Environmental Ethics — A Statement of Position
Ernest Partridge
University of California, Riverside
January 28, 1993
This
"position statement" was submitted to the
Northland College Hulings Chair Search Committee
prior to my selection to that Chair in 1993.
INTRODUCTION
In choosing a candidate for its first endowed chair, Northland
College is making a momentous decision. Thus it is entitled to a
comprehensive and accurate assessment of the candidates. Much of
this may be inferred from the customary materials found in the
applicant's packet — i.e., Curriculum Vitae, publications, student
evaluations, peer references, etc. However, such material is
retrospective, telling more of where the candidate "has been," than
of his present state of mind and prospects. With this statement I
offer a remedy.
This statement has a personal side to it as well. In our previous
meeting, I suspect that my eagerness to present my position during
the brief duration of my visit, caused me to appear excessively
willing to express my opinions, and insufficiently alert to the
other side of our conversations. With this statement, I wish to set
down my ideas for your quiet consideration so that, should I have
the privilege of meeting you again, I might less inclined to repeat
that error.
The following is a "position paper," in which I simply state my
views, without elaborate and structured defense.. A paper as brief
as this can only offer a superficial sketch of ideas developed over
three decades, articulated and defended in hundreds of published
pages, and presented in dozens of public meetings and professional
conferences.
I offer this sketch, mindful of the fact that the particulars and
the precepts of my own environmental philosophy may be of less
importance than my conception of the discipline of Environmental
Ethics and its place in the curriculum of an environmentally
oriented college. As an educator, I try to offer a menu of
alternative views to my students; sympathetically presenting and
then criticizing all views, including those I disagree with and
those with which I concur. There are no "doctrinal requirements" in
my classes. The field of Environmental Ethics is alive and growing —
as, I trust, are the views that I have come to endorse and defend.
While environmental ethics is my professional specialty, it is
much more than this: it is my way of life, motivated by my deep and
long-standing devotion to nature and wilderness, my concern about
the human prospect, and my conviction that human institutions in
general, and received theories of moral philosophy in particular,
are ill-equipped to deal with the unprecedented environmental
emergency which has come upon humanity, during my own lifetime.
ON ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
| |
A land ethic changes the role of Homo Sapiens from conqueror of
the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies
respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community
as such.
Aldo Leopold |
My environmental philosophy takes very seriously two essential
facts of human nature: (a) homo sapiens is (to the best of our
knowledge) the only species capable of moral agency, and (b) homo
sapiens is a natural species, which evolved from and is sustained by
a complex, integrated and functioning ecosystem. Both precepts are
scarcely controversial. Yet almost all environmental philosophies
that fall short, do so by failing to give adequate attention to both
of these two precepts. The first precept is centered on the concept
of "moral agency" (or "personhood") which is indispensable to
Western Moral Philosophy. This is the "humanistic" component of
environmental ethics. The second precept is based upon the life
sciences, and most particularly, the science of ecology. In my
adherence to both precepts, my environmental ethic follows a narrow
path between excessive humanism ("anthropocentrism") and excessive
"naturalism" (e.g., "animal rights" and "deep ecology"). The
essential humanistic/scientific duality of environmental ethics will
be a recurrent theme in this essay.1
My "moral epistemology" is based upon a third precept, gained in
part from the "ecological point of view:" (c) human responsibility
to nature and to the future must be viewed and articulated
holistically and systemically. A defensible environmental ethic can
not be derived from a mere aggregation and summation of individual
human (or animal) "preferences," "sensations," or even
rights.
Instead, "the whole informs the parts." Accordingly, just as moral
virtue and responsibility can not be assessed apart from the
community of which the agent is a part, mankind's responsibility to
nature must be viewed from "the ecological point of view." In the
longest and fullest view of things, there is no sustainable "human
interest" apart from ecosystemic health. Not only does nature
sustain us physically, but for the sake of our emotional health (as
well as our physical survival), we need the natural environment
which "selected" our genes. As Paul Shepard put it, "the destruction
of nature is an amputation of man."
In an amplification of Shepard's point, I have thus characterized
nature as "a moral resource:"
... we need nature in fact. We need viable, independent,
flourishing natural ecosystems. We need them as scientific
resources to expand our understanding of what we are
biotically and what made us what we are. We need wild
ecosystems as economic and technical resources, to provide
rare biochemical substances for our future use. We need
nature as an aesthetic resource to enrich our sense of
delight and wonder. We need natural landscapes and seascapes
as psychological resources so that we can put ourselves at
ease by returning home again to the environment that made us
the natural organisms that we are. And we need nature as a
moral resource -- as a source of wonder, amazement,
admiration, humility, perspective, and solicitude.
Despoiling and developing a wild ecosystem diminishes the
human outlook. It reduces our sense of natural "place," of
perspective, of context. Lose this and we have a diminished
capacity to deal with each other. Losing our sense of "self
transcendence" beyond our time, place, and species, we "turn
in" to our species, then to our human community, then to our
own generation, then to ourselves. We become narcissistic
and alienated, and the advantages of the moral perspective
and the moral life are lost. Our moral universe shrinks. We
lose this moral vision by diminishing our capacity to see
natural contexts -- to see ourselves, our species, and our
era in what Spinoza termed "the aspect of eternity" -- to
see ourselves as players in a drama of infinite duration and
space, and of an infinitude of roles and their
inter-relationships. We forget that we are actors in a
drama and participants in an adventure too complex for us
ever to comprehend, and yet despite that, even because of
that, of ultimate value to us.
. . . . .
On the other hand, with scientific understanding,
supplemented with a human sensitivity to the value
implications of our knowledge and circumstances, we
encounter wild creatures in their habitat marvelously
engaged in their own business and indifferent to us, and we
see beyond. We love and cherish the nature that commonly
made them and us. We value its integrity and gain a
commitment to ensure its continuation for the enjoyment of
future generations, despite the manifold artificial threats
and pressures that our generation is placing upon it. We are
all the more capable of containing our selfishness and
arrogance and thus refraining from thoughtless assaults upon
the integrity of both our natural and social communities.
With this enhanced sense of perspective and this
strengthened resolution to cherish and protect the nature
that we love and admire, we become at once better stewards
of the wild species, habitats and ecosystems, and better
neighbors to each other.
