Encountering Nature

ENCOUNTERING NATURE

To those who care for the land and help us find a home in nature

Encountering Nature Toward an Environmental Culture

THOMAS HEYD Department of Philosophy, University of Victoria, Canada

© Thomas Heyd 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Thomas Heyd has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Gower House Croft Road Aldershot Hampshire GU11 3HR England

Ashgate Publishing Company Suite 420 101 Cherry Street Burlington, VT 05401-4405 USA

Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Heyd, Thomas, 1956Encountering nature : toward an environmental culture 1. Human ecology - Philosophy 2. Environmental ethics I. Title 304.2'01 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heyd, Thomas, 1956Encountering nature : toward an environmental culture / Thomas Heyd. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-7546-5423-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Human ecology. 2. Environmental ethics. I. Title. GF13.H48 2007 304.2--dc22 2006035623

ISBN 978-0-7546-5423-0

Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.

Contents List of Figures Notes on the Author Foreword by Eric Katz Preface Acknowledgements 1 Introduction

vii ix xi xiii xv 1

Part I Environmental Conscience

13

2 The Case for Environmental Morality

15

3 Environmental Ethics and the Workplace: A Call to Action

37

4 Environment and Culture in Latin America: Community, Autonomy and Resistance

57

Part II Appreciating Nature

77

5 Aesthetic Appreciation and the Many Stories about Nature

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6 Bashō and Wandering Aesthetics: Recuperating Space, Recognizing Place, Following the Ways of the Universe

93

7 Rock Art and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Natural Landscapes

109

8 After Mining: Reflections on Reclamation through Art

115

Part III Culture and Nature

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9 Nature, Culture and Natural Heritage: Toward a Culture of Nature

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10 Northern Plains Boulder Structures: Art and Heterotopias

139

11 Nature Restoration Without Dissimulation: Learning from Japanese Gardens and Earthworks

151

12 Botanic Gardens as Collaboration Between Humans and Nature

167

Afterword: Enabling an Environmental Culture

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Index

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List of Figures Figure 1.1

Walking on Mauna Loa, author’s own photograph, 2006.

4

Figure 1.2

Foster Garden Bo Tree, author’s own photograph, 2006.

6

Figure 1.3

Wat Pho Chetuphon Bo Tree, author’s own photograph, 2006.

7

Figure 10.1

Majorville medicine wheel, photo by James Young, 2004. Reproduced with permission.

140

Drawing of medicine wheel, from John H. Brumley, “Medicine Wheels on the Northern Plains: A Summary and Appraisal,” Archaeological Survey of Alberta Manuscript Series, 12 (1988), with permission courtesy of the Royal Alberta Museum.

141

Drawing of medicine wheel, from John H. Brumley, “Medicine Wheels on the Northern Plains: A Summary and Appraisal,” Archaeological Survey of Alberta Manuscript Series, 12 (1988), with permission courtesy of the Royal Alberta Museum.

143

Drawing of medicine wheel, from John H. Brumley, “Medicine Wheels on the Northern Plains: A Summary and Appraisal,” Archaeological Survey of Alberta Manuscript Series, 12 (1988), with permission courtesy of the Royal Alberta Museum.

147

Kitanomaru garden, East Imperial Palace garden, Tokyo, author’s own photograph, 1999.

155

Zuiho-in Zen temple garden, Daitoku-ji, Kyoto, author’s own photograph, 1999.

157

Michael Heizer, Double Negative, 1969. 240,000 tons displacement of rhyolite and sandstone 1500’ x 50’ x 30’ Location: Mormon Mesa, Overton, Nevada Collection: Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Gift of Virginia Dwan. Photo courtesy of the artist © Michael Heizer.

159

Figure 10.2

Figure 10.3

Figure 10.4

Figure 11.1 Figure 11.2 Figure 11.3

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Figure 11.4

Figure 11.5

Encountering Nature

Michael Heizer, Double Negative, 1969. 240,000 tons displacement of rhyolite and sandstone 1500’ x 50’ x 30’ Location: Mormon Mesa, Overton, Nevada Collection: Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Gift of Virginia Dwan. Photo courtesy of the artist © Michael Heizer.

160

Elke Haeberlein, Double Negative Corte de Tierra, 2007.

163

Notes on the Author Thomas Heyd teaches in the Department of Philosophy, University of Victoria, Canada. His areas of research include environmental ethics and aesthetics, history of philosophy (seventeenth century), aesthetics of rupestrian art, and philosophy of the arts. His publications include Recognizing the Autonomy of Nature, (editor) (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); Aesthetics and Rock Art (co-editor with John Clegg) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005); Environmental Consciousness and Action (coauthor with Wolf Schluchter et al.) (German Environment Ministry, 1996); chapters in books; articles in journals such as Environmental Ethics, Environmental Values, Journal of Human Ecology, British Journal of Aesthetics, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, and Philosophy East and West. He presently is engaged in a research project on Environmental Philosophy and Humanized Spaces (supported by a Standard Research Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada).

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Foreword Let’s begin with a philosophical question: what is the proper relationship between humanity and nature? Although rarely asked (let alone answered) this question has been lying in the background of all human activity since at least the beginning of the agricultural revolution ten thousand years ago. Humans use nature to live; this is the one inescapable fact of our biological lives. But the way we use nature, the way we live in and through natural processes, is the central ethical issue in all of environmental policy. Should humans attempt the subjugation, manipulation, and domination of nature? Should we try to minimize our interference in natural processes, to “let nature be”? Or should we try to harmonize our lives with nature, to adjust the human impact on the natural world so that both humanity and nature can flourish? Is this third option even possible? In this book, in these essays, Thomas Heyd asks us to consider the human relationship with nature from a new perspective. Whether he is climbing the Ainapo Trail of Mauna Loa in Hawaii or contemplating the aesthetics of a formal Japanese garden, Heyd continually asks us to consider the fundamental idea that nature and human culture are intertwined. I believe that this is a new and exciting direction in the philosophical analysis of environmental issues. Heyd argues that any justifiable ethical analysis of environmental policies – of the human relationship with nature – must involve a synthetic evaluation of human-culture within the natural world. Since its inception as a distinct field in the early 1970s, environmental philosophy has encountered several objections: that its focus on the nonhuman natural world is too radical to be a workable ethic; that philosophical reasoning about nature is too abstract for practical environmental policy-makers; and that environmental ethics is anti-human. Heyd’s perspective transcends these objections. By merging the disciplines of ethics and aesthetics he compels us to consider the concept and the reality of a human culture as it is connected to the natural environment. By focusing on the connection between culture and the natural environment he provides us with a template for the resolution of environmental disputes and problems. Consider the discipline of aesthetics. The human appreciation of beauty in the natural world is so fundamental to an understanding of human life that no serious analysis of the meaning of the human/nature relationship can ignore it. Yet philosophers concerned with ethical issues in environmental policy routinely dismiss aesthetic considerations as being irrelevant, subjective, or non-quantitative. Heyd’s perspective in this book serves as a corrective to this limited vision. When considering the rock art of pre-literate peoples or the trees in a Buddhist temple garden, he shows that aesthetics can provide the material for a robust analysis of the human relationship to the natural world. We must understand the human place in the natural world, and environmental philosophy must move beyond the sterile debates

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about the meaning, for example, of intrinsic value in natural nonhuman entities. Instead, we need to develop a genuine idea of the “culture of nature” – once again, a full picture of the inextricable connections between humanity and nature. Humans modify nature as they act and live; these modifications cannot be avoided. But in order for humans to respect the autonomy of nature, its intrinsic value and beauty, they must understand the role of human culture in the shaping of the natural world, and the converse shaping of human culture by specific and local natural environments. As Heyd writes, there are “many stories of nature” and these stories provide us – if we can open our eyes, our minds, our hearts – a new and harmonious vision of humans and nature enriching each other. Eric Katz Professor of Philosophy, New Jersey Institute of Technology

Preface This book is designed as a set of thought probes intended to entice readers to develop further the possibilities, both in theory and practice, of engaging in encounters with nature. Such encounters can transform our cultures so that we will find a more adequate place within the natural world. The volume is divided into three parts, each of which is focussed primarily on ethics, aesthetics and culture in general, respectively. The book incorporates essays written for various occasions, spanning the last dozen years. They have been thoroughly revised and brought into relation with each other for this volume. Technical terms and complex points have been explained in everyday language and with the help of examples. While the common theme of the book is pursued throughout, some chapters have been written in a more analytic mode, while others are more narrative. The chapters are arranged so that the theme of the book becomes progressively more explicit, while each essay also stands on its own and can be read out of order. This allows the reader to dip into any part of this book as her or his interest suggests. Since the book aims to reflect the reality that our encounters with the natural world are diverse, and have many dimensions (emotional, cognitive, practical-instrumental, moral, poetic, and so on), the exploration of environmental culture pursued here also aims to reflect that diversity.

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Acknowledgements I am grateful to many people who have helped to make this book possible. First of all I thank the many people who have read some of the chapters in manuscript form, and have given me suggestions useful for improvement, including Angus Taylor, Cody Poulton, Eric Higgs, Stuart Lee, Michael Pardy, Richard Shier, Scott Woodcock, Sara Ehrenbeck, Jan Zwicky, James Young, Allen Carlson, Peter Lamarque, Professor Masaru Ogawa, and anonymous referees of Environmental Values and of The British Journal of Aesthetics. I am especially thankful to Nadine LeFort, Rick Searle, Edward Butterworth, Tony Berger and John Clegg, who each read large portions of the manuscript. I am also indebted to the many people who made it possible for me to research and to write at their institutions, and who welcomed me into their homes with generous hospitality, especially Julia Gerlero and Teresa Vega of the Universidad del Comahue, Patagonia, in the fall of 2000, and Professor Fumiaki Taniguchi of Konan University, Kobe, in the summer of 1999. I recognize, moreover, the assistance of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), which made possible my stay at the Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus, Germany, in 2001–02, and of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria, which provided me with office space in the summer of 2000. For stimulating discussions while researching and writing the essays comprising this volume, I am thankful to Karen Baltgailis, Lisa Edwards, Shelly Ridder and Joan Pedrola. Besides being indebted to John Clegg for helping me with many useful suggestions, I am grateful to him for guiding me to intriguing rock-art sites in the Sydney area of SE Australia. Finally, for her continuing support in all my projects and for providing the ideal environment for research and writing, I am very thankful to Elke Haeberlein of Altea La Vella, Spain.

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Chapter 1

Introduction What this Book is About This book aims to bring broad philosophical reflection and analysis to the human encounter with the natural environment. To date, environmental philosophy generally has centered on the development of environmental ethics, focused in particular on critiques of anthropocentric and individualistic morality, though discussions in environmental aesthetics and environmental policy are becoming more common. Regarding the relation and interaction between culture and nature in general, relatively little has been written about the positive role that culture may have in our interactions with nature. This book addresses all three of these areas: ethics, aesthetics, and culture in general, as they relate to the natural environment. My overall aim is to reflect on the cultural dimensions of our relationship with nature. Since the 1970s, we have been hearing about the environmental crisis. Despite important successes in stemming some environmental problems, such as the use of DDT in North America, it seems that today we are facing ever greater threats to the integrity of our natural environment. As everyone is coming to learn, our generation and those that follow us must face even more serious challenges than those that had to be confronted in the last thirty years. Habitats and species are disappearing at a rapidly accelerating rate despite government regulations, countless conferences, and the unrelenting (unpaid or poorly paid) dedication of many citizens working either with non-governmental organizations or on their own. The degradation of the natural environment is not only an issue for those worried about nature as such or about our legacy to future generations. It also concerns all of us from the prudential, self-interested point of view, since many resources on which we depend for our livelihoods are coming to the point of exhaustion. Fish stocks are declining in most of the world’s oceans, old-growth forests that could be the source of continuous sustainable employment are being clear-cut world-wide, fertile lands are disappearing due to human-caused erosion and urbanization, while clean water for public use is becoming scarce due to waste, pollution and diversion into private uses.1 Add to this, the expected effects of climate change of a magnitude not seen on this planet for a very long time.

1 Not to mention that known oil fields are reaching their halfway point in productivity (“peak oil”) coincidentally at a point in time at which several newly industrializing countries are about to consume as much oil as the so-called “developed” countries, with the implication that oil will begin to become scarce and expensive, and increasingly the underlying cause for international conflicts.

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The common supposition of modernity has been that sufficient control could be exerted on our natural environment so as to make it yield all the resources (and sinks) that we humans require – and desire – in order to lead comfortable lives in ever-increasing numbers. This belief system has served its purposes fairly well as long as unwanted side-effects, such as pollution of air, water and ground, could be overlooked or remedied. We are coming into a phase, however, in which we cannot continue with business as usual, since most of our energies will soon have to be focused on reacting to unwanted environmental side-effects, forcing us to clean up contaminated industrial sites, to treat people suffering from ill health due to pesticides and other chemicals bio-accumulated in our environment, to mitigate the severity of flooding and droughts due to climate change, and so on. I propose that, for these reasons, this may be an appropriate moment to reassess the cultural fabric that underpins the activities that are causing such unprecedented stress in our relations with the natural environment. In reaction to our societies’ environmental record, environmental philosophers generally have taken the direct route in critiquing beliefs and values perceived to be false and misleading and in developing new, more adequate conceptions and value systems. Ecocentric, holistic approaches, for example, have been proposed to replace anthropocentric, individualistic beliefs and values.2 Furthermore, the question of whether nature has intrinsic or only instrumental value has been discussed along with corresponding policy options, such as whether we should aim for preservation rather than conservation of nature.3 In this book, I propose that the environmental degradation that we are increasingly experiencing is best conceived as the result of a general cultural mismatch. By this I mean that the cultural wherewithal of most industrialized societies, comprised not only of particular beliefs but also of a certain mix of habitual behaviors, practices and values, is not generally suited to the natural environmental conditions in which we find ourselves. Our cultural evolution has been neglecting to figure in an important agent, namely the natural environment as an active participant in the shaping of our living spaces.4 While in my previous book, the edited collection Recognizing the Autonomy of Nature, the focus was more on the recognition of the self-direction or spontaneity of nature, and its implications for human activities, presently I suggest to further explore the interpenetration of human and natural spaces and processes, as it comes to bear on the various facets of our life. The expectation is that we may come to develop more appropriate cultural responses to the challenges posed by the environmental problems that we are facing. This is a task that calls for cooperation 2 See, for example, J. Baird Callicott, In Defense of the Land Ethic (Albany: State University of New York, 1989), especially “Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair,” pp. 15– 38, and “The Conceptual Foundations of the Land Ethic,” pp. 75–99. 3 Where we view environmental degradation from a broad point of view, appeals for protection may be justifiable from both perspectives, and, depending on circumstances, either perspective may be legitimate. With respect to the distinction between conservation and preservation, I do believe that the distinction has a point, but that in practice there are circumstances in which we may appeal to either perspective in order to secure protection for endangered spaces or beings. 4 See Thomas Heyd (ed.), Recognizing the Autonomy of Nature: Theory and Practice (New York: Columbia University Press, October 2005).

Introduction

3

between diverse disciplines, and certainly exceeds the purview of philosophy alone. For this reason I repeatedly emphasize the necessity of integrating the disciplinary knowledge of fields such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, geography and art history, as well as what we might garner from environmental sciences such as ecology, conservation biology, and ecological economics and architecture. I also see the task of achieving a more appropriate approach to the natural environment as a personal one. By this I mean that insight into appropriate beliefs, habits, practices and values may only come about if individuals personally expose themselves to certain direct interactions with natural processes and spaces. In the chapters that follow I try to introduce both sorts of exploration: the cross-disciplinary research dimension and the personal encounter with natural spaces and processes. The book eschews any particular set of dos and don’ts. It is, rather, a sustained attempt to weave together exploratory themes in environmental thought which, hopefully, will incite others to pursue further the question of an appropriate, cultural fabric. In the remainder of this Introduction I provide a taste of what I mean by the personal exploration of the interpenetration of the human and the natural, point toward the importance of the concept of social responsibility for land as developed in diverse traditional societies, and make some general points about the role of culture in relation to nature. I then briefly introduce each of the chapters that follow. The Ainapo Trail and the Bo Tree Recently I was privileged to have a stopover in Hawaii. As soon as plane and bus connections permitted, I made my way up the lava fields of Mauna Loa, reputedly the largest volcano on earth.5 Due to faulty timing and my stubborn reluctance to put off a long-anticipated hike, I found myself initiating my climb up the mountain shortly before sunset, and ended up bivouacking (sleeping under the stars) two nights in a row. At 2000–3000 m altitude, in a landscape with rocks as sharp as razors that tear up the toughest boots in no time, I was lucky that the torrential rains of the previous day had stopped and I twice managed to find a patch of level ground without rocks or muddy puddles on which to spread out my sleeping bag. Following my penchant for finding out about the traditional ways, I had chosen to walk up the Ainapo Trail (Darkened Land Trail), now rarely traveled, which is the way the ancient Hawaiians used to climb the 4,170 m high peak, most likely to venerate the goddess Pele when the volcano became active.6 It is impossible to 5 “Rising gradually to more than 4 km above sea level, Mauna Loa is the largest volcano on our planet. Its long submarine flanks descend to the sea floor an additional 5 km, and the sea floor in turn is depressed by Mauna Loa’s great mass another 8 km. This makes the volcano’s summit about 17 km (56,000 ft) above its base! The enormous volcano covers half of the Island of Hawai’i and by itself amounts to about 85 per cent of all the other Hawaiian Islands combined” (US Geological Survey – Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, “Mauna Loa Earth’s Largest Volcano” , accessed 7 August 2006). 6 “The summit of Mauna Loa was visited by prehistoric Hawaiians for ceremonial purposes … Ascents of Mauna Loa by prehistoric Hawaiians were made during summit eruptions, when the goddess Pele was present, to honor her with chants, prayers and offerings”

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imagine a more solitary experience than walking on this giant mountain (which curiously looks like a bulging pancake). After the first day’s walk through lush Koa forests, I eventually left behind the last bushes and islands of grasses and was entirely surrounded by the gently upward curved sea of lava flows, incised by valleys reminiscent of troughs between giant petrified waves. For three days I did not see a single human being. And yet, this is a path that can be followed even at dusk, because the loose volcanic debris on which I walked has been worn down by hikers, probably throughout centuries past. And, not far off the trail, from time to time one can find narrow cracks in the hardened lava flows, where snow accumulates in the winter and water can be gathered by thirsty travelers in spring.

Figure 1.1

Walking on Mauna Loa

The layout of the trail makes it evident that prior to my own visits even this seemingly remotest of lands has been seen and transformed, albeit only in negligible ways, by human beings. I could at least imagine some of the experiences of those that preceded me, on the basis of the light traces that they have left behind. After arriving exhausted on the top of the mountain constituted by the edge of the Moku’aweoweo crater,7 I gazed down at the nearly 200 m deep and 3 x 5 km wide, smooth, lake-like lava surface. I perused the solidified lava flows and imagined what the glistening, (Summitpost.org, “Mauna Loa – Historic Ascents of Mauna Loa” , accessed 7 August 2006). 7 “Moku’aweoweo,” “Moku” refers to a coastal land section or islet; “‘aweoweo’ is a type of red Hawaiian fish. Literal translation is ‘fish section’ (the red of the fish suggests red lava)” (US Geological Survey – Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, “Mauna Loa Earth’s Largest Volcano” , accessed 7 August 2006).

Introduction

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presently hard, black surface might have looked like during the most recent eruption (March 1984), when the lava was boiling up and flowing toward the south-west exit of the caldera. As some readers may remember, thereafter fissures opened up on the north-east flank of the mountain, cutting across some roads and bringing lava flows into threateningly close vicinity of the city of Hilo. Having finally managed to arrive at the cabin at the top of the mountain before nightfall, I was able to sleep protected from the summit’s usual fierce winds and freezing night-time temperatures. The next day I quickly descended the mountain, for nothing is more sobering than the recognition that one has neither enough food nor water to stay long in that kind of environment. The experience of coming off the mountain felt the way it must be like to come out of a spell or an hypnotic trance. The exuberance of the vegetation in the rain-soaked part of the island, together with the many people I suddenly had to interact with, caused something like nausea in me. But, once back within striking distance of my flight connection, I recovered my stride when I discovered a botanical garden and its Bo tree.8 The Bo, or Bodhi, tree9 (Ficus religiosa, Moraceae) is the tree under which, according to tradition, Gautama, the Buddha, was sitting when he gained enlightenment.10 The particular tree found in this botanical garden is described as having been propagated from the Bo tree at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, which itself is said to have been grown from a slip of the Bo tree from Bodh Gaya, under which the Buddha sat.11 Personally, I am not much drawn toward the worship of relics, but this tree drew me with great magnetism. To think that I was with a kind of living witness of an historical event that took place 2,500 years ago, which had had an immense influence on the lives of many hundreds of millions of people, transformed the meaning that this tree had for me. Through its lineage, this tree had entered human history and lost its anonymity. It was no more a mere exemplar of a displaced plant species, gathered in a botanical garden by a collector with a taste for South Asian plants. This Bo tree, and Bo trees in general, had entered the human community when the enlightenment of the Buddha was associated with it. After my experience with this tree in Hawaii, I sought out Bo trees in Buddhist temple precincts in Thailand, to observe in what ways they are venerated and what importance these trees are accorded in the practice of Buddhism. I found that in Bangkok, for example, there is an ancient Bo tree at the Wat Pho Chetuphon (or Bo-Tree Monastery), better known for its enormous Reclining Buddha.12 In front of the tree, people venerate 8 This Bo tree is in the Foster Botanical Garden, Honolulu, Hawaii. 9 Also called pipal; assattha in Pali. Bo comes from the Sanskrit bodhi, enlightenment. 10 According to the Buddhist canonical text Mahā-Parinibbāna Suttānta, the Buddha attained enlightenment under a Bo tree. Theravada Buddhism views each tree as a symbol or memorial of the Buddha”s enlightenment. (James B. Pruess, “Merit and Misconduct: Venerating the Bo Tree at a Buddhist Shrine,” American Ethnologist, 6, 2 (May 1979), pp. 261–73, p. 263.) 11 “A living pipal at Anuradhapura, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), is said to have grown from a cutting from the Bo tree sent to that city by King Ashoka in the 3rd century BC” (Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, , accessed 14 January 2006.) 12 After unseating his rival Tak Sin, the future King Rama I renovated a run-down monastery called Wat Potaram and renamed it Wat Pho Chetuphon.

6

Figure 1.2

Encountering Nature

Foster Garden Bo Tree

Introduction

Figure 1.3

Wat Pho Chetuphon Bo Tree

7

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the Buddha with flowers, incense and candles. The tree itself is undergirded with sturdy wooden beams, decorated with colorful rags and intended to support the tree’s heavy branches. In some areas of northern Thailand there are special festivals related to the Bo tree, which involve the transport of such beams to temple areas.13 In retrospect I realize that both the Ainapo Trail on Mauna Loa and the Bo tree have become integrated into the human world by being bearers of traces, and witnesses of activities, deemed to be of important relevance to human beings. Interestingly, there is a branch of Buddhism that proposes something like the obverse of this process. A stream of Japanese Tendai (Chinese: Tiantai) Buddhism has argued for the “original enlightenment” of nature. According to this school of thought, nature originally attained enlightenment and human beings, as later comers, can take an example from it.14 This perspective would make sense of the walks that some Japanese people take on remote mountains, conceived as pilgrimages to further the appreciation of the Buddhist Absolute in nature.15 It is also notable that some of the foci of Japanese aesthetic appreciation of nature, namely the full moon and petals falling from tree blossoms, precisely coincide with key symbols of the Buddha’s enlightenment.16 For our purposes it is relevant that, while the Ainapo Trail and the Bo tree, insofar as they are parts of nature, became integrated into the human world and its history, nature-revering Japanese pilgrims are seeking their own integration into the already enlightened natural world. I propose that in both types of cases the interpenetration of human and natural spaces and processes opens up opportunities and inducements for encounters with nature, which otherwise might not occur. Buddhists, of course, are not the only people who have pursued the integration of the natural and human worlds, as I point out next. Climate Change, Sentient Landscapes and Culture As the certainty of climate change, and the severity of its effects, becomes increasingly evident, interest is growing in understanding how peoples at earlier times have responded to rapid natural change events. One kind of response has been to integrate natural agents, such as glaciers, into a “social” and “sentient” landscape. Julie Cruikshank writes about cultural adaptations to landscape change during the Little Ice Age (1300–1850), recounting some of the oral traditions about glacier 13 See Pruess, “Merit and Misconduct.” 14 On the debate about whether non-sentient nature is able to attain enlightenment, see William Grosnick, “The Buddhahood of the Grasses and the Trees: Ecological Sensitivity or Scriptural Misunderstanding?,” in Michael Barnes (ed.), An Ecology of Spirit (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994), pp. 199–200. Also see W. Puck Brecher, An Investigation of Japan”s Relationship to Nature and Environment, Vol. 12, Japanese Studies Series (Lewiston, NY: Edward Mellen Press, 2000), pp. 60–63. 15 See William R. LaFleur, “Saigyō and the Buddhist Value of Nature,” Part I in History of Religions, 13, 2 (November 1973), pp. 93–128; and “Saigyō and the Buddhist Value of Nature,” Part II in History of Religions, 13, 3 (February 1974), pp. 227–48. 16 See Thomas Heyd, “The Unity of Bashō’s Narrow Road to the Interior: Vision Quest and Pilgrimage,” Poetica (2006), pp. 83–98.

