Kevin's Watch

Although arguably finding a deontoecological(!) niche in various "pagan" religions, environmental ethics are hard to place in the ethos of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, or in Kantian or utilitarian theories, or wherever. By this I mean, "The ecosystem ought not be destroyed," or some similar claim, appears to have no grounding in any moral doctrine or worldview or whatever, apart from the divinity-of-the-natural perspectives of certain faith traditions--or in the raw intuitions of some philosophers.

One way to elicit such an intuition in oneself is to imagine (with Mary Midgley, IIRC) an island with one human on it, a human who is about to escape the island. Now, there are not even any animals on it, and the plants are not rare, existing on nearby outcroppings too. So if the escaping human wantonly destroys the place, does he do something wrong? He harms no one, doesn't lose resources on the island, might even be expressing "revenge" for his time trapped there.

I think the man would be doing something wrong, but why I will not say, except to call to mind Thomas Covenant's discourse on the concept of "scenery."

Now, if you have such an intuition, does that indicate that one is not egoistical, or something along such a line? Suppose we could say that there is some independent, general moral fact or rule or principle, "Egoism is an incorrect attitude." Now it would not be too many steps, perchance, to, "Actions proving themselves to be non-egoistically motivated, have intrinsic moral value for that reason," even if not absolutely overriding value, still, something. So it could be that being able to not destroy the environment, or acting so as not to destroy it, or whatever, based on "respect for" nature/the land/the ecosystem/environment, is a way to generally improve one's moral character, to lead it from the path of destruction (so to say) and self-absorption/narcissism. Now, is this to say that the value of the environment is merely instrumental to generic moral development? No, we are saying that the intrinsic value of this (of space and time themselves, so to speak?) is just a very convenient source of appreciation for non-egoistic values, so that the source is of both instrumental *and* intrinsic worth.

I think the environment is only (or mainly) valuable in as much as it produced sentient/intelligent creatures and sustains us. I think every single person who lives in a home and not in a tree really feels the same way (if they were honest), and if they espouse anything differently, they're a hypocrite living a lie. If the space where your house sits is more valuable in itself (as part of nature) than as your homesite, then you couldn't possibly justify chopping down nature in order to live there.

Following this line of reasoning, I think when people champion the environment over man's needs, they're always talking about people other than themselves, and environmental ethics which place very little constraints upon their own lifestyles. It's easy to tell the people in South America they shouldn't chop down the rain forest, because you don't need that space and those resources to live. As a (comparatively) rich, pampered American living in urban centers and driving on paved over land, to tell impoverished people not to deforest their own land is the height of hypocrisy and elitism.

The environment is a resource. It's property. It's ours. It will all pass away in time. Its truest, greatest purpose is to enable us to be here long enough to get to the point when we can leave. All our ethics should be viewed through that lens: the needs of the sole example of intelligent life in the known universe. We're infinitely more valuable than this doomed environment.

Technically, Z is right. But I still feel as though it has an intrinsic value of its own, vis-à-vis that scenery comment.

--A

It is in the nature of people to know that they should do things but that when it gets down it it they often don't. Usually due to selfishness. If we let this behavior convince us that we really needn't do those things, then we'd be hard pressed to find anything left that we should do. Lack of resolve isn't a comment on what we should do, but on our ability to do it. Selfishness and greed aren't arguments, they're excuses.

I tend to think of it in terms of "the world being better." Is the world better off for having regions of natural beauty etc?

Yes.

Is that a subjective judgement based on personal bias?

Also yes.

Since I am however, (subjectively) right, then we have to preserve them.

--A

Objectively, bio-diversity is what makes life resilient to catastrophe.

I happen to think that valuing sustainable ecology is highly utilitarian as an ethos, as well as being in the rational self interest of mankind.

Both good points.

--A

On the other hand, a red flag in any discussion of ethics or morality is "I am obviously more valuable than ...".

Doc Hexnihilo wrote:I happen to think that valuing sustainable ecology is highly utilitarian as an ethos, as well as being in the rational self interest of mankind.

Agreed.
And there is some research coming out that "being in nature" [hippy-dippy as it sounds] is strongly physio and psychologically beneficial in numerous ways...it's not "only" aesthetic/abstract/philosophical/preferential.

wayfriend wrote:On the other hand, a red flag in any discussion of ethics or morality is "I am obviously more valuable than ...".

Thing is, to myself, I am obviously more valuable than almost anything.

--A

Avatar wrote:I tend to think of it in terms of "the world being better." Is the world better off for having regions of natural beauty etc?