For these reasons of moral psychology and paradox, and
apart from reasons of self-interest and prudence, a world
unsafe for wilderness is a world less safe for human beings
and for human moral ideals.2
ON THE PERSON AND THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
From traditional Western moral philosophy we have acquired a
bundle of both assets and liabilities as we attempt to construct an
environmental ethic appropriate to our current conditions and
knowledge. One of the most daunting tasks of the contemporary
philosopher is that of identifying and separating the assets from
the liabilities.3
As noted above, I reject simple anthropocentrism ("nature for
mankind's sake") as being ultimately self-defeating. However, I also
distance myself from many critics of anthropocentrism (such as some
"deep ecologists") who have stated their positions at the
unacceptable price of devaluing the "humanity" of our species.
Instead, I insist that no defensible moral philosophy can discount
the significance of the culture, the language, and the moral
capacities of our species — capacities which make homo sapiens the
only known species to be meaningfully "responsible" for its behavior
toward its fellows, other species, the life community, and the
future. (This is why animals are not subjected to judicial trials
and punishment). Thus I associate myself with the "personalism" of
such philosophers as Immanuel Kant, and, among our contemporaries,
John Rawls. Accordingly, I see an important part of my function as a
scholar and a teacher of environmental ethics to be that of
reaffirming the significance of our humanity and thus of reiterating
and emphasizing the importance of "moral agency" in our dealings
with nature and the future.
And so, once again, my environmental ethic stands on two legs —
and falls when one of these "legs" is neglected. "On the one leg," I
emphasize the "natural" roots and contexts of our values, and of our
species' undeniable place in, and dependency upon, the ecological
community. In Neil Everndon's insightful phrase, I affirm that homo
sapiens is a "Natural Alien." We are natural beings — we evolved in,
and thus are naturally attuned to, the natural mileu from which we
evolved, and which thus selected our genes.4
"On the other leg," due to our culture and language, and thus our
cumulative history, we are a species like no other: with a sense of
self, a time-binding perception of events recollected and
anticipated, a concept of equality amongst our fellow persons, and
an ability to act upon abstract moral principles — a cluster of
capacities which philosophers have come to call "moral agency" or
"personhood."
The attainment of "personhood" is of inestimable significance to
our condition, for with language and culture, and hence personhood,
life-quality is transformed. The life and experiences of persons and
of non-persons are not comparable, as some "animal rights" advocates
would claim, they are different in kind. As persons, humans beings
experience unique dimensions of mental and emotional pain;
self-reproach, dread of impending loss, regret for abandoned
projects, fear of death, and such moral sentiments as guilt, shame,
and indignation. Persons also uniquely enjoy such pleasures as
self-respect, intellectual and creative accomplishment, patriotism,
irony, humor and pride. In sum the transcending and transforming
fact that human beings are persons gives them a moral considerability far beyond that of animals. Thus if we regard the
human condition of personhood seriously, talk of "comparability" or
even "equality" of life-experiences of animals and human beings
becomes insupportable.5 In a world without
persons, there is neither
ethics nor morality.6
As I read the literature of environmental ethicists, I find that
most writers have been unable to fully appreciate and integrate into
their theories, both our moral agency and our natural endowments —
unable, that is, to "stand" firmly on both the humanistic and the
scientific "legs" of a sound environmental ethic.
Through my acute concern about the significance of
moral agency
("personhood") in environmental ethics and policy, I have devoted
considerable attention to "moral psychology" — more so, I daresay,
than other environmental philosophers that I am aware of. "Moral
psychology" — the study of "moral sentiments," "motivation," "moral
perception and cognition," and "moral educability" — is essential to
the assessment of moral responsibility, since "responsibility"
implies capacity. (In the words of the old maxim, "ought implies
can". Thus, in several of my papers, I have explored the question
of whether human beings are psychologically capable of protecting
and preserving nature, and or fulfilling their duties to posterity.7
I submit that my continuing devotion to this field testifies to my
affirmative response to that question.
ON THE RESPONSIBILITY TO FUTURE GENERATIONS
|
|
Anyone who has ever watched a child's eyes wander into sleep,
knows what posterity is. Posterity is the world to come, the world
for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet,
and to whom we bear sacred responsibility.
President Bill Clinton
Inaugural Address
January 20, 1993
|
Because Environmental Ethics is concerned with the maintenance of
the conditions which sustain human life and civilization (and life
in general), it is, of all branches of moral philosophy, the most
concerned with the long-term future.
The responsibility to future generations is my specialized
interest within Environmental Ethics. According to the "Dissertation
Abstracts" database, my dissertation, "Rawls and the Duty to
Posterity" (1976) was the first dissertation among the nearly
700,000 listed at the time, devoted to that topic. (There have been
about a half-dozen since). Similarly, my anthology, Responsibilities
to Future Generations (Prometheus Books, 1981), was the only
non-technical book in the field at the time of its publication.8
My position regarding the duty to posterity might be
characterized as "hypothetical contractarian." As such, it is
similar to that of John Rawls. Accordingly, I hold that
environmental policy (i.e., regarding resource use and management,
capital investment, preservation, population, research and
development, etc.), is best determined from "the moral point of
view" of a hypothetical observer, aware of human needs in general
and of fundamental laws of ecology, but unaware of his own
particular tastes and preferences, or of his status and role in
society, or of his generation's place in history.
From such a moral perspective, our own generation receives no
necessary or compelling place of preference. As I have written
elsewhere, "we of this generation are not nature's favorites, not
the end product of evolution, not history's culmination. Nature,
evolution and history have not all converged, through trackless
time, simply to benefit us. For the sake of our good mental and
moral health, we need to remind ourselves that we are but a step in
the long road behind and beyond us."9
Not only do I claim that we have duties to the remote future, I
further argue that these may be "strong" duties, correlated with the
present rights-claims of future persons. (I contend that the paradox
is only apparent).10 In a purely formal sense, the "time-placement"
of future persons, vis-à-vis ourselves, is irrelevant to the moral
stringency of some of our duties toward them. (Certain classes of
duties, e.g. those derived from contractual obligations, necessarily
do not apply to future persons).