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travel of the coastal Alaska Tlingit and of the Yukon First Nations. She retells stories about glaciers believed to pay attention and respond to human behaviors, such as speaking carelessly, spilling blood, making noise, or cooking with grease in their vicinity.18 Cruikshank describes the Alaska Tlingit and Yukon First Nations’ way of conceiving of glaciers, and of the ensemble constituted by human and non-human beings on the land, by the term “sentient landscapes.” To conceive of a stretch of land as sentient landscape has the implication that its diverse animate and inanimate components are not treated as mere resources for human endeavors but as active, responsive counterparts to human beings. To people who have not been raised in the cultural milieux where these stories originate, this notion, and the accounts on which it is based, may seem incredible, but to focus on the divergence of world-views would be to miss the point. What is relevant in our context is that Cruikshank describes the type of relationship between people and land exhibited in these oral traditions as involving “social responsibility” arising from “the social nature of all relations between humans and nonhumans, that is, animals and landscape features, including glaciers.”19 Land, from this perspective, is considered in a similar way that members of human society are considered. This is an approach to natural landscape that is common to many peoples who have deep roots in their lands, including the Inuit and the indigenous people of the Russian North, as well as the Mapuche and Quechua from South America’s Andes region, and the Aborigines of Australia. What is the import of this type of approach? Cruikshank points out that this kind of “local knowledge embedded in oral traditions” displays “commitment to an active, thoroughly positioned human subject whose behavior is understood to have consequences.”20 She proposes that the type of relationship displayed in these approaches to landscape underscores “the social content of the world and the importance of taking personal and collective responsibility for changes in that world.”21 While it cannot be my aim to advocate that we adopt any of the particular beliefs about the land and its inhabitants held by Tlingit and Yukon First Nations, I do think that a consideration of how the attitude of responsibility in relation to nature, inherent in such notions, functions and develops may be instructive for our present situation. Rapid changes in landscapes and physical systems, of the sort that already presently are brought about by climate change, invite us to reflect on vulnerabilities and the ability to mitigate, and adapt to, such change. Developing our ingenuity and technical-scientific expertise to come up with appropriate physical or socio-economic modifications to our environment certainly is to the point, but, as 17 Julie Cruikshank, “Glaciers and Climate Change: Perspectives from oral tradition,” Arctic, 54, 4 (December 2001), pp. 377–93; “Nature and culture in the field: Two centuries of stories from Lituya Bay, Alaska,” Knowledge and Society (Research in Science and Technology Studies: Knowledge and Technology Transfer, Vol. 13; Marianne de Laet (ed.)), (Amsterdam: JAI/ Elsevier Science, 2002), pp. 11–43; Do Glaciers Listen?: Local knowledge, colonial encounters, and social imagination (Vancouver: UBC Press; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005). 18 Cruikshank, “Glaciers and Climate Change,” pp. 385, 387, 388. 19 Ibid., p. 382. 20 Ibid., p. 391. 21 Ibid., p. 391.

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Cruikshank notes, “our human ability to come to terms with global environmental problems will depend as much on human values as on scientific expertise …”22 Societies that respond to environmental stresses in ways that are suitable to their continued or sustainable flourishing differ from those that do not in a variety of ways.23 My supposition is that the best way to describe that difference is in terms of cultural dimensions. The difference is a matter of beliefs, habits, practices, values, and so on, and not just material or technological adaptations, in relation to the environing non-human nature. For this reason I think that the cultural perspectives of peoples who have cultivated the sort of respect that allows natural entities and processes space and time for their expression, and have developed a corresponding sense of responsibility for their own actions in the face of natural forces, may provide valuable models for the development, in our own societies, of appropriate approaches to rapid natural change. My supposition is that societies that have effective cultural resources for dealing with such natural changes perceive themselves as embedded in humanenvironmental communities, in which the natural environment is treated as more than a mere resource. I draw the conclusion that, in order to prepare our societies for rapid changes in landscapes and physical systems, such as those that come about through climate change, we need to study the factors which may generate appropriate coping attitudes and behaviors. This calls for a research program of its own. In this book we shall only consider a first step, namely, that human and natural systems may fruitfully be conceived as interwoven, which should contribute to the realization of our responsibilities toward the natural environment. My interest in the natural environment has long been centred on its aesthetic affordances. Growing up in Spain in a rural, small-town environment, bordered by rugged mountains and by a coastline with a long bay that at both extremes ends in stark cliff faces, I have come to value the diversity of experiences that nature can offer. Notably, however, the natural environments to which I was exposed had long been inhabited by human beings. In that region, hilltop towns were fortified, at least after the Christian conquest of the Muslim kingdoms, to give villagers a modicum of protection against regular pirate incursions; mountainsides were terraced to capture rainwater and allow for dryland agriculture; and the sea had been traveled on a continuous basis since before Roman times to obtain fish and to carry on trade. Consequently, to me the natural and the human spaces have always seemed relatively intertwined. This may be a reason why I have generally written about natural spaces from a viewpoint which makes explicit its cultural situatedness. As we will see below, certain cultural interventions in natural spaces actually may be instrumental in guiding our sight into the natural world rather than away from it, as is commonly supposed. Ultimately, I have come to wonder about how we can move from a point of view that supposes that technology and science can solve all our problems toward a genuine, practical transformation of our attitudes and our ways of acting toward the natural 22 Ibid., p. 390. 23 See, for example, Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive (New York: Viking, 2005), for a relatively popular treatment.

Introduction

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environment, such that we make a better fit than at present. This, I perceive, is the fundamental challenge of our times, especially now that evidence for the inevitability of drastic climate change is accumulating. It seems that the acceptance, and support for, mitigation and minimally adequate measures to adapt to the expected effects of climate change will require a cultural transformation. My working hypothesis is that, in order to attain appropriate long-term ways of coping with a world of increasingly disastrous natural environmental changes, we need to develop cultural matrices which integrate non-human nature and human beings in community. The Structure of this Book As noted, the book starts from the premise that, in order to bring about a fundamental change toward more adaptive attitudes respecting the natural world, we need to undertake a reconsideration of ethics, aesthetics and culture in general, in the context of the encounter with non-human nature. Although ethics and aesthetics obviously are always already part of the general cultural make-up of human groups, in order to highlight the differing emphases of each set of papers the book is divided into three sections corresponding to each one of those topic areas. Part I is about ways of conceiving afresh the idea of ethics in relation to the natural environment. It begins with a chapter that queries the relation between ethical theory and moral practice. It argues that, besides theoretical justifications for pro-environmental attitudes, what really is needed at this point in time is better understanding of the conditions that may generate pro-environmental conscience. The next chapter proposes that pro-environmental conscience can and should infuse our actions in a thoroughgoing way, especially at the workplace, because that is where most of the decisions affecting our natural environment are made. Chapter 3 discusses environmental ethics in a cultural context that is quite different from the North American or European. In this chapter, I claim that environmental ethics may be very closely linked with notions of community, resistance to outside manipulation, and reaffirmation of autonomy or self-determination. Part II is focused on the significance of aesthetics in the development of appropriate attitudes toward the natural environment, especially in those cases in which nature is found in a hybrid or culturally modified form. Part II begins with a chapter on the many accounts or stories, scientific and also non-scientific, that may lead us into a genuine aesthetic appreciation of nature. In this context I emphasize the value of local or indigenous perspectives, based on long-term residence at a particular place in the land. The next chapter continues with the consideration of an example of a particular culture deeply rooted in place. I propose to look into the appreciation of nature in the Japanese poetical tradition, guided by the Japanese haiku poet, Matsuo Bashō, and argue that he laid the foundations for an aesthetics of wandering in nature. The following chapter is focused on rock art (mostly constituted by engravings and paintings on stationary rock surfaces). I propose that aesthetic appreciation of such manifestations simultaneously may lead to deepened attention of the natural environment which serves as its backdrop. The section concludes with a short chapter

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on a type of earthwork that emblematically embodies the reclamation of industrially denatured spaces. My view is that, although such artworks may be intended to have the function of whitewashing the prior disruption of the land, in the end may rather serve to highlight the human incursion in such places. Hence, I propose that such “reclamation art,” in fact, may succeed in directing our attention to the increasing absence of undisturbed nature from the spaces that surround us. Part III approaches the question of the role of culture, in a broad sense, for the development of appropriate attitudes toward non-human nature. The section begins with an analysis of the relation between nature and culture, and the proposal that the two notions need not be conceived as contraries. I argue that we may, in fact, conceive of and develop a “culture of nature,” and that the protection of natural heritage may be understood as exemplifying such a culture. In the next chapter I focus on the possibilities for the recognition and appreciation of natural spaces opened up by the presence of cultural markers made by indigenous peoples. I take note of a particular type of indigenous cultural manifestation,found on the North American Plains constituted by boulder arrangements, and point out its significance for a deeply felt understanding of our options in positioning ourselves with regard to the natural environment. This is followed by a chapter that considers the question whether it makes any sense to engage in nature restoration, given that such interventions seem, rather, to constitute further artefactuality. It confronts the notion of restoration with the shaping of natural processes in traditional Japanese gardens and in site-specific installations called “earthworks” or “land art.” Part III closes with the discussion of botanic gardens as a form of place-making that integrates natural and human forces in a very deliberate way. I point out that these hybrid spaces, as all gardens, in some ways are artefacts and in some ways are natural, and argue that botanic gardens, in particular, offer human beings a special challenge and opportunity to consider plants as subjects. My conclusion is that such mixed, hybrid environments may play an important role in the development of a genuine appreciation of the otherness of non-human nature, and potentially in the generation of environmental conscience. Finally, in the Afterword, I point out some of the further issues that we may need to consider if we are to develop a culture that is attentive to our embeddedness in natural environments.24

24 I would like to thank Cody Poulton, Tony Berger and Edward Butterworth for reading this chapter and making useful suggestions for improvements.

PART I Environmental Conscience In the first part of the book I offer various reflections on the possibilities of making our societies less environmentally degrading than they presently are by opening up our purview of environmental ethics in new, and hopefully productive, ways. In Chapter 2, I argue for the value of environmental morality and its effectiveness, and propose that, if developed, it may make an important contribution to the transformation of our practices, habits and beliefs with regard to the natural environment. The basic idea is that encountering nature in a direct way may be a crucial starting point for acquiring environmental conscience. In Chapter 3, I seek to dispel the misapprehension that environmental ethics is out of place in the world of work. I argue that the workplace is a very important place from the point of view of environmental ethics since most environmentally significant decisions probably are made there. I propose that taking careful note of one’s impact on the natural environment while at work one can make an effective contribution to the protection of environmental integrity. I broaden the scope of analysis from a focus, in Chapters 2 and 3, on the conscience and actions of the individual, to a focus, in Chapter 4, on the beliefs and activities of the community. This chapter is centred on the exploration of models of sustainability from Latin America that are based on commonly shared habits, practices, values and beliefs, and integrate the human and the non-human natural parts of the community. I suggest that, as such, these models can serve as examples of what appropriate environmental cultures may look like.

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Chapter 2

The Case for Environmental Morality Despite thirty years of concern, both at the individual and at the institutional level, the rate at which the natural environment suffers degradation keeps on accelerating in nearly all spheres. Some go so far as to argue that only an appeal to selfishness will “save the environment,” allegedly because appeals to “morality” necessarily are ineffective. Others have argued that what we need is a “new, environmental ethics.” My thesis is that if we are interested in countering the degradation of the natural environment we need to reconsider actual morality, how it is developed, and how it may take into account human activities affecting the natural world. I argue that, ultimately, this means that we need to develop ways of recognizing the autonomy of nature. In the following I begin by considering the proposal that we rely on selfishness, as well as the suggestion that we need to develop a new theory of environmental ethics, to stem the tide of degrading anthropogenic change in our natural environment. Next, I propose that we reconsider actually existing morality, how any being becomes recognized as morally significant, and the effectiveness of environmental morality. After this, I discuss the development of morality and, in particular, of environmental morality, and the importance of ways of knowing in this context. I conclude that environmental morality based on the recognition of the autonomy of nature may play a fundamental role in the development of a more appropriate cohabitation between human beings and the rest of nature. The Limits of Theory and Going Beyond The troubles with selfishness In a paper titled “Can Selfishness Save the Environment?” Matt Ridley and Bobbi S. Low claimed that in order to “avert global ecological disaster” we should “tap a boundless and renewable resource: the human propensity for mainly thinking of short-term self-interest.”1 To begin, we may note that, as various proponents of

1 Matt Ridley and Bobbi S. Low, “Can Selfishness Save the Environment?,” Human Ecology Review, 1, 1 (Winter/Spring 1993/94), pp. 1–13, p.1; originally published in Atlantic Monthly (September 1993). Also see the diverse commentaries to their original article, as well as their response, “Why We’re not Environmental Altruists – And What We Can Do About It,” published in the same edition of Human Ecology Review, pp. 14–106 and 107–36, respectively.

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resourcism have suggested from time to time, the phrase “saving the environment” may be ill chosen since, insofar as environing or surrounding us strictly speaking, the environment is inescapable and indestructible. Alternatively, the notion that we are facing “global ecological disaster” equally may be subject to criticism due to its lack in precision and the incitement to think in catastrophic terms3; degrading anthropogenic changes in the natural environment are indeed globally perceivable but may become strictly disastrous only in particular locations (usually inhabited by marginalized people), such as in the petroleum industry-damaged Ogoniland in Nigeria, on Canadian Native reserves near uranium mining sites, or on Costa Rican banana farms aerially sprayed with carcinogenic pesticides while farm workers are on the job. Rather, the reality of the human activity which is degrading the natural environment is mostly of a slow, even if accelerating and relentless, variegated and exclusionary appropriation of habitats, punctuated by locally fatal events, such as the eradication of certain ecosystems, accompanied by the disappearance of species and the destruction of landscapes. The simplification inherent in the formulation of the problematic, presented by Ridley and Low, goes hand in hand with the theoretical reductionism of their thesis that we should rely on selfishness and not on morality to bring about changes in behaviors affecting the natural environment. Since this kind of thesis may have considerable appeal among people who are already nurtured on an ideology that proudly proclaims the moral rightness of individualistic concerns, even in circumstances of collective stress, I will briefly delineate three difficulties, which it needs to face. First, Ridley and Low assume that “human nature” is “genetically selfish” because biologically speaking we supposedly are mere carriers of selfish genes: “like other living things, [human beings] evolved to survive and enhance the spread of their genes.”4 As others have also noted, even if individuals and species are present with us thanks to their ancestors’ reproductive success, strategies for the survival and the nurture of their progeny rather depend on the adoption of cultural resources and the readiness to be socially cooperative.5 In any case, there is no clear support from anthropology for the view that present individuals necessarily must be “selfish” in their behavior. Notably, the term “selfish” indicates behavior that is self-serving at the expense of others. Each person’s experience, and the combined record of humanity, attest to the fact that human beings are not necessarily selfish in this sense (even if people normally give priority to their own interests and to the interests of those that 2 That is, those who think of the natural environment as a mere store of resources available for the taking by human beings. 3 The expression “environmental crisis” also is subject to this sort of criticism. The term has been used for more than thirty years now for the problems that human beings are causing in the natural environment, which makes it inappropriate to speak of this situation as a “crisis.” Given the long–term character of these problems we should rather be speaking of a chronic, anthropogenic, problem in environmental health. 4 Ridley and Low, “Why We’re not Environmental Altruists,” pp.110, 109. 5 See, for example, Ian Tattersall, Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1998), and The Monkey in the Mirror: Essays on the Science of What Makes Us Human (New York: Harcourt, 2002).

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they feel closest to); sharing and cooperative behavior seems (still) to be a viable, societally approved, and often practiced, alternative to unmitigated egoism.6 In fairness we need to take note that Ridley and Low do acknowledge a range of behaviors which are not easily categorised as self-interest, but they propose that evolutionary theory would class most of those behaviors as involving reciprocity of some kind, and hence supposedly are consistent with the thesis of genetically based selfishness. They also accept apparent exceptions to the rule, such as the benevolent actions of Mother Theresa, but think that such “true genetic altruism,” characterized by “behaviors that cost the performer and benefit someone else,” is rare.7 This contraposition of supposedly normal “selfishness” and of rare “altruism” is the basis for their claim that “moral suasion” is wasted effort. The conflation of the ordinary sense of morally objectionable selfishness with the technical sense derived from the assumption of “selfish genes” seems a rather underhanded way of supporting their cynicism regarding humanity’s capacity for morality. We should expect argument instead of rhetorical ploys if that thesis is to be credible. This leads to the second difficulty with their overall thesis. Ridley and Low’s view is that we should not appeal to morality because it represents the point of view of altruism, which itself is seen as a form of self-sacrifice. Since we genetically are not disposed toward self-sacrifice, we allegedly are misguided if in environmental matters (as well as in other contexts, presumably) we appeal to morality. This, however, represents a very narrow view of morality because the moral point of view frequently, although certainly not always, coincides with self-interest. This is true, for example, of such a traditional morality as is represented by Christianity, according to which morally correct acts are simultaneously graceful, and hence prudential, for the one carrying them out, while morally incorrect acts are subject to punishment, at least in the “other life,” and hence contrary to self-interest. It is also generally true of such accounts of morality as represented in classical ethical theories such as contractarianism, utilitarianism and in Kant’s analysis of ethics. The social contract is agreed upon because it serves social peace from which the contractors generally benefit in the long run. The maximization of utility makes sense because it generally makes the majority, among whom the actor may hope to find herself most of the time, happier. Rational beings respect each other’s autonomy because not to do so, among other things, would run counter to the recognition of the value that each participant in a community of autonomous being perceives as embodied in her- or himself.8 The third difficulty with Ridley and Low’s thesis that I will discuss here has to do with their central, supposedly empirical, claim, namely, that we should rely on 6 Ridley and Low, “Why We’re not Environmental Altruists,” pp. 116, notably support this view by noting that “a proportion of individuals will cooperate no matter what,” though they link it with the reductionistic and cynical claim that “we have evolved to place great value on our reputations as reciprocators.” Also see Paul Stern, Thomas Dietz, Troy Abel, Gregory Guagnano and Linda Kalof, “A Value, Belief, Norm Theory of Support for Social Movements: The Case of Environmentalism,” Human Ecology Review, 6, 2 (1999), pp. 81–97. 7 Ridley and Low, “Why We’re not Environmental Altruists,” p. 110. 8 Obviously more could be said on this topic, but I will not develop this further on this occasion.

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appeals to selfishness and not on morality because appeals to morality are not and cannot be effective in bringing about the kinds of changes that we require in a world that increasingly is suffering under the impact of humanly caused environmental degradation. This, however, seems quite false. We only need to take into account societies in which there has been a genuine breakdown of morality, as after a long war or due to eradication from a traditional homeland (consider, for example, the infamous case of the Ik9), to realize the general effectiveness of morality in maintaining peace and social stability under normal circumstances. One would have to see some evidence to believe that morality does not and cannot have a similar, underlying, regulative effect on people’s behavior regarding the natural environment. In fact, as we will see below, there is empirical evidence that morality can be quite effective in bringing about appropriate behavior in this context too. There remains a significant plausibility to Ridley and Low’s thesis, however, when we take into account the fact that by most accounts the degradation of the natural environment is rapidly worsening, despite the continuous appeals by ordinary citizens, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, and some government representatives, to reform our ways of life. There may be a variety of explanations for this fact, though. For example, it remains unclear whether the appeals are perceived by people as issuing from credible sources; the concrete moralities extant in the societies in question are perhaps ill-suited to admit an appeal to reform behavior concerning something, such as the natural environment, usually taken for granted; the appeals are likely neglected due to the presence of moral “defectors” or cheaters in those societies; and so on. I suggest that one of the most important reasons for the increasingly heavy “ecological footprint”10 that people are leaving on this planet is that the major “agents” contributing to the environmental degradation of our planet are entities that are not subject to direct moral appeals, namely corporations assembled for particular purposes, generally for profit. As such, these entities can only be controlled by outright legislation or through other sorts of incentives directed to their “selfinterest.”11 The existence of such entities in our midst, as well as the relative success 9 See Colin Turnbull, The Mountain People (St. Albans: Paladin, 1984). 10 According to William Rees (the inventor of the term), the “ecological footprint” can be considered as the area needed to sustain a certain population, given certain consumption patterns and certain resource availability in the area in question, and given a certain technology. He proposes to use it as an analytical tool which, in his own words, can be used as follows: “Pick a population, examine its consumption patterns for a considerable period of time, and then calculate the total area of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems needed to produce all the goods and services that the population consumes, and to assimilate the wastes that the population produces” (Dr. William Rees Interviewed By Dr. Michael Gismondi , accessed 18 September 2006). 11 On corporate responsibility, I side mostly with John R. Danley against Peter A. French. In my view, corporations are agents because they act on our environments, but they should not be considered moral agents. Although corporations legally are treated as persons, morally they do not fit the bill since they have no unified consciousness and, hence, as such, have no capacity to take responsibility for the effects of their activities. See John R. Danley, “Corporate Moral Agency: The Case for Anthropological Bigotry,” in Joan C. Callahan (ed.),

The Case for Environmental Morality

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of incentives appealing to self-interest among human beings, does not by itself show that appeals to morality are necessarily ineffective, however. We take a closer look at this point further below.12 The limits of new theories of environmental ethics Since Richard Sylvan (Routley) wrote “Is there a Need for a New, an Environmental, Ethic?,” a diversity of thinkers have put their mind to the task of developing such a new environmental ethics.13 Sylvan argued that the environmental problems of our times cannot be tackled by an extension of prevailing ethics. On Sylvan’s assessment, the diverse traditions circumscribed by John Passmore in his classic Man’s Responsibility for Nature14 are all equally defective because of their anthropocentric bias. In this context, according to Sylvan, we need to acquire a decidedly non-anthropocentric ethics. Among those who responded to this call we may note J. Baird Callicott who, through an interpretation of Aldo Leopold’s “land ethic,” made a case for a holist ethics, which aims to protect wholes, such as species, over and against individuals, even if to the detriment of individual animals.15 From this perspective the culling by park rangers of herds of ungulates or of elephants in national parks, for example, is justified if it prevents the decimation of threatened plant species integral to the ecosystems in question.16 Various authors, such as John Livingston, have furthermore concluded that a new, environmental ethics is unlikely to be defensible unless a new metaphysics, replacing “the tyranny of Western knowledge systems,” is found. Livingston suggests that we need to return to our “biological being” and to our “animalness.”17 Ethical Issues in Professional Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 269–74; Peter A. French, “Corporate Moral Agency,” also in Callahan, Ethical Issues, pp. 265–9. For an interesting application of French’s view to environmental issues see his “Invaders of the Environment,” in Peter A. French, Corporate Ethics (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace, 1995), pp. 211–48. 12 On corporate responsibility, also see Chapter 3. 13 Richard Sylvan (Routley), “Is there a Need for a New, an Environmental, Ethic?,” Proceedings of the XV World Congress of Philosophy 1 (Varna, Bulgaria, 1973), pp. 205–10. 14 John Passmore, Man’s Responsibility for Nature (London: Duckworth, 1974). On Passmore’s claims, also see Chapter 9. 15 Curiously, on Callicott’s analysis the move toward a non-anthropocentric ethics does not seem to require giving up human control of non-human environments and species; it seems, rather, to be in accord with a “managerial” approach to other species. (See Dean Bavington, “Homo Administrator: Managing a Needy Nature?,” in Thomas Heyd (ed.), Recognizing the Autonomy of Nature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), pp. 121–36, for a critique of such managerial approaches to natural spaces.) 16 J. Baird Callicott, “Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair,” in Christine Pierce and Donald VanDeVeer (eds), People, Penguins and Plastic Trees (Belmond, CA: Wadsworth, 2nd edn, 1995), pp. 237–54. Frequent references to this volume are made given its ready access. 17 John Livingston, “Ethics as Prosthetics,” in Philip P. Hanson (ed.), Environmental Ethics: Philosophical and Policy Perspectives (Burnaby, BC: Institute for the Humanities, 1986), p. 76.

