Environmental ethics

[wayfriend]

Though I'm not sure invalidated applies to many---we've simply moved them up to a different level/stage.
For example---I think at this point it is unlikely in the extreme that a natural pandemic will arise that can and will wipe out 30-60% of people, like the plague did to Europe.

Well, my original comment was more along the lines of natural balance. When there are too many predators, in nature they are kept in check by a lack of resources. But we blew passed that one when we started farming and raising livestock. When there are too many of anything in one place, in nature the saturation of their own excreta will keep things in check. We blew passed that one with technology, too. We still have limits, but they are way beyond what they would be if we didn't have technology. It hasn't kept us in check yet.

But, speaking of pandemics, you seem to be pointing out that we're still mortal, that there are still things that can kill us. Which is a bit different but related thought. And, you have to admit, technology is a factor here, allowing us to survive what would otherwise kill us. We're already looking at 'immortality' as something coming down the road pretty soon.

But, either way, it's all like a four wheel drive truck: we can drive a lot farther into the woods before we get stuck. That is, we've extended what we can tolerate without being culled much farther than nature would have selected if left to it's own devices. We've "usurped" nature's prerogative to trim the overpopulated.

I think that gives us some responsibility for the management of the planet. You can't give nature the finger sometimes, and then still expect it to clean up after you other times.

[Vraith]

I think that gives us some responsibility for the management of the planet. You can't give nature the finger sometimes, and then still expect it to clean up after you other times.

Oh, yes. I agree with such even if I got off-track into other topics/issues.
There are many good reasons for responsible management, and they come from a variety of fields/genre.
If I were going to go on at length with this, for instance [which I'm not]---
There are two ethical sub-categories that matter:
Who are you killing [or allowing to be killed] right now?
Who are you causing the death of in the future?
And a couple things that those in the "BUT you wouldn't have what you have now if people hadn't died for it in the past" [ and other nasty contagious related thought streams] ignore:
we know MORE than they did [on every level] so following those rules is stupid. The whole point of learning more----
to not do that dumb shit again.----
we ARE more human than they were. Horrible conditions of almost all kinds are not challenges the best overcome...they are attacks that shred health and damage brains.
There are many other known ones, and no one knows how many unknown ones, for considering environment first.

[Zarathustra]

What's wrong with destroying mountains? They're just creases in the earth's crust. Nature destroys them continuously. We carve through them to make roads. Sure, they're pretty. But they're just rock that used to be at the bottom of the ocean. Nature just made them more convenient to mine.

[Vraith]

Sure, they're pretty.

And sometimes...not all times, but sometimes...prettiness is a good reason for not destroying something.
Prettiness has value [more accurately, prettiness is one thing---among many others---that causes us to envalue things].
Otherwise, why have we been making pretty things since before we were even human?

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

@Everyone but mainly Z, I'm going to concede that nature in itself cannot be destroyed, since the set of natural functions includes the destruction function (which doesn't seem able to take itself as an input on pain of metaphysical absurdity). Thus it is only parts of things in nature, that are destructible. However, it is possible to view e.g. drinking a cup of coffee as "destroying" the coffee in some sense (I will admit to working without a clear definition of "destruction" in mind atm). Or when I move any muscle, for that matter, I "destroy" a bit of matter that burns up into energy used for the movement, or whatever. And so on and on.

So the idea of not destroying aesthetically positive things, is a different one. It depends on an ethic of beauty as the principle in these cases, not the environment. If the entire universe were made up of slimey, odorous, insentient blobs, would such a universe be "beautiful"? But then again beauty is often or always in some beholder's eyes, so one might wonder about the propriety of speaking of a universe beautiful in itself, with no one beholding this from within.

But now anyway to revert back to paragraph one of this subpost, we might speak of "preserving the order of nature," such that we don't destroy a mountain because said mountain contains some sort of ecosystem. However, in principle, humans, for instance, are not confined to a specific ecosystem, and it would be possible to understand destructiveness as natural to us on some or another level (in the global human ecosystem, the destruction function plays a natural role); so if we are preserving our own environment, we will preserve our destructiveness vis-a-vis more restricted environments, and this will be perfectly natural? Perhaps.

[wayfriend]

However, in principle, humans, for instance, are not confined to a specific ecosystem, and it would be possible to understand destructiveness as natural to us on some or another level (in the global human ecosystem, the destruction function plays a natural role); so if we are preserving our own environment, we will preserve our destructiveness vis-a-vis more restricted environments, and this will be perfectly natural? Perhaps.

Destruction is, indeed, natural -- it is in the nature of things that sometimes they are destroyed. But it's important to remember that we don't consider this wrong because, and only because, it is mindless. Mindful destruction is a completely different matter. (A concept that can be illustrated thus: men naturally die from disease, but this doesn't imply it's okay to give someone a fatal disease intentionally.) When a mind directs destruction, then it is destruction with intent, and that changes the ethical equation. Men are supposed to think, and judge, before they act, whereas we have no such requirements of nature.

So, yes: Men have destructiveness, and to the extent that it's natural, we can preserve that. But men also are gifted with forbearance, and with a capacity to preserve, and protect. They are gifted with the intelligence to plan, and predict outcomes. And they are gifted with a sense of beauty. We need to preserve these things about us as well.

[Zarathustra]

I certainly agree that mindful/willful destruction is wrong, but only if it's destruction for the sake of destruction. If it's willful destruction with the aim of doing something constructive, then this problem is avoided. Make no mistake, there are no acts that we perform that avoid willful destruction. Because we're humans living in a universe ruled by entropy, what it means to be human is that ALL of our acts are destructive. We just can't help it. Everything we do increases entropy, even composing symphonies. So when we talk of "preserving," it's an illusion. It's only local. If we look beyond our little bubble of preserved order, we'll see that it's limited and temporary. Our confidence in our power to preserve is just vanity and naivete, in as much as it seduces us into thinking that we can remove ourselves from destruction in order to achieve our ends. In this sense, we're all "guilty," we just have to decide what to do with that power.

I do believe that we should preserve and protect, just not for the sake of "innate worth" of the environment, which is a misleading misconception. Our preservation/protection is only a means to an end: the preservation and protection of the human race, in order that we can extend our preservation/protection efforts beyond this doomed environment. In the long term, my view is more about preservation and protection than the opposing view, because I recognize that the earth will die and I'd like for its valuable parts to be preserved beyond that death. So we're all talking about preservation, I'm just the only one who is looking deep enough into the future for that to mean something in a cosmic sense, rather than merely the earthbound limits of our ancestors who did not understand their fate in this universe, who also deified the earth. The environmental movement has taken on a mythological fervor that--like all myths--obscures reality.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Make no mistake, there are no acts that we perform that avoid willful destruction. Because we're humans living in a universe ruled by entropy, what it means to be human is that ALL of our acts are destructive. We just can't help it. Everything we do increases entropy, even composing symphonies. So when we talk of "preserving," it's an illusion. It's only local. If we look beyond our little bubble of preserved order, we'll see that it's limited and temporary.

Interestingly enough, there is an argument in quantum physics nowadays that seeks to explain entropy as a function of entanglement--the caveat being that entropy is therefore not an absolutely necessary and irreversible feature of the world, since in the long-term, continuing streams of entanglement can, as per the rarities of quantum flux, result in reverses in entropy. I don't have the link at hand and am not sure if the argument is entirely cogent or whatever, but as a possible solution to some kind of relevant problem...