Yes.

Is that a subjective judgement based on personal bias?

Also yes.

Since I am however, (subjectively) right, then we have to preserve them.

--A

At least you recognize it's subjective. In other words (well, WF's words), "selfish." As you've pointed out many times, the universe doesn't give a damn. So there is no intrinsic value in regions of beauty (not unless Deutsche is right that beauty is objective).

I'd like to point out that I wasn't arguing from a position of selfishness or greed, but instead pointing out the hypocrisy and contradiction in those who espouse an "intrinsically valuable" world view but then take as much as they can from the world for themselves--indeed, more than most humans on the planet. It's only an argument for my position in as much as it's a rebuttal/criticism of the opposite position.

On that basis, I could agree that selfishness is a red flag for a moral system, but I see the selfishness in advocating environmental standards for everyone else that you don't apply to yourself. That's the red flag that the moral system is bullshit. It's like rich people criticizing greed and consumerism. You first, Al Gore.

I do not think that arguments for the sake of Humanity are selfish. By definition, they extend beyond me by a factor of 6 or 7 billion. I probably won't be around when we leave the planet, so it's absurd to call my position selfish.

And it's not even humanity that's at stake, but the reasoning capacity of humanity, which allows humans to transcend their own humanity. If there is anything left of the earth once the earth is gone, it will be due to our efforts. If there is anything that will be saved, we will be the Saviors. Mankind will not destroy the environment, Nature will. That makes us inherently more valuable than anything else on the earth, as the agents who will play whatever Savior role that is possible for the genetic material of our environment.

Environmentalism is like that quote from Fight Club ... it's just polishing the brass on the Titanic. What we need are lifeboats, not the deification of a sinking ship.

Avatar wrote:Technically, Z is right. But I still feel as though it has an intrinsic value of its own, vis-à-vis that scenery comment.

--A

The "scenery" point was made by an author who sold millions of books, all printed on the corpses of 1000s of trees. In other words, it was bullshit. He got rich selling that lie to us. A man who made his fortune on a whole forest worth of dead trees telling us we should feel sorry for trees, that there is something magical just beyond their surface, if we only had the eyes to see it. This is just more of the hypocrisy and contradiction I was talking about. It's fantasy, people! Literally! The only magic is in our heads, our brains, our reason. That's what gets us out of Plato's Cave into reality. That's what lets us peer beyond the surface of things. Not a touchy-feeling Healthsense, but our own power of reason.

Avatar wrote:Thing is, to myself, I am obviously more valuable than almost anything.

Assuredly.

But to the Earth, trees, bees, and nematodes are all more essential than humans are.

And humans are the only species to have gamed Mother Nature. With our intelligence, we have side-stepped the natural forces that would have kept any other species in check. You don't have to be a human-hater to recognize that we've broken the system. Balance was lost before we knew why balance is worth preserving. If we've taken it upon ourselves to usurp Mother N for rule of the Earth, then ethically as we enjoy the benefits we should take on responsibility for the management.

Zarathustra wrote:The "scenery" point was made by an author who sold millions of books, all printed on the corpses of 1000s of trees. In other words, it was bullshit. He got rich selling that lie to us.

Just because it's hypocritical doesn't make it a lie. And it wasn't the comment that convinced me of it, I just found it an apt articulation of the thought/belief.

--A

wayfriend wrote:

Avatar wrote:Thing is, to myself, I am obviously more valuable than almost anything.

Assuredly.

But to the Earth, trees, bees, and nematodes are all more essential than humans are.

And humans are the only species to have gamed Mother Nature. With our intelligence, we have side-stepped the natural forces that would have kept any other species in check. You don't have to be a human-hater to recognize that we've broken the system. Balance was lost before we knew why balance is worth preserving. If we've taken it upon ourselves to usurp Mother N for rule of the Earth, then ethically as we enjoy the benefits we should take on responsibility for the management.

Absolutely false. As I've already pointed out, if anything on earth has a chance of surviving the death of earth, it's because of us. That includes the bees and trees. And the only species who has a chance of averting asteroids, stopping forest fires, rescuing animals from extinction, preserving genetic material, etc., is us. That makes us the most important species on earth.

Nor have we side-stepped natural forces that would keep us in check. Natural selection is still in play. We could be wiped out tomorrow by any number of natural causes. We haven't usurped, we've adapted, just like all other species. The earth could easily support 100 billion humans. Natural forces are most certainly keeping us in check. Go tell your theory to starving children in Africa and see how they think of it. They haven't usurped anything.