Several practical factors, however, mitigate the strength of our
duties to the future. First of all, our contractual obligations and
bonds of affection provide legitimate reasons to give priority of
concern to family, friends, and neighbors over distant strangers and
future persons. In addition, our responsibilities to future
generations might be discounted by our ignorance of the needs and
circumstances that they will face in their own time and by our
diminished capacity to benefit them.
In fact, our primary duties to future generations are more of a
"negative" than a "positive" sort — that is, more duties to prevent
harms than to provide benefits. This implies the maintaining healthy
ecosystems, preserving species diversity, avoiding long-term
contamination, and conserving remaining wild areas. Our duties to
the future also entail the maintenance and expansion of future
options and capacities through a continuing support of educational
and research institutions. Finally, these duties include the
protection and transmission of just social and political
institutions.
While we do not know the particular tastes and values of future
persons, we do know of their fundamental organic, psychological, and
biotic needs. The protection of these constitutes our basic
responsibility. Fortunately, the fulfillment of these duties to
remote generations is largely (though not completely) accomplished
as we fulfill our duties to our contemporaries and the succeeding
generation — i.e., our children.
In my work in responsibilities to the future, as with my work in
environmental ethics, I have given special attention to "moral
psychology:" namely, the study of the bearing of motives, moral
education, and moral sentiments (e.g., guilt, shame, indignation,
self-respect, etc.) upon human behavior. Thus, as I attempted to
point out in my presentation at Northland College last year, one of
the fundamental problems of the responsibility to the future,
resides in the question of motivation; i.e., whether we are
psychologically equipped to meet the demands of morality.
Though recent environmental policy has been outrageously
irresponsible with regard to our responsibilities toward the future,
I maintain my belief that human beings have the capacity to act
responsibility toward the future. There is, after all, an abundance
of evidence of such responsibility in history and among other
cultures. However, this capacity for just provision for the future
must be nourished with great care, devotion and reasonableness,
which, in turn, implies carefully devised and executed educational
policies.11
At the close of my essay, "Why Care About the Future?", I thus
summarize the moral-psychological bond which might motivate just
provision for future generations:
... healthy, well-functioning human beings have a basic and
pervasive need to transcend themselves; that is, to identify
themselves as a part of larger, ongoing, and enduring processes,
projects, institutions, and ideals.... If persons are deceived into
believing that they can live in and for themselves alone, they will
suffer for it both individually and communally. [If so,] we may be
prepared to answer the cynic's taunt, "Why should we care about
posterity; what has posterity ever done for us?" Our duty to make
just provision for the future, I contend, is not of the form of an
obligation -- not, that is, a contractual agreement to exchange
favors or services. To be sure, posterity does not actually exist
now. Even so, in a strangely abstract and metaphorical sense,
posterity may extend profound favors for the living. For posterity
exists as an idea, a potentiality, and a valid object of
transpersonal devotion, concern, purpose, and commitment. Without
this idea and potentiality, our lives would be confining, empty,
bleak, pointless, and morally impoverished. In acting for
posterity's good we act for our own as well. Paradoxically, we owe
it to ourselves to be duty-bound to posterity, in a manner that
genuinely focuses upon future needs rather than our own. By
fulfilling our just duties to posterity, we may now earn and enjoy,
in our self-fulfillment, the favors of posterity.12
While the position sketched in this section might seem
uncontroversial to many, nonetheless, since the completion of my
dissertation, the issue of the duty to posterity has provoked
considerable dispute among philosophers and others. Many scholars
have presented ingenious arguments to the effect that we have few if
any duties toward "merely potential" future persons, and others have
raised perplexing questions as to how we might articulate this
alleged responsibility to the future. In my forthcoming book, To
Ourselves and Our Posterity, I will attempt to answer a few of the
most noteworthy critics of the claim of responsibility to the
future.13 (In this book, I argue and defend at considerable length,
some of the points summarized above).
THE HISTORY AND STATUS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
A brief history and description of environmental ethics may serve
to indicate how the discipline might contribute to the environmental
mission of Northland College.
Environmental ethics, as a field of serious philosophical
interest, arose during the professional lives of most of us, and, in
fact, during the actual physical lives of some of our students. A
few minutes online with "The Philosophers' Index" computer database
tells the tale: In this comprehensive listing of almost all
significant philosophical publications of the last fifty years
(including 150,000 items), there are 466 listings under
"Environmental Ethics," of which all but seventeen bear a
publication date since 1970. Also worthy of mention in the
Philosopher's Index, are 98 books and papers dealing with either
"Posterity" and "Future Generations," all but three of which were
published in the last twenty-two years.
Twenty-two years ago saw the introduction of the first course in
environmental ethics, at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point,
by Prof. Baird Callicott. It would be another nine years before I
offered the first such course by a philosopher at one of the
University of California campuses.
In the Spring of 1979, a pivotal date in the brief history of the
discipline, the first issue of the journal Environmental Ethics was
published. Its founding, and only, editor was and still is Eugene
Hargrove, now at North Texas University.
I believe the rise of interest in the environment within the
philosophical profession is roughly coincidental with a parallel
rise in awareness and concern in the public media and in our
political institutions. This suggests, correctly I think, that for
the teaching and publication of environmental ethics to "take hold,"
it was not enough for a few isolated philosophers merely to
recognize the importance of the environment to their discipline. In
addition, they would have to persuade various and sundry department
chairs, deans, editors and publishers as well. The clamor of the
so-called "environmental decade" of the seventies accomplished this
much and perhaps sufficed to put the topic in the university
curricula and into the professional journals.
But what accounts for both the public clamor and the
philosophical interest in the natural environment and its fate? And
why did it all come about approximately twenty years ago? Primarily,
I suggest, because advances in science and technology, and the
consequent awareness of the vulnerability of our planet and thus
ourselves, reached a catalytic moment. Just as a fish is unaware of
the water that is all about it, so too was our natural environment
so much about us and constant that it receded into the background of
our awareness — until, that is, we began to make rapid and
significant changes in our environment, and to face consequences
thereof that we could no longer ignore. We could no longer ignore
the air when first we began to see it and then to taste it. And
while scientists have for decades warned us of our assaults upon
nature, at last the public began to take notice of such writers as
Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlich, and Barry Commoner.
Science gave us the means to see and to forecast the consequences
of what we were doing and technology the means to destroy the
natural environment or, should we so decide, the options to restore
and preserve it. And we determined that this emerging knowledge,
capacity and choice concerned matters of enormous value significance
for ourselves, our brother species, our planet, and our posterity.
