Environmental Ethics Key Question - What is the nature of our ethical obligation to the environment?
I. Definitions Environment 1. Environment as surroundings Me My Environment
Environment I. Definitions 2. Environment as support system 02 Me H2O
I. Definitions Environment 3. Environment as organic entity
I. Definitions Value 1. Instrumental value 2. Intrinsic value Anthropocentrism
II. Two approaches to environmental Ethics 1. Anthropocentric 2. Ecocentric
1. Anthropocentric approaches to environmental ethics Key Ideas The environment or nature has no value in and of itself - its value is instrumental not intrinsic. Anthropocentric approaches relative to circumstance. For example both preserving Yosemite for its value to us as a place of scenic beauty and cutting its trees down to make houses reflect an anthropocentric orientation, but they are also mutually exclusive. The question then becomes - how to decide which instrumental use is of greater value.
Right and wrong are determined by cost benefit analyses. Cost benefit analyses involve three distinct elements: or 1. Assessment - A determination of the likely effects of taking an action. 2. Evaluation - The establishment of the relative value to people for taking one or another action. 3. Assessment of opportunity cost - establishing the value lost by taking one action over another
This calculus is described in William Baxter s - People or Penguins? Questions 1. What does Baxter propose as the four principles for human organization? 2. What are the implications of these four principles for how people should interact with the environment? 3. How does Baxter respond to his critics? 4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Baxter s argument?
Problems with the anthropocentric approach 1. The problem with cost benefit analyses is that it is often quite difficult to establish valuation for non-monetary commodities. 2. Valuation of nature relies on incomplete knowledge. While a protected species may have little direct value to humans, its value may be indirect, complex and thus unknown. Examples: The Asian Yew tree. Marshes and wetlands 3. The anthropocentric approach leads people to see everything external to the self as a tool for their projects. At its core, this is the idea of might makes right. This contributes to domination model described by Taylor in chapter 9. If the self sees the other as a tool to be bent to their ends, where does this logic end? (can we dominate the environment while respecting the dignity of other people?) 4. Anthropocentrism is overly reductionist (rationality = dignity = respect) 5. Anthropocentrism is bigotry (Singer s speciesism)
2. Ecocentric approaches to environmental ethics Ecocentric approaches to environmental ethics often spring from specific criticisms made against the anthropocentric approach. There are three principle ecocentric approaches to environmental ethics: A.All life has intrinsic value (Singer) B.Entire ecosystems possess intrinsic value (Leopold, Naess, Devall and Sessions) C.Ecofeminism
A. All life has intrinsic value Singer s equal consideration of interests Organisms that can suffer have intrinsic value and thus demand respect If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering - in so far as rough comparisons can be made - of any other being. If a being is not capable of suffering, or of experiencing enjoyment or happiness, there is nothing to be taken into account. This is why the limit of sentience (using the term as a convenient, if not strictly accurate, shorthand for the capacity to suffer or experience enjoyment or happiness) is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others. To mark this boundary by some characteristic like intelligence or rationality would be to mark it in an arbitrary way. Why not choose some other characteristic, like skin colour? (Singer)
Singer s idea broadens the circle of beings to Beings that have experience (and thus can suffer) which we have ethical obligations Rational Beings Note: To have an ethical obligation means to be capable of weighing and choosing among options. This implies rationality. Things without rationality are incapable of such weighing and choosing and thus are not subject to ethical demands. Such things are still worthy of ethical respect, however, if they have experience.
A. All life has intrinsic value Holmes Ralston - Organisms have intrinsic value because they are self maintaining systems - they are autonomous All living things grow and are irritable in response to stimuli. They reproduce... They resist dying.... They gain and maintain internal order against the disordering tendencies of external nature. They keep winding up, recomposing themselves, while inanimate things run down, erode and decompose (Rolston). Both Rolston and Singer seek to broaden the definition of what constitutes intrinsic value and to avoid defining such value in purely human terms.
B. Entire ecosystems posses intrinsic value An ecosystem is a whole of interacting and interdependent parts in a given locale that possesses both unity and diversity Why should such a system possess intrinsic value?
Aldo Leopold 1887-1949 Biologist, forester, professor at the University of Wisconsin and nature writer His most famous book, A Sand County Almanac was published in 1949
Aldo Leopold s ethical stance toward the environment Leopold argued that we should think of the environment as a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils animals and plants (Leopold). This metaphor is illustrated in Leopold s Oddessey Based on this, Leopold did not think it amiss to speak of the entire system as healthy or unhealthy or, from an ethical perspective - right or wrong (Note how this conflicts with Baxter). Leopold suggested an ethics that maintained a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise (Leopold 262). In this sense, ecosystems have worth based upon the same logic that Rolston argues any organism has worth (from the quote above). From this the entire earth might be regarded as a single system possessing integrity, stability and beauty which ought to be maintained.
Thus Leopold s idea broadens our ethical obligations even further Things and ecosystems integral to the earth as a whole Things integral to an ecosystem Beings that have experience (and thus can suffer) Rational Beings This approach also blurs the subject-object distinction since I (subject) is a subset of the ecosystem (object)
Deep Ecology Deep Ecology built upon the biocentric foundation begun by Aldo Leopold Its first principle proponent was Arne Naess (1912-2009), a Norwegian Philosopher. The ideas have since been expanded by the American Philosophers Bill Devall and George Sessions in their 1985 Book Deep Ecology
Philosophical roots of Deep Ecology Deep ecology rejects the anthropocentric view of the universe based on Descartes dualism This view maintains Humans are special because they possess the special substance - mind. This special substance was bestowed on Humans by God thus setting them apart from the rest of reality The Cartesian model fits well with the Judeo- Christian conception of man s relation to the world around him: And God said Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth (Genesis 1:26)
Philosophical roots of Deep Ecology Naess instead embraced the ideas of Baruch Spinoza, a 17th century Dutch philosopher. Spinoza defined God as infinite substance possessing infinite attributes, among which are extension (body) and mind (thought). There can thus be no substance but God, because any other substance would already be included in the definition of God, which is infinite substance. If God is all substance, then all substance is God. Thus God and Nature are the same. Since we are part of Nature, we are part of God, but no more or less than anything else in the universe Thus distinctions between subject (self) and object (not self) are utterly meaningless. All that is is one. This idea is sometimes referred to as pantheism - God is everything
Tenets of Deep Ecology The Western conceptions of individualism, reductionism and (more recently) consumerism are built on flawed premises and must be re-thought. Biocentric equality - All things in the Biosphere have an equal right to live and flourish - all are equal in intrinsic worth. Any intrusion into nature to change it requires justification and this justification must be based upon the satisfaction of a vital need, not a desire or want. The flourishing of human and non-human life alike requires a substantial decrease in human population. Focus on increasing standards of living (the growth paradigm on which the world economy is presently based) must be redirected to an appreciation of the existential quality of life.
Tenets of Deep Ecology Serves as justification for ecoterrorism Violates the notion that man has more value than nature (and with it most of the Western Judeo-Christian world view) Would require a complete change in our way of life
Ecofeminism Philosophical orientation emerging in the 1970s that maintained we ought to look to social patterns to discover what is wrong with our relationship to nature. Ecofeminists argue that a strong parallel exists between the oppression and subordination of women in families and society and the degradation of nature. Note the importance of subject object relationships in this scheme that serve to reinforce hierarchical patterns of interaction between dominant and subordinate categories: Subject Actor Man Humans The developed world Object Acted upon Woman The non human environment The developing world Eco feminism maintains that understanding our relationship with the environment (and correcting the problems that have arisen from this relationship) requires a rethinking of the entire conceptual framework (described above) of western society.