradox").
-
Human beings are social animals -- social
in their origin, their sustenance and their fulfillment. They
need "significant others" -- other persons, projects,
ideals and goals. They are fulfilled by perceiving themselves as
contributing parts of a larger, integrated whole.
From Environmental Science we
learn:
-
Nature is, in fact, a system of
interrelated parts, of which the species homo sapiens is
only one of many functioning parts. Thus human beings are, in
fact, citizens of the life community. (This is, of course, one of
the fundamental tenets of the science of ecology).
-
This life community is self-regulating and
tends toward equilibrium and stability (homeostasis), unless a
critical change from within or without alters the system to a new
equilibrium. The concepts of "equilibrium" and "stability" are,
however, "ideal types." In fact, even natural ecosystems are in a
state of constant perturbation and change.
-
Ecosystemic health is generally marked by
species diversity and systemic stability.
-
Human beings may have a genetically coded
need for natural environments -- a need that has evolved with the
species. Thus a loss of natural landscapes would fundamentally
impoverish humanity. (This contention is highly controversial.
Even so, the rationale supporting the hypothesis is persuasive and
there is empirical evidence to support it. Unfortunately, the
hypothesis has not received the careful and thorough scientific
investigation that it clearly deserves).
Thus from Moral Philosophy, Moral
Psychology, Systems Theory and Environmental Science We Might
Conclude:
-
We owe our contemporaries, our children,
and our posterity a healthy and diverse ecosystem.
-
While human beings have a limited knowledge
of life forms, processes and communities, they have also recently
acquired a great deal of capacity to disrupt this delicate and
precious life-community -- a community which is more complex than
they can understand or even imagine, much less appreciate. It
follows that the best policy toward nature is one of cautious and
respectful conservatism.
-
Nature is a moral resource. An
operative restraint toward nature, derived from respect, reverence
and love, improves the moral tone of our personal life and our
society. Conversely, if we are poor citizens of the life
community, we tend to be poor neighbors to each other in the human
community.
A Concluding Editorial
Reflection
Our species, homo sapiens, has, in but
a moment of geological time, altered the natural landscape more than
any other species has in a comparable time-span. Surely much, perhaps
most, of this alteration has been morally permissible, and some has
been morally praiseworthy. Let us not be careless and uncritical in
our quest for an ecological conscience. None of us would, or should,
wish to return to the caves, or even give up basic amenities of
civilized life. Nor should we be ashamed of intelligent and
responsible management and stewardship of nature, even though
management and stewardship necessarily involve change. But
"intelligence" and "responsibility" also imply restraint --
voluntary limitation of our capacities in the face of facts,
foresight and moral principle. Yes, some of our alteration of the
planet has been permissible and even praiseworthy. But some has not.
By "taming nature" we have increased our knowledge and our power,
which, in turn, has increased our capacity to alter nature. But the
careless exercise of this capacity has cost us a great deal as well.
This book presents an invitation and a series
of suggestions. We have encountered and examined herein some useful
analytical tools, some essential concepts and tenets of environmental
ethics, a menu of perspectives upon and approaches to the question of
human responsibility to nature, and a sample of significant issues in
environmental ethics. The task of articulating, defending and
applying a personal environmental ethic remains, as it should, your
own responsibility.
We are, I suggest, at a crossroads in history.
The stakes are enormous; indeed, they are of ultimate importance, and
yet the time available for appropriate and effective action may be
very short. At stake is the legacy of billions of years. If we
destroy that legacy, humanity will have robbed itself of the scope of
vision, transcending loyalty and sense of time and place that has
given human life much of its significance. If we sink into that
dreadful condition, then it may no longer matter if homo
sapiens itself is to be still another species driven to
extinction by human carelessness and folly. If, however, the human
condition is to remain valuable to human beings now alive and still
to be born, it will be due, in large part, to our collective
willingness to preserve the natural estate which gave birth to our
species, which nurtured that species through its infancy, and
enriches it even now -- our willingness, in a word, to love, cherish
and protect our Mother Earth. Thoreau was thus correct when he
proclaimed that "in wildness is the preservation of the world."
This book and this course have been designed
not to comfort the afflicted, but to afflict the
comfortable.(40)
What is needed is resolution, not comfort. The
human prospect is not bright. But neither is it hopeless -- yet. And
that offers us room enough for moral dedication and
action.
No generation in history has before or will
again share the weight of biotic responsibility that this one does.
Recent political and social trends, both domestic and international,
suggest a struggle ahead. I recommend involvement in this struggle.
There is, perhaps, no better cause to justify one's effort and
devotion than the struggle to preserve the biotic legacy of our home
planet.
Copyright 1998 by Ernest
Partridge
NOTES
1. Most of this section
introduction was subsequently revised and included in "Nature as a
Moral Resource,"Published in Environmental Ethics, Summer,
1984.
2. "The Historical Roots of
our Ecological Crisis," Science, 155 (March, 1967),
3167.
3. For a close
approximation of this view, see William Baxter's People or
Penguins, (Columbia University Press).
4. Quoted by Paul
Shephard in "Ecology and Man -- A Viewpoint," in Paul Shepard and
Daniel McKinley (eds), The Subversive Science: Essays Toward an
Ecology of Man, (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1969).
5. "The Rights of
Animals and Unborn Generations," in William Blackstone (ed), Philosophy and Environmental Crisis, (Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1974).
6. Barry Commoner,
The Closing Circle, (New York: Knopf, 1971), p.
42-3.
7. A Sand County
Almanac (New York: Ballantine, 1970), pp 240-1.
8. (Wadsworth,
1994).
9. "Ethics and the
Environment," Ethics and Problems of the 21st
Century, (University of Notre Dame Press, 1979).