These four conditions, knowledge, capacity, choice and value
significance, so clearly evident in the emerging environmental
crisis, essentially define moral responsibility. Yes, our
thoughtless cleverness had put the planet and ourselves in peril.
And, yes, we had the means to restore and preserve our natural
estate and heritage. Clearly, we faced an urgent moral issue.
But even if we had all the requisite strength and goodness of
will, the moral agenda demanded by this planetary responsibility was
not at all clear. How were we to balance our duties to our
wretchedly poor contemporaries with our duties to our posterity? Did
ecosystems have "interests" apart from the interests of their
component species-members? How much might the needs of our
communities, human and natural, legitimately constrain the liberties
of the individual citizen? What values in nature demanded our moral
attention? In whose behalf should we articulate an environmental
ethic, and enact environmental legislation? Humans, rational beings
(persons), sentient beings, all life, "Gaia" — the global ecosystem
itself? Clearly, questions such as these were not to be adequately
addressed merely by adding on more scientific knowledge, by
formulating more complex cost-benefit analyses, or by inventing
still more ingenious technical devices. These questions concerned
nothing less than human responsibility to its home planet and its
posterity, the value of our planet, and our conception of our place
upon it. Enter the philosopher.
However, one must not overstress the discontinuity between
science, technology and philosophy. In particular, one recent trend
in environmental science has profoundly affected environmental
philosophy — enough, perhaps, to have been crucial to the
establishment of Environmental Ethics. This is the emergence of the
science of ecology and the consequent "ecological point of view."
Reversing the trend of specialization in biology from species to
organism, to organ, to tissue, to cell, to DNA, the ecologist
broadened his view to life communities. To the ecologist, system was
the fundamental concept. Species were interacting and interdependent
parts in the system and organisms the conduits of energy and
nutrients within and through the biotic system. The radical shift in
perspective from parts to whole, keynoted a half-century ago in Aldo
Leopold's classical essay, A Sand County Almanac, could scarcely
leave our traditional natural value-theory untouched.
The paradigm shift from nature as mechanism to nature as organism
— from nature as an aggregate of parts, to nature as an integrated
whole — suggests that environmental ethics, far from being just
another variety of "applied ethics," might be the means for
transforming ethics. This indeed is one of the foremost meta-ethical
issues of environmental ethics today. The suggestion deserves
elaboration.
Is environmental ethics just another type of "applied ethics?"
Legal, medical, business, political, and military ethics all deal
with issues of responsibility of persons, toward other persons or to
human institutions. Constant throughout such varieties of applied
ethics are applications of and references to such familiar ethical
concepts as rights, duties, justice, benevolence, autonomy, etc.
They differ according to their separate references to particular
institutions — the law, medicine, commerce, etc. By analogy,
Environmental Ethics would be "received" ethical theories applied to
questions of "environmental policy." But such a view of
Environmental Ethics would implicitly endorse a controversial
position within the field, namely, anthropocentrism, since such a
view assumes that humanity is the focus of attention and the locus
of justification of any policy or principle. Such an assumption
seems quite acceptable when applied to medicine or law or education.
But not with regard to the environment. For the earth, its
ecosystems, its atmosphere and oceans, its genetic pool, in short,
its natural environment is not a human institution — it is the
source, the context and the sustenance of human institutions.
This radical shift of moral venue and perspective from
institutions within society to the natural context of society,
suggest that a transformation might be afoot. Do we regard our
natural estate as just another "resource" to be used for the benefit
of our particular species, however justly, benevolently and
unselfishly we might pursue that benefit? Or do we heed the wisdom
of the Native Americans, who proclaim that "The earth does not
belong to man; man belongs to the earth," and thus that humanity
should be evaluated in the context of its natural origins and
sustenance? That question, which has no place in the aforementioned
varieties of "applied ethics," is one of the most fundamental issues
of environmental ethics, putting in question some of the most
venerable assumptions of our ethical tradition. It will not be
answered merely by applying or "extending" our acquired kit of
familiar ethical concepts and theories to the environment. On the
contrary, environmental ethics questions the very legitimacy of
applying these familiar ethical concepts and theories to the problem
of our responsibility to the natural estate. Thus some philosophers
(myself included) suggest that "environmental ethics" might be the
next revolution in moral philosophy, just waiting for its time to
come.
I do not wish to suggest here that only philosophers have
something important to say about environmental ethics (and only a
very few philosophers at that, since most members of the profession
are quite indifferent to the issue). In fact, the "founding father"
of modern environmental ethics was not a philosopher, but a
biologist and ecologist — Aldo Leopold. And important ingredients of
the current debate come from a wide variety of sources: from
economics (Kenneth Boulding and Herman Daly), from biology (Garrett
Hardin, Hugh Iltis, and Edward Wilson), and from literature (H. D.
Thoreau, J. W. Krutch, Edward Abbey, and Sigurd Olson). All the
above have important insights about our responsibility to nature and
the future — insights which are essential to a rich and
comprehensive environmental ethic. Thus I freely cite such sources
in my writings, and assign them to my students. The philosopher's
contribution relates to his special professional skills: namely,
that of analyzing key concepts, articulating basic principles, and
constructing integrated arguments.
In addition, it is important to note that personal virtue need
not correlate closely with the formal study of ethics (as many
philosophers since Socrates have reminded us). We are all well
acquainted with both educated scoundrels and unlearned saints.
Through a lifetime of social encounters and conflicts, wisely
perceived, one may acquire a "sense" of morality, quite apart from
philosophical instruction, just as we all acquire a "sense" of
correct grammar, without taking even a single formal course in
grammatical rules. "The moral sense," acquired by people in all
circumstances, professions and disciplines, is an indispensable raw
material of moral philosophy. Neither virtue nor moral wisdom is the
privileged possession of the philosopher, and the philosopher who
pretends otherwise is guilty of the first of the deadly sins: pride.
The philosopher's primary function is to ask (and clarify)
questions, more than to answer them. The only philosophy worth
having is a philosophy that is open and growing, for which every
statement of precept, principle, and conclusion is followed by an
implicit, "... why not?" and "... what else?"
ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND PUBLIC POLICY
| |
The cost-benefit approach [to environmental policy-making] treats
people as of equal worth because it treats them as of no worth, but
only as places or channels at which willingness to pay is found.
Mark Sagoff14
|
In terms of short-term practical consequences, perhaps the most
significant contribution of the environmental philosopher is his
critique of the theory and practice of environmental policy-making.
Motivated by the necessity of coming to some decision, policy-makers
have been attracted to procedures which avoid "subjective" disputes
(i.e., about values), which reduce and combine divergent factors,
and which focus upon objective, reliable and quantifiable methods of
arriving at definitive answers. Accordingly, such policy analysis is
carried out with an envious eye on the rigor and decisiveness of the
"value-free" "hard-sciences." I endorse the claim of many
environmental philosophers that these diligent efforts to avoid
"intractable" philosophical disputes and value claims, have often
led to the careless adoption of a highly questionable and
controversial moral philosophy, "preference utilitarianism."15 In
short, the attempt to avoid philosophy has resulted instead in
uncritical philosophizing.
The wayward path down this road of philosophical error often
begins, and persists, in the search for a "value-free policy." The
motive for this search for a "value-free policy method" seems
commendable, since it follows from the policy-maker's troublesome
question: "Who am I to involve values (inescapably my values) in
this public enterprise? Better to avoid evaluation, and stick to the
facts, the numbers, and objective scientific methodology."
Unfortunately, the phrase "value-free policy-analysis" is
oxymoronic, since planning and policy are inescapably about choices
among graded options that affect the welfare and rights of persons —
which is to say, about values. 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. Thus the philosophically informed observer
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.
Whatever has led some policy-theorists to even suspect that
policy making could be "value free?" Perhaps it was the seeming
availability of "value-free" methodologies to produce "objective"
ranking of policy options. Foremost among these devices is cost
benefit analysis (CBA) -- a scheme that evokes the enthusiastic
endorsement of many applied economists and legislators, and which
provokes the overwhelming condemnation of most moral philosophers.
Cost-benefit analysis is a scheme that is both intuitively
attractive on the surface, and ethically troublesome in its
implications. (I will devote my attention to this prominent issue in
policy studies, mindful that there are several other policy issues
that I might have treated: namely, risk assessment, "externalities,"
"commons problems," collective responsibility, etc.).
The definition of CBA is simplicity itself: "if a policy, P,
maximizes benefits minus costs, then P ought to be carried out".16
Stated thus, the rule scarcely seems open to dispute. The troubles
begin as we attempt to assign operational definitions to the key
terms "costs" and "benefits," so that these various amounts and
dimensions might be measured together to produce a result on "the
bottom line." The only available common quantity appears to be
"cash value" or "willingness to pay." Enter the economist.
The significance of CBA in public policy-making can scarcely be
overestimated. About a month after taking office in 1981,
President Ronald Reagan signed an Executive Order requiring that all
agencies and departments in his Administration justify their
regulations with positive cost-benefit assessments. The practice
pervades public administration. Read most environmental impact
statements, and you will find them saturated with the statistics,
spreadsheets, and finally the bottom lines of CBA.
While the apparent advantages of CBA are enticing, in most case
they can be shown to be fundamentally flawed in that they are based
upon highly questionable assumptions, and bear intuitively
outlandish implications. While I have elaborated and defended these
claims at some length elsewhere, I regrettably haven't the space to
explore them here.17 Briefly, the most troublesome flaws are these:
-
As an uncritical version of utilitarianism, by "aggregating"
and summing total "utilities" (i.e., costs and benefits), CBA gives
no attention to individual persons, and their just concerns for
equity, fair play, and just distributions of wealth.
-
By reducing all values to the single denominator of "cash
values," "moral values" (such as the virtues) are "factored out."18
-
The monetization of values entails a discounting of
the future.
-
CBA treats the public as an aggregate of consumers, rather
than as a community of citizens. Thus "consumer preferences" count
more than "civic principles," since, if principles are to count at
all, they must be "redefined" as market preferences.
Finally, the claim that cost-benefit analysis applies socially
accepted values, as determined by the market, (i.e., "willingness to
pay"), simply reverses the relevant normative order of evaluation.
How "valuable" is a clean environment to our society? The economist
replies, "well, just find out how much the public is willing to pay?
Let's look at the budgets for the EPA, etc." But how does such
information assist the citizen or the legislature who asks: "knowing
full well what we pay to preserve and restore the environment, I
want to know what we should pay — that is to say, is our investment
in our environment ethically right?" How is the citizen or
legislator to answer this question, if not through serious and
reflective evaluation? Surely not by looking again at the existing
costs of environmental renewal, which raised the question in the
first place.
In several noteworthy cases (such as the Grand Canyon dams in the
sixties), wise government decision-makers, judges, or organized
citizen groups have insisted that their moral intuitions override
the findings of carefully quantified policy analyses. Many wild
areas and ecosystems owe their continued existence to these
"value-laden, unscientific" qualms.
In closing this sketch of a critique of CBA, I do not wish to
suggest that the economist, or even CBA, do not have a legitimate
role in environmental policy making. The discipline and its methods
can be valuable as ingredients of environmental decision-making.
Moreover, some economist have made enduring contributions to
environmental philosophy; among them, Herman Daly and Kenneth Boulding in "steady-state systems" and Nicholas Goergescu-Roegen in
entropy theory. Mindful of all this, philosophical critics such as
myself call, not for the exclusion, but for the containment of
economic factors in environmental policy analysis.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHER'S ROLE
IN THE NORTHLAND COMMUNITY
What is the environmental philosopher's role in the Northland
College community? Concerning this topic I should be least of all
inclined to offer an answer, and most eager to listen to those who
are already members of this community. Accordingly, much of what
follows will be quite tentative. Also, I must of necessity, albeit
cautiously, write of that which I know best: my own experiences and
expectations, and thus in the first person. To integrate this
perspective into the Northland College community, I would, of
course, have to learn much more of its traditions, and become
personally acquainted with the students, faculty, administration,
alumni and friends of the College. To begin, I would like to
recapitulate some basic themes of this report.
