Can and Ought We to Follow Nature?

Posted on by Subhash

Rolston, Holmes III

Environmental Ethics Vol. 1/1 (1979), pages 7-30

“Nature knows best” is reconsidered from an ecological perspective which suggests that we ought to follow nature. The phrase “follow nature” has many meanings.In an absolute law-of-nature sense, persons invariably and necessarily act in accordance with natural laws, and thus cannot but follow nature. In an artifactual sense, all deliberate human conduct is viewed as unnatural, and thus it is impossible to follow nature. As a result, the answer to the question, whether we can and ought to follow nature, must be sought in a relative sense according to which human conduct is sometimes more and sometimes less natural. Four specific relative senses are examined: a homeostatic sense, an imitative ethical sense, an axiological sense,and a tutorial sense.

RolstonCanOughtWeFollowNature.pdf

Moving beyond Anthropocentrism: Environmental Ethics, Development, and the Amazon

Posted on by Subhash

Katz, Eric; Oechsli, Lauren
Environmental Ethics Vol. 15/1 (1993), pages 49-59

We argue for the rejection of an anthropocentric and instrumental system of normative ethics. Moral arguments for the preservation of the environment cannot be based on the promotion of human interests or goods. The failure of anthropocentric arguments is exemplified by the dilemma of Third World development policy, e.g., the controversy over the preservation of the Amazon rain forest. Considerations of both utility and justice preclude a solution to the problems of Third World development from the restrictive framework of anthropocentric interests. A moral theory in which nature is considered to be morally considerable in itself can justify environmental policies of preservation, even in the Third World. Thus, a nonanthropocentric framework for environmental ethics should be adopted as the basis for policy decisions.

KatzMovingBeyondAnthropocentrism.pdf

The Ethics of Respect for Nature

Posted on by Subhash

Taylor, Paul W.
Environmental Ethics Vol. 3/3 (1981), pages 197-218

I present the foundational structure for a life-centered theory of environmental ethics. The structure consists of three interrelated components. First is the adopting of a certain ultimate moral attitude toward nature, which I call “respect for nature.” Second is a belief system that constitutes a way of conceiving of the natural world and of our place in it. This belief system underlies and supports the attitude in a way that makes it an appropriate attitude to take toward the Earth’s natural ecosystems and their life communities. Third is a system of moral rules and standards for guiding our treatment of those ecosystems and life communities, a set of normative principles which give concrete embodiment or expression to the attitude of respect for nature. The theory set forth and defended here is, I hold, structurally symmetrical with a theory of human ethics based on the principle of respect for persons.

TaylorEthicsRespectNature.pdf

Beyond the Climate Crisis: A Critique of Climate Change Discourse

Posted on by Subhash

Crist, Eileen
Telos 141 (Winter 2007), pages 29–55

Much climate-change discourse is framing climate change as “the most urgent problem of our day.” This frame is criticized for encouraging the narrow quest for technological fixes, and for implicitly suggesting that other dimensions of the ecological crisis are secondary or more forgiving. The biodiversity crisis, including anthropogenic mass extinction, is at least as serious a problem as climate change. While climate change will exacerbate biodiversity losses, the latter have also been occurring independently of the climate crisis; thus a technological fix of climate change will not end biodepletion. This paper considers the relationship between climate change and the biodiversity crisis; instead of focusing on shifting climate conditions’ well-documented detrimental impact on species and ecosystems, it examines how the wounds already inflicted on wild nature are greasing the wheels of climate-change damage. It is argued that framing climate change as “the most urgent problem,” and the related discursive portrayal of climate change as impending apocalypse, divert us from confronting the real problem: the industrial-consumer civilization that underlies the ecological crisis as a whole. The paper ends by considering how this civilization is driven toward the endpoint of colonizing the biosphere, and thereby inaugurating the Era of Man – now being called “the Anthropocene”: instead of yielding to this historical course as the biosphere’s inevitable fate, we need to oppose it through radical action and critique.

CristBeyondTheClimateCrisis.pdf

Globalization and Sustainability: Conflict or Convergence?

Posted on by Subhash

Rees, William E.
Draft. Final version in: Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, 22/4 (2002), pages 249-268

Unsustainability is an old problem – human societies have collapsed with disturbing regularity throughout history. I argue that a genetic predisposition for unsustainability is encoded in certain human physiological, social and behavioural traits that once conferred survival value but are now maladaptive. A uniquely human capacity – indeed, necessity – for elaborate cultural myth-making reinforces these negative biological tendencies. Our contemporary, increasingly global myth, promotes a vision of world development centred on unlimited economic expansion fuelled by more liberalized trade. This myth is not only failing on its own terms but places humanity on a collision course with biophysical reality – our ecological footprint already exceeds the human carrying capacity of Earth. Sustainability requires that we acknowledge the primitive origins of human ecological dysfunction and seize conscious control of our collective destiny. The final triumph of enlightened reason and mutual compassion over scripted determinism would herald a whole new phase in human evolution.

ReesGlobalizationSustainability.pdf