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It is evident by now that the contribution that such new theories of ethics can make to bring about a halt to the degradation of our natural environment is relatively limited. These new approaches (see Chapter 3 for a more extended survey of theories of environmental ethics) certainly provide material for an in-depth reconsideration of the value structures prevalent in mainstream Western societies. Nonetheless, new environmental theories of ethics may seem too demanding to most people if they require equality of consideration for non-human entities side by side with human beings. Viewed from the perspective of many traditional, extant value systems, such new theories seem difficult, or even impossible, to justify; if the new theories come packaged in new systems of metaphysics intended to justify them, these new conceptions of our world may be too alien for most people to take seriously.18 It seems likely therefore that such theories of ethics by themselves cannot provide a solution to our present problems. Even Sylvan, who seemed to have a transformation of everyday practice in mind, still focused in a rather technical way on finding a justification for a new environmental ethics.19 The development and justification of an abstract, selfconsistent theoretical system defining rights and wrongs in relation to the natural environment without doubt is an important undertaking. We cannot forget, however, Aldo Leopold’s lucid insight that anything as important as a practically effective “new ethic” never comes about as a mere theoretical construct. In fact, the relative ineffectiveness of new theories of environmental ethics may partially be traced to the difficulties present in the application of ethical theories generally. In a study of the relevance of ethics theories for the resolution of practical moral problems, Barry Hoffmaster found a number of important problems in the suppositions that usually guide ethicists. We cannot go into any details here, but suffice it to say that he concludes that ethical theories are often ineffective in applied settings because they neglect to take into consideration the specific contexts of those settings and of the people involved. They suppose that moral decision making is “static” rather than a process that entails personal growth and the “creation” of values and norms. They also suppose that the rationality of morality is “formal” rather than directed toward “global” attempts to make one’s life “manageable” and “coherent,” in the face of difficult decisions which affect the lives of individuals with whom we are affectively involved.20 In sum, systems of ethics that seem theoretically well

18 See, for example, Christopher Belshaw, Environmental Philosophy: Reason, Nature and Human Concern (Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2001), for a critique of deep ecology and ecocentric theories along these lines. 19 Sylvan, “Is there a Need?,” p. 19. So, on the assumption that the term “[an] ethic is ambiguous,” he suggested that “An ethical system S is, near enough, a propositional system (i.e. a structured set of propositions) or theory which includes (like individuals of a theory) a set of values and (like postulates of a theory) a set of general evaluative judgments concerning conduct, typically of what is obligatory, permissible and wrong, of what are rights, what is valued, and so forth,” (p. 20). 20 Barry Hoffmaster, “The Theory and Practice of Applied Ethics,” Dialogue 30, 3 (Summer 1991), pp. 213–34.

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grounded still may lead to failure when those systems are applied to resolve concrete problems.21 Another way to summarize Hoffmaster’s findings is to say that he proposes that, for ethics to be effective in its application, it is necessary to take greater note of people’s actual morality; what Hoffmaster is suggesting is that attention needs to be given to the fact that, prior to the ethicists’ gaze, the field of human action is already occupied by individuals who constantly are trying to come to terms with the propriety of their actions in view of sets of values that have been determined in dialogue with others in their environments and over the length of their lives.22 As applied to the problems of human behavior which degrade the natural environment, this means that we need to rethink the concrete value of theories of ethics.23 One alternative is to focus on the value of morality more directly. Beyond theory: environmental morality It is noteworthy that relatively little attention has been paid until recently in contemporary ethics to people’s actual moral functioning, that is, to their actual values, motivations and moral development, both in general and as directed toward the natural environment. The importance of a focus on actual moral functioning was already commented upon by Aldo Leopold. He noted a perplexing conjunction of knowledge of environmental and ecological facts, and inaction in the face of grave needs for environmental protection and remediation. He found that his contemporaries had a fine grasp of the rhetoric of conservation as found in “letterhead pieties,” but that “ecological conscience,” that is, “a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land,” was missing.24 According to Leopold, what was required was less a new theoretical justification than a new willingness to act in ways that express respect for the land and its life. One might say that Leopold’s call for a land “ethic” primarily is a call for the adoption of a new, individual and social, ethos, that is, a new form of life or morality, commensurate with the value that, in our enlightened moments, we claim to recognize 21 For a similar point regarding “theoretical ethics,” applied to the environmental context, see John Visvader, “Ken’s Problem: Environmental Activism in an Age of Deconstructionist Biology,” Human Ecology Review, 5, 1 (Summer 1998), pp. 31–4. 22 From this point of view, applied ethicists cannot expect to be able to provide readymade solutions for the moral problems that people face, even if they may still find a limited role in the dialogic support that they can provide individuals in facilitating reflection on the choices faced. Also see Kant in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. L. White Beck (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959; original 1785) for an account of the limited role that philosophy may play in ethics. 23 Of late, the value and role of theory in ethics has become a subject of concern to a number of writers, including Bernard Williams, Alasdair MacIntyre, Annette Baier, Jonathan Dancy, John McDowell, Susan Wolf and Robert Fullinwider. See Dale Jamieson, “Method and Moral Theory,” in Peter Singer (ed.), A Companion to Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), pp. 476–86, for a summary discussion. 24 Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic,” in Pierce and VanDeVeer, People, Penguins and Plastic Trees, pp. 142–51; reprinted from Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981).

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in the land. Leopold argued that the development of this new ethos or morality was impeded by certain characteristic obstacles.25 Leopold, interestingly, proposed a connection between the development of environmental morality and a certain type of knowledge. We shall have a look at that connection shortly but first it is necessary to consider what morality is, how any being becomes morally significant, and the effectiveness of environmental morality. Morality, Moral Significance, and the Effectiveness of Environmental Morality Ethics and morality Morality is a contested issue. It has been argued that it is a matter of acting according to correct rules, themselves backed up by ultimate principles, or of taking note of rights and responsibilities, as derived moreover from a more general system of ethics, or of living according to certain virtues, justified furthermore by certain ultimate values; and so on. As such, the question concerning what morality is has generated an extensive debate in the literature as to whether one type of theory or another is the correct one. By attempting to set out the correct account of morality, ethics seeks to respond in a foreshortened and thorough way to the question “how do I know if I am doing the morally correct thing?” It is relevant however that, in practice, contrasting notions such as rules vs. rights vs. virtues, as postulated by diverse types of ethical theories, may never explicitly enter into an individual’s reflections, even while it may still make good sense to speak of such an individual’s morality.26 Here I attempt a characterization of the notion of morality as inspired by actual practice. I propose to speak of ethics as reflection on morality, and of morality as constituted by appropriate attitudes and patterns of action with regard to significant others, insofar as these attitudes and patterns of action may be subject to praise or censure and may characterize a person’s character.27 This account of morality calls for elucidation of what constitutes “appropriateness” in this context, of course. Here I rely on the currency of the notion of “responsibility,” as it is commonly used to describe situations in everyday life. In ordinary life we perceive a variety of responsibilities arising out of the relationships in which we are engaged with certain other human beings. We may realize a responsibility for the return of an item that we have borrowed, for payment when purchasing a good, or for caring for an elderly relative. In other words, we perceive certain responsibilities because we have entered into relationships with particular individuals as a borrower, as a purchaser, or as a younger relative, respectively. We perceive these responsibilities, furthermore, because we encounter these particular 25 For discussion see Thomas Heyd, “The Land Ethic and Its Obstacles,” Stewardship ’94: Revisiting the Land Ethic/Caring for the Land (Victoria, Canada: Ministry of Environment, Parks and Lands, B.C., Canada, 1995), pp. 64–7; also see below. 26 But see Jamieson, “Method and Moral Theory,” for a view that emphasizes the role of theory in moral practice. 27 I propose to distinguish these two terms, ethics and morality, for clarity’s sake, even if they usually are used interchangeably.

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people as significant others: it is important to us how these people are and how they feel; what these people think of us, how they treat us, how our treatment of these people appears to third parties, etc. These relationships generate particular normative relations for us, which in turn may generate a sense of responsibility or a feeling of obligation when we realize that the relationship of being a borrower, a purchaser, or a younger relative, is instantiated.28 It may be argued, moreover, that, even in the absence of a sense of responsibility, these relationships set certain responsibilities, such as returning the item, paying for the good obtained, and helping out the elderly relative, respectively. That is, moral responsibility is not just a subjective but also an objective matter, insofar as it revolves around intersubjectively accessible situations and shared norms. Moreover, even if the demand to take responsibility for certain actions may arise for us because we perceive that we belong to a particular society, and share in its particular culture, this is not to say that the norms explicitly or implicitly contained in such demands are “merely” relative to a culture. Rather, on reflection we may well find sufficient reasons for the view that the norms in question should be held and acted on transculturally by anyone capable of ethical reflection.29 That is, we may find sufficient arguments for the conclusion that a certain responsibility applies to anyone in similar circumstances. Importantly, however, such arguments cannot replace the motivating power represented either by a sense of personal responsibility or by societal demands to take certain responsibilities. George Silberbauer proposes that in small-scale societies “morality is seen more clearly [than in large-scale societies] as a set of orientations for establishing and maintaining the health of relationships.”30 On this account, both our sense of responsibility and our willingness to take responsibility, when it is demanded in our society, reflect a concern with harmonious, interpersonal functioning. Morality, understood in this manner, can be found everywhere. This is small surprise for at least two reasons. One reason is that we are social beings, and so our own needs and those of others surrounding us naturally become entangled in such ways that morality can be very desirable, since it demands relatively predictable behavioral 28 The point of view on ethics developed here is indebted to Mary Midgley’s “Duties Concerning Islands” in VanDeVeer and Pierce, People, Penguins and Plastic Trees (1st edn, 1986), pp. 156–64, and Val Plumwood’s “Nature, Self and Gender: Feminism, Environmental Philosophy, and the Critique of Rationalism” in Pierce and VanDeVeer, People, Penguins (2nd edn), pp. 197–213. It is a well-known principle in philosophy that one cannot derive values from facts. Our experience, however, is not neatly divided into values and facts. Our experience, which is heavily dependent on the modes of knowing and valuing particular to our culture, rather acquaints us with the world in value-laden ways. On reflection we may critique the values that we were initially caught up in, of course; this is how we rid ourselves of problematic prejudices. But we may also, on reflection, come to the conclusion that we need to deepen our commitment to certain of our value configurations. That is what we may call the development of a “sense of responsibility.” 29 This is the sense in which Kant supposes that ethics should be evident and applicable to any rational being (any being capable of reasoning). 30 George Silberbauer, “Ethics in small-scale societies,” in Singer, A Companion to Ethics, p. 27.

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patternings which facilitate social functioning. This seems to be true even for hostile interchanges: in war as well as in peace-time some moves are considered “fair” and others not. The other reason is that, as beings who, perhaps above all, have a need to continuously give meaning to our own experiences, responsiveness to certain others recognized as morally significant serves to create a context in which one’s existence can make sense. That is, by recognizing that I have many responsibilities toward certain others and that certain others likewise have responsibilities toward me, I can see a point to many of my activities and an explanation for the benefits that accrue to me. Morality may make sense, for example, of the effort that caring for sick relatives entails, or of the benefits one enjoys when receiving unearned hospitality. For these diverse reasons it is rather rare to find people who have foresworn all morality. The responsiveness toward certain others, which is constitutive of morality, cannot, however, be the result either of some social imposition or of mere rational analysis, since in either of those cases it would be difficult to perceive the source of its continuing motivating power over (self-determining) people.31 Morality, rather, needs to be conceived as the result of an articulation of self and particular other beings such that those others turn out to be important in a strict sense.32 Another, simpler way of stating this is to say that morality, insofar as it is constituted by a particular sort of attitude and pattern of actions, is the result of a specific sort of personal relationship.33 Other morally significant beings While theories of ethics typically attempt to determine centers of value from first principles before focusing on the responsibilities that may arise for beings such as ourselves, a naturalized approach to ethics, such as I’m proposing here, needs to proceed more empirically. Hence, instead of taking it for granted that, for example, only human beings, or only rational beings, or only sentient beings, morally count, I propose that we consider how the recognition of moral significance happens in practice. It may at first be assumed that this is a cultural matter, on the supposition that one is more or less a result of being “born into” a morality and its values just as one supposedly is “born into” a culture. 31 The latter point was already noted by David Hume, of course. 32 The implication in morality of self-identity, self-respect, and so on, has been pointed out by various researchers in moral psychology. See, for example, Augusto Blasi, “Bridging moral cognition and moral action: A critical review of the literature,” Psychological Bulletin, 88, 1 (July 1980), pp. 1–45, p. 41; Clive Seligman, “Environmental Ethics,” Journal of Social Issues, 45, 1 (1989), pp. 169–84, p. 179 and passim. 33 The relational approach to ethics has come to prominence due to the work of various feminist writers, including Carol Gilligan. (I was reminded of this point by Sara Ehrenbeck.) For a good survey of the contributions of feminist thinkers to a reconception of morality that places fresh emphasis on the value of emotional engagement and interdependence, see, for example, Virginia Held, “Feminist Transformations of Moral Theory,” in Steven M. Cahn and Peter Markie (eds), Ethics: History, Theory and Contemporary Issues (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 682–99.

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A closer look at the anthropology of morality reveals, however, that, even if the set of values available to individuals for the construction of their moral world-view may largely be generated from within the conceptual (and habitual) resources of a certain cultural group, no individual simply “slips on” a morality as one would pull on a sweater. The anthropologist Tim Ingold speaks most eloquently about these matters when he denies that even with regard to culturally specific ways of living “acculturation” is a straightforward matter; he argues that people, rather, undergo an enskilment with their cultural conspecifics.34 On Ingold’s account people learn to see and encounter certain features in their world through practical engagement and exposure to modeling, much like wine connoisseurs learn to detect flavors and aromas in wine through the activity of tasting under the guidance of those who already have learnt to recognize the special characteristics of good wine. The important point here is that we have no reason to believe that morality is any different from these other cultural matters. Accordingly, we should suppose that individuals learn to perceive certain other beings as morally significant as a result of particular, personal experiences partially made possible through enskilment by one’s cultural conspecifics. Interestingly this also means that there is no predetermined limitation on which beings morally count and which do not. In the large-scale societies founded by European peoples, the set of beings recognized as morally significant mostly is limited to humanity, perhaps reflecting the generally citified spaces in which European people have their daily interaction (which tends to be limited to other human beings). In contrast, for people of smallscale societies, situated in greater direct contact with their natural environment, a variety of beings, including diverse non-human animals, plants, and even geological features, may count as morally significant.35 This is not to say that even for urban people the range of significant beings necessarily is restricted to human beings. Certain domestic animals kept for the pleasure of their company (“pets”), certain landscapes with which people have become identified as a community (for example, those located in national parks), and even certain artefacts (such as a nation’s flag) have become foci of moral concern. What is of interest here is that, although historically the peoples of European culture generally have excluded from moral consideration most non-human beings (sometimes even restricting the realm of significant beings to a subset of humanity) this need not be so. Environmental morality and its effectiveness As noted, I am using the term “ethics” to mean reflection on morality. Environmental ethics, just as its cognates biomedical ethics, legal ethics, and so on, concerns reflection on appropriate attitudes and patterns of action with regard to significant others, but as considered within a specific context. So, while biomedical ethics 34 Tim Ingold, “Hunting and Gathering as Ways of Perceiving the Environment,” in Roy Ellen and Katsuyoshi Fukui (eds), Redefining Nature: Ecology, Culture and Domestication (Oxford: Berg, 1996), pp. 117–55. 35 See Ingold, for example, “Hunting and Gathering.”

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focuses on human actions within the context of biomedical research and medicine, environmental ethics does similarly regarding actions considered within the context of the natural environment. Just as some actions within the medical setting may be considered morally correct or incorrect, some actions within the context of the natural environment similarly may be a matter of moral praise or censure. For example, in a biomedical context it may become apparent to me that it is morally incorrect for physicians to take on a parental role with regard to their adult, conscious patients even if, ordinarily, taking charge of important decisions concerning certain weaker members of society, such as one’s small children, may be quite morally appropriate. Similarly, it may become apparent within an environmental context that it is morally problematic to rid oneself of industrial toxic waste products by putting them into the atmosphere through one’s chimney even if, ordinarily, it may seem morally appropriate to use a chimney for the exhaust from one’s home heating furnace.36 The natural environment affects us human beings in a variety of ways, namely through the goods that it offers us on a regular basis, such as air or water. Those goods may be perceived, for example, as of narrowly biological importance because essential for our very survival, or as having aesthetic significance, as when we appreciate the limpid transparency of the skies on a clear day or the ever-present but always changing sound of the sea’s surf. The natural environment can also, of course, affect us by the harms that it may cause through events such as storms or diseases. Furthermore, we affect the natural environment through certain actions, the extremes of which may be described as contamination and over-exploitation, on the one hand, and as protection and restoration, on the other. To reflect on environmental morality is to consider our attitudes and ways of acting as they affect the natural environment, thereby affecting significant others, who (depending on the relationships that we have developed) may include human as well as non-human beings.37 Now we may ask whether environmental morality, conceived in this way, can be effective in countering environmental degradation. There indeed seem to be individuals, and even populations, who have developed moral concern for the natural environment. As has often been reported in the media, in surveys regarding willingness to act to counter the degradation of the natural environment, the populations of industrialized countries generally state that they are quite ready to give up something to bring about a positive change. This has been

36 I am not entering here into the question whether, in light of the need to mitigate climate change, putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is morally acceptable, though this certainly should be considered, especially in cases in which spaces are heated unnecessarily.. 37 Although the term “environment” strictly speaking also encompasses humanly made or artefactual things and spaces surrounding us, generally, when discussion focuses on environmental ethics, the “environment” of concern is the natural environment. This is not to say that the humanly made environment is inconsequential from the point of view of ethics. Rather, the reason for the focus in environmental ethics on the natural environment, in contrast to the artefactual environment, is that the former more fundamentally constitutes a condition for the flourishing of a great variety of human and non-human beings.

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confirmed by a number of social science studies since the 1970s. Interestingly, concern for non-human nature can be very significant. Paul C. Stern and Thomas Dietz found that “the increase in environmentalism among the younger generations may be showing a value shift, from one based solely on concern with humans to one that assigns value more broadly to nonhuman entities.”39 Gisela Szagun and Elke Mesenholl, furthermore, studied a population that expressed moral concern for environmental degradation to the point that they considered it more immoral to harm the natural environment than to harm human beings.40 If we wonder whether such declarations, manifesting moral concern for the natural environment, are connected to action, we may note that research has shown that there is a fairly strong correlation. In a comprehensive review of the literature in psychology on the general relation between moral cognition and action, Augusto Blasi found that, contrary to claims “that moral reasoning and moral behavior are independent dimensions [this largely is] a well advertised myth.”41 This makes good sense: as Joanne Vining reports with regard to participation in recycling behavior, given that people have “positive environmental attitudes,” such active cooperation is explained by the fact that “intrinsic satisfaction that occurs when an individual acts in accordance with his or her attitudes is a primary motivator.”42 The effectiveness of moral appeals is also corroborated by Stern, Dietz and J. Stanley Black who proposed that “support for environmental protection has a moral dimension.”43 Their research shows that such support depends both on awareness of harmful consequences and on ascription of responsibility to those seen as accountable, leading to a perception of “moral obligation” for the latter to act.44 These diverse findings suggest that environmental morality may well be effective in 38 See, for example, R.E. Dunlap, G.H. Gallup and A.M. Gallup, “International Public Opinion Toward the Environment, Part I,” Impact Assessment, 11 (1993), pp. 3–25; ibid., “International Public Opinion Toward the Environment, Part II,” Impact Assessment 11 (1993), pp. 111–43; M.A.E. Steger, J.C. Pierce, B.S. Steel and N.P. Lovich, “Political Culture, Postmaterial Values, and the New Environmental Paradigm: A Comparative Analysis of Canada and the United States,” Political Behavior, 11 (1989), pp. 233–54; K.D. Van Liere and R.E. Dunlap, “The Social Bases of Environmental Concern: A Review of Hypotheses, Explanations and Empirical Evidence,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 44 (1980), pp. 181–97. 39 Reported in Susan Opotow and Susan Clayton, “Green Justice: Conceptions of Fairness and the Natural World,” Journal of Social Issues, 50, 3 (1994), pp. 1–11, p. 8. 40 Gisela Szagun and Elke Mesenholl, “Environmental Ethics: An Empirical Study of West German Adolescents,” Journal of Environmental Education, 25, 1 (1993), pp. 37–44. G. Szagun, G.E. Mesenholl, and M. Jelen, Umweltbewußtsein bei Jugendlichen: Emotionale, handlungsbezogene und ethische Aspekte (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1994). 41 Blasi, “Bridging moral cognition,” p. 10. 42 Joanne Vining, “Natural Laws and Human Nature,” Human Ecology Review, 1, 1 (Winter–Spring 1993–94), pp. 100–6, p. 102. Also see Raymond De Young, “Some psychological aspects of a reduced consumption lifestyle: The role of intrinsic satisfaction and competence,” Environment and Behavior, 28 (1996), pp. 358–409. 43 Paul C. Stern, Thomas Dietz and J. Stanley Black, “Support for Environmental Protection: The Role of Moral Norms,” Population and Environment, 8, 3 and 4 (Fall–Winter 1985–86), p. 218. 44 Ibid., pp. 204–7.

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guiding individual behavior, even if until now the total effect on our globe’s health may have been small. The fundamental question then is how environmental morality may be developed further.45 Moral Development, Environmental Morality and Ways of Knowing Moral development There is a large and growing literature on moral development, mostly focused on Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory.46 This theory attempts to provide an account of the supposed stages which constitute moral development, in analogy to Piaget’s structuralist account of the stages of cognitive development. In Kohlberg’s theory, the order of the stages is fixed; the supposition is that individuals may move from a condition of pure egoism all the way up to a condition of respect for justice for its own sake. Furthermore, according to Kohlberg, the process of moving through stages in principle is universal (even if he thought that in actuality in some of the more “primitive” [sic] societies the highest stages may not be reached47). In this model, moral development occurs as a result of cognitive disequilibrium, coupled with the availability of some individuals serving as models of “higher level” moral reasoning. It is of concern, however, that Kohlberg’s account has been criticized on diverse grounds, including its ethnocentric cultural presuppositions and the insufficient justification for the rank ordering of stages.48 In my eyes, the major competitor of Kohlberg’s theory is found in Norma Haan’s “interactional model” of moral development, which does not suppose that moral development is a purely cognitive matter. Haan’s model proposes that moral concern is generated through our sense of interdependency. Her theory attempts to provide an account of the conditions that lead individuals to develop their capacity for the resolution of moral conflicts. Accordingly, “morality is seen, not as judgmental competence, but as a social, emotional dialectic of practical reasoning among

45 As noted above, when I write of “environmental morality” I mean those attitudes and patterns of action that are congruent with, and appropriate to, the maintenance and promotion of the integrity of the natural environment and its diverse constituents. 46 See, for example, Lawrence Kohlberg, “Stage and Sequence: The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Socialization,” in D.A. Goslin (ed.), Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research (New York: Rand McNally & Co., 1969). 47 See Lawrence Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice, Vol. 1 Essays on Moral Development (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1981), pp. 128, 378, 383. Also see John Snarey, “Cross-Cultural Universality of Social-Moral Development: A Critical Review of Kohlbergian Research,” Psychological Bulletin, 97, 2 (1985), pp. 233–50, for commentary on this rather troubling aspect of Kohlberg’s views. 48 See, for example, Israela Ettenberg Aron, “Moral Philosophy and Moral Education: A Critique of Kohlberg’s Theory,” School Review (February 1997), pp. 197–217; Robert Paul Craig, “Some Thoughts on Moral Growth,” Journal of Thought, 13 (1978), pp. 21–7; Snarey, “Cross–Cultural Universality.”

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people.” This theory does not propose any fixed set of stages that individuals go through, but rather supposes that moral development consists in the acquisition of “personal social skill and tangible power” which allow for a more sensitive resolution of the “social disequilibrium of moral conflict.”50 In a study comparing the two models, Haan found that moral development in this sense came about as a result of “the emotional, interactive experience of moral-social conflict,” and, moreover, that “development seemed to depend on whether or not [subjects] cope functionally, that is allow themselves to recognize and tolerate conflict so that they could learn from it.” The capacity to cope appropriately, furthermore, seems to depend on “some self-doubt about one’s own self-righteousness, as well as willingness to admit that another’s claims may be superior to one’s own.” In general, according to this theory, moral development with respect to any one morally conflictual situation requires that the participating individuals’ experience over time has brought about tolerance for conflict and “a degree of practical, intelligent selectivity so they can develop a modicum of optimism that negotiations will usually end up with wrongs being righted and participants’ honor being preserved.”51 Although the field is still quite undeveloped some aspects of moral development, such as the acquisition of a sense of justice and the development of the self, have already been studied to date.52 What is relevant to our purposes here is that these various theories tend to focus on diverse modes of solving moral conflicts, while leaving aside the question how the recognition of a range of morally significant beings may come about. Kohlberg’s theory seems intent on moral development that encompasses increasingly larger portions of humanity but fails to consider the possibility that morality might concern more than the human world. Haan’s theory similarly is focused on development of interpersonal capacities for conflict resolution without taking into account the possibility that human beings may be in conflict with members of other species. Moral development, conceived in these respective ways, may be of value for the development of environmental morality as our actions affecting the natural environment indirectly affect other human beings,53 but, given our present accelerating trends toward environmental degradation, we need to ask whether there

49 Norma Haan, “Processes of Moral Development: Cognitive or Social Disequilibrium?,” Developmental Psychology, 21, 6 (1985), pp. 996–1006, p. 996. 50 Ibid., p. 997 (emphasis added). 51 Ibid., p. 1005. 52 On the development of the notion of justice see, for example, M.L. Hoffman, “The contribution of empathy to justice and moral development,” in N. Eisenberg and J. Strayer (eds), Empathy and its Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 47– 80; on the development of the notion of the self-in-relation, Held, “Feminist Transformations,” pp. 692–6, reports on the work done at the Stone Center at Wellesley College, especially as articulated by Jean Baker Miller. 53 In this context, see Thomas Craig Swearingen’s interesting application of Kohlberg’s model of moral development to people’s interaction with the natural environment in his dissertation Moral Development and Environmental Ethics (Seattle: University of Washington, 1989).