We are part of mother nature. We are not outside of it. Our contribution is just as natural as a beaver's dam. We are nature's victory unto itself, not its usurper. We are the universe coming to life, becoming sentient and intelligent. Your dichotomy between us and world is false. Self-imposed alienation.

Respect for the environment/ecosystem/w/e can assume a non-geocentric form. Suppose, 10,000 years or so from now, a human starship finds a planet with a lot of, IDK, let's call it "inaccessium," very useful for some reason (maybe it's dark antimatter or whatever, powers ships?). But to get the inaccessium, a huge, unusual mountain range has to be carved up, and a number of lichen species wiped out, or something. There are no sentient natives, though, neither blue nor other-colored in skin tone. Surely not ones of which we could create neurosymbiotic avatars... Anyway, what is or is not the moral value of destroying the lichenous mountains, to grasp at the inaccessium?

Generally, I think the issue is one over the morality of destructiveness simpliciter. Entropic/destructive/energy-subtractive acts have to be done, in the sense that all actions use energy. So we might ask, then, rather, about the rate or speed of increasing entropy: ought we to act in whichever way least increases entropy? Then purely destructive action, or action based more on destruction than creation, might be considered wrong all across the board (I'm thinking of the use of certain kinds of weapons, or certain forms of ecological damage inflicted during war--in fact, I'm wondering whether, since the "law of war," such as it is, is an international one, and the environment is the inter-nation in itself, an environmental ethic is more properly an ethic about certain forms of military conduct?).

EDIT: That last parenthetical remark, does not miss the mark at all, historically, since environmental ethics "ascended" a lot, intellectually speaking, during/in connection with the war in Vietnam, which was seen as the ultimate ecocidal war to date, the issue being whether it was virtuous to concentrate a continental level of desolation into a region hardly larger than New York (the state). EDIT 2: In fact I think (and have argued elsewhere) that these circumstances inspired SRD's environmental ethics presentation in the Covenant novels, e.g. the Sunbane/Grim-storms were analogs of defoliants and aerial bombardment of villages during the Vietnam War.

Zarathustra wrote: Nor have we side-stepped natural forces that would keep us in check. Natural selection is still in play.

Perhaps not side-stepped them, but certainly invalidated an awful lot. Absolutely, circumstances can arise which will wipe us out, but they would have to be catastrophic, extinction level events.

--A

Avatar wrote:

Zarathustra wrote: Nor have we side-stepped natural forces that would keep us in check. Natural selection is still in play.

Perhaps not side-stepped them, but certainly invalidated an awful lot. Absolutely, circumstances can arise which will wipe us out, but they would have to be catastrophic, extinction level events.

--A

Yes.
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.
Not that we won't get a pandemic at all. We almost definitely will.
But we'll be able to fight back---even a 5-10% death rate would shock me [though that is still a lot of corpses, panic and tragedy].
But the step up---a manufactured critter that was that deadly---little doubt we could build one [might have already]. Then it's just a choice of whether someone turns it loose or not.

Mig wrote: Anyway, what is or is not the moral value of destroying the lichenous mountains, to grasp at the inaccessium?

I don't see the moral problem here. First, we can cultivate the lichen if we like. It would probably be educational, and maybe useful in other ways, to do so.
Is the aesthetic loss of the mountains a moral issue? It might be---I see morality and aesthetics as interpenetrating to some extent.
But the answer depends on the extent of the necessity for the material.

Tangentially, it's darkly humorous to me how we like to test our systems---especially our moral ones---to destruction with challenges like this, and then conclude something about the strength/value/worth of the system depending on the outcome. [[a laughter that is definitely aimed at myself, too. Definitely have invested time/effort peering at the extremes.]]
But if we also tested in the every day/ordinary...included how people do act in reality...we'd find numerous critical failures long before we reach any rock/hard place in the system.
It's not much different from the fact that we freak the hell out about minor flaws in cars, or baby-seat imperfections...when the truth is that the vast majority of injuries and deaths are because people are idiots in multiple ways.
Every moral system fails [and every one will always fail, until we have perfect knowledge and control, and maybe even then] at the extremes...
so what?
The real problem is that it's pretty easy to create good moral systems that works for almost everyone almost all the time...there are probably dozens of them around right now...people just won't follow them.
Someone...maybe Z...said somewhere recently that people hardly ever think they're being "evil."
I doubt it.
I think quite a lot of people know quite a lot of the time that they're doing bad.