Talk:Environmental ethics

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Anyone think that the opening paragraph is too long and off the point? Maybe the list of examples of ethical decisions should be elsewhere along with the reference to the opinions of Alan Marshall.

Muxxa 07:50, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A strict Darwinian survival of the fittest worldview is deterministic. Success is by definition survival and proliferation and continued consumption. Extinction is the rightful fate of the weak and unfit, whether that extinction be the rainforest at the hands of humanity or humanity as a result of over consumption. An environmental ethic must grapple with this stark reality. An anthropocentric humanism seems the only way out. Humanity must be felt to have the capability to overcome biology or action in the environmental realm is impossible. We must be seen as the species with the adaptive capability to resist our nature, which is of course efficient consumption. If not, the “environmentalist” would be forced to argue that our best course is to accelerate fossil fuel consumption, rainforest destruction, etc in order to bring about scarcity which is the only pressure that will produce the adaptation we supposedly want. One must argue that humanity has a privileged status. Axiomatically, we must have the potential to act; which means to resist our fundamental biological imperatives. In other word, we must view humanity as super-natural. Doesn't this have to be addressed as a starting point of an environmental ethic.

jim field

If I may comment on this argument, I do not think that this is the starting point of environmental ethics. I think that there is importance in determining what precisely are our fundamental biological imperatives. In this argument it states that We must be seen as the species with the adaptive capability to resist our nature, which is of course efficient consumption, I find this problematic for several reasons, first is the collective nature with which it addresses unequal effects on nature, humanity is a collective of all individuals and their adaptivity is collective, not dependent on the actions of individuals or cultural groups, for example, the Iroquois Confederacy and the passenger pigeon coexisted, however, it was Euroamericans who engaged in its extermination. This leads to the second difficulty which is what is adaptive, efficiency is too general a term, I believe, to adequately describe successful evolutionary strategies.L Hamm 02:31, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

L Hamm, I appreciate your response and would appreciate your further input in that my ideas here are in a state of development and self-critic.

I mean consumption here in the sense that a lion consumes, as she is a predator. A lion is successful in the Darwinian sense if she reproduces. More particularly she in successful if she reproduces at rates greater than her competitors. Her reproduction is fundamentally dependant on her capability as a predator. This is evident in the numerous adaptations that she possesses that function to make her a capable predator (speed, strength of jaw, claws, etc). These adaptations exist of course only because they serve her selective advantage. Therefore, her selective advantage is her capability to predate.

Lions have restricted resources in that they are carnivores. A grizzly bear has the ability to sustain itself with both animal and plant resources. This is one of her selective advantages.

The human species is an omnivore, which is one of her advantages. Her abilities go far beyond this of course. Humanity has displayed many and varied behaviors that have served to support her proliferation. Here is where I introduce the term consumption as opposed to one form of consumption, namely predation. The utilization of clothing and the construction of shelter for example clearly represent selective advantage that the human species has used to succeed. The construction of shelter results in the utilization of recourses (e.g. trees). This is only indirectly related to the acquisition of food. And yet it clearly supports that project and is therefore an element of humanity’s selective advantage. Consumption therefore refers to the sum of the activities of a species as it utilizes the recourses of the environment available to it.

Bears consume salmon, berries and perhaps a small amount of land resource for dens, etc. This is a bear’s biologic imperative in that this is what bears do and it is what “survival of the fittest” has given them. Perusing this behavior defines a bear as a bear. It is of course absurd to argue that a bear should not eat salmon for whatever reason one might purpose. It is a bear’s biologic imperative to consume salmon to the degree that supports its success.

Humanity has displayed the ability to inhabit many (perhaps all) environments of the ecosphere. One can certainly pick