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can also be development of a sense of responsibility to non-human parts of our natural environment, and perhaps to the natural environment as a whole. Development of environmental morality Obstacles As noted, while people of European culture generally limit the range of morally significant beings to those belonging to our own species, this need not be so. There are many people who have developed a sense of moral responsibility for other parts of the natural world, as is evident from the existence of diverse associations for preservation of the integrity of the natural environment (such as Greenpeace or or more locally oriented groups, such as the committees of the Sierra Club or the Spanish Ecologists in Action). The question then is what obstacles are keeping us from the more general development of environmental morality or “ecological conscience,” as Leopold put it. Leopold listed three obstacles in particular, which may serve us as guideposts in our search: our increasing isolation from natural processes, our perception of an adversarial relationship with the earth, and our belief in the fallacy of economic determinism. Leopold claimed that we are becoming ever more distanced from a clear consciousness of natural processes by our educational and economic systems’ increasing focus on artefacts. He called these artefacts “synthetic substitutes” for nature, and thought that they block our direct perception of the natural environment on which we depend. He thought that we also come to feel alienated from nature by our perception that the earth is an adversary that one must force to produce, while simultaneously supposing that we are in a condition of slavery toward the earth due to our dependency on it. Leopold, moreover, thought that it simply is false that economic factors determine all uses of the earth; he claimed that the great majority of attitudes and patterns of action affecting the natural environment, in fact, are not governed by the pocketbook but by the users’ tastes and preferences.54 This account of obstacles to the development of environmental morality is quite apposite because it highlights difficulties in three distinct and relevant areas. First, our increasing isolation from natural processes addresses the difficulty that people of our industrial societies have in including a greater range of beings among those deemed morally significant. Leopold’s thesis is that acquaintance with the non-human natural world is conducive to the development of a relationship that may lead to a sense of responsibility toward it. Second, Leopold’s claim that we have a perception of an adversarial relationship with the earth points toward the underdevelopment of our capacities for cohabitation with the rest of the natural world. Leopold, in other words, implicitly is supposing that we may find other modes of relating to the natural world than as adversaries. Finally, by pointing out the fallacy of economic determinism, Leopold is highlighting the narrowness of our conceptions of selfidentity if we think of ourselves only as rationalizers of economic efficiency. His tacit supposition is that we have other options for our self-representation than just as economic profit maximizers.

54 Leopold, in VanDeVeer and Pierce, People, Penguins and Plastic Trees, p. 82.

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Possibilities By all accounts, direct acquaintance with the natural environment may play a very important role in the recognition of the moral significance of other than human beings. Empirical studies indicate that the contribution of “book knowledge” of the natural environment to the development of genuine actionoriented concern for the natural environment may depend on the co-presence of other factors, such as direct experience of nature.55 According to a research project done with a Swiss population, formal study regarding the natural environment “did not predict environmental engagement … Instead, learning served as a consequence of environmental concern …”56 Consistent with these results Szagun and Mesenholl found that, among their subjects, harming an ecosystem was considered more immoral than harm done to other human beings. They concluded from their study that, in order to generate environmental conscience regarding the natural environment, we need to “reach deep convictions and emotions” and not simply impart (what ordinarily is called) knowledge. Interestingly, not even carrying out practical ecological projects seems as important as reaching deep convictions and emotions. In Szagun and Mesenholl’s estimation, the development of environmental morality probably depends on empathetic and sympathetic knowing of the natural environment.57 Such knowing, though, implies the sort of acquaintance with nature that is provided by direct experiences. These conclusions are also consistent with Wendy A. Horwitz’s analysis of the factors that influenced the development of environmental morality in environmental activists. She points out that although intellectual and academic factors were important, they seem to have been effective in conjunction with nature experiences. These may contribute in several ways, including the fostering of “an esthetic appreciation of nature” and “an emotional and spiritual affiliation,” as well as

55 See, for example, Wendy A. Horwitz, “Developmental Origins of Environmental Ethics: The Life Experiences of Activists,” Ethics and Behavior, 6, 1 (1996), pp. 29–54. 56 Opotow and Clayton, “Green Justice,” p. 7. See Matthias Finger, “From Knowledge to Action?: Exploring the relationship between environmental experiences, learning and behavior”, Journal of Social Issues, 50, 3 (Fall 1994), pp. 141–60 (emphasis added). This issue of the Journal of Social Issues is entirely dedicated to environmental issues. For articles on the development of environmental concern and action also see recent issues of Human Ecology Review, for example, Martha C. Monroe, “Two Avenues for Encouraging Conservation Behaviors,” Human Ecology Review, 10, 2 (Winter 2003), and Henk Vinken and Atsuko Kuribayashi, “Pro–Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors: An International Comparison,” Human Ecology Review, 10, 1 (Summer 2003), pp. 23–31; issues of Journal of Environmental Psychology, for example, P.W. Schultz and L. Zelezny, “Values as predictors of environmental attitudes: evidence for consistency across 14 countries,” Journal of Environmental Psychology, 19, 3 (September 1999), pp. 255–65; and issues of Social Science Quarterly, such as Midori Aoyagi-Usui and Steven E. Barkan, “Explaining Public Support for the Environmental Movement: A Civic Voluntarism Model,” Social Science Quarterly, 85, 4 (December 2004), pp. 913–37. 57 Szagun and Mesenholl, “Environmental Ethics: An Empirical Study,” p. 43.

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“providing opportunities to learn about the natural world in a more graphic way than with books alone.”58 This sort of emotionally engaging, first-hand experience of nature may also be fundamental for the development of alternatives to the adversarial mode of relating to nature. Coming to personally know diverse facets of the natural world allows for the development of flexibility in one’s ways of relating to it, making one’s mode of relating dependent on circumstance.59 The learning process that leads to the development of a diversity of appropriate modes of relating to the natural world in some ways parallels the process exhibited by individuals facing social disequilibrium (as studied by Haan) who, by coming to know a variety of appropriate modes of responding, develop increasing sophistication in their ways of responding to morally problematic situations. Another way of coming to understand this process is through Clive Seligman’s discussion of the role of values in environmental ethics. Seligman adopts Milton Rokeach’s proposal that “the number of values that a person, or even a society, possesses is relatively small,” and that these values are ordered hierarchically.60 Applied to environmental conflict situations, such as the development of relatively untouched wilderness areas, this means that “ethical disputes may be more usefully characterized as disagreements about which values are important and/or applicable in specific situations than as disagreements about the acceptance or rejection of each other’s side.”61 Interestingly this “suggests that, for different moral issues, different values may become emphasized,” and the fewer the values at play for a person across diverse situations the more dogmatic he or she is.62 Hence, on this analysis, the explanation for why a person can only perceive nature as an adversary is that he dogmatically fails to exhibit a context-oriented flexibility in the choice of values. We may ask, moreover, how we may overcome the narrowness of conceptions of self-identity that lead people to represent themselves as mere economic profit maximizers when confronted with the natural environment. Although popular in contemporary industrial societies, this concept of self (just as the notion that human beings necessarily are selfish) is the product of a reductionism which simplifies our actual and potential self image. Self-perception, in any case, is not static. Reporting on the development of environmental morality among environmental activists, Horwitz claims that “in this group environmental ethics,” which was engendered by a diversity of learning experiences, including direct contact with nature, “might be more than a discrete set of beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors, but instead, constitute an essential part of identity.”63 She also reports on the importance 58 Horwitz, “Developmental Origins,” pp. 44–5. 59 For example, while traveling in wilderness areas, standing one’s ground may be called for in dealing with predators in some circumstances while an attitude of firmness combined with retreat may be more appropriate in other cases. But one can only learn how to deal with other species if one has some unmediated exposure to the environments in which they are present. 60 Milton Rokeach, The Nature of Human Values (New York: Free Press, 1973). 61 Seligman, “Environmental Ethics,” p. 181. 62 Ibid., p. 181. 63 Horwitz, “Developmental Origins,” p. 44 (emphasis added).

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of salient role models for her subjects, which fits well with Kohlberg’s appeal to the importance of access to examples of individuals at “higher levels” for moral development. Consequently, it seems that learning that we may play other, perhaps more satisfying, roles within the frame of the natural world can bring about changes in our self-conception. A self-identity as mere self-interested profit maximizers is the complement to a perspective on the natural environment that treats it as a mere economic resource. Both may perhaps be overcome by directly coming to know the environment in such a way that we discover for ourselves that there are many other roles that we can play with respect to it. Though research of the conditions that may engender environmental morality is still very limited, our discussion leads to the conclusion that direct, emotionally engaging experience of the natural environment may be crucial if we are to recognize a range of morally significant non-human beings, to relate to nature in a non-adversarial way, and to discover a self-image that goes beyond the role of economic profit maximizer. It may be objected, however, that direct, emotionally engaging experience of the natural environment may not necessarily lead to the development of nature-preserving environmental morality. Some individuals may, for example, perceive a deep canyon as a potential hydroelectric reservoir; others may think of the last living members of an endangered species as an invaluable addition to their scientific collection of stuffed animals; and so on. Environmental morality may ultimately depend on a certain sort of epistemology and ontology. So, what ways of perceiving and knowing nature will reliably lead to nature-respecting environmental morality? Ways of knowing and the autonomy of nature Despite the official prevalence of the scientific mode of knowledge in contemporary industrialized societies, this way of knowing coexists with other ways of knowing. As of late, much discussion has turned, for example, toward the concepts “indigenous knowledge,” “traditional knowledge” and “local knowledge,” as well as their overlap among each other and their distinctions from “scientific” knowledge.64 As has been observed by diverse commentators, people living in traditional (non-modern, nonindustrial) contexts have a mixed record in terms of the adaptive appropriateness of their relations with the natural environment.65 Nonetheless, traditional societies that have successfully managed to live in their area for extended periods of time often provide outstanding models for an approach to our world that is respectful of nonhuman entities in their ecosystemic roles. What is particularly interesting about such ways of knowing is that the knowledge acquired about the natural environment under these circumstances tends to be explicitly imbued with values. We may consider,

64 See Thomas Heyd, “Indigenous Knowledge, Emancipation and Alienation,” Knowledge and Policy, 8, 1 (Spring 1995), pp. 63–73; also see Thomas Heyd, “Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge Revisited,” Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor, 4, 1 (April 1996) . 65 For example, see Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive (New York: Viking, 2005).

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for example, Deborah Bird Rose’s paper, “Exploring an Aboriginal Land Ethic,”66 in which she proposes that the particular understanding of land of the Australian Aboriginal Yarralin people integrates in a thoroughgoing way their moral practice and their philosophical outlook about the land. She documents how the Yarralin people’s judgments regarding responsible and irresponsible actions are based on their thorough, first-hand, long-term acquaintance with plants, animals and places on their land. We may also consider the variety of instrumental ways of knowing that can even be directed toward one and the same object: a forestry executive may see a particular stretch of forest in terms of yield per unit of invested capital, a forestry worker in terms of months of employment, a gatherer of mushrooms in terms of more or less productive and accessible sites, and so on. In contrast with the strictly instrumental ways of knowing, we may list the aesthetic, the spiritual, the historical, the affective, and so on. Ways of knowing can be multiplied indefinitely, of course, since we cognize our environment differently depending on our roles, capacities, values, age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and, in general, according to both our physical constitution and prior cognitive and emotional experience or knowledge. The apparent advantage of the scientific way of knowing over other ways may be attributed to its greater capacity to generate predictions and explanations useful in the manipulation of our world.67 This does not mean, though, that its advantage over other forms of knowing is absolute; even a dedicated physical scientist may prefer to leave the laboratory and her theories behind when she is to come to know a new type of concert music or how to ride a bicycle. As discussed above, morality may be understood in terms of appropriate attitudes and patterns of action with regard to others with whom we have entered into a certain sort of relationship. The kind of relationship that is characteristic of morality, and contrasts with other kinds of relationship (such as the instrumental or the aesthetic), may be difficult to specify further. Nonetheless, we make take note that, in order to activate moral concern, relationships need to be perceived for what they are.68 Since perception is a kind of knowing, we need to examine what sort of knowing is involved in the perception of relationships that activate moral responsibility. Once again we may begin with the assumption that for a variety of individuals belonging to diverse cultural groupings the answer will be different: for a Christian, all human beings are perceived, and hence known, as (metaphorical) sisters and brothers, which engenders a particular sort of relationship and moral responsibility. For a Buddhist, all living beings, known as fellow sufferers in this world of appearances, likewise engender a particular sort of relationship and call 66 Deborah Bird Rose, “Exploring An Aboriginal Land Ethic,” Meanjin, 47 (1988), pp. 378–87. 67 On the normativity of technology and science, see Jürgen Habermas, Technik und Wissenschaft als “Ideologie” (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1996). 68 Notably, the story of Oedipus’ unknowing parricide precisely creates dramatic tension because of his lack of knowledge about his filial relationship, in a strictly physical sense, with the man he kills. Had Oedipus known that he was to kill his father he would have been a less interesting figure for the dramatist to work with, given the common moral assumption that one should take special responsibility for actions affecting one’s parents.

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for appropriately charitable and compassionate attitudes and behavior toward them, and so on. What is common to each case is that sets of beings are recognized as having value because they are perceived as standing in a particular relationship with oneself; that is, we have a “knowing as” that identifies a particular set of beings as valuable and significant. My suggestion is that one way of knowing that may lead to the development of nature-preserving environmental morality is to recognize the natural beings that surround us as autonomous, where autonomy stands for the capacity for self-generation, for self-realization, or for being able to direct their own projects, even if only in some minimal way.69 If we recognize a being as autonomous we are perceiving her, him, or it as minimally unified and as structured dynamically enough to render this being morally considerable precisely out of respect for its unity and capacity for self-realization. To recognize a being as autonomous is not to deny that every being thrives through interdependence with certain other beings, since self-determination may only be possible in a relational context.70 Nor does this mean that autonomy should be treated as a criterion for moral considerability, thereby establishing a hierarchy of morally relevant beings. Rather, coming to know other beings as autonomous is relevant in a heuristic manner because recognition of other selves means recognition of limits to one’s own acting.71 Consequently, to promote environmental morality we do well to promote the recognition of the autonomy of nature. As discussed above, nothing is resolved at a merely theoretical level. Hence, if this account is correct, it is not sufficient to find arguments that attempt to theoretically prove the autonomy of nature. We need, rather, to develop ways of knowing with which we can practically recognize the autonomy of nature. Contrary to Francis Bacon’s advice, according to which we should force nature to show herself as useful through our experimental proddings, we need to find ways that allow the other beings in our environment to show themselves unencumbered by our instrumental interests.

69 Autonomous beings set a law unto themselves. Developing further precision with regard to the notion of autonomy is beyond the scope of this chapter, but see Heyd, Recognizing the Autonomy of Nature, for further clarification. Also see Aristotle’s account of nature in Physics, book II, ch. 1. He proposes that “All things [that exist by nature] plainly differ from things which are not constituted by nature. For each of them has within itself a principle of motion and of stationariness ...” (Physics, II.1, 192b, 12–15) In this way each natural thing has its own “autonomy” or spontaneity. (I am indebted to Taneli Kukkonen for clarifying this point). 70 As noted by Held, “Feminist Transformations,” some writers, such as Jennifer Nedelsky, “Reconceiving Autonomy: Sources, Thoughts and Possibilities,” Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, 1 (Spring 1989), pp. 7–36, p. 9, have argued that the concepts of autonomy and interdependence of selves need not be taken as antagonistic. 71 Also see Plumwood, “Nature, Self and Gender,” p. 205, on the danger of supposing that we should identify our selves with nature through an extension of our selves, possibly “failing to recognise unambiguously the distinctness and independence of the other.”

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Conclusion Global, humanly caused degradation of the natural environment is increasing in scope and speed. Some have argued that we should rely on selfishness as a way of countering these trends. Others have proceeded with the development of new theories of environmental ethics. I have argued that neither approach can ultimately be expected to suffice. There are other approaches, of course. We may consider, for example, Michel Serres’ suggestion that what is needed is “a new natural contract,”72 or the deep ecological proposal that we should seek to “identify” ourselves with nature. The question, however, is, what would motivate us to sign such a new contract, and why we would find nature worthy of identification with ourselves, respectively. My proposal has been that we need to focus on actually existing morality and on its development with regard to the natural environment. Even if more empirical research certainly is called for, there already is sufficient reason to believe that human beings are capable of, and ready to develop, substantial moral concern for nature. Crucially, we may need to develop ways of perceiving the natural environment as valuable. That is, rather than knowledge of nature pure and simple, such as we may acquire through a book education, it is particular ways of knowing the natural environment that may be required for the development of environmental morality. The development of environmental morality may come about through a kind of direct acquaintance with nature which allows for the acquisition of empathetic and sympathetic interest in it, and thereby reveals a range of morally significant nonhuman beings; which reveals diverse non-adversarial ways of relating to the natural environment and the various beings that constitute it; and which reveals a concept of self that is richer than that which proclaims that we are mere economic profit maximizers. One way to describe this way of knowing is to say that it recognizes those other beings as autonomous, that is, as being able to direct their own existences and being a law to themselves. Consequently, insofar as we think of autonomy as a sign of moral significance, it is imperative that we develop ways of recognizing the autonomy of nature.73

72 Michel Serres, The Natural Contract, Elizabeth MacArthur and William Paulson (trans.), (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995); translation of Le Contrat Naturel (Paris: Éditions François Bourin, 1990). 73 An early version of this chapter was written while visiting the Universidad del Comahue, Patagonia, in the fall of 2000. I am deeply indebted to Julia Gerlero and Teresa Vega, and many others, at the university for their unequaled hospitality and continuous intellectual stimulation. I am grateful to Sara Ehrenbeck, a referee for Environmental Ethics, for helpful and very encouraging comments. The Case for Environmental Morality has appeared in Environmental Ethics, Vol. 25 (Spring 2003), 5–24. Permission for reproduction granted.

Chapter 3

Environmental Ethics and the Workplace A Call to Action

From Alienation to Personal Involvement Nearly everyone agrees that there are serious environmental problems in our world, such as the clearcut felling of the remaining ancient rainforests in tropical and temperate zones, the contamination of air, water and ground by garbage incineration, which disseminates pollutants such as mercury and PCBs1 that end up in our bodies, and can even be found in the mother’s milk; the destruction of mangroves in coastal areas, due to misplaced tourism development schemes and shrimp farms, with the consequent elimination of breeding grounds for fish and so on. Nearly everyone might also agree that decisions made and activities undertaken in certain workplaces (primarily, but not restricted to, boardrooms in industry and government) are contributing significantly to these problems. But, if asked what role environmental ethics has in the workplace, most people tend merely to think in terms of paper recycling, or perhaps conserving energy by turning off the lights after leaving the office for home. We may wonder, however, whether a deeper concern for ethics, including environmental ethics, in the context of work may not be possible. Interestingly, there is a growing movement that promotes socially and environmentally responsible investment and business practices, and there are books that propose that even capitalism can take a new, environmentally friendly, turn.2 Some business ethics textbooks argue for the need for businesses to change, and for our economies to be managed differently, in order to prevent further serious harm to our already heavily mistreated planet.3 Most discussions of environmental ethics in such textbooks are put in such impersonal terms however, that although none can disagree, none need personally feel compelled to act either.4 For various 1 Polychlorinated biphenyls. 2 See, for example, Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (Boulder, CO: Rocky Mountain Institute; Little, Brown, & Company, 1999). 3 See, for example, Manuel G. Velasquez’s excellent “Ethics and the Environment,” in Manuel G. Velasquez, Business Ethics (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 2001). 4 For an important proclamation of the importance of the workplace in bringing about development that is sustainable, and a consequent call for the reduction of “impacts on resource use and the environment,” see Agenda 21, especially Chapter 30, “Strengthening the Role of Business and Industry.” The chapter, as well as discussions of the role of business in the light of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit (UN Conference on Environment and Development), such as Lloyd Timberlake’s “Changing Business Attitudes” (found along with an abridged version

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reasons, it seems to be generally assumed that the workplace is not the place where environmental degradation can or should be tackled, even if most decisions affecting our natural environment issue from the workplace. This situation should cause us to think afresh about the role of environmental ethics at work.5 While in the previous chapter I argued for the value of environmental morality and the possibility of its development, in this chapter I propose that personal responsibility for one’s impact on the natural environment also applies to individuals while in the workplace, and perhaps more so than in any other place that we are active in during daily life.6 I begin with a summary of my conception of ethics,7 followed by a survey of the various ways by which one may develop a sense of responsibility for the condition of our natural environment. I continue with an overview of some important critical perspectives on our behavior regarding the natural environment. I follow up on this with an analysis of what it would mean for individuals in the workplace to take their ethical responsibilities seriously in the context of environmental problems, while noting the limitations as well as opportunities that their special situation (given the aims of work) implies. I conclude by noting the significance that taking personal responsibility for the integrity of the natural environment has for each of us, as well as for our place in nature.8

of Agenda 21 in Joyce Quarrie (ed.), Earth Summit ’92 (London: Regency Press, 1992)), may be well-intentioned but demand no personal commitment from the business sector, similarly expressed in international policy documents. But see the extraordinary Estefanía Blount, Luis Clarimón, Ana Cortés, Jorge Riechmann and Dolores Romano (eds), Industria como naturaleza: Hacia la producción limpia ([in English: Industry as nature: Toward clean production] Madrid: Los Libros de la Catarata, 2003). 5 Similarly important is to rethink the general focus of environmental concern. While the destruction of relatively untouched natural areas gathers most of the attention, urban environmental problems should equally be considered. See, for example, Alastair S. Gunn, “Rethinking Communities: Environmental Ethics in an Urbanized World,” Environmental Ethics, 20 (Winter 1998), pp. 341–60; Roger J.H. King, “The Place of Domesticated Spaces in Environmental Ethics: Toward an Environmentally Responsible Culture,” Social Philosophy Now, 19 (2004), pp. 41–53. 6 My proposals here are not intended to convey the impression that the goodwill of individuals in the workplace is sufficient to alleviate the rapid rush toward environmental degradation in which we presently find ourselves. Given the culture of self-interested individualism that is increasingly spreading around the globe, communities will have to take concerted action through strictly legislated limits on the exploitation of common goods, such as air, water, forests and open spaces, and on their use as waste sinks; on the dissemination of toxins and genetically modified organisms; on the generation of radioactive wastes, and so on, if there is going to be left any integrity in the environment after our generation is through with it. 7 This is a topic which I have developed further in Chapter 2. 8 By “integrity of the natural environment,” I mean the condition of the environment at a certain location that allows for its normal functioning as the site for the flourishing of various species of living beings, as are commonly found there unless human interventions have impeded their presence. By “environmental degradation,” I mean the processes that diminish the integrity of the natural environment, as well as the resulting condition.

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Environmental Responsibilities, Critical Perspectives and the Workplace In Chapter 2, I proposed to use the term “morality” to refer to appropriate attitudes and patterns of action with regards to significant others, reserving the term “ethics” to refer to reflection on those attitudes and patterns of action. It is of key importance, of course, to be clear on what makes certain attitudes and patterns of action appropriate, and which beings should count as significant from the moral point of view. In Chapter 2, the questions concerning which actions and attitudes are appropriate and which beings are morally significant normally are resolved through reflection on the course of the interactions we have with others in our day to day. My account suggests that responsibilities toward others typically arise from relationships that we enter into in our daily lives. Those relationships may generate both a personal sense of responsibility and an objective obligation. The objective obligation may at first appear to us to be merely culture-relative but, on deeper reflection, we may discover that there are trans-culturally valid obligations for anyone in similar circumstances. For instance, after deeper reflection, we may conclude that the notion of respect for the life of the people that we encounter in the everyday is such that it should apply to any human beings wherever we might encounter them. I use the term “environmental ethics” to make reference to reflection on appropriate attitudes and patterns of action with regard to significant others as considered within the context of the natural environment, and suppose that some actions in that context are praiseworthy, while others are deserving of censure. To reflect on environmental morality is to consider how we ought to act insofar as we affect things that surround us. Although the term “environment” strictly speaking also encompasses human-made or artefactual things and spaces surrounding us, generally, when discussion focuses on environmental ethics, the “environment” of concern is the natural environment. This is not to say that the humanly made environment is inconsequential from the point of view of ethics. Rather, the reason for the focus in environmental ethics on the natural environment, in contrast to the artefactual and built environment, is that the former constitutes a fundamental condition for the flourishing of a great variety of human and non-human beings. Taking responsibility: from anthropocentrism to Gaia-centrism One basic distinction, much discussed in environmental ethics, concerns the difference between intrinsic value and extrinsic value. Intrinsic value denotes the value of a thing considered independently of the extrinsic value that it may have for us as a result of its usefulness. We may note, for example, that each person considers her- or himself as having a value, independently of her or his usefulness to others, while forks or computers or toques may have little or no value among people that do not use these items.9 To indicate that a being has intrinsic and not just extrinsic or

9 Toques are heavy, Canadian, stocking-caps. See Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, translated by Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis, IN and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959), on the distinction between something valuable for our use and something valuable in itself.

