What is environmental ethics?
“What
should we do about the environment”
Not simply subject of scientific study
Anecdote
(teacher from more ‘conservative’
university and state)
This course should call in to question the way you
conceive of what it means to be an
environmentalist and problematize the way in
which the environment is a problem for you.
Famous American
physician, lawyer,
author, philanthropist, and
conservationist
Very close with Teddy Roosevelt
and Herbert Hoover
Helped create Glacier and Denali
National Parks
Co-founded Save-The-Redwoods
League in 1913 (still operates today)
Organizer for American Bison
Society
Pioneered wildlife management
Hitler called it his “bible”
Blond-hair, blue-eyed Nordic race
Blamed lax immigration laws,
interracial marriage, and social barriers
to natural selection for the decline of
the Nordic race
Director of American Eugenics Society and
Immigration Restriction League
“Mistaken regard for what are believed to be divine laws and
a sentimental belief in the sanctity of human life tend to
prevent both elimination of defective infants and the
sterilization of such adults as are themselves of no value to
the community. The laws of nature require the obliteration of
the unfit and human life is valuable only when it is of use to
the community or race.”
“To Americans I hardly need to say,
‘Westward the star of empire takes its way.’
The West of which I speak is but another name for
the Wild; and what I have been preparing to say is,
that in Wildness is the preservation of the world.”
- HDT, Walking, 1862 (2 years before the Yosemite
Grant)
“From the forest and wilderness come the tonics
and barks which brace mankind. Our ancestors
were savages…The founders of every state which
has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment
and vigor from a similar wild source… We require
an infusion of hemlock-spruce or arbor-vitæ in our
tea.”
Happened upon by U.S. soldiers pursuing Ahwahneechee
(Sierra Miwok) ahwani means “gaping mouth”
Described by Dr. Lafayette Bunnell in his book, The Discovery of
Yosemite:
“Haze hung over the valley that day, light as gossamer,
and clouds partially dimmed the higher cliffs and
mountains. As I looked, a peculiar exalted sensation
seemed to fill my whole being, and I found my eyes in
tears with emotion. I had seen the power and glory of a
supreme being and the majesty of his handiwork.”
Dr. Lafayette on American Indians: “peculiar living ethnological
curiosities,” “screaming demons,” “overgrown vicious children”
Aristotle
Human as rational/social/language-using animal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NtegAOQpSs
Descartes
Material world/Rational World
Thinking being/Besouled being
vs
Purely material/mechanical beings
Kant
Nature vs Humans/Freedom
Human is End-in-Itself
No direct duties to animals
What parts of the environment get ethical
consideration on this world view?
According to Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant,
only “Humans”… (all humans?)
What parts of the environment get ethical
consideration on this world view?
According to Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant,
only “Humans”… (all humans?)
Moral Community….
Comparison
to other liberation movements of the
past
Liberation movement needs two things:
Expansion of moral horizons
Extension or reinterpretation of the basic moral
principle of equality
“Practices that were previously regarded as natural
and inevitable come to be seen as the result of an
unjustifiable prejudice.” p. 73
It
is difficult to see bias if it benefits you
“We need to consider them [fundamental attitudes]
from the point of view of those most disadvantaged
by our attitudes, and the practices that follow from
these attitudes….that consistently operate to benefit
one group – usually the one to which we ourselves
belong – at the expense of another.” p. 73
“My aim is to advocate that we make this mental
switch in respect of our attitudes and practices
towards a very large group of beings: members of
species other than our own”
…by extending the principle of equality
Extending
principle of equality does not mean
extending equal treatment – it means extending
equal consideration.
Singer
argues that the principle of equality to be
extended is equal consideration, not equal
treatment.
What does it mean to say that “all humans are equal”?