10. Partridge, "Three Wrong
Leads in a Search for an Environmental Ethic," Ethics and
Animals, (V:3, Sept. 1984).
11. Hugh Iltis, "To the
Taxonomist and the Ecologist, Whose Fight is the Preservation of
Nature," Bio-Science (December, 1967), 887.
12. Paul Shepard, "Ecology
and Man," in Shepard and McKinley, eds., The Subversive Science:
Essays Toward an Ecology of Man (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1969), p. 4. In this section.
13. Ibid.,
p.
2.
14. Edward O.
Wilson, Biophilia, Harvard University Press, (Cambridge:
1984) p. 111-2.
15. This
realization has been "general" among philosophers, but not universal.
Recently, the logical positivists and some existentialists have
attempted just such a reductive and atomistic approach to ethics,
with a resulting denial by these philosophers of objective and
rational grounds for moral judgments. I discussed these
"non-cognitivistic" approaches to ethic and their relevance to
environmental ethics in my paper, "Environmental Ethics: Obstacles
and Opportunities," in Schultz and Hughes (eds), Environmental
Consciousness, (Essays from Earth Day X Colloquium, University
of Denver, April 21-4, 1980), Washington, DC: University Press of
America, 1981, pp, 325-50.
16. Some
allowance is made for the existence of "moral outlaws" or "free
riders." The moral order need not be perfect to be effective
and preferable to no order at all. (See Rawls's A Theory of
Justice (Harvard, 1971), pp. 267-70).
17. Partridge,
"Why Care About the Future?", Responsibilities to Future
Generations, ed. Ernest Partridge (Bufallo, Prometheus Books,
1981, pp 203-210).
18. The term
"cognitive adequacy" is from Lawrence Kohlberg. (For citations of
Kohlberg's works, see the endnotes in my "Are We Ready for an
Ecological Morality," Envrionmental Ethics, (4:1, Summer,
1982).
19. The Best
Nature Writing of Joseph Wood Krutch (New York: Morrow, 1970,
pp. 296-7).
20. Ernest Partridge, "Why
Care About the Future," in Partridge (ed) Responsibilities to
Future Generations, Buffalo: Prometheus, 1981, p.
204.
21. Man's
Responsibility for Nature, New York: Scribners', 1974. While the
sexist language in the title might be a bit jolting, the thoughtful
feminist might find it apt. As Carolyn Merchant and others have
pointed out, in Western Civilization it is the male gender which has,
by and large, proclaimed and implemented the "manifest destiny" of
humanity to "subdue" and "conquer" the natural estate. If so, the
resulting despoliation is, in truth "man's responsibility."
However, this is not quite what Passmore had in mind.
22. Remember
"Brower's Law:" "The number of visitors to a wild area is equal to
the inverse square of the horizontal distance, and the inverse cube
of the vertical distance to a paved road."
23. This argument, though
supportive of biophilia is not conclusive. The student of logic will
recognize that it commits the fallacy of "affirming the
consequent."
24. See also, Roderick
Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, revised edition (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973).
25. Roderick Nash, "The
Exporting and Importing of Nature: Nature-Appreciation as a
Commodity, 1850-1980," in Perspectives in American History,
Vol. 12 (1979) 519-60. (Professor Nash in not responsible for the
rhetorical excesses of this paragraph).
26. James Baldwin, an
Environmental Studies student at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, Class of 1981.
27. Philosophical
Inquiry, (8:1-2, Winter-Spring, 1986, pp. 96-110). Reprinted in
L. Poijman, ed., Environmental Ethics, 2nd
edition, Wadwsorth, 1998.
28. Presented originally at
a conference at the University of Colorado, June, 1983. Revised for
courses in Environmental Ethics, University of California,
Riverside.
29. And yet, to
characterize science as "value free" or "value neutral" is to employ
a simplification that demands qualification. I shall provide this
qualification in a postscript to this essay.
30. These charges against
common theories and practices of cost benefit analysis are as
controversial as they are serious. For a fuller presentation of these
and other criticisms of "value-free cost-benefit analysis," see
Roszak (ed), The Dissenting Academy (Vintage, 1968); Tribe,
Schelling and Voss (eds), When Values Conflict (Ballinger,
1976), and Lawrence Tribe, "Policy Science: Analysis or Ideology?"
Philosophy and Public Affairs, 2:1, Fall, 1972.
31. See K. S.
Shrader-Frechette, "Environmental Impact Assessment and The Fallacy
of Unfinished Business," Environmental Ethics, 4:1, (Spring,
1982), p. 37.
32. In "The Philosopher as
Teacher: On Teaching Environmental Ethics," Metaphilosophy,
II:3 & 4, (July/Oct., 1980), p. 318. Sagoff cites this classroom
discussion to make a different point, namely that "principles are
preferences we have not as individuals but as members of communities.
. . Principles or social norms are not values upon which we happen to
agree; they are values the logical subject of which is the community
itself." (319) While I agree with Sagoff regarding the source and
locus of principles and social norms, I wish to make a different,
though compatible, point; namely, that a loyalty to principles may
motivate sufficiently to override utilitarian motives.
33. "Auto-Plagiarized" in
"On Scientific Morality," this website, The Northland
Issues.
34. Jacob Bronowski,
Science and Human Values, (Harper, 1965).
35. Ibid.,
58-60.
36.
Ernest Partridge, (ed.),
Responsibilities to Future Generations, Buffalo:
Prometheus Books, 1981.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. In Don Scherer (ed.),
Upstream/Downstream: Issues in Environmental Ethics, Temple
University Press, 1990.
40. The origin of this
phrase, which also appeared in the Introduction to this book, is
unknown to me, though I suspect that it was used (and perhaps
originated from) either H. L. Mencken or Clarence Darrow.