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instrumental value, and hence ought to be accorded consideration for itself from the moral point of view, I speak of a morally significant being.10 Some people initially may have the impression that normative theories in philosophical ethics are intended to enunciate principles that only philosophical analysis could discover. Careful study of the classics, such as Immanuel Kant’s Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, however, suggests that these theories generally have the more modest goal of providing systematic reflection on the basis of the morality that is already current in our culture, and merely to make explicit the principles that animate it.11 Consequently, an approach to ethics such as Kant’s is intended to define a principle of concern which to him seemed quite commonly, albeit only tacitly, accepted within his culture, namely respect for each person’s autonomy or capacity to fashion one’s own life projects.12 So, the explanation for why stealing is frowned upon is that it makes the individual stolen from less capable of leading the life she or he would want to. Hence, such actions are morally impermissible.13 On Kant’s account, the foundation of the principle is straightforward since each individual values her or his autonomy, and hence can see the sense in not acting in ways that undermine a person’s autonomy. A contrasting approach to ethics – contractarianism – proposes that we need to respect the implicit as well as the explicit agreements that make society possible, since society is useful to each individual that belongs to it.14 This reflects a principle based on the common notion of reciprocity and mutual beneficence. For example, 10 There are beings, of course, with whom we have both morally significant and instrumental relationships, as in the case of one’s spouse who is also one’s business partner. To speak of a morally significant being is equivalent to speaking of a being with “moral standing”; this latter term, and the criteria for attributing moral standing to some being, are discussed at some length by Donald VanDeVeer and Christine Pierce (eds), The Environmental Ethics and Policy Book: Philosophy, Ecology, Economics (Belmond, CA: Wadsworth, 2004), pp. 114–22. They propose that a being has moral standing if “its continued existence … or its interests in well-being have positive moral weight” (p. 115). Another way of saying that some beings are morally significant is to say that they are morally considerable. See, for example, Robert Elliot, “Environmental Ethics,” in Peter Singer (ed.), A Companion to Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), pp. 284–93. 11 Notably, Kant, Foundations, repeatedly praises common moral reason and restricts the contribution of philosophy to handmaiden for the implementation of norms in practical life. 12 It is to be noted that I do not claim that ethics merely is a descriptive matter. What I am proposing, rather, is that when ethics concerns itself, among other things, with normative relations its intended aim is the systematization and deepening of our understanding of the prescriptive claims of common morality. This does not mean that upon reflection we cannot reject the norms of common morality. The idea simply is that ethics, if it is to go beyond abstractions, will have a link with the norms that guide us in at the pre-philosophical stage. 13 For a clear exposition of Kant’s ethics see Onora O’Neill, “Kantian Ethics,” in Singer, A Companion to Ethics; also see Roger J. Sullivan, An Introduction to Kant’s Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 14 For a summary discussion see, for example, James Rachels, “The Idea of a Social Contract,” in his volume, The Elements of Moral Philosophy (New York: Random House, 1999), pp. 143–61.

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since truth-telling is the foundation of all agreements in society, we can see that we each need to respect the injunction against lying and deceit if we belong to, and benefit from, society. Both the principle of respect for autonomy and the principle of respect for contractual relationships exclusively focus on relationships with other human beings, though they tacitly suppose that at least some non-human beings need to be treated with care because of the relationships that some of us have with them. For example, my respect for the autonomy of someone who has befriended a certain bird may mean that I should not harm that bird because it would be disrespectful to the human being. Similarly, although according to the contractarian principle I have no reason to respect trees (with which I cannot enter into agreements since they cannot negotiate with me), my implicit agreement with other human beings to respect their interests means that I should not harm non-human beings that are important to them, such as trees in people’s backyards. In other words, even anthropocentric or humancentered ethics supposes that we may have indirect responsibilities with regard to certain non-human beings.15 Within the European tradition in philosophy, utilitarianism is the first major theory of ethics that straightforwardly opens the door to the direct consideration of the interests of non-human beings, insofar as utilitarianism seeks to represent the common notion that acting rightly is acting in such a way as to bring about happiness and to diminish unhappiness for the aggregate of those concerned.16 Interestingly, this way of discussing morality includes all sentient beings (those capable of feeling pleasure and pain) among the morally significant. In other words, according to this perspective we ought to count very many of the animals (at least those with a relatively developed nervous system) among those to be considered from the moral point of view. Although the application of the utilitarian principle to situations involving animals generally is neglected in today’s industrialized societies fed by factory farms,17 one may argue that the moral consideration of sentient beings does reflect a common value, though this value indeed is only applied to select animals with whom special ties have been developed (for example, the squirrel that feeds in front of someone’s window, or the pet dog bought for a child’s amusement). While it is true that as highly culture-dependent social beings we mostly are preoccupied with the relationships that we entertain with other human beings, on reflection we may admit an affinity with all living beings. The perception of a relationship with all living things, which is the foundation of biocentric ethics, may lead to “reverence for life” and a respect for living things insofar as they are

15 Also see VanDeVeer and Pierce (eds), Environmental Ethics and Policy Book, pp. 116–17. 16 See John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863). For a summary account of the significance of this perspective for our treatment of animals see Rachels, “The Utilitarian Approach,” in his Elements of Moral Philosophy, pp. 96–106. 17 On the use of animals in our society and the moral problems that this poses see, for example, Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (New York: Random House, 2nd edn, 1990); and Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).

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“teleological-centres-of-life.” That is, we may take note that the basis of our caring for living things is constituted by the perception that, in their various intricate ways, they are goal-directed, and, more specifically, directed toward goals (the goals of life, one might say), such as survival, general flourishing of their own sort, reproduction, and even enjoyment of a specific sort, with which we can empathize. 19 Of course, respect for living things requires that these beings are allowed spaces in which they can flourish. In fact, those spaces themselves, teeming as they are with various life-forms, may be seen as analogous to organisms that are similarly composed of many organic and cellular subunits. People often do show appreciation for areas of land or sea that represent especially good environments for certain living things such as caribou or salmon. Frequently their appreciation for those areas is mingled with self-interest, insofar as they represent valuable procurement places to satisfy human needs and desires, but, interestingly, individuals can also feel that the relationships with those areas of land or sea warrant a certain care for their own sake. It is this notion of responsibility for ecologically significant areas of land, sea, and, more generally, ecosystems, which finds expression in Aldo Leopold’s call for a Land Ethic. Leopold proposes that we take note of the community and organismic unity constituted by the complex natural environments in which human beings are mere citizens and participants. He supposes that realizing that we are in community, and parts of an organism-like unity, with the land and its inhabitants supposes certain responsibilities for their care and a respect for their flourishing. Consequently, Leopold advises that one “[e]xamine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. 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.”20 A variant of this appreciation for living things as part of, and dependent on, wholes larger than single organisms, is expressed in calls for the protection of species from extinction. Individuals who through relationship with certain kinds of living beings have developed a sense of responsibility for them may develop a concern for the continued existence of beings of that kind. This concern may become generalized and deepened issuing in what Holmes Rolston calls “duties to species.”21 Respect for 18 On reverence for life see Albert Schweitzer, Civilization and Ethics (London: A.&C. Black, 1946). On living things as teleological centres of life, see Paul Taylor, “The Ethics of Respect for Nature” and also John Rodman, “Ecological Sensibility,” both in VanDeVeer and Pierce (eds), Environmental Ethics and Policy Book (1st edn, 1986), pp. 169–84 and pp. 165–8, respectively. 19 See Thomas Heyd (ed.), Recognizing the Autonomy of Nature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), for further discussion of respect of autonomous natural beings and processes on the basis of their goal-directedness. 20 See Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic,” A Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981). For further discussion of some aspects of Leopold’s land ethic, see Chapter 2. 21 See Holmes Rolston III, “Duties to Endangered Species,” in Christine Pierce and Donald VanDeVeer (eds), People, Penguins and Plastic Trees (Belmond, CA: Wadsworth, 2nd edn, 1995), pp. 314–25.

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complex parts of our natural environment, such as ecosystems or species, may be called “ecocentric.” Ultimately, people may develop a relationship with the planet as a whole. Though this may seem too abstract to be a realistic proposition, one may note that there is a certain basis in experience for this nowadays, given our increasing understanding of the global interconnections of geological, meteorological and biological processes, and the increased mobility of human populations all over the planet. The idea that such a relationship with the earth as a whole should lead to a kind of responsibility for its well-being has found expression in connection with the “Gaia Hypothesis,” which argues that the planet as a whole in many ways appears to function like an organism. 22 Based on this hypothesis we may suppose that we ought to accord it care similar to the care that we would accord to individual living things. Up to this point I have surveyed a variety of relationships with beings populating our natural environment with a view to the personal sense of responsibility that we may develop with regard to those beings. By sense of responsibility, I mean the perception that one ought to hold certain attitudes and take certain types of actions because of the personal conviction that one has acquired through one’s experience and reflection. But, as already discussed above, moral responsibility may also be regarded as an objective matter. That is, we may find that by virtue of the existence of certain relationships with morally significant others, certain responsibilities are given. For example, we may argue that if some person causes an accident, seriously hurting someone due to careless drinking and driving, then, independently of whether this person has a sense of responsibility for what he or she has done, he or she should take responsibility for the event, and probably produce certain reparations to the one harmed. Although this form of reasoning (and similar ones) undoubtedly is captured from within a concrete cultural context (as all judgments are, of course), one may find sufficient arguments to suppose that such reasoning should be acceptable transculturally if the notion of ethics (as we understand it) has any meaning in other cultures.23 The idea that in certain circumstances moral responsibility is given, that is, that we may expect any individual in certain circumstances to “take responsibility” for his or her actions, implies that ethics attains a role beyond merely private reflection on one’s own morality. Thus, ethics obtains a role of societal critique. So, each one of the approaches noted above may also bring about important critiques of the activities that generate the present environmental degradation.

22 See James Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia (New York: Norton, 1988). 23 It is a matter of some complexity whether one can, and how one is to, avoid cultural bias, especially in ethics. I propose that, insofar as our notion of ethics has its roots in the western European traditions, we should acknowledge its prima facie cultural specificity, which means that it is a contingent matter whether the idea of ethics, or any particular ethical conviction, has counterparts in other cultures. But see George Silberbauer, “Ethics in small-scale societies,” for an account of ethics as found across societies; for a summary of ways to justify an environmental ethic see Elliot; “Environmental Ethics,” both in Singer, A Companion to Ethics.

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Critical perspectives and action Moral critiques As noted, even purely anthropocentric approaches in ethics, such as the Kantian or the contractarian perspectives, may take note of the duties regarding the natural environment that accrue to us because of our duties to other human beings. This critical approach has been further developed in various ways. It has been argued, for example, that each individual has a right to a livable environment.24 Hence, those who are degrading the environment, for example, through the spraying of fields or vineyards with pesticides and fungicides that may be hazardous to people’s health, may be unjustifiably interfering with certain individuals’ rights.25 Moreover, to impose certain important environmental impacts, as represented by the dissemination of genetically modified organisms in our environment or the delivery of toxic materials into our communities, on the supposition that these activities are justified by the economic benefits generated for certain private parties, is to impose health risks on third parties for which usually no fully informed and uncoerced consent has been obtained, or compensation is provided.26 One sort of response to this problem has been to demand the application of the precautionary principle in a wide range of cases. In other words, in order to protect citizens from risks to which they have not agreed to be exposed to, it is proposed that no activity be undertaken until it has been shown not to increase existing risks.27 24 See William T. Blackstone, “Ethics and Ecology,” in William T. Blackstone (ed.), Philosophy and Environmental Crisis (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1974). 25 Notably, we are talking of a moral right and not of a legal right. Legal rights may constitute important ways of ensuring decent treatment of certain beings, but are independent of moral rights. For an interesting argument in support of legal rights for non-human parts of nature see Christopher D. Stone, “Should Trees Have Standing? – Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects,” in VanDeVeer and Pierce (eds), Environmental Ethics and Policy Book, pp. 189–201. Also see Christopher D. Stone, Should Trees Have Standing?: And Other Essays on Law, Morals and the Environment (Oxford: Oceana Publications/Oxford University Press, 1996). 26 With regard to the traffic of toxic materials and the moral implications that this has, see, for example, Jang B. Singh and V.C. Lakhan, “Business Ethics and the International Trade in Hazardous Wastes,” in Robert Larmer (ed.), Ethics in the Workplace, 2nd edn (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2001). The export of such materials to impoverished areas inhabited by racial minorities also poses issues of environmental racism; see, for example, Karl Grossman, “Environmental Racism,” in Pierce and VanDeVeer (eds), People, Penguins and Plastic Trees (2nd edn, 1995) pp. 39–44. With regard to the imposition of risk on third parties, see Conrad G. Brunk, Lawrence Haworth and Brenda Lee, Value assumptions in risk assessment: a case study of the alachlor controversy (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1991). 27 The precautionary principle is enshrined in various United Nations documents, as for example in The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development adopted at the Rio Earth Summit (The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, 1992): “Principle 15. In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation” (consulted 21 January 2006). The precautionary

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Furthermore, although the moral status of future generations of human beings is a matter of some debate,28 various, strong arguments may be offered to the effect that we do have responsibilities to them, and that those responsibilities are being neglected by people who cause or fail to prevent serious environmental degradation.29 These arguments can be supported by Kantian and contractarian approaches, since the status of future human beings (whoever they are) as autonomous beings and as potential contractors, respectively, is being overlooked if our own generation degrades the environment that they will come to inherit. Since utilitarianism enjoins us to consider the effects of our actions on all those affected, given environmental degradation that lasts beyond our life-spans, responsibilities for future human generations also become an issue from this perspective. These arguments have attained further specification through the idea of sustainable development. According to the Brundtland Report, the notion of sustainable development implies that we have a duty to meet humanity’s “current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”30 A similar idea is behind the notion that the present generation has a duty of stewardship with regard to the Earth’s natural environment in light of the needs of both present and future generations.31 Both a duty to limit our activities to those that are sustainable in this sense and a duty of stewardship for the sake of future generations have their foundation in the idea that future human beings and their needs deserve the same kind of concern as present human beings and their needs. To suppose otherwise would call for argument, for one may ask why human beings separated from us by time should be discriminated against any more than human beings separated from us by space. One way to interpret the demand that our activities be sustainable and take into account a duty of stewardship toward future generations is to insist on the internalization of all costs. Practically this means that, if in the process of doing business there is a significant generation of polluting materials or reduction of resources, the producer of the environmental degradation should take on the costs for reparation or “making whole” again. That is, those who pollute or reduce the

principle has also become part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Article 3: “The Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects …” 28 For an introductory review of the debate see, for example, Joseph R. Des Jardins, “Ethics, Energy, and Future Generations” in his Environmental Ethics (Belmond, CA: Wadsworth, 1993), pp. 69–98. 29 Regarding the status of future generations, see, for example, the various contributions in VanDeVeer and Pierce (eds), Environmental Ethics and Policy Book, ch. V. E. 30 Emphasis added; The World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 8. 31 See John Passmore, Man’s Responsibility for Nature (London: Duckworth, 1974) on the historical foundation of the idea of stewardship for nature. Besides its justification through various forms of anthropocentric ethics, the idea of stewardship for future generations also receives backing from diverse forms of religious ethics that demand conscientiously good management of the Earth because of our duty to a higher being.

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stock of available resources are not to externalize these costs, for otherwise others from present and future generations would have to pay those costs.32 As noted earlier, according to non-anthropocentric perspectives, besides duties regarding the various non-human beings in our natural environment (based on our duties to human beings) we may be said to have duties to those non-human entities. Specifically, from the point of view that focuses on the continuity of sentience (which includes the capacity to suffer) between human beings and a large class of animals, human beings accrue a responsibility for those activities that hinder the full flourishing of, and cause suffering to, sentient animals. This perspective, hence, provides grounds for critique not only for species decimations through hunting and fishing but also for the human degradation (through water pollution, clear felling, or urbanization, for example) of the ecosystems on which sentient animals depend. From the point of view of biocentric and ecocentric ethics, we accrue responsibilities for interferences in the flourishing of all living things, ecosystems and/or species, respectively. This means that we should be morally concerned, among other things, about the eutrophication of many of our lakes and rivers, the rapid disappearance of tropical and temperate rainforests, the proliferation of toxins in water systems and food chains, the production and uncontrolled diffusion of genetically modified organisms, and the ultimate effect on ecosystems of wastes from mining, milling, and inadequate storage of radioactive substances that will be emitting radiation for hundreds of thousands of years.33 Since there has been considerable concern in western countries34 (and some nonwestern countries like Japan) about these matters since at least the 1970s, we may come to wonder why the rate at which our environment suffers serious degradation continues, nonetheless, to increase. Part of the answer may be found in various analyses that focus on social and cultural factors. Social critiques It may be difficult for individuals, who take responsibility for the impact of their actions on the natural environment, to have much of a transformative impact if essentially contrary trends prevail in society. Such contrary trends are generally expressed both in certain practices and in certain ideas or conceptual structures. 32 For a summary defense of the importance of internalizing private costs of production see, for example, Velasquez, Business Ethics, pp. 238–41. 33 Regarding the hazards of uranium mining and milling for present and future generations, see, for example, National Film Board (Canada), Uranium, directed by Magnus Isacsson, produced by Dale Phillips, written by Michael Riordon (1990). On how to avoid clear cutting of ancient forests, see, for example, All About Us Canada Foundation, A Cut Above: My Grandfather Was a Logger, directed by Karen Baltgailis (1995). 34 I use the term “western” to refer to the civilization prevalent in modern, industrialized North America, Australia, Europe, and other places such as South Africa, because of its traditional meaning designating the cultures that are European or have their origin in Europe, even though it is geographically inaccurate since the Age of Colonialism. (Notably, eyeballing an imaginary globe the countries called “western” are all over the place: Europe is west of Asia but east of the Americas; Australia seems both east and west, while South Africa is south, of Europe.)

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Ecological feminism (or ecofeminism), for example, argues that abuse of the natural environment and the oppression of women have similar causes. Specifically, this is a critique of social practices that are based on a belief system which assigns women and nature to a subordinate moral category in relation to men and society, and, furthermore, operates on the assumption that the morally superior is entitled to dominate the morally inferior. Ecofeminists point out that, since there is no good basis either for that belief system or for that assumption, it is difficult to see how social structures that facilitate the oppression of women and the degradation of the natural environment may be justified.35 An independent, but related, critique has been presented by the approach called “social ecology.” On this view the degradation of the natural environment is the result of generalized structures of hierarchical domination in western societies. Such structures are held responsible for the inequality in our societies, and also for misguided attempts to control nature through interventions such as the introduction of toxic chemical pesticides in agriculture, large hydroelectric projects, nuclear power generating stations, and so on.36 Closely related to ecofeminist and social ecology critiques is the analysis of our present environmentally pernicious trends as due to the prevalence of technological rationality. This perspective, developed initially by Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfurt School, argues that in modern, industrialized societies instrumental reason is applied to all beings, including humanity and non-human nature.37 Instrumental reason, or “means-ends rationality,” is the application of reason to the attainment of ends or goals without careful (rational) assessment of the value of the goals pursued. The result is a panoply of techniques (commonly referred to as “technologies”) that focus our attention on the extrinsic value of things, irrespective of their intrinsic value.38 Focusing on the natural world with the point of view of instrumental or technological rationality leads to the consequence that ancient forests are approached as mere sites for the application of sophisticated “labour-saving” machinery, facilitating lumber-extraction management regimes, which generate raw material for marketing strategies; seashores are treated as nothing but sites for tourism development and lakes simply as potential sources for water exports, and so on. Moreover, where 35 This is Karen Warren’s way of summarizing the ecofeminist critique. See her “The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism,” in VanDeVeer and Pierce (eds), Environmental Ethics and Policy Book, pp. 282–96. 36 On social ecology see Murray Bookchin, for example, “Remaking Society: Pathways to a Green Future” in Pierce and VanDeVeer (eds), People, Penguins and Plastic Trees (2nd edn, 1995), pp. 227–33. 37 See Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1991) and Eros and Civilization (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1955). 38 For further work on the “rationality” and politics built “into” technology see, for example, Albert Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984); and Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-control as a Theme in Political Thought (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986). Regarding the politics of “formal technologies” see Susan Leigh Star, “Layered Space, Formal Representations and Long-Distance Control: The politics of information,” Fundamenta Scientiae, 10, 2 (1989), pp. 125–54.

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formerly a person’s visit to the marketplace was a manner of keeping in touch with one’s community while acquiring some necessities, instrumental rationality turns it into a mere occasion for the maximization of the respective interests in increasing property or value-holdings of producers and consumers in an increasingly mechanized and staffless supermarket. Insofar as instrumental rationality fails to take into consideration the intrinsic value of human and non-human beings, it has been argued that this approach constitutes a fundamental mistake, for which we pay in various ways. Cultural critiques Although the social critiques noted above call for a rethinking of the conceptual framework supportive of our society’s collusion with patriarchy, its patterns of hierarchical domination, and technological rationality, very little is usually said about what is to replace the practices and belief systems in question. Deep ecology, however, has made an attempt to speak to this latter aspect. Deep ecology critiques “shallow” attempts merely to reform the activities that cause environmental degradation. It critiques, for example, the introduction of various techniques and devices that allow us to continue treating the rest of nature as a mere resource for human desires. Deep ecology proposes that we need to think “deeply” about our relationship with the natural environment by noting that human beings are fundamentally connected to the rest of nature.39 For example, electrically-powered vehicles are presently being touted as a way to transform transportation so as to prevent the production of greenhouse gases. This may be so, but from a deep ecological perspective we should be asking some supplementary questions such as how the electricity needed to eventually charge millions of large car batteries on a daily basis is going to be generated. It would seem unlikely that “soft” technologies, such as wind or solar power, could supply sufficient power to cover the additional draw on the power grid of countries like Canada or the United States. If so, one may wonder if oil, gas, or coal is going to be burned, or if new nuclear power stations are even going to be built, to generate the needed electricity.40 In either case, we end up with very serious difficulties since either greenhouse gases will continue to be produced unabated or additional risks for the health of human and other living beings will be introduced through the increased presence in our environments of long-lasting radioactive substances. In light of the interconnectedness of all things, deep ecology, moreover, suggests that we reconsider the special place attributed to human beings in our thinking. We

39 See Arne Naess, for example, “Self Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World,” in VanDeVeer and Pierce (eds), Environmental Ethics and Policy Book, pp. 268–73. There are a number of other proposals aimed at creating the conditions for rethinking our place in the greater environment. Some appeal to the example provided by various Native and traditional cultures. Others, like Anthony Weston’s “Enabling Environmental Practice,” in Pierce and VanDeVeer (eds), People, Penguins and Plastic Trees (2nd edn, 1995), pp. 463–9, propose that we begin by becoming acquainted with our natural surrounds through a new “environmental practice.” 40 Increasingly, the nuclear power lobby is advertising itself, both in popular media and at climate change meetings, as the greenhouse gases-free alternative to hydrocarbon fuels.

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are encouraged to see ourselves as a part of nature, and to stop favoring narrow human interests over the interests of the ecosphere as a whole. Some ecofeminists also have made concrete suggestions on what belief systems and practices should replace the present ones. They argue, for example, that traditional ethics is deficient by its abstract appeal to reason. They argue that in environmental matters, as in other areas of life, attention needs to be placed on the relationships that individuals, as embodied and embedded beings, have developed with particular parts of their lived-in world, since such relationships are the basis for an ethics of care. They suggest that such an approach would prove to be both sympathetic to the point of view of women and helpful to the development of a conceptual reconstruction of our place in relation to nature as other.41 Summation While moral critiques of our present activities focus on the responsibilities that may accrue to us as individuals who are in particular, personal relationships with various beings or larger parts of our environment, social critiques point to some of the underlying structural features that need to be changed and, hence, call for cooperation among individuals, if we are to avoid further environmental degradation. That is, if oppressive practices and hierarchical structures of domination are to be overcome, this will require concerted efforts by individuals throughout our societies to develop new practices and ways of relating to the natural environment. Cultural critiques, furthermore, propose ways of envisioning a different place for human beings within nature. I conclude from this survey that even if we only agree with some of the critiques offered by environmental philosophers, insofar as we see the urgency of stemming the degradation of our natural environment we have reason to take action. If so, what concerns us is scoping out the possibilities for action from where we are. Since we spend half of our waking time at work, and make most of the decisions affecting our world there, I propose that we consider the applicability of environmental ethics from within our role in the workplace. Environmental responsibility in the workplace: impacts, limitations and opportunities Is it realistic to suppose that in the workplace one can act on one’s moral responsibility concerning environmental matters? I propose that, though there are objections to the idea that ordinary morality may be relevant at the workplace, these objections can be addressed. Furthermore, even if particular work situations impose specific limitations

41 See Val Plumwood’s “Nature, Self and Gender: Feminism, Environmental Philosophy, and the Critique of Rationalism,” in Pierce and VanDeVeer (eds), People, Penguins and Plastic Trees (2nd edn, 1995), pp. 197–213. She also critiques deep ecology for the alleged failure to perform the necessary historical analysis of its conceptual baggage. A number of critiques of the contemporary discourse on nature have also issued from writers influenced by postmodernist and poststructuralist perspectives. See, for example, Jane Bennett and William Chaloupka (eds), In the Nature of Things (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).