“We should make it quite clear that the claim to equality does not
depend on intelligence, moral capacity, physical strength, or
similar matters of fact [factual equality]. Equality is a moral
idea, not a simple assertion of fact. There is no logically
compelling reason for assuming that a factual difference in ability
between two people justifies any difference in the amount of
consideration we give to satisfying their needs and interests. The
principle of the equality of human beings is not a description of
an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of
how we should treat humans.” p. 76
“If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does
not entitle one human to use another for his own
ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit
nonhumans?” p. 76
The only non-arbitrary criterion for moral
consideration is sentience – “Can they suffer”?
A stone does not have sentience,
therefore it should get no moral
consideration.
A mouse does have
sentience, therefore it
should get moral
consideration.
“….sentience (the capacity to suffer or experience
enjoyment or happiness) is the only defensible
boundary of concern…To mark this boundary by
some characteristic like intelligence or rationality
would be to mark it in an arbitrary way.” p. 77
Why be vegetarian?
Eating meat is purely a matter of taste
Eating meat embodies a somewhat insignificant
benefit for humans, while it is a matter of life and
death for non-human animals
Therefore eating meat is morally indefensible.
“Animals are treated like machines that convert
fodder into flesh.” p. 77
The consistency challenge (infant test):
“Would the experimenter be prepared to perform his
experiment on an orphaned human infant, if that
were the only way to save many lives?” p. 78
(or a human with severe and irreversible brain
damage)
If not….the experimenter shows bias in favor of his
own species without any justification….this is
speciesism
Any argument claiming that all and only humans
deserve equal consideration merely in virtue of their
being human commits this error.
“Philosophers who set out to find a characteristic
that will distinguish humans form other animals
rarely take the course of abandoning [infants and the
severely disabled] by lumping them in with the other
animals. It is easy to see why they do not. To take
this line without re-thinking our attitudes to other
animals would entail that we have the right to
perform painful experiments on retarded humans for
trivial reasons; similarly it would follow that we had
the right to rear and kill these humans for food.” p.
80
Without any good arguments to fall back on…it
becomes clear that “most of us are speciesists”
Unser Täglich Brot (Our Daily Bread) 2005 by
Nikolaus Geyrhalter
“Animals are treated like machines that convert
fodder into flesh” (Singer).
By Carol J. Adams
Connections
between violence towards women and
violence towards animals
The “sexual politics of meat” is “an attitude and action
that animalizes women and sexualizes and feminizes
animals.” (p. 4)
Meat is a symbolic food (p. 56) of cultural
significance. In general it tends to be associated with
male dominance (patriarchy).
Cultural
assumption that real men
“need meat, have a right to meat,
and that meat eating is a male
activity associated with virility.”
(p. 4)
Meat eating and domination as
central to “masculine” subject
formation
Dietary
habits divide people hierarchically by
class and power as well as gender (think
aristocracy vs laborer, rich countries vs poor
countries, those with nutrition assistance, etc.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2
015/04/03/missouri-republicans-are-trying-to-banfood-stamp-recipients-from-buying-steak-and-seafood/
Women
and children often go hungry while men
are fed the most nutritionally dense foods (even
when women’s protein requirement are higher)
In times of abundance, the diets of upper class
men/women typically more similar
Race
and meat – George M.
Beard
Meat, especially beef as
superior food (higher on
evolutionary chain), to be
eaten by those who are “most
evolved”
Meat
is king – all other foods are “side dishes”
Vegetables a symbol of passivity
Refusal to “eat meat” seen as threat to patriarchy
Burger King: “I am man, hear me roar”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGLHlvb8skQ
Carl’s Jr.: Charlotte Mckinney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WTA_8waxTo
Hummer: Restore your manhood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL4ZkYPLN38
Member
of Piqua Sept Shawnee Tribe (Part of
Shawnee Tribe)
M.S. in Mathematics from Pittsburg State U
PhD in Philosophy from Universityof Illinois
Focus in logic
Why
a “dance” rather than a “network” or an
“interaction”?