First of all, as the above indicates, the philosopher's general
task is a difficult one: "not to comfort the afflicted, but to
afflict the comfortable." Accordingly, surrounded by individuals
hungry for answers, philosophers have the discomforting habit of
asking still more questions. Thus we run the professional risk of
annoying those we deal with, while the fate of Socrates is forever
on our minds. Still, as philosophers, we feel that our work is
indispensable, and that the state and society that chooses to ignore
the philosophers, and critical scholars in general, soon thereafter
falls into dogmatic slumber. The fate of Athens following the demise
of Socrates should also be instructive.
Next, I have reiterated the theme that environmental ethics must
be grounded upon both sound science and upon humanistic insight. No
environmental philosophy worth reading will be written by an
ecological ignoramus. Conversely, no amount of scientific ecological
genius will produce an environmental ethic worthy of our attention,
unless it is cognizant of the significance of "personhood" or "moral
agency" — i.e., the capacities of reasonableness, self-awareness,
empathy, time-perception, and allegiance to principle that
characterizes the moral conscience and consciousness. Environmental
ethics thus requires an acknowledgement and integration of these
separate scientific and humanistic streams. It may require more than
this, but surely no less than this. My work as both a scholar and a
teacher has been devoted to this integration.
The Philosopher as Teacher: Of all the items in my application
packet, I gain the most satisfaction in my students' evaluations of
my teaching performance. As those evaluations suggest, the most
exciting and rewarding moments of my professional life take place
with my classes (indoors or, whenever possible, outside). Teaching
is the "mother's milk" of my professional morale and sense of
purpose.
When asked last year, during my visit to Northland, to explain my
teaching methods, I confess that I stumbled a bit. At this cooler
moment, I would like to try again. First of all, I resist prepared,
"stand and deliver," lectures. The rationale for this preference is
straightforward. Imagine the perfect "non-stop" lecturer. The
fullest account of his lecture would be a complete transcript, which
would be identical in form to a published paper or textbook chapter.
These we have already; they are the classroom reading assignments.
And unlike lectures, printed assignments can be annotated, reviewed,
read at the student's own speed and convenience, and temporarily set
aside to favor a saturated attention span. Printed texts, however,
have decided disadvantages. One cannot engage in a conversation with
a text. One cannot ask a text for a clarification or a defense of an
assertion, nor can the reader ask the author to explore, on the
spot, the implications of what he has written. These activities
belong in the classroom, and hopefully, in discussions beyond,
prompted by the work inside the class.
My class discussions take place within a well-articulated
structure. The sequence of topics is set down in detail in the
course syllabus. Attached to each reading assignment is a set of
"Discussion Questions" which I have prepared for the class. To
further focus the discussions, I will occasionally distribute an
"agenda." Well in advance of the Mid-Term and Final examinations,
the students receive "previews" which also serve the purpose of
focusing attention to the essential topics and issues. Despite all
this preparation, each class meeting presents some surprises, as I
attempt to engage each student personally with the issues and in the
discussions. My reluctance to curb enthusiasm and spontaneity has
led to complaints that the discussions tend to be chaotic. Mea
culpa! It is a vice of excessive virtue, and quite amenable to
remedy. One student has captured my objective well as s/he writes
that "he did not seem to consider his job finished until we
understood the material."
My courses in environmental ethics are not directed to Philosophy
Majors. (I doubt that I have ever taught such a course that
contained more than 20% Philosophy majors). Because few if any of my
students are expected to follow my career choice, I deal with
concepts and issues that will be important to them as educated
citizens and, perchance, environmental professionals.
The Philosopher as Colleague: Again, I am not prepared to expound
at length on this topic without first becoming acquainted with the
traditions and objectives of the College, and meeting each of my
colleagues personally. (That possibility is one of the more
delightful advantages of a small College). The foregoing account
should suggest that Philosophy functions well as a "service
discipline," touching upon all parts of the College curriculum, with
environmental ethics particularly attuned to the issues and
objectives of the Environmental Studies Program.
While it would be premature to suggest particular modes of
collaboration with my colleagues, I can say that I am attracted by
the suggestion of developing some team-teaching course. Also, I
would be pleased to participate in a series of interdisciplinary
"Issues Forums" for the benefit of both the College and the Ashland
Community. (I organized and directed such a series at Weber State
College in the mid-1970s). Also, through my long association with
environmental philosophers and scientists, I would be in a position
to attract significant speakers to the Northland Campus. (In March,
1990, I raised over $20,000 in grant support for a Conference at Cal
State Fullerton, "Environmental Ethics: Now and Into the 21st
Century." The conference attracted noteworthy scholars from
throughout the country and, in one case, from Russia).
As I review the "Position Description" and the Northland College
Academic Catalog, I find several areas in which I might make a
contribution to the College.
-
Conflict and Peacemaking. Alarmed by the belligerent
rhetoric of the early 1980s, and recognizing a close association
between global environmental protection and world peace, I
became an active member of the "Concerned Philosophers for
Peace." This resulted in the publication and conference
presentation of several papers, both in the United States and in
Russia.19
In 1988, I taught a course in "Nuclear War as a Philosophical
Issue."
-
Outdoor Education. During my second year of college
teaching (1962), I was appointed the "Coordinator of Outdoor
Education" for Paterson State College, where I directed a
residential program for all the Sophomores at the College.
(Incidentally, the program took place at the "New Jersey School
of Conservation," which my father, then the President of
Montclair State College, established in 1950).20
My earliest publications were in the field of Outdoor Education,21
and my interest and involvement in Environmental Education
continues today, as I serve as an International Coordinator for
the Environmental Education Program of the Buryat
Republic of the Russian Federation (Lake Baikal region).
-
Environmental Policy Studies. My academic work in
policy studies includes research and publications resulting from
my two-year National Science Foundation grant in "The Ethics of
Earthquake Prediction" at the University of Colorado (1984-6),
and my association there with the Natural Hazards Information
and Research Center.22
If the Environmental Studies Program were to find this
experience to be useful, I would be pleased to work with them.
My Curriculum Vitae suggests numerous other areas of possible
collaborative work with the Northland College faculty. However, as I
noted at the outset, at this stage anything other than vague
speculations would be premature.