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on one’s freedom to act, ultimately there remain considerable opportunities in most workplaces to act on one’s environmental responsibilities. The workplace as a special place and its environmental impacts The workplace is a very special place in western civilization. In contrast to the situation in many other societies and in other times, for us the place and the circumstances in which we gain our livelihood are mostly separate from the places and circumstances in which we enjoy the rewards of our labors. Due to processes of rationalization set into action by capitalist modernity in our societies, a fairly clear division of space and attitudes has developed between the workplace, directed almost entirely toward production, and all other places, increasingly directed exclusively toward consumption. Although under these circumstances certain values (such as the desire for achievement) may be recognized as useful in the maximization of productivity, generally speaking values expressive of affective ties are treated either as irrelevant or as problematic in the workplace. It is assumed, in other words, that values that suppose other than instrumental relationships with human beings, animals, place, or a particular manner of working, should be put aside so as not to interfere with the effectiveness and efficiency of work processes and their objectives.42 This perspective is often expressed by what we may call the business world ethos, summarized by the phrase “business is business.”43 Moreover, as work today very frequently involves corporations, special problems arise. Corporations are characterized by their charters, their legal standing, and their legal responsibilities toward stockholders, all of which explicitly or implicitly may seem to require managers and other employees only to pursue the goals of growth or maximizing profits for stockholders. So, working for corporations may seem to legitimize (environmentally or otherwise) unethical behavior as long as it maximizes the corporations’ profit-seeking objectives. The argument that is intended to lead to this conclusion is dubious, however. We may note that the supposition that a separate set of values is appropriate in the business workplace depends on its actual separateness from the rest of life. Notably, someone may quite reasonably say that, while the rules of common courtesy demand that we avoid bumping into each other, such rules do not apply when engaged in a wrestling match since in that situation a different set of values is relevant. We may perhaps even come to understand that on the lifeboat of the Medusa a different set of values may have been appropriate, since the shipwrecked literally were cut off from the rest of society and its resources. The question remains whether the workplace, even the corporate workplace, really is as isolated from the rest of life as to warrant a very different set of values, that is, values superordinate to those otherwise current in society. A very strong case can be made, rather, for the view that the workplace is not isolated from the rest of life, since it does interact with it in very many and 42 But see the literature on the (instrumental) value of “emotional intelligence” for business. 43 For a defense of this attitude see, for example, Milton Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business,” in Joan C. Callahan, Ethical Issues in Professional Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 349–50.

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thoroughgoing ways. On the one hand, work absorbs a great proportion of each citizen’s waking time, intelligence and energy, in other words, a great part of our lives. On the other, most work activities affect other people in society and, ultimately, require considerable quantities of materials from the environment, that is, the environment in which we all live and on which we all depend. So, individuals in the workplace actually are in especially direct and intimate relationships and interactions with the world around them, even if this is not often taken note of. Furthermore, despite the laudable efforts undertaken by the movement for socially responsible business practices, in our times the impact of the workplace on the natural environment often is harmful. Many, if not most, of today’s environmental problems are attributable to activities in, or directed from, the workplace, especially run by large corporate businesses.44 Examples discussed in the media, such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill or the Bhopal Union Carbide toxic gas explosion, readily come to mind. Nearby industrial smokestacks or the sight of industrial effluents entering a neighboring creek, moreover, remind us of the role of certain businesses in the despoliation of our home ground. Attributing a very significant share of environmental destruction to the workplace may engender certain objections. For example, it may be suggested that if there are environmental impacts arising in the workplace, ultimately they are to be blamed on citizens viewed as consumers since they create the demand for products that otherwise would not be made. This sounds quite reasonable until one takes note of the fact that for most products on the market there was no demand at all until industry made them available and known through advertising campaigns. Even if much workplace activity is attributable to consumer demand, however, this fact will not suffice to exonerate the role of people in the workplace in generating, or contributing to, environmental degradation, since this is a case of “blame shifting” when the appropriate reaction should be “blame sharing.”45 Another response to the claim that the workplace is responsible for much environmental destruction is that the economies of industrialized countries are turning more and more toward the supposedly “clean” service and information technology sectors. Such comments overlook, however, that many parts of the service sector such as, for example, banking or insurance, ultimately are involved in the industrial sectors 44 The use of hydrocarbon-burning motor cars is, of course, a major contributor to pollution which is primarily and directly attributable to the decisions of consuming individuals and not primarily to decisions made at the workplace. Nonetheless, the decision to create certain types of vehicles (for example, SUVs), and to market them aggressively to a certain segment of the population is made in the boardrooms of large corporations. As such, large corporations share the responsibility for the present situation. 45 We may consider that, even if one may determine the individual that has primary responsibility for an untoward event, this does nothing to absolve others who in their own way contributed to the event, even if only passively. We can imagine many examples. For instance, even if there is only one arsonist who sets fire to a house, there can be indefinitely many others who would share the blame for the ruination of the house, including those who perhaps failed to build in sufficient safeguards, or those who did not notify the firefighters. On sharing and shifting responsibility see, for example, James L. Muyskens, “The Nurse as a Member of a Profession,” in Callahan, Ethical Issues in Professional Life, pp. 290–95.

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by way of the direct funding of new mining, manufacturing, or infrastructure projects in countries under development, and the trading of stocks of industrial firms. The perceived need to maintain and increase the value of shares on the stock market leads to an exacerbation of the pursuit of profit within corporations, with a consequent readiness to cut corners (for example, through restructuring operations) often affecting employees and the natural environment. The information technology sector, furthermore, has its own growing set of production plants, satellite launches and mobile telephone towers, all of which may have harmful effects on the integrity of the natural environment. In summary, if, contrary to the supposition that the business workplace is a world apart, it is in fact tightly imbricated with the rest of our lives, and if, in addition, it generates a very important share of the degradation of our commonly shared natural environment, we may conclude that there is no reason to suppose that a different, special set of values should be applied to the workplace than to the rest of society. Rather, we should conclude that it is of great urgency to seek the application of ethical principles in the workplace. Limitations and opportunities In one sense we may admit that the workplace indeed is a special place, since for most of us it is the place on which we primarily depend for our livelihood, and where some of us have the opportunity to realize ourselves as creative, productive persons. This circumstance may persuade us that the extent to which one can carry through on one’s ethical responsibilities is relatively limited, whether those responsible concern the state of the natural environment or otherwise. But, as noted, the workplace is connected to the rest of life. Hence, one should suppose that at least principles such as not to cause harm are relevant there, even if there may be little room for beneficence. In other words, although there may be little opportunity to promote the integrity of the natural environment, it is appropriate for individuals to be concerned about environmental degradation originating in their workplace. This is especially so because the workplace is a place at which special knowledge about the impacts on the environment of various activities is available. Since greater knowledge commonly supposes both greater capacity to act and greater accountability, the role of the workplace in the prevention of environmental degradation becomes very important. Practically this means considering both the impacts of the workplace on the immediate environment in which work is carried out, and the impacts that happen at a distance in either space or time. Presently, many workplaces have instituted recycling programs for paper and other materials, but a little reflection at each workplace will show that the possibilities for action in the nearby environment are much wider than that. These possibilities for action include many instances of simply doing less damage, for example, through the reduction of commuting by moving to a home within walking or pedaling distance, or through the reduction of airplane travel by scheduling fewer face-to-face meetings out of town. Also, depending on what work activity is carried out on location, attention to the relative toxicity of the materials in use in various operations, or the relative generation of electromagnetic radiation by various devices, may also be of relevance. Impacts at a considerable distance from the workplace can also be various, ranging from the quantity and type of packaging of consumer goods,

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which affects waste deposition, to the application of high vs. low-impact methods in forestry, which affects the continued existence of old-growth forests.46 The actions undertaken from the workplace may also vary in the immediacy by which they will be effective, and sometimes those aiming at the long run are more significant than those that promise quick results. For example, car-pooling may be a fine initiative that can be achieved relatively quickly from within the workplace, but switching over the transport fleet of a business to fuels based on waste oils may, though not so rapidly attained, eventually pay off more substantially in terms of a reduction of new loads in greenhouse gases and the use of non-renewable fuels. In fact, once achieved, such efforts could have significant effects on the rest of the business community by serving as an example for what is possible.47 The question remains who in the workplace may be expected to take on responsibility to halt environmental degradation, given that the workplace is mainly directed toward the securement of livelihood (if not toward the maximization of profit). It would seem unrealistic to suppose that the average employee of a large corporation could afford to risk her job for the sake of possibly small decreases in the total degradation of the natural environment. It is relevant, however, that workplaces are not all alike, and that some people in some workplaces enjoy more autonomy than others. We may note the following diversity in workplace situations. •

The self-employed, including individuals who sell and make goods as well as fishers and farmers. Reasonably, the first concern of such individuals is securing the continuity of their enterprises. Nonetheless, once they have secured their livelihoods, these individuals have great leeway to direct their workplace in such a way that it is in agreement with their responsibility for the integrity of the natural environment.48

46 For a creative solution to the problems of excessive packaging see, for example, Thomas Dyllick, “Ecological Marketing Strategy for Toni Yogurts in Switzerland,” Journal of Business Ethics, 8 (1989), pp. 657–62. For “solutions” to “global climate change,” see Guy Dauncey with Patrick Mazza, Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions to Global Climate Change (Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2001). 47 It has been debated whether changes in the conditions of doing business undertaken for the sake of safeguarding the integrity of our natural environment will cause job losses and a lowering of living standards. Data on job losses due to societal transformations toward more “environmentally friendly” ways of doing business are difficult to determine; see, for example, Velasquez, Business Ethics, p. 237. There are indications, though, that a turn toward more environmentally responsible ways of managing and producing the things that we need actually spurs innovation, increasing the number of workplaces as a result. See, for example, Carrie Sonneborn, “Generating Jobs: Sustainable energy initiatives deliver more jobs and lower greenhouse gas emissions,” Alternatives Journal, 26, 2 (Spring 2000), pp. 30–1; Hal Kane, “Shifting to Sustainable Industries,” in Lester R. Brown et al. (eds), State of the World 1996 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), pp. 152–67. 48 Of course, small-scale farmers and fishers increasingly are caught facing difficult dilemmas because of the diminishing productivity of soil and fish stocks, due to erosion and overharvesting, and competition from large-scale agribusiness, forestry, and fishing outfits. Given these circumstances it may be difficult for them to act on their perceived environmental responsibility.

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•

•

•

•

•

Employees in cooperative enterprises. In a cooperative, employees usually are also owners who have a say on the board of directors themselves or through their representatives.49 Often they also have a say in the day-to-day management of their workplaces.50 In such employment situations there is almost as much opportunity to pursue well-defined goals of lowering the workplace impact on the integrity of the natural environment as there is for the self-employed. Professionals. This class includes lawyers and physicians, as well as dentists, accountants, teachers and nurses.51 Although professionals are subject to a certain degree to regulations arising from their associations, to state legislation, and to their employers if not self-employed, on the whole they enjoy a degree of autonomy not generally shared by ordinary employees. Consequently, they also have substantial opportunities for acting on their environmental responsibilities. Managers and CEOs in particular, as well as all employees in situations that allow at least some degree of participation in workplace decision making. These individuals generally have opportunities to suggest modifications of present practices to make them more agreeable to the aims of safeguarding environmental integrity.52 Employees who are members of a union or association. As such they may be able to obtain special protection from the employer for employees who make suggestions, or lodge complaints, regarding environmental matters. Alternatively, it might be possible to institute within the workplace the position of environmental ombudsperson, who would have leeway to alert publicly the employer about ways to avoid contributing to environmental degradation. Political representatives at all levels, federal, provincial or state, municipal, sand and so on. In today’s political climate, the pursuit of a “healthier” natural environment is a goal that generally will bring politicians public support. Anyone with political office usually has excellent opportunities to put into place programs that will combine her or his stated platform with the satisfaction of her or his ethical responsibilities concerning the integrity of the natural environment.

49 It is relevant that the cooperative movement has made formal commitments to pursue the maintenance of the integrity of the natural environment, and that individuals involved as employees (and other members) can pursue the application of those commitments in their particular situations. For those commitments see, for example, Ian MacPherson, Cooperative Principles for the 21st Century (Geneva: International Cooperative Alliance, 1996). 50 On the opportunities for democratic participation in cooperatives see, for example, Jaques and Ruth Kaswan, “The Mondragón Cooperatives,” Whole Earth Review (Spring 1989), pp. 8–17. 51 For an enlightening discussion of what it is to be a professional, and the ethical repercussions this has, see Michael D. Bayles, Professional Ethics (Belmond, CA: Wadsworth, 1989). 52 Note the example of the CEO of Toni Yogurts in Dyllick’s paper in Larmer, Ethics in the Workplace.

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•

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Investors or shareholders in productive enterprises. Although not directly involved in the workplace, investors are (co-)owners of whatever workplace they invest in, and hence play a role in the objectives pursued there. Investors can (co-)determine the charters under which businesses will operate by taking part in General Meetings. Even if often difficult to have any certainty in the matter, it is possible, moreover, to choose investments by the compatibility of the aims and practices of the enterprises under consideration with the integrity of the natural environment.53

The effectiveness of action from the workplace will vary depending on specific circumstances. In this context it is important to remember that, generally speaking, moral responsibility is commensurate to the urgency of the situation, but also to one’s capacity. In any case, we may note Leopold’s claim that in preserving the integrity of the natural environment much depends on conscience, that is, a sense of responsibility and the readiness to act on it, and that, consequently, “The bulk of all land relations hinges on investments of time, forethought, skill, and faith rather than investments of cash.”54 It is imperative to act from where one is if one hopes to live up to one’s moral responsibility. For a variety of reasons some workplace situations, however, may allow only for very few, or for no, genuine choices on ethically significant matters. The division of tasks, the diffusion of responsibilities, and the formalization of roles within complex organizational structures may make it difficult to determine who has responsibility for what effects.55 Such circumstances may be sufficient grounds to change workplaces, joining the self-employed, or perhaps a cooperative enterprise in which one’s voice can be heard. (Of course, due to various economic, geographic, or personal circumstances not everyone is at liberty to choose freely their workplace.) Environmental Morality: Defining the Self and Enabling our Home in Nature In response to the question “why be moral?” only one good answer can be given, namely, “this is the sort of human being I intend to be.” Other responses, for example, that one acts in morally correct ways to fit into one’s society or that God demands it, really come down to the supposition that to be moral is to be prudent. But if the response is given in terms of prudence then we are not dealing with the question “why be moral?,” since morality implies a commitment to “do the correct thing” even if it is not prudential (that is, in one’s self-interest). The existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre has taught us that the question “why act this way rather than that way?” has a 53 This concern has lately been institutionalized under the terms “ethical investing.” 54 Leopold, “Land Ethic,” in VanDeVeer and Pierce, People, Penguins and Plastic Trees, p. 84. 55 See, for example, Star, “Layered Space, Formal Representations and Long-Distance Control.” One may note, though, that even small steps, such as introducing language that openly addresses workplace responsibilities regarding environmental integrity in corporate ethics statements or in procedure manuals, can constitute a valuable contribution to change in the long run.

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further answer, namely, “this is the image of humanity I want to create.” With regard to environmental ethics one can add, “and this is the kind of natural environment I desire to enable.” As discussed, the workplace has an overwhelming impact on our natural environment. This is sufficient reason to exercise, even at the workplace, one’s moral responsibility with regard to the impacts of one’s actions on significant others by affecting the natural environment. To neglect this responsibility is one way to declare what sort of human being one wants to be and in what sort of environment one desires to exist. It is a kind of declaration of alienation, or separation, from the natural world. To take on this responsibility, in contrast, is a declaration that one’s pursuit of livelihood is directly connected to one’s pursuit of a home within nature.56 Fortunately there are many ways to do this. But it is up to us to get personally involved.57

56 On the idea of being at home in nature see, for example, Don McKay, “Baler Twine: Thoughts on ravens, home, and nature poetry” in Tim Lilburn (ed.), Poetry and Knowing: Speculative Essays and Interviews (Kingston, Ont.: Quarry Press, 1995), pp. 17–28. Also see Wendell Berry, Home Economics (San Francisco, CA: North Point Press, 1987). 57 I am indebted to Stuart Lee and Michael Pardy for helpful suggestions. Environmental Ethics in the Workplace: A Call to Action appeared in Robert Larmer (ed.), Ethics in the Workplace, 2nd edition (Belmont, Ca.: Wadsworth, 2001), 578–87. Permission for reproduction granted.

Chapter 4

Environment and Culture in Latin America Community, Autonomy and Resistance

In the two previous chapters we have explored the potential of environmental morality in the project of creating a more appropriate relationship with our natural environment, and its role in the workplace. The fundamental ideas driving those chapters are that the development of environmental ethics should be more than a matter of arriving at better theories but of transforming attitudes, practices and habits, and in every place of our lives (at home as well as at leisure activity sites and perhaps especially at the workplace).1 Continuing with the theme that environmental theorizing and practice require greater integration, in this chapter I propose that we consider potentially useful models of sustainability, that is, models of the types of behaviors and attitudes that reflect an ethic of care for the continued functioning, and even flourishing, of natural processes.2 We will sample a few approaches and case studies from Latin America. To set the stage, I begin by considering some of the possible sources of Latin America’s distinctiveness. In the second section, I introduce three theoretical approaches, which have eloquent advocates in Latin America, for redrawing the human–environmental relationship. In the third section, I discuss the idea of cultural identities rooted in land, cases illustrating sustainability, and theoretical analyses supportive of such ways of achieving sustainability. In the fourth section, I propose that the ways of achieving sustainability discussed illustrate an implicit environmental ethic, and that this ethic has counterparts elsewhere, outside Latin America. I conclude by suggesting that the crucial feature that brings about, and maintains, these sustainability-enabling beliefs and practices is a particular type of cultural matrix. 1 As noted in Chapter 2, I generally reserve the term “ethics” to reflection on the attitudes and actions that constitute morality. I will use the term “ethic” in the singular, moreover, to make reference to a way of living that expresses a certain morality. 2 At least since the Brundtland Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), and the 1992 Rio Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development), there has been widespread discussion of the notions “sustainable development” and “sustainability.” There are very divergent interpretations of what these notions entail, ranging from total non-intervention by human beings in natural processes, on the one hand, to the supposition that sustainable development demands a fifty-fold increase in present economic activity (entailing significant human transformation of the natural environment), on the other. Without attempting to be precise, I use the terms “sustainability” and “sustainable” to refer to ways of living that take note of the requirements for the flourishing of both the human and non-human components of the environment.

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Distinctiveness of the Latin American Context Latin America has an immense geographical extension, ranging over two hemispheres, with Spanish and Portuguese primarily spoken but also French, Dutch, English, and countless indigenous languages including Mapudungun (the language of the South Andean Mapuche), Aymara, Quechua, various Mayan languages and Nahuatl. One certainly should not expect uniformity in any respect from such a heterogeneous region. Nonetheless, the prevalence of Iberian languages and the common foundation of Latin American cultures in their mostly Hispanic and Portuguese colonial heritages make it tempting to suppose that the area may have some common, and also some distinctive, approaches to practical and intellectual matters. So, can we expect anything distinctive about environmental thought and attitudes in Latin America, especially today, as the globalization of cultures progresses along with the globalization of the marketplace? Three factors seem relevant when we try to formulate an answer to this question: the professional, the cultural, and the economic-historical situation. Most of our attention will be placed upon the third factor. First, in Latin America environmental ethics, as a field of research, perhaps more than elsewhere, is only partially professionalized as such, and many contributions to the field come from individuals who, strictly speaking, work outside the academic fields of ethics and philosophy. Hence, academic environmental ethics is correspondingly diverse, even if there increasingly is communication (both across disciplines and across geographical boundaries) among those that address this subject-area. The views of those who in fact are professionals in ethics, moreover, are also diverse, since, in addition to the Anglo-American approach in philosophy some others, including the German, the French, the Spanish, and the originary philosophy of Latin America developed since colonization, partially founded in Catholic theology, Marxist theory and scholasticism, also contribute to the perspectives held.3 Second, certain typical characteristics of Latin America’s cultures differentiate environmental ethics and environmental morality4 in those areas to a certain degree from its counterparts in English-speaking and northern European countries. Principally, we may consider the historical links of Latin Americans with the Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese) cultures, the emphasis on the value of personal relationships with family and community, the prevalence of the Catholic faith, and the continued flourishing and partial integration of Native, indigenous cultures. These facts point toward attitudes which are less individualistic and more community-oriented than

3 For a review of Latin American philosophy see the special issue of The Philosophical Forum, 20, 1–2 (Fall–Winter 1988–89), especially Jorge J.E. Gracia, “Introduction: Latin American Philosophy Today,” pp. 4–32, and Iván Jaksić, “Sources of Latin American Philosophy,” pp. 141–57. 4 As noted in Chapter 2, for clarity’s sake I distinguish between ethics and morality, where ethics is reflection on morality and morality is constituted by the attitudes and types of actions considered appropriate or inappropriate with respect to those beings considered significant.

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5

their counterpart in countries of the North, and by implication they point toward an environmental morality that is also less individualistic and community-oriented. Third, economic-historical conditions in the Americas largely determine a distinctive environmental practice. European colonization of Latin America had a different tenor than in other places, such as in North America, since in Latin America the primary interest of the colonizers lay in the exploitation of the area’s mineral resources (particularly gold and silver), and only secondarily in its occupation with colonists. Today, economic and geographical conditions in Latin America are still significantly different from those in many other areas of the world, thereby co-determining environmental ethics and attitudes. We may consider the following three facets of those conditions. The expropriation of indigenous peoples’ lands In Latin America the areas that are valuable to mining and forestry enterprises frequently are coterminous with the territories of traditional owners (indigenous campesino and Native peoples). Therefore, their exploitation by private interests, consequent to expropriation, can generate a greater and more pointed awareness of the interdependency between human beings and nature than is common in areas of the world where ownership of natural areas has long been assigned to the State, which largely manages them as an absentee landlord.6 In the past the expropriation of indigenous peoples’ lands has come about for diverse reasons, including the settling of colonists, as in Patagonia in the late nineteenth century (after the extermination by the Argentinean Army of most Native people, remaining after initial contact with Europeans, in the Guerra del Desierto, or Desert War7). Today, the expropriation of indigenous peoples’ productive land comes about through the maneuvers of large enterprises (many of them foreign owned), or even through the creation of parks by the State. Though the exploitation of Latin America’s natural wealth is still primarily driven by interests from outside the region, it is apparent that this process generally is facilitated by local elites. The economist David Barkin of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City has noted that, for the last half-century, “local corporate control over productive and social processes” has contributed to the present dismal socio-economic conditions of indigenous and campesino people,

5 I follow common usage by utilizing the term “North” in order to make reference to the cultures of fully industrialized countries, mostly located in the North, in contrast with the less industrialized countries, mostly located in the “South.” Geographically speaking, the terms only partly capture the contrast at issue since some southern countries, such as Australia, count among the fully industrialized, which some northern countries, such as Haiti, are very little industrialized. 6 As in Canada, where the Crown owns most of the land. Of course, in various regions of this country we have a similar overlap of commercially used lands (leased or bought from the crown) and indigenous territories, which leads to questions regarding which rights should prevail. 7 See Osvaldo Bayer, La Patagonia Rebelde (Buenos Aires: Hyspamérica, 1980).