The
popular Western tradition tends to identify the
concepts of “human” and “person” – they are
coextensive categories, or, being human is a
necessary and sufficient condition for being a
person
Ross
Poole
Finds in Locke, Kant, Hobbes that the category of
human is not coextensive with the category of person
– rather, there are relevant criteria for personhood
Norton-Smith,
describing an American Indian
view
Pulls apart concepts of Human and Person (one
must “become a person”)
Argues that personhood is constituted by participation
in a network of social and moral relationships with
other persons
Argues that this interaction is moral in nature
Argues that other-than-human are persons even under a
“more robust” conception of personhood
Argues that this does not diminish the status of humans
as “mere brutes” (Descartes) but enhances the status of
other entities (p. 78)
There is a metaphysical notion of personhood and a
moral notion of personhood
Metaphysical Personhood: possess rationality, selfreflection, etc
Moral Personhood: the capacity to take blame/credit for
actions, the ability to make decisions based on notions of
good/bad (moral agency)
It follows on this view: Not all human beings are persons,
it is possible that some non-humans are persons
Native idea of what makes a human a person – its
life as an “animate being” (p. 82)
What is an animate being?
Story of Coyote, Iktome, and Iya
Trickster character
What
does the story say about animate beings?
Animate
beings….
Have their own “life force” or manitou (p. 88)
Change outward form
Are not simply “everything existing”
“spirit-persons” are “spirit beings” just like people
Western Categories not applicable: Supernatural vs
Natural:
pure spirit/infallible/beyond matter/different realm
vs
inanimate material world governed by physical
laws
Animate being as spirit being
“It usually is at this juncture that the skeptical
Western scientific and philosophical minds guffaw,
then disengage, because the claim has nothing but
the air of the supernatural …. One cannot perceive a
spirit, so the predicate “spirit” is as empty as other
empty predicates – “angel,” “devil,” etc…” (p. 86)
Spirit as Manitou (force, power, capability)
“Spirit” similar to Western Category of “mind”
Animate ≠ Alive
“In American Indian traditions an animate being is a
person by virtue of its membership and participation
in an actual network of social and moral
relationships and practices with other persons, so
moral agency is at the core of a Native conception of
persons, just as….the Western conception of
personhood” (p. 90).
Moral agency entails:
Special responsibilities
Familial kinship
“Human persons participate in a familial social
group with other human persons, with powerful
spirit persons – Our Grandmother, the Thunderbirds,
and Cyclone Person among them – also with their
plant and animal siblings and it is participation in
this actual concrete nexus of moral relationships and
obligations that constitutes their personhood” (p. 91).
Principle of Equality
No hierarchy – lower/higher, simple/complex
No “most evolved” / “highly evolved”
(Eastman, reader p. 143)
Only
differences
Conclusions….
Personhood is not what is essential to being human
Humans are “spirit beings” who just happen to
have human form
Human beings must “become persons”
This process has a moral component
The conception of spirit being is expansive rather
than exclusive
“Native conception of persons is expansive, for all
sorts of nonhuman spirit beings – ancestors and
animals, plants and places, physical forces and
cardinal directions, the Sun, Earth, and other
powerful spirit beings
Compare
Singer’s view of sentience with NortonSmith’s idea of an animate being. Is one view
more intuitive to you than another? Do you find
value in both views?
Author
A Sand County Almanac
(published 1949)
2 million copies sold
(The Giver = 10 million)
Naturalist
Forester (Yale School of
Forestry)
Moral Community…
“..he hanged all on one rope a dozen slavegirls of his household whom he suspected of
misbehavior during his absence.
This hanging involved no question of
propriety. The girls were property. The
disposal of property was then, as now, a matter
of expediency, not of right and wrong.” p. 163
Ethical criteria extended to new fields of
conduct.
Not merely “opinion” or moral constructs of
philosophers but… “a process of ecological
evolution…an ethic, ecologically, is a
limitation on freedom of action in the
struggle for existence.”
“There is as yet no ethic dealing with man’s
relation to land and to the animals and plants
which grow upon it. Land, like Odysseus’
slave-girls, is still property. The land-relation
is still strictly economic, entailing privileges
but not obligations.” p. 164
The extension of ethics to the land is “an
evolutionary possibility and an ecological
necessity.”