The Philosopher and the Community: My Curriculum Vitae contains a
record of the sort of community activity that I would be pleased to
perform in behalf of the College in the northern Wisconsin and Great
Lakes region. Over the past two decades I have served my community
as the founding Director and President of the Environmental
Education Council of Greater Milwaukee (1973-5), through several
appearances on radio, television and film, as a participant in the
Utah Governor's Conference, "Humanities and Energy," (1980), at
numerous "Natural Hazards Workshops" in Boulder, Colorado, and other
such events, too numerous to mention in this space. (See the CV
under "Professional and Community Service" and "Conference and
Colloquium Papers"). I would expect that a continuation of such
activities would be an important function of the Hulings Professor
of Humanities.
The Philosopher as a Scholar: Since most of the foregoing account
has summarized by scholarly work, and my conception of my fields of
interest and specialization, little more need be added here. The
scholarly tasks immediately before me include the completion of the
two original books offered to Oxford University Press, To Ourselves
and Our Posterity, and What Good is a Planet? Since these books are
largely integrations of previously published and presented papers,
work on them is well advanced. In fact, with luck, I should be able
to complete the first by next fall. Also in progress is my
text-anthology, Environmental Ethics: Approaches and Issues, which
is being prepared for Prentice-Hall. Since I have used an
unpublished version for several years, the major work on this
project is behind me. The remaining work consists of a reading and
review of recent publications for possible inclusion, then a
rewriting of the introductory and commentary material.
Unfortunately, work on an anthology, From Both Sides of One Earth:
Russian and American Essays in Environmental Ethics, has been
suspended, pending funding (primarily to pay for translations).
Once I have "paid my dues" to the scholarly audience by
publishing the books for Oxford, I would like to begin work on an
original book on environmental ethics and policy, directed to a
general educated audience. As I have indicated throughout this
narrative, I am one philosopher who believes that his professional
work should make a practical difference in the "real world."
The Philosopher and the Global Environment: Finally, the Hulings
Professor of Humanities should serve as Northland College's
"ambassador" to the global environmental community. I believe that
my recent collaborative work with colleagues in Russia opens some
opportunities in this regard. (See attached "Work in Progress,"
Appendix I). First of all, the environmental program at Northland
College is oriented to the northern environment, a climate and
ecosystem common to Russia and to North America along the
US-Canadian border. More specifically, I am in close contact with
environmental scientists and educators in the Buryat Republic
(south-central Siberia), which borders most of Lake Baikal. The
similarities between Lake Baikal and Lake Superior are remarkable:
both are the world's largest fresh-water lakes — Baikal in terms of
volume, and Superior in terms of area. The Lake Superior Center in
Duluth has been attempting to establish a "sister lake" relationship
with Baikal and the Buryat people (some of whom, I understand, have
visited the Sigurd Olson Institute). I am sure that I could
facilitate and expand this relationship. (See the attached letter
from the Prime Minister of the Buryat Republic, V. B. Saganov,
Appendix II). Finally, my work with the Russians has international
implications beyond the former Soviet Union. In my three visits to
Russia, I have met scholars from numerous foreign countries (Canada,
England, Germany, Poland, France, Sweden, Mongolia, India, and China
come immediately to mind).
My Russian enterprises include a newsletter,
On the Other Hand:
News from the Russian Environment, which is published in
collaboration with friends and colleagues at the Russian Academy of
Sciences and the Socio-Ecological Union (a confederation of about
200 citizen-based ecological organizations throughout the former
Soviet Union), and which has subscribers in several foreign
countries. I have recently received some promising indications that
this project might receive substantial funding, notably from the
MacArthur Foundation (see Appendix III), and the National Science
Foundation. Accordingly, I am now at work on a funding proposal
which I will soon send to the MacArthur Foundation, and other
foundations and agencies.
Because there is considerable interest in the former Soviet Union
among funding agencies and foundation, I believe that the prospects
for substantial support of these projects is quite good. My largest
obstacle so far has been the lack of a strong institutional
affiliation — a problem which would be solved by an appointment to
the Hulings Chair.
If such funding is secured, the prospects for the College are
quite attractive. This might include scientific exchanges between
Russian and Northland students to study the "sister lakes." In my
proposal to MacArthur and other foundations, I am including a budget
item for a "Russian speaking editorial assistant." This raises the
intriguing possibility that a grant to "On the Other Hand" might
support a scholarship or fellowship for a visiting Russian student
or teacher, who would work part time with the Newsletter, and the
remaining time with the College. Once again, all this is premature
speculation. We must first await the fate of my grant applications,
and, of course, the fate of this application for the Hulings Chair
in the Humanities.
IN SUMMARY
As I read the Position Description, review the Northland College
Academic Catalog, and reflect upon my visit to the Campus last year,
I find a close congruence between the Northland mission and my
career record and objectives. I believe that we all agree that our
species is in serious trouble — the victim, ironically, of its own
success. Homo Sapiens has tried from pre-history on to "subdue
nature." Now, at last we have succeeded, only to find that we've
about sawed through the branch we're sitting on. Now we don't know
how to survive our "success." The old rules for evaluating nature
and directing our conduct just don't seem to apply now that nature
and our future have become vulnerable to the careless exuberance of
our technology. A new ethic of human responsibility to nature must
be conceived of, written, taught, and promulgated — an ethic which
rejects the failed doctrines of the past, yet retains the conceptual
clarity, the analytical rigor and the synoptic vision which is the
glory of the discipline of philosophy and the humanistic tradition.
It must also be an ethic that is biotically and scientifically
informed, yet sensitive to the full capacities and potentialities of
our humanity — those accomplishments of art, culture and intellect
unique to our species.
I fully and enthusiastically endorse the mission of Northland
College, and am attracted to the location, the atmosphere, and the
attitudes of the Northland Community, as I have been since I first
visited the campus some twenty years ago. I am convinced that I can
contribute to that community, for if I felt otherwise I would not be
making this application. For more than a quarter century, I have
studied, developed, and taught environmental ethics. It would be a
privilege to continue, and perchance complete, that journey in your
company.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. For my criticism of environmental attitudes and policies that
are scientifically uninformed, see "The Ideology of Folly,"
Counseling and Values, 18:4 (Summer, 1974), pp. 238-43. My critique
of the opposite error may be found in a paper with the
self-explanatory title, "Environmental Ethics Without Philosophy",
Human Ecology: A Gathering of Perspectives, ed. Richard J. Borden,
Society for Human Ecology, 1986.