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and, as a result, environmental justice and equity have become significant issues.8 Insofar as the expropriation and exploitation of the natural environment affect Native peoples’ very livelihood, these sorts of offensive appropriations generate considerable resistance movements to outsider interventions. The introduction of global market forces into traditional rural communities Even in remote regions of Latin America the global market system is insinuating itself into important aspects of people’s lives. Through international trade agreements, such as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), local prices for basic foodstuffs such as maize may become undermined through the influx of heavily subsidized grains from North America, and traditional forms of agricultural production become labeled as “inefficient.” As a consequence, the state and other economic actors propose that traditional forms of production be replaced with monocultures dependent on chemical inputs and expensive irrigation schemes. Insofar as in the past in Latin America, many rural communities mostly have been self-sufficient in the generation of basic goods (such as foodstuffs), this imposition of the global market by external actors has often been perceived as a new form of colonialism. As a result communities increasingly develop defensive strategies “for organizing peoples, protecting resources, and framing struggles” in order to defend their traditional ways of living along with the natural environments that make those forms of life possible. In the process, they develop alternatives which go beyond the reactionary defense of traditional modes of living. Rather, they constitute creative experiments aimed at the protection of the foundations of their societies and environments.9 Industrialization with few safeguards/urbanization without planning Industrialization in Latin America has brought about similar problems to those observed in other parts of the world with the difference that, given the relatively limited power of civil society in Latin America, contamination of air, water and earth has proceeded at a much more significant rate and intensity. Mitigation measures, furthermore, are slow to come into effect due to the lack of enforcement powers and frequent corruption of policing bodies. These factors contribute to the development of environmental justice movements. Moreover, because of a delay in the establishment of the needed infrastructure for continuously increasing urban populations, people often suffer from inadequate provision with water, electricity, or green spaces, and are subject to hazardous environmental conditions, such as high levels of dust and geologically insecure siting of their housing. These factors contribute to social ecology movements that demand greater attention to the environments in which human populations live.

8 David Barkin, correspondence (13 February 2002). 9 For the ideas and the quote in this paragraph I am indebted to Barkin, correspondence (13 February 2002).

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Summation The facets of the economic and geopolitical conditions noted indicate that there are important, specific sectors of Latin American society that have particular concerns about the degradation of the natural environment: the indigenous, the rural agricultural, and the poor, recently established urban, populations, especially those located in industrialized areas. Together they comprise a significant proportion of Latin American populations. Even if the conditions that characterize Latin America are not entirely unique, their particular combination with the cultural specificity of Latin American thought and life is. Furthermore, given the diversity of approaches to the study of environmental ethics in the geographical area, these conditions point toward a distinctive environmental theory and practice. Some Theoretical Approaches to Environment in Latin America Theoretical discussion of environmental ethics among diversely situated Latin American thinkers naturally is various and often focuses on themes well known in northern contexts, such as individual responsibility in the face of global warming, the trouble with the identification of happiness with consumption, or the question whether the natural environment is being degraded because of exacerbated individualism, anthropocentrism, or industrialization.10 Latin American theorists, such as Antonio Elizalde Hevia or Fernando Mires, are quite aware that, while in terms of biodiversity their part of the Americas is one of the richest areas in the world, it is also one of the most threatened, and to address this problem they frequently focus on explanatory paradigms similar to those circulating in Northern societies.11 Here I sample three approaches to the environment, which even if they have parallels in other parts of the world, have a rather particular expression in Latin America. These approaches are roughly complementary to each other. While ethnoecology emphasizes the power to shape attitudes through the experience of personal, direct acquaintance with the natural environment when guided by timetested, traditional ways of knowing, social ecology and liberation/restorative ecology point toward social commitments, and even to affective dimensions, with regard to that environment. More specifically, social ecology points toward the need to stem certain threats to human beings-in-their-environments, while liberation ecology argues for the necessity of openly embracing non-human nature as an equal.

10 On the problem of extreme individualism and consumerism, see Antonio Elizalde Hevia, “Aproximaciones Éticas y Espirituales para la Sustentabilidad en el Próximo Milenio,” Revista Argentina de Economía y Ciencias Sociales, 3, 4 (1999). 11 Antonio Elizalde Hevia, “‘Yo como tú, creo en la poesía de todos’ ¿Será posible un mundo no excluyente? Pistas para la construcción de una nueva sociedad latinoamericana,” Documentación Social, 113 (1998); Fernando Mires, El Discurso de la Naturaleza: ecología y política en América Latina (San José de Costa Rica, Editorial DEI, 1990).

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Ethnoecology Ethnoecology studies the relationship of communities with their natural environments insofar as that relationship is reflected in local knowledge of plants, animals and ecosystems (often called “traditional ecological knowledge,” or “TEK”) accumulated diachronically over long periods by people who live in close dependency with the land.12 Ethnoecology seeks to understand the kind of knowing that most people in urban centers and many agricultural settings have now lost, but may recover up to a point as long as these ways of knowing continue to be maintained in contemporary indigenous cultures. Víctor Toledo, a well-known Mexican ethnoecologist, argues that this approach can give us insight into the type of relationship with the natural environment that will maintain the long-term sustainability of natural environments as well as the livelihoods of the human communities dependent on them. On his analysis, ethnoecology teaches that sustainable development at the community level requires the maintenance of traditional ecological knowledge. He directly couples the necessity of defending both the particular cultural and natural endowments that make up the strength of rural communities. He argues that, in the face of threats of incursions from state-sponsored and corporate entities, sustainable community development requires that communities “take (or retake) control of the processes that affect it,”13 which, among other things, requires the development and consolidation of “a community conscience.”14 Toledo is seconded by Enrique Leff in his insistence on the importance of community control of the cognitive factors regarding land use that co-determine its future. In his book Green Production, Leff argues: The objective of ecodevelopment, defined as a strategy for the production and application of knowledges and techniques necessary for the sustainable management of particular 12 While indigenous people are the originators and traditional keepers of ethnoecological knowledge today, there are diverse efforts by people from outside indigenous communities to assist them in the preservation of this knowledge. With regard to the definition of ethnoecology, Ted L. Gragson and Ben G. Blount, “Introduction,” Ethnoecology: Knowledge, Resources, and Rights (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1999), say that “ethnoecology is increasingly used a cover term for natural history studies derived from local people …” but then propose that “ecology and ethnoecology can be defined in the broadest sense as the study of relationships between organisms and the totality of the physical, biological, and social factors they come into contact with” (p. vii). Also see Nancy Turner, Earth’s Blanket: Traditional teachings for sustainable living (Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 2005); and Thomas Heyd, “Indigenous Knowledge, Emancipation and Alienation,” Knowledge and Policy 8, 1 (Spring 1995), pp. 63–73. 13 Toledo explains that this perspective is based on a general principle of political ecology according to which “contemporary society and nature suffer generalized processes of exploitation and deterioration [due to] the loss of control of human society over nature and itself.” Víctor M. Toledo, “Sustainable Development at the Village Community Level: A Third World Perspective” in Fraser Smith (ed.), Environmental Sustainability (Boca Raton, FL: St. Lucie Press, 1997), pp. 233–50, p. 237. 14 Ibid., p. 239.

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ecosystems, is a social process inserted within the struggles of each community for the appropriation of their natural resources and their social wealth.15

What Leff has in mind is that development, which is appropriate to the conditions of the natural environment, depends on knowledge and techniques held and controlled by the communities that rely on that environment. Social ecology As understood by Eduardo Gudynas and Graciela Evia, social ecology studies the ways in which the activities of contemporary citizens, mostly located in large urban centers and involved in manufacturing, processing and consuming goods ultimately based on natural resources, can be brought into consonance with ecological processes.16 On their analysis, insofar as social ecology is grounded in the sciences, it needs to go beyond the divisions among the social, the human and the natural sciences in order to arrive at an understanding of the possibilities of coexistence of human activity and natural diversity in their complementarity. So understood, social ecology incorporates the perspectives of biologically oriented human ecology as well as anthropological ecology, but aims at an explicit integration of human agency, understood as socially embedded, with natural environmental contexts. Gudynas and Evia’s social ecology is in accord with its North American variant (as represented by Murray Bookchin’s account to it17) in its focus on the modes of domination that affect both human and non-human systems, but it explicitly seeks to incorporate the insights arising from Latin American life conditions. In particular, these authors point toward the perspectives on human–environmental relations developed by traditionally living people of Latin America. As we will see further below, social ecology interestingly does not remain at the theoretical level in this region of the world but has an embodiment in certain social movements (for example, in Amazonia) with notable practical consequences for human well-being and natural sustainability. Liberation/restorative ecology A third approach for redrawing the relationship between human beings and the natural environment, as found in Latin America, is what we may call “liberation” or

15 Enrique Leff, Green Production (New York: Guilford Press, 1995). 16 Eduardo Gudynas and Graciela Evia, El concepto de ecología social ; modified version of Chapter 1 of Eduardo Gudynas y Graciela Evia, Ecología Social, Manual de Metodologías para Educadores Populares (Madrid: Editorial Popular, 1993). 17 See, for example, Murray Bookchin, “Remaking Society: Pathways to a Green Future” in Donald VanDeVeer and Christine Pierce (eds), The Environmental Ethics and Policy Book: Philosophy, Ecology, Economics (Belmond, CA: Wadsworth, 2004, 2nd edn), pp. 227–33.

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“restorative” ecology. This is related to the notion of restoration ecology.19 In the largely North American discussion of ecosystems restoration, it has been proposed that restorative activities be conceived as a way to restore not only a certain integrity to ecosystemic processes but also a certain quality in the relationship that we, human beings, may have with the non-human natural beings that surround us.20 The idea is that, although we may be alienated from our natural environment, due to contemporary socio-economic and ideological conditions, we may recover an appropriate relationship to that environment through a certain type of activity or practice (for example, through ecological restoration). I propose that the term “liberation/restorative ecology” may be the most adequate to describe the kind of reflection and ethic called for by Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian liberation theologian, in the presence of the linked crises of radical impoverishment and environmental degradation.21 In his recent writings, Boff argues for an ethos of care and compassion for the earth in conjunction with such care and compassion for our fellow human beings. He says, for example, that “[t]he earth has arrived at the limits of its sustainability. Our task is not to create sustainable development, but a sustainable society – human beings and nature together.”22 According to Boff’s analysis, human beings and natural environments are jointly going through a severe crisis due to a failure to recognize our true human nature, which is that of care. 23 Now, since human beings are implicated in a fundamental way with the 18 The idea of “liberation ecology” resonates with Herbert Marcuse’s idea (for example, in Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1972)) that the time will come for the liberation of humanity and nature. José Francisco Gómez Hinojosa, “De la Ecología a la Ecofilía: Apuntes para una Ecología Liberadora,” Pasos, 30 (July–August 1990), directly uses the terms “liberating ecology” in the title of his article. 19 See Chapter 11 for a discussion of how nature restoration can make sense. 20 See William R. Jordan III, “Autonomy, Restoration and the Law of Nature,” and Andrew Light, “Restoration, Autonomy and Domination: The Case for Benevolent Restoration,” both in Thomas Heyd (ed.), Recognizing the Autonomy of Nature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). Also see Eric Higgs, Nature by Design: People, natural process, and ecological restoration (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003). 21 See Leonardo Boff, Saber Cuidar: Ética do humano – compaixão pela terra (Petrópolis, Brazil: Editora Vozes, 1999). This perspective agrees nicely with Richard Peet and Michael Watts’ notion of liberation ecology movements, which combines the concerns for environmental integrity with the concerns for “livelihood, entitlements, and social justice” (Richard Peet and Michael Watts, “Liberation Ecology: Development, sustainability, and environment in an age of market triumphalism, ” in Peet and Watts (eds), Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 39.) 22 Emphasis added. Boff is drawing a contrast between “sustainable development,” focused on the continued generation of marketable goods and on industrial development, and “sustainability,” conceived as a condition in which both human and non-human natural beings flourish. (Leonardo Boff – Brazil, http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Heroes/Leonardo_Boff. html; accessed 8 August 2007) Compare his usage of the terms with Toledo’s, who supposes that sustainable development understood in the community context will actually bring about the flourishing of both human and non-human beings. 23 Regarding the ethics of care, also see ecofeminist analyses, such as Val Plumwood, “Nature, Self and Gender: Feminism, Environmental Philosophy, and the Critique of

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natural environments that surround them, attaining a full realization of our humanity requires that we develop an ethos of care with regard to those environments and all other beings comprised in them. So, one way of understanding Boff is that, through the restoration of an appropriate relationship between human beings and the other natural beings, there will be a freeing (liberation) of human and natural potentialities. As another example of such a viewpoint, we may consider the perspective of José Gómez Hinojosa, who similarly speaks about what I call liberation/restorative ecology but from a philosophicaltheological perspective.24 He argues to the possibility of a “naturo-centric” approach. From Gómez Hinojosa’s perspective, if we pay attention to the common trajectory that human beings share with the rest of nature we will stop seeing ourselves as separate from nature, and hence we should stop exploiting it as mere object. Taking a hint from Ernst Bloch, Gómez Hinojosa explains how we may see nature as subject, and ourselves as part of that subject.25 From this he concludes that we will perceive ourselves as living with nature as equals and not simply in nature as its users. The consequence of such a change of perspectives would be both a liberation of nature and a restoration of our relationship to it. Cultural Identities, Sustainability and Strategies Land-based populations and cultural identities Anthropologists and geographers have shown that different conditions generate different socio-cultural relationships to the natural environment. This certainly can be confirmed in Latin America, where there is great diversity in history, geography, geology, botany, demography, ethnicity, and so on. The relations to the natural environments that characterize different sections of the population are correspondingly diverse and, moreover, in constant flux as conditions change. Such relations can be analyzed from various perspectives. As of late, political ecology has emerged as a leading way of analyzing human relations to the environment. Peet and Watts describe its “theoretical heart” as the linking of political economy with ecology.26 Various political ecologists have Rationalism,” in Christine Pierce and Donald VanDeVeer, People, Penguins and Plastic Trees (Belmond, CA: Wadsworth, 1995), pp. 197–213. 24 José Francisco Gómez Hinojosa, “De la Ecología a la Ecofilía … .” 25 Also see Eric Katz, Nature as Subject: Human Obligation and Natural Community (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997); and Eric Katz, “The Liberation of Humanity and Nature,” in Heyd, Recognizing the Autonomy of Nature. 26 They propose that, in the attempt to chart “the shifting dialectic of nature–society relations, important new avenues were opened up for research and activism,” which include “analyses of how the capacity to manage resources could be constrained by the relations of production in which peasants were enmeshed, how particular forms of state subsidy stimulated the mining of the soil, or how local forms of knowledge could be harnessed in ecologically adaptive ways,” Richard Peet and Michael Watts, “Preface,” in Peet and Watts (eds), Liberation Ecologies: Environment, development, social movements (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), p. x.

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argued that in spite of the increasingly global push and pull of market forces, which demand that people as well as resources become mere mobile instruments for the reproduction of capital, there remain some populations notable for their tendency to maintain residency on the lands of their ancestors.27 The reasons people have for opting for continued residency are diverse, ranging from affective relations with land and people, to their pride in using “traditional” (“local,” or “indigenous”) knowledge about techniques and resources of the place, or simply comfort in staying put where they matured as persons and their ancestors have lived. The land-based cultural identity of such populations generally is carefully defined, and counts for them as a value worthy of protection for itself.28 However, as processes of modernization and globalization reach such closelyknit populations, significant dislocations can occur. Greater access to markets for agricultural products, for example, may generate opportunities for the acquisition of formerly unavailable manufactured goods, but may also bring local agricultural products into competition with those produced more cheaply elsewhere. The result may be, on the one hand, relative impoverishment and considerable, persistent outmigration of young people to city and industrial centers as laborers, and, on the other, increasing replacement of traditional ways of producing food and other goods with “modern,” introduced ways.29 Concretely this may also mean, for example, that, where agriculture before was entirely “organic,” it may end up highly reliant on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, on commercial seeds, and so on. The transformation of agriculture and lifestyles away from self-sufficiency and toward dependency on external actors and factors is problematic, from the point of view of theoreticians and activists who seek to maintain or reactivate traditional, less harmful, ways of interacting with the natural environment, but may be perceived as necessary for bare survival by the populations involved. The interesting thing is that many populations, who are at the crossroads between a traditionally sustainable and an increasingly external input-dependent way of life, offer significant resistance to these kinds of forces of change. In fact, we find that the commitment among such populations to resist anything that might undermine traditional values is accompanied by a reassertion and progressive elaboration of those values,30 and by a drive to strengthen the community’s autonomy and auto-sufficiency over against outside forces, such as large-scale commercial or government entities. The autonomy pursued tends to be such as would allow for the continued flourishing of the longstanding mixed ecologies in which people live. 27 See, for example, Anthony Bebbington, “Movements, Modernizations, and Markets: Indigenous organizations and agrarian strategies in Ecuador” in Peet and Watts, Liberation Ecologies, pp. 86–109, p. 101. 28 For example, see Sara McFall and Roberto Morales, “The Ins and Outs of Mapuche Culture in Chile,” in Anny Booksbank Jones and Ronaldo Munck (eds), Cultural Politics in Latin America (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), pp. 127–41, on the creation of cultural identity of Mapuche people, and their strategies for protecting it. 29 See Bebbington, “Movements, Modernizations, and Markets,” in Peet and Watts, Liberation Ecologies. 30 I am indebted to David Barkin, correspondence (February 13, 2002), for ways of expressing these ideas here.

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Toward human-environmental sustainability: some cases I offer a sample of cases of populations that conceive of their communities as including the non-human parts of the environment along with the human parts, as found in many areas of Latin America and elsewhere in the less westernized world. Such populations do not suppose that the natural environment is a domain apart from that occupied by human beings. Instead, they individuate, and they attribute value to, something like “hybrid” human-environmental spaces. I begin with a description of the beliefs of the Native people called Mapuche (the term literally means “People of Their Land”), who live in the border region between Chile and Argentina, followed by brief accounts of the environmental practices of populations of extractivists and Native people of the Amazonian region of Brazil, and of groups of campesinos and indigenous people of Mexico. The Mapuche, who, like people from many small-scale societies that traditionally have directly depended on their natural environment for survival, exhibit a remarkable interweaving in their beliefs of the roles of human beings and nature. Historically, the Mapuche suffered from the conflict with the Spanish and subsequently, on both sides of the border, from conquest by the respective government troops.31 Although in more recent times some communities were granted a certain degree of autonomy on their traditional lands within drastically reduced boundaries, they have become subject to new threats to their integrity. In Argentina, they have had to suffer, among other things, from the incursions into their land, air and water sources of the activities of the petroleum industries, with consequent health problems and loss of access to important parts of their territories. In Chile, their steep mountainous regions have been subjected to European settlement, and most recently, to industrial forestry practices brought in by transnational companies, which through clear felling have deprived them of the traditional forest cover and its medicinal plants, and create hazards due to erosion.32 Both in Argentina and in Chile, the Mapuche have proudly declared their intention to resist the various incursions into their communities.33 The Mapuche explain that insults to their lands are insults to themselves, because their community encompasses both human and non-human parts of the land. For the Mapuche, human beings are just one element among many others in the universe in which everything is finely balanced and interrelated with every other thing, including the animals, spirits, plants, waters and landscapes:34 Mountain, forest, lakes, high lands, and … the river are [the Mapuche’s] lived-in landscape, the place where they were born and where they were raised. The Mapuche have always cared in a special way for the elements and forces or newenes of the natural world that 31 See, for example, Patagonia . Also see Bayer, La Patagonia Rebelde. 32 David MacKinnon and Sara McFall, “Pueblo Mapuche, Expansión Forestal y Poder Local” . 33 See, for example, . 34 Sara McFall, Wajmapu: Territorialidad Mapuche y Medio Ambiente (October 2000) .

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The belief that human beings are deeply entwined with the other elements of their environment, including the alpacas or the maize-corn, but also “[t]he river, the stones, the stars, the wind,” and so on, is common among diverse Latin American peoples, such as the Quechua.36 Eduardo Grillo, for example, speaks of a symbiotic community such that “those which live here in the Andes raising [animals] and those [animals] who allow our raising them, form a family.”37 Further east, indigenous populations and extractivists who live in Brazil’s Amazonian region have had to contend not only with large corporate interests, intent on clear-felling their forests to set up cattle ranches, and the establishment of dam and mining projects,38 but also (perhaps paradoxically) with government departments set on creating new parks. Unfortunately, the creation of parks, intended for the protection of biological diversity, generally has followed a model conceived in North America, which calls for the exclusion of human inhabitants for the protection of the purity of the natural environment enclosed in park boundaries.39 In the Amazonian region (and in other regions like it) where apparently untouched, “wild” areas in fact have been inhabited since long before European colonization, and where indigenous and extractivist inhabitants practice a sustainable kind of use of rivers and forests, the creation of parks has often had serious repercussions for people who in the process are displaced from their homelands. The land for them, as for the Mapuche and the Quechua, is part of their communities. Consequently, the indigenous and extractivist inhabitants from Amazonia resist outside incursions

35 Quienes son los hijos de la tierra: Los Mapuche (this and all translations from Spanish are by myself); . The Spanish translation of the terms Itrofil Mongem sometimes is straightforwardly given as “biodiversidad,” that is, “biodiversity.” 36 See Grimaldo Rengifo, La Cultura Andina de la Biodiversidad (Lima: PRATEC, 1996). Similar beliefs about the deep inter-connectedness of human and non-human elements of our world are common among indigenous people elsewhere, of course, though always molded by the particular experiences that people have had in their specific environments. 37 See Eduardo Grillo, Caminos Andinos de Siempre (Lima: PRATEC, 1996). 38 For a critique of development efforts in Amazonia see Emilio F. Morán, Through Amazonian Eyes (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993). Extractivists are people whose livelihood depends on the collection of diverse nuts, fruits, roots, fish, and so on, found in their traditional environment. 39 Antonio Carlos Diegues, “Recycled Rain Forest Myths,” in David Rothenberg and Marta Ulvaeus (eds), The World and the Wild (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001), pp. 155–70. Also see Ramachandra Guha, “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique,” in Pierce and VanDeVeer, People, Penguins and Plastic Trees, pp. 358–66, for a critique of the misapplication of North American ways of protecting natural spaces in developing countries. Also see Chapter 9 for a discussion of how it may make sense to include traditional residents in parks.

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through social environmental movements, which have been dubbed “social ecologism.”40 Rubber-tappers, artisanal fishers and indigenous people have joined together in organizations which demand that they not be denied access to their traditional territories. In some places they have gone as far as to establish their own “zoning” practices, requiring differentiated uses of the lakes in their region.41 Their aim is to protect their communities, which they perceive as intertwined with their natural environments, so as to retain their physical/economic self-sufficiency and cultural autonomy, which would be threatened if they were forcibly moved outside their traditional territories. This situation is comparable to that experienced by diverse groups in Mexico. Located in an area denuded of their millennial tropical forests in the state of Veracruz, where almost all land has been turned over to pasture and monocultures due to a mistaken model of modernization,42 the Totonac people have provided researchers with a persuasive model of sustainability.43 The Totonac perceive themselves as the guardians of the remaining islands of original rainforest in the area. They recently became known for a significant cultural revival,44 which has led to a strong reaffirmation of traditional values, all the while accompanied by the adoption of modern organizing strategies applied to achieve strengthened self-determination for their community in the face of powerful integrative state policies (aimed at depriving indigenous people of visibility as Native or autochthonous).45 While achieving food and energy self-sufficiency, and bringing in satisfactory incomes, the Totonac multiple-use approach to land also allows for the flourishing and use of 355 diverse species of plants, animals and mushrooms in their area.46 This shows that their traditional practices, supported by the will to resist new industrial approaches to land use (while, however, ready to adopt new techniques of social action), and a commitment to the autonomy of their community, can lead to a revitalization of both the human and the non-human parts of the community.

40 Diegues, “Recycled Rain Forest Myths,” p. 165. 41 Ibid. 42 Also see Vandana Shiva, “Development, Ecology, and Women,” in Staying Alive (London: Zed Books, 1988), pp. 1–13, on “maldevelopment,” a process that destroys instead of supporting the bases for sustainable livelihoods of communities. 43 Víctor M. Toledo, “Biodiversity Islands in a Sea of Pasturelands: Indigenous Resource Management in the Humid Tropics of Mexico,” Etnoecológica, 2, 3 (April 1994) . 44 Albert L. Wahrhaftig and Bruce (Pacho) Lane, “Totonac Cultural Revitalization: An Alternative to the Zapatistas,” originally presented at Annual Meeting of the Western Social Science Association, American Indian Studies Section, Oakland, California, 29 April 1995 (accessed August 2005). Also see Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, México Profundo: Una Civilización Negada (Mexico: GrijalboConsejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1990). 45 Autochthonous people are those “held to have sprung from the ground” they inhabit (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, 1980). 46 Toledo, “Biodiversity Islands.”