“The land ethic simply enlarges the
boundaries of the community to include
soils, waters, plants, and animals, or
collectively: the land.” p. 164
“not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy
flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and
animals” p. 168
Humans are a “plain member and citizen” of
the land.
History is not merely a human affair –
Just as influenced by, for example, plant
succession.
The Ecological Conscience
“Conservation is a state of harmony between
men and land.”
Not just tweaking our current practices a
bit….requires radical change…
“In our attempt to make conservation easy, we
have made it trivial.” p. 166
Conservation….
Not
enlightened economic self-interest
Not
merely practicing conservation that is
profitable
Not
without sacrifice.
What are the problems with economic
motives for conservation?
What are the problems with economic
motives for conservation?
-
-
Ignores parts of the land that have no
commercial value
Only attends to parts of nature profitable
to humans (green economy model)
“To sum up: a system of conservation based
solely on economic self-interest is hopelessly
lopsided. It tends to ignore, and thus
eventually eliminate, many elements in the
land community that lack commercial value,
but that are essential to its healthy
functioning.” p. 168
The Land Pyramid
The land “as a biotic mechanism”…?
“We can be ethical only in relation to something we
can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have
faith in.”
Not “balance of nature”
…biotic pyramid
“Food chains conduct energy upwards…”
Key to conservation is understanding of
“energy circuits”
“The process of altering the pyramid for
human occupation releases stored energy,
and this often gives rise, during the
pioneering period, a deceptive exuberance
of plant and animal life, both wild and tame.
These releases of biotic capital tend to
becloud or postpone the penalties of
violence.” . 169
Side note on organic farming…
“The discontent that labels itself ‘organic
farming,’ while bearing some of the earmarks
of a cult, is nevertheless biotic in its direction,
particularly in its insistence on the importance
of soil flora and fauna.” p. 171
– mimic natural systems, energy flows,
produces or sustains biotic capital??
A-B cleavage of conservation ideology…
A
- Commodity
Production
- Wildlife for meat,
sport
- Artificial propagation
- Crops by tonnage
- Improvements in
technological
extraction
(improvements in the
pump)
B
- Land as biota (not
commodity)
- Concern for noneconomic issues
- Crops by quality
- Improvements in
biological base (not
methods of extraction)
“Your true modern is separated from the land by
many middlemen, and by innumerable physical
gadgets. He has no vital relation to it; to him it is
the space between cities on which crops grow.
Turn him loose for a day on the land, and if the
spot does not happen to be a golf links or a
“scenic” area, he is bored stiff….in short, land is
something he has ‘outgrown’.” p. 172
Is this our current state in Eugene?
Central principle of the land ethic:
“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.”
Do you think this mean that the sole principle of
ethics ought to be the good of the whole biotic
community (i.e. holism)? What about individual
animals, people, etc?
Harvard Educated
Environmental Philosopher
Humane Utilitarianism vs
Environmental Ethics
vs
Central principle of AL:
Relieve animal suffering
Central principle of Environmentalism:
Maintain integrity, stability, etc. of
ecosystems
“To speak of the rights of animals, of
treating them as equals, of liberating them,
and at the same time to let nearly all of them
perish unnecessarily in the most brutal and
horrible ways is not to display humanity but
hypocrisy in the extreme” (41)
What should animal liberationists do about
animal suffering in the natural world?
“Environmentalists cannot be animal
liberationists. Animal liberationists cannot
be environmentalists” p. 42
What are the tensions between animal
liberation and environmentalism? Do you
agree that they cannot be reconciled?
University of South Dakota, 1979
Korean War veteran
PhD in Philosophy from De Paul University,
Chicago
Main claim: The human relationship to land is
constituted by a feeling.