2. "Nature as a Moral Resource,"
Environmental Ethics, 6:2, (Su,
1984), pp 128-30. Please note that these paragraphs summarize ideas
developed and defended in a long (30 page) essay.
3. I argue this point in my "Environmental Ethics: Obstacles and
Opportunities," in Environmental Consciousness (Essays from the
Earth Day X Colloquium, University of Denver, April 21-4, 198O). Ed.
Robert C. Schultz and J. Donald Hughes (Washington: University Press
of America, 1981). pp. 325-5O.
4. "Moral Psychology and Loyalty to the Earth,"
Environmental
Ethics, (Forthcoming).
5. Much of this paragraph is "borrowed" from my "Three Wrong
Leads in a Search for an Environmental Ethic," Ethics and
Animals,V:3, Sept., 1984. But note the qualification which
immediately follows the "borrowed text": "Having said all this, we
must not coast off the deep end. In particular, acknowledgment of
these significant differences does not entail that animal
experiences do not morally "matter," and that gratuitous torture of
animals is not morally reprehensible. However different and even
unknowable animal pain may be, it is pain nonetheless."
6. Though linguistic convention tends otherwise, moral
philosophers make a fundamental distinction between "humans" and
"persons." "Human" is a biological concept — i.e., a member of the
species homo sapiens. "Person" is a moral concept — i.e., a being
with the aforementioned capacities. Thus some humans are not
persons: e.g., infants, and such unfortunate individuals as the
comatose, the deranged, and victims of advanced Alzheimer's disease.
While we know of no non-human persons, we can easily imagine them:
extra-terrestrials ("Yoda," "Spock," or "ET"), or androids (Star
Trek's "Data"). And we may yet discover that there are other earthly
species that are personal — e.g., dolphins. If, indeed, we were to
discover that dolphins had the capacities of personhood, our
attitudes and responsibilities toward them would be radically
transformed.
7. A partial listing of these publications includes: "Why Care
About the Future?", Responsibilities to Future Generations, Ed.
Ernest Partridge (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, l981), p. 2O3-219; "Are
We Ready for an Ecological Morality?", Environmental Ethics, 4:1
(Summer, 1982); "Nature as a Moral Resource," op. cit.; "Should We
Seek a Better Future?" (Forthcoming); and "Moral Psychology and
Loyalty to the Earth," Environmental Ethics (Forthcoming).
8. A technical anthology, Obligations to Future Generations,
edited by Sikora and Barry, was published by Temple University Press
in 1978. This was, I believe, the only other book on the topic in publication at
the time of my anthology.
9. "Nature as a Moral Resource,"
Environmental Ethics, Su, 1984,
p. 129.
10. In my paper, "On the Rights of Future Generations," in D.
Scherer (ed), Upstream/ Downstream: Issues in Environmental Ethics,
Temple University Press, 1991.
11. "Why Care About the Future?", Responsibilities to Future
Generations, Ed. Ernest Partridge (Buffalo: Prometheus Books,
1981), p. 203-219. (Briefer version published in Alternative
Futures, 3:4 (Fall, 1980), pp. 77-91.)
12. Ibid., p. 2O3-219.
13. My published and forthcoming defense against such criticisms
may be found in "Why Care About the Future?", Responsibilities to
Future Generations, Ed. Ernest Partridge (Buffalo: Prometheus
Books, l981), p. 2O3-219, "On the Rights of Future Generations," in
D. Scherer (ed), Upstream/ Downstream: Issues in Environmental
Ethics, Temple University Press, 1991, "Should We Seek a Better
Future?" Ethics and the Environment, 3:1, 1998, and elsewhere.
14. "At the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, or, Why Political
Questions are Not All Economic," Arizona Law Review, 1981, 23:4, p.
1291.
15. Prominent among these philosophers are Kristin
Shrader-Frechette (University of South Florida), Mark Sagoff
(University of Maryland) and Lawrence Tribe (Harvard University).
Amory Lovins (Rocky Mountain Institution) is a noteworthy case of a
policy analyst who rejects cost-benefit analysis as a primary mode
of decision-making. Incidentally, "cost-benefit analysis" should not
be confused with "cost-effective analysis," which quite legitimately
seeks the least costly means to accomplished an independently
defined goal.
16. Donald VanDeVeer and Christine Pierce, People, Penguins, and
Plastic Trees, 1986: Belmont, CA, Wadsworth Publishing Co., p. 238.
17. Most recently, in a conference paper, "Environmental
Policy-Making: Some Philosophical Caveats," Western Social Science
Association, Reno, Nevada, April, 1991. See also, "The Moral Uses of
Future Generations," Ethical Questions for Resource Managers, ed
Reeves, Bottom, Brookes, US. Dept. of Agriculture, General Technical
Report PNW-GTR 288, January, 1992.
18. There is an old joke about an economist who complained that
he had no friends. A colleague replied, "if friendship is so
valuable to you, why not go out and buy a friend?" Of course,
contrary to the criteria of economic analysis, the "purchase price"
of a friendship is inversely proportional to its "value."
19. "If Peace Were at Hand, How Would We Know It?",
Issues in War
and Peace, ed. Klein and Kunkel, Longwood Press , (SU, 1989); "Pririmene
c Planetoi: Nenacilie i Globalnie Ekologicheskie Problemi," ("Toward
a Truce With the Earth: Non-Violence and the Global Environment,"
Proceedings of the International Conference on The Ethics of
Non-Violence, USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1991; "Human
Responsibility and the Global Environment," Proceedings of the
Conference, Man at Baikal (August, 1990), Buryat Scientific Center,
Russia. (Forthcoming); Several conference papers (cf. Curriculum
Vitae).
20. The founding of the New Jersey School of Conservation is
described in my "Wapalanne: Contrasts and Continuities: A Personal
Reflection," Journal of Environmental Education, (Summer, 1982).
21. "Nature and Personality," Journal of Outdoor Education, V:3
(Spr. 1973), pp. 19-22; "The Lessons of Nature," Journal of
Environmental Education, V:2 (Winter, l973), pp. 35-7.
22. See my "Ethical Issues in Disaster Management Policy," in L.
Comfort (ed.), Managing Disasters: Strategies and Policy
Perspectives, Duke University Press, 1988.