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The implicit environmental ethic of care for the natural environment found in Totonac traditional practices is not an isolated case. This story is repeated many times over among rural communities in Latin America. Especially impressive is the case of the Chimalapas, who, located in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, fight against powerful outside logging interests to maintain some of the last tropical forests in Mexico. Their aim similarly is to continue with their traditional way of life, which largely depends on the biological diversity only present in their native forest.47 Another example comes from the highlands people of the Huatulco area, recently studied by Barkin. His study was about the participation of indigenous people and other campesinos in innovative new planning for environmental restoration with an outside group and the application of traditional ways of water management. Traditional water “harvesting” techniques primarily consist in contour terracing, check dams and bordered gardens. Contour terracing, which is the most common form of traditional water management, is achieved with low stone structures placed along the contours of hillsides so as to catch rain runoff.48 Barkin’s study in the Huatulco area showed that the reintroduction of these water production regimes serves to restore the environmental integrity of the region, increasingly denuded of forests, while also reaffirming the communities’ identities and raising incomes that make it possible for people to remain in the area instead of outmigrating to cities.49 Also relevant is the environmental practice of urban groups in various countries in Latin America who, in the face of neglect by the responsible authorities, take the initiative to plant trees on traffic islands and along streets, and to establish green spaces on their own.50 The necessity of strategies: resistance and autonomy The common thread among these cases is that they all illustrate the importance of recognizing a deep, everyday, interdependence between human beings and their communities, on the one hand, and natural environments, on the other. They point toward the idea that the natural environment, which sustains human livelihoods, is, or should be, considered part of the community. I take note that several Latin American environmental theoreticians also emphasize that environmentally appropriate ways of living demand strategies for achieving autonomy and of resistance to the present globalizing socio-economic forces.51

47 ; also see . 48 Manuel Anaya Garduño, “Ancient And Contemporary Water Catchment Systems In Mexico” . 49 David Barkin, “Water and Forests as Instruments for Sustainable Regional Development,” International Journal Water, 1, 1 (2000). 50 I observed such practices in neighborhoods in Neuquén, Patagonia, in 1999. 51 The meaning of the terms “modernization” and “globalization” constitutes contested territory, of course. Suffice it to say that I understand by these terms certain approaches to the generation of goods for human beings that are dependent on a certain complex of techniques and tools such as capital, synthetic ingredients (such as pesticides and fertilizers), reliance on

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Roberto P. Guimarães speaks of environmentalism in the last fifty years as a form of “resistance to the modernity ‘of consumerism’.” Guimarães is careful to point out, however, that it is not a question of joining or not joining in the processes of modernization, but, rather, of deciding “which sort of insertion [into the globalized economy] is convenient to us, which sort of insertion allows us to take control of growth on a national level and which sort of insertion allows us to maintain our cultural identity, social cohesion and environmental integrity in our countries.”52 Toledo, similarly, points out that “in Mexico, as in the rest of the world, rural communities are permanently under siege by the destructive forces of a ‘modernizing development’ (based on the destruction of nature and of the community and the consecration of the individualist interest) …”53 Consequently, Toledo includes selfsufficiency in his description of the nine principles that may lead to sustainability in campesino and indigenous communities.54 Insofar as, according to Toledo’s analysis, what is threatened by unsustainable practices is the human community as well as their environment (and not just a separable entity called the “natural environment”), a sophisticated strategy of resistance to shield both human beings and their environments to external domination, and an innovative approach aimed at autonomy, are called for. In agreement with Leff and Toledo, David Barkin shows that in the rural areas of Mexico biodiversity and sustainability of the natural environment are directly dependent on the degree of autonomy of communities of indigenous people and other campesinos. Consequently, he proposes that “it may be possible and necessary to promote a new form of local autonomy: a social structure that allows people to rebuild their rural societies, produce goods and services in a sustainable fashion while expanding the environmental stewardship services they have always provided.”55 The Environmental Ethic of Community, Resistance and Autonomy Latin America While in some senses the conditions generating attitudes toward the environment that favor sustainability in Latin America and in the North are similar, in other the demand of remote markets, introduction of exotic (even genetically modified) species, large-scale irrigation, absenteeist property management, and so on. 52 Roberto P. Guimarães, “Aspectos Políticos y Éticos de la Sustentabilidad y su Significado para la Formulación de Políticas de Desarrollo,” Persona y Sociedad, 13, 1 (1999), pp. 157–83, emphases added, p. 160. 53 Victor M. Toledo, “Principios Etnoecológicos para el Desarrollo Sustentable de Comunidades Campesinas e Indígenas,” in Documentos Red Latino Americana y Caribeña de Ecología Social ; reproduced with modifications from Temas Clave, CLAES, 4 (August 1996), p. 2. 54 Toledo, “Principios,” in Documentos, p. 1. Other principles listed by Toledo include diversity, equity and economic justice, as well as the integration of practices with landscape units and natural cycles. 55 David Barkin, “Sustainability: The Political Economy of Autonomous Development,” Organization and Environment, 11, 1 (March 1998), pp. 5–32, p. 1.

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respects they are not. A majority of the populations of the North have been subjected to increasing levels of contaminants, and have been deprived of access to relatively untouched natural spaces, just as Latin American populations. Nonetheless, with the exception of Native peoples, certain visible minorities and impoverished sectors, people of the North have not had certain crucial experiences that people in Latin America have: the expropriation and exploitation of ancestral lands, on which they relied for their livelihood; the sudden exposure to the full force of global markets with no effective tools to counter the impacts; subjection to the full intensity of industrial contaminants with no, or very limited, legal restrictions enforced; or the experience of the hazards of rapid urban growth unsupported by adequate infrastructure and regulations. These facts explain why, to some Latin Americans, the degradation in their natural environment seems not so much a result of anthropocentrism (as some might suppose) as the consequence of the actions and attitudes of particular wellpositioned individuals and corporations, who fail to consider the effects of their actions on the human-environmental communities affected. So, even if there are ethicists and activists in Latin America that echo the debates, current in the North, between anthropocentrists and non-anthropocentrists, or between individualist and holist ethics, the focus often, as we have seen, is elsewhere. People from Native as well as of other environmentally stressed sectors of society, ranging from the Mapuche of southern Patagonia to the Zapatistas of Chiapas, from the extractivists of Amazonia to farm workers in northern Mexico, have declared the importance of maintaining their identities as members of particular communities, the rightness of resistance, and the urgency of recovering their autonomy in the face of the degradation of their natural environments. I shall not claim that the themes of community, resistance and autonomy are exhaustive of environmental ethics in Latin America, but they represent it in an important way and may be said to be characteristic of it. So, if we compare the Latin American environmental discourse surveyed with its northern counterpart, we can observe certain important differences. As noted, community often is defined as inclusive of the natural environment in which people traditionally live and find their livelihoods. Consequently, rather than a concern for the natural environment as distinct from human beings, value is attributed to hybrid communities made up of both human beings and their environments.56 Instead of a search for a new ethic to deal with the drastic and ever-accelerating degradation of conditions in their natural environment, we mostly find a reassertion and progressive elaboration of traditional values, favoring precisely the flourishing of the hybrid communities described, and a commitment to resist anything that might undermine the basic constituents of their societies.57 There may be resistance, 56 Edward Butterworth has reminded me that very similar ways of thinking developed in the interior of British Columbia in the 1980s, later summed up in the notion of bioregionalism which was conceived as “watershed democracy,” that is, local control of local resources for local uses. 57 I am indebted to Barkin, correspondence (13 February 2002), for ways of expressing these ideas here.

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for example, to giving a purely utilitarian market value to the natural environment (or to the people who inhabit it). Resistance may be directed against both corporate and state representatives, who, committed to unlimited growth in profits or revenues, seem not to understand the complexities of hybrid human-environment spaces, and thereby threaten their communities. Moreover, instead of singling out the protection of species, or ecosystems, or landscapes as the primary aim of environmental ethics and morality, as is common in the mainstream Northern context, we find that the overall objective may be strengthening the community’s autonomy and self-sufficiency over against outside forces, represented by large-scale commercial or government entities. The autonomy pursued tends to be such as would allow for the continued flourishing of the longstanding mixed ecologies in which people live (or in which they lived until recently). An environmental ethic is expressed through a way of life or practice, which directly or indirectly takes into consideration the natural environment or certain parts of it.58 So, insofar as I have described a way of life that values the natural environment qua crucial component of hybrid (human-environmental) communities, we can speak of an environmental ethic. Moreover, insofar as the societies under discussion seek to resist the erosion of this value, and hold as an objective the autonomy and flourishing of their hybrid communities, we may think of this as an environmental ethic with a certain complexity. Elsewhere If we ask the question whether the type of environmental ethic pointed at by the themes of community, resistance and autonomy has counterparts within a broader, inter-cultural context, we may note that it does find echoes in certain relatively similar communities outside Latin America. In India, for example, there has been a strong reaction to the creation of national parks that exclude the resident people, and resistance to the suppression of indigenous peoples’ traditional forest uses through the intrusion of industrial forestry into their lands.59 The result has been a mobilization for the preservation of local people’s interest in their lands, epitomized by the Chipko women’s movement. Their example has spawned a wider movement 58 As pointed out in above, in Note 1 of this chapter, I distinguish “ethics” from “ethic,” supposing the latter to be a synonym of morality. Moreover, as proposed in Chapter 2, ethics is the study of morality, which itself is constituted by the ways of acting and feeling that are perceived to be normatively loaded in terms of right and wrong, or good and bad. An ethic or morality, moreover, is the result and expression of certain experiences, of the development of particular relationships, and of the dialectic resulting from simultaneous commitment to, and critique of, one’s community’s (at least tacitly) agreed upon values. I understand an environmental ethic or morality as an ethic or morality in the context of the natural environment. 59 Regarding the displacement of resident peoples from areas where parks are to be created see, for example, Shirir R. Raval, “The Gir National Park and the Maldharis: Beyond ‘Setting Aside,’” in P.C. West and S.R. Brechin, Resident Peoples and National Parks: Social dilemmas and strategies in international conservation (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991).

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aptly known as “social ecology,” which precisely propounds the importance of protecting human communities with their environments.60 In the North, of late, there is a new turning-away in theory and action from a search for the prime culprit for environmental degradation (anthropocentrism or individualistic ethics, for example) toward an approach that takes note of the communities that are actors and resisters in the process of environmental degradation. This sort of approach has its theoretical forerunner in Murray Bookchin’s theory of social ecology, which, as noted above, argues that generalized oppressive structures are the culprits of environmental degradation, and not anthropocentrism or individualistic ethics per se.61 More recently this thesis has taken a more concrete form through the focus on environmental justice and environmental racism. As Eugene Hargrove has said, the North American “environmental ethics literature, for the most part, reflects [North American] environmentalist concerns, and these have not included concerns for human welfare.”62 Now, however, there are a number of voices, primarily from minority populations in the U.S., that call for an alliance between those who oppose the oppression of human beings and those that oppose the degradation of the environments that they inhabit.63 Typically people from African-American and Hispanic communities have begun developing practices of resistance to the mostly corporate, entrepreneurial forces that impose environmental burdens jointly on people and land. In California’s Kettleman City, for example, the Latino/a community struggled to prevent the construction of a hazardous waste incinerator; Cesar Chávez’s union fought against the use of DDT and other poisons on table grapes, which were affecting the health of farm workers and their communities; the Madres del Este de Los Angeles fought plans for the placement of an oil pipeline through their community; and the Chicano farmers of Colorado’s San Luis Valley fought the clearcutting of their watershed.64 These struggles are fair reflections of the views held by the Latino/a population, at least in California. This was confirmed by a poll in 2001, which determined that Latino/a people are significantly more concerned about

60 See Sahotra Sarkar, “Restoring Wilderness or Reclaiming Forests?,” in Rothenberg and Ulvaeus, The World and the Wild, pp. 37–55. Obviously, there are theoretical similarities, as well as differences, among the various perspectives represented by the term “social ecology” in Latin America, India and North America. They cannot be disentangled here, though. 61 Murray Bookchin, “What is Social Ecology?,” in M.E. Zimmerman (ed.), Environmental Philosophy: From animal rights to radical ecology (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993); Toward an Ecological Society (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1980). Also of interest in this context is Bryan G. Norton, “Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentrism,” in Pierce and VanDeVeer, People, Penguins and Plastic Trees, pp. 82–92. 62 Eugene Hargrove, “Foreword,” in Laura Westra and Bill E. Lawson (eds), Faces of Environmental Racism, 2nd edn (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), pp. ix–xiii, p. ix. 63 See, for example, Laura Westra and Bill E. Lawson, “Introduction,” in Westra and Lawson, Faces of Environmental Racism, pp. xvii–xxvi, and passim. 64 Robert Melchior Figueroa, “Other Faces: Latinos and Environmental Justice,” in Westra and Lawson, Faces of Environmental Racism, pp. 67–84.

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environmental issues than the rest of the voters in that state. These are the seeds of a wider environmental practice and ethic focused on community. Just as in Latin America and in India, the ethic at issue concerns people-in-their-environment, not human beings considered separate from the environment.66 Given this brief overview, one may say that an environmental ethic focused on the themes of community, resistance and autonomy indeed also has counterparts outside Latin America. Conclusion: Environmental Ethics and the Role of Culture Ethnoecology points toward the importance of a particular kind of knowledge, namely, knowledge of the manner in which people and their natural environments may be integrated in sustainable ways of living. Social ecology argues for the necessity of resisting external domination of human communities and their natural spaces. Liberation/restorative ecology proposes that human beings and nature may come to flourish fully through the restoration of a qualitatively different relationship to each other. Ultimately, in Latin America, spokespersons from the fields of ethnoecology, social ecology and liberation/restorative ecology converge with the perspectives inherent in the practices of many (mostly Native) populations of Latin American societies, ranging from the Mapuche of southern Patagonia to the extractivists and Natives of Amazonia and the Totonac of Mexico. These populations insist on the importance of maintaining their cultural identities as members of particular communities which incorporate the natural environment, as well as human beings, in an important way. They also realize the importance of strategies of resistance, and the urgency of acquiring and maintaining autonomy, in the face of the powerful modernizing and globalizing tendencies of advanced capitalism. The theoretical approaches sampled, as well as the accounts of sustainable practices and belief systems drawn from Latin American populations, point to a model for the generation of sustainability that, through particular ways of living, also entails an implicit environmental ethic of care for the natural environment. What can we learn from this ethic? Perhaps that thinking of the natural environment as distinct from people is the result of privilege and alienation. That is, on the one hand, the habit of thinking of nature as separate from human beings might have to do with the privilege of living at arm’s length from environmental degradation, such that the condition of the natural environment does not constitute a direct, vital concern. On the other hand, it may have to do with psychological alienation from nature. The thought that nature needs to be conceived separately from human beings may 65 See Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates, Environmental Attitudes Among California Voters with a Special Analysis of Environmental Attitudes Among Latino Voters and Voters of Color (Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates, May 2001). 66 Also relevant are the environmental practices and implicit ethics of Native people in North America. See, for example, Dennis Martinez, “First People – Firsthand Knowledge,” Chapter 5.2 in OLIFE, Can We Restore Paradise? , reprinted with changes from International Journal of Ecoforestry, 12, 3 (1997).

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be based on the supposition that nature can be fully itself only if human beings are absent. Coming to see environmental ethics, as well as environmental morality, as a matter of finding our place in the hybrid communities made up of human beings and nature may perhaps lead to a way of living that treads softly on nature wherever it is, be it in the nature reserve, the corn field, or the back-street lane, while, at the same time, perceiving nature as our home. On the view outlined, sustainable ways of living are not determined simply by propitious physical or socio-economic conditions, nor are they guaranteed to arise or be maintained even if some individuals are personally committed to naturerespectful ethical principles. Rather, while physical and socio-economic conditions are relevant factors, as is the presence of individuals with a definite commitment to act on the basis of a nature-respectful conception of morality, neither may be sufficient in the factors, as is the presence of individuals with a definite commitment to act on the basis of a nature-respectful conception of morality, but neither may be sufficient in the presence of contemporary pressures from modernizing and globalizing forces. The working hypothesis that I obtain from this analysis is that certain cultural matrices, which guide everyday life and integrate nature and human beings in a community, are the crucial conditions for sustainability.67 In this sense, the approaches and cases from Latin America sampled point toward feasible models for the development of environmental morality and environmental ethics that also may be of relevance in our own Northern societies.68

67 This points toward the importance of the exploration of what we may call “cultures of nature,” that is, patterns of thought and ways of acting that allow the inherent qualities of natural things to flourish. See Chapter 9. 68 I am indebted to numerous correspondents from Latin America and Spain who made suggestions on avenues to explore the topic of this chapter. For illuminating comments, I am indebted to Felipe Mansilla, Henri Acselrad, Eduardo Gudynas, Alan Holland, two anonymous referees of Environmental Values, and especially to David Barkin, Víctor Toledo and Antonio Elizalde. I also thank Edward Butterworth for an attentive reading of this text and diverse suggestions on how to improve it. Environment and Culture in Latin America: Community, Autonomy and Resistance is a significantly modified version of two papers: “Themes in Latin American Environmental Ethics: Community, Resistance and Autonomy,” Environmental Values 13 (2), (May 2004), 223–42; and “Sustainability, Culture and Ethics: Models from Latin America,” Ethics, Place and Environment, Vol. 8, No. 2 (June 2005), 223–34.

PART II Appreciating Nature In Part I, the general focus was on environmental ethics, the significance of the encounter with nature for the development of environmental conscience, the possibilities for environmental ethics at the workplace, and on models of sustainability from Latin America. In Part II, we explore various ways in which the encounter with nature through its aesthetic appreciation may contribute to an environmentally aware and benign culture. Chapter 5 is intended to lay out a general schema for aesthetic appreciation of nature. In it I propose that, since what is really important in aesthetic appreciation is to closely attend to things and to do so in non-instrumental ways, any story or account that facilitates our attention to natural things for themselves is relevant. Consequently non-scientific accounts may function as appropriately as scientific accounts to guide us in the aesthetic appreciation of nature. Although each of the three chapters that follow have their own topic area, they may also be seen as applications of the general principle developed in Chapter 5. In Chapter 6, I explore an understanding of the wandering practice of the Japanese haiku poet Bashō. This poet is known for his aesthetic sensitivity to plants, birds, landscapes, and nature in general. Bashō laid out the basis of an aesthetics of wandering in nature that directly implicates the cultural background of his time and society. In this way he sets an example of the way in which the encounter with nature can be generative of new aesthetic perceptions, rendered through his poems and prose writing, while at the same time showing how a certain cultural background can prepare us for the appreciation of the natural environment that we may encounter. Chapters 7 and 8 both contain personal reflections on the aesthetic encounter with cultural goods that have a direct relation with the natural spaces that surround them. I include them here as illustrations of the idea that culture and nature are not necessarily antagonistic to each other, and that the aesthetic appreciation of cultural goods located out of doors, such as site-specific installations, may contribute to the development of environmental conscience. In Chapter 7, the focus is on sites with indigenous paintings and engravings on rock (rock art), which serve as the occasion for a discussion of how aesthetic appreciation of this kind of cultural phenomenon also is an appreciation of the environing natural landscape. In Chapter 8, I reflect on the idea of reclaiming mining sites (or other environmentally degraded sites) by turning them into site-specific installations that proclaim the difference between the natural and the artefactual. The notion that cultural goods may lead us toward an appreciation of and respect for natural goods, as has been discussed in the chapters of this part of the book leads us into the third part of the book which is focused more directly on nature and culture.

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Chapter 5

Aesthetic Appreciation and the Many Stories about Nature Until recently, most reflection on the natural environment has been in environmental ethics, while environmental aesthetics has been relatively neglected. A strong case can be made, however, for the view that our attitudes toward the natural environment largely are modulated by way of our capacity for appreciation of nature, which speaks for the importance of environmental aesthetics. Fortunately, environmental aesthetics has seen considerable development in the last twenty years.1 Although there is a great variety of views among those who have written in this area of research, the claim that natural science (and its common-sense predecessors and analogs2) does or should provide the primary account or story informing our aesthetic appreciation of nature,3 has received most of the attention.4 In this chapter I show that there are important problems with this claim. I propose that there are good reasons for believing that aesthetic appreciation does and should benefit from

1 See, for example, the special issue on environmental aesthetics of Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 56, 2 (Spring 1998), edited by Arnold Berleant and Allen Carlson, Chapters 8, 9, 10, 11 and 13 of which are reprinted in Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant, The Aesthetics of Natural Environments (Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2004). See, moreover, the “Symposium: Natural Aesthetics,” edited by Stan Godlovitch, Journal of Aesthetic Education, 33, 3 (Fall 1999), Chapter 12 of which also is reprinted in Carlson and Berleant. Also see Martin Seel, Eine Ästhetik der Natur (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1996); Martin Seel, “Ästhetische Argumente in der Ethik der Natur,” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 39 (1991), pp. 901–13 (English trans. “Aesthetic Arguments in the Ethics of Nature,” Thesis Eleven, 32 (1992), pp. 76–90); and Gernot Böhme, “An Aesthetic Theory of Nature: An Interim Report,” Thesis Eleven, 31 (1992), pp. 90–102. 2 In the following I will focus on the role that Carlson grants scientific knowledge, largely leaving aside the function of “its predecessors and analogs,” since Carlson only grants the latter a “second-best” role in appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature. In any case, to suppose that common sense endorses scientific approaches to the aesthetic appreciation of natural phenomena is problematic since what is “common sense” to people from one society may not make any sense at all to people from another. 3 I here adopt Carlson’s use of the term “story” as a neutral way of making reference to the diverse accounts that might guide our aesthetic appreciation. This is not to denote any prejudice either in favor of “stories” in the literary sense nor against unadorned, prose scientific reporting. 4 Especially see Allen Carlson, Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), Chapter 4 of which is reprinted in Carlson and Berleant, Aesthetics of Natural Environments, as Chapter 12.

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a great many diverse stories, as gathered by people from a great variety of walks of life and cultures.5 In the following, I begin by laying out the case for taking our cue from natural science in our aesthetic appreciation of nature. Next, I point out problems with respect to this approach. After this, I make the case for a plurality of stories as the basis for aesthetic appreciation, and conclude that such an approach may well be more effective in drawing considerate attention to nature’s diverse splendors. The Case for the Priority of the Scientific Story Allen Carlson has proposed that aesthetic appreciation involves a kind of “sizing up,”6 and, hence, requires knowledge of the thing to be appreciated. So, appreciation of works from the contemporary art scene would be malfounded if, out of ignorance, they were appreciated as works from the Renaissance are, since the respective works are intended to be differently appreciated. Carlson proposes that the remedy for this situation is art history, since it gives us insight into the various aims and intentions presumably expressed in the diversity of artworks. In the case of nature, though, aesthetic appreciation cannot be based on an understanding of aims and intentions expressed since nature is not the result of artistic design. To understand what it is to appreciate nature aesthetically, Carlson asks us to consider certain avant-garde and anti-art works, such as Jackson Pollock’s dripped paintings, or chance poetry, which, similarly to the natural world, are not the result of artistic design. Carlson’s suggestion is that in those cases, as well as in the case of nature, the object of our aesthetic appreciation is the order exhibited.7 In the case of these avant-garde and anti-art works, our appreciation is guided by knowledge of “the story” behind the artwork, that is, by an account of how the artist 5 In this chapter I focus on Carlson’s “Appreciating Art and Appreciating Nature,” in Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (eds), Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 199–227, reprinted in Carlson’s Aesthetics and the Environment, pp. 102–25. Other relevant discussions of aesthetic appreciation of nature include Noël Carroll’s “On Being Moved by Nature: Between Religion and Natural History,” also reprinted in Carlson and Berleant, Aesthetics of Natural Environments, as Chapter 4, and Malcolm Budd, “The Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature,” British Journal of Aesthetics, 36, 3 (July 1996), pp. 207–22. Carrol shares my concern with alternative (natural science– independent) bases for the appreciation of nature by developing an account that focuses on our capacity to become emotionally moved by nature. Budd’s discussion is primarily directed at an analysis of what is meant by the aesthetic appreciation of nature, while leaving open the cognitive basis on which one may come to this appreciation. Since these papers are only peripherally relevant to my concerns I will not discuss them here further. 6 See, for example, Allen Carlson, “Nature, Aesthetic Appreciation, and Knowledge,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 53, 4 (Fall 1995), p. 396 and passim. 7 As Tony Berger (in correspondence, 13 February 2006) has pointed out, if we are going to appreciate nature for what it is, we also need to be able to appreciate the lack of order, in the sense of the lack of a regular pattern, in many natural phenomena. Berger’s point is worth reflecting on since it indicates that Carlson probably has something more general in mind than regularity in pattern when he makes reference to order.

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has chosen a particular technique or circumstance to generate the order appreciable in the work. Carlson proposes that in the case of nature we analogously do and should look for the story behind its generation, and that the proper story in this case is provided by natural science (or, less ideally, by its common-sense predecessors and analogues). He concludes that, consequently, for proper aesthetic appreciation of nature we should have scientific knowledge of its etiology. In the following section I identify problems with three aspects of Carlson’s proposal. First, I question the supposition that knowing the etiology either of an artwork or of an aspect of nature is necessary or sufficient for their respective aesthetic appreciation. Second, I point out that in many cases scientific knowledge may be neutral, or even harmful, for our aesthetic appreciation of nature, because it directs our attention to the theoretical level and the general case, diverting us from the personal level and the particular case. Third, I note that importing the categories of science into aesthetic appreciation of nature may constitute a hindrance to our capacity for discovery, through aesthetic appreciation, of what nature is. Problems Regarding Etiology