To the white man, land
is…
To the American Indian,
land is…
• Ground
• Thing (Basis of all
wealth)
• “Primordial flooring”
• Fungible
•
•
•
•
•
Earth
Mother of all that lives
Ur-source of life itself
A living, breathing person
Source of all flesh
Both groups claim to “love” of the
land…
…but they mean different things…
White love of the land =
“working the land,” plowing, digging, mining,
blasting, etc…
…criticize American Indians for “wasting it” by not
working it (wasteland)
This notion of love is “the foundation of their
attitudes toward life in general and toward each other
in particular.” p. 3
I-it relationship (vs We-Thou)
Love = exploitation/manipulation
Roots of different views of origins of the
mythologies of each group…
White European…
Economic: Land has “yield”
Political: Wasted if in “state of nature”
Biblical: “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth
and subdue it; and have dominion over…every living
thing that moveth on the earth” “men to till the
ground…”
Philosophical
These mythologies as a whole constitute a general
feeling towards the land.
Imaginative comprehensive view
Vs
Mechanistic scientific view (p. 5)
Lakota (for example) feelings towards the earth
entail a kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky
and water…this “was a real and active principle.”
(p. 6)
How does this compare with Leopold’s land ethic
and his view that we should ‘love’ the land? Does
Leopold’s land ethic still see the land as an object or
mechanism, even if a great one?
For This Land: Writings on Religion in
America (1999)
“Since time immemorial, Indian tribal Holy Men
have gone into the high places, lakes, and isolated
sanctuaries to pray, receive guidance from the
Spirits, and train younger people in ceremonies that
constitute the spiritual life of the tribal community.
In these ceremonies, medicine men represented the
whole web of cosmic life in the continuing search for
balance and harmony, and through various rituals in
which birds, animals, and plants were participants,
harmony of life was achieved and maintained.” p.
203
Forced relocations and legal restrictions made many
ceremonies impossible or difficult.
Sacred sites must remain isolated. Many on National
Forest land are not protected from logging and tourism.
Supreme Court analyzing tribal religions with same
criteria as Western religions… “ceremonies and rituals
performed for some thousands of years were treated as if
they were personal fads or matters of modern emotional,
personal preference...” (p. 205)
Holding land to be sacred is not a mere belief but a
way of experiencing the world – an “active
principle.” (p. 206)
Four types of sacred lands, bound together by the
principle of respect for the sacred…
First:
Most
familiar type
“attribute a sacredness because the location is a
site where within our own history, regardless of
group, something of great importance took place”
p. 207
Often related to violence
Every society needs/has these – they are a way to
honor the past (memorials, etc.)
Second:
More
profound
Made sacred not by the action of humans but
simply “appears” from outside
Ex: site where buffalo emerge in spring in Black
Hills, South Dakota
Involve “all our relations”
Third:
Places where a power has revealed itself to humans
These places are universal/all-inclusive – sacred in and
of themselves (not in relation to a particular group of
humans)
Sometimes they are violated … “The cumulative effect
of continuous secularity, however, poses an entirely
different kind of danger and prophecies tell us of the
impious people who would come here, defy the
Creator, and bring about the massive destruction of the
planet.” (p. 210)
Fourth:
New
sites due to new revelations
(vs Federal courts that restrict sacred sites to those
that have been traditionally visited….hence, “God
is dead”)
“As human beings we live in time and space and
receive most of our signals about proper behavior
primarily from each other. Under these
circumstances, both the individual and group must
have some kind of sanctity if we are to have a social
order at all. By recognizing the sacredness of lands
in the many aspects we have described, we place
ourselves in a realistic context in which the
individual and the group can cultivate and enhance
the experience of the sacred.” (p. 212)
Celilo Falls – oldest continuous native settlement in
North America – Hub of cultural activity (25k
years?)
Submerged by Dalles Dam in 1957 for
hydroelectricity
“No real progress can be made in environmental law
unless some of the insights into the sacredness of
land derived from traditional tribal religions become
basic attitudes of the larger society.” (p. 213)
Do you agree that “sanctity” or “sacredness” as a
basic attitude or part of experience is necessary for
harmony between humans and the non-human
environment?
“Non-Indian interest seems to focus on the sacredness of
land and the perception that Indians understand land
much more profoundly than other peoples, and to the
possibility of adopting or transferring that kind of
relationship to the larger social whole. I believe there is
some truth in this perception. However, I also believe that
this assertion is being made by people who do not really
think deeply about what land and sacred ness are, and by
people who would be content to receive the simple poetic
admonitions and aphorisms that pass as knowledge in the
American intellectual cafeteria.” (p. 250)
“The sacredness of land is first and foremost an
emotional experience.” (p. 251)
Reflective emotions:
Vast majority of experiences regarding the land
Experience the uniqueness of places
“Meditate on who we are, what our society is, where
we came from, where we are going, what it all means”
Lands “call forth” these questions
Sense of being within something larger and more
powerful than ourselves
Revelatory emotions:
Contain directions through which a new future is
possible
Might radically change “every measure” used to gauge
normal life
Difficulty for non-natives to experience sacredness
Lack historical perspective/stories
Absence of lasting communities
Travel freely – do not accept responsibility for locations
of residence
Land is not personalized
“Christians…restrict holiness to the human species.
Indians understand that there is holiness in everything,
and that human beings are simply a part of the larger
whole” (p. 256)
“Civil society” relies too much on the human-made
environment
Our “electronic/electric, mechanical world” (p. 257)
vs Humans as possessing a “special ability to
communicate with other forms of life, learn from
them all, and act as a focal point for things they wish
to express.” p. 258
Sacred
has an objective dimension.
(vs New Agers)
Must experience being “part and parcel of it
physically” (p. 253)
“The Indian relationship with the land…cannot be
brought about by energetic action or sincerity alone. Nor
can mere continued occupation create an attitude of
respect, since the basic premise – that the universe and
each thing in it is alive and has personality – is an
attitude of experience and not an intellectual
presupposition…Yet we see in the present best efforts of
groups on non-Indians an honest desire to become truly
indigenous in the sense of living properly with the land.
Thus we cannot help but applaud the interest non-Indians
are now demonstrating in the areas of conservation and
ecological restoration. The future looks far more hopeful
than previously.” (p. 260)
What do you think Deloria means by “becoming
indigenous”? What should it entail? What should it
not entail? What are some potential pitfalls in this
process for non-indigenous groups?
Eve Tuck and Wayne Yang (2012)
UC San Diego
State Univ of NY
What is external colonialism? What is internal
colonialism? What is settler colonialism?
How is the project of decolonization different from
other civil and human rights based social justice
initiatives?
How is the idea of decolonization invaded by
metaphor?
Decolonize student thinking
Decolonize our knowledge
Decolonize our schools
Decolonize our methods
What is unsettling about decolonization….especially
the decolonization of settler colonialism?
Land…
Settler ideology – the settler sees himself as…
Holding dominion over the earth
More deserving than other groups and species
Entitled to make a “new home”
Why aren’t settlers immigrants?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmDihp8yBp0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wejt939QXko
Playing Indian:
“Settler moves to innocence” – “settler fantasies of
easier paths to reconciliation”
Settler nativism
i.
i.
Grandmother complex; one drop rule
Fantasizing adoption
ii.
i.
ii.
iii.
i.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDkqIrb5i1c
Becoming without becoming
Colonial equivocation
“the homogenizing of various experiences of
oppression as colonization”
iv.
iv.
Conscientization
critical consciousness vs returning stolen land
At risk-ing/Asterisk-ing Indigenous peoples
v.
iv.
vi.
iv.
Indigenous peoples as subjects of social and medical
research
Re-occupation and urban homesteading
Occupy
“Solidarity” in the settler-colonial relation
Incomensurable interests rather than common
interest
“The answers will not emerge from friendly
understanding, and indeed require a dangerous
understanding of uncommonality that un-coalesces
coalition politics – moves that may feel very
unfriendly…
To fully enact an ethic of incommensurability means
relinquishing settler futurity, abandoning the hope
that settlers may one day be commensurable to
Native peoples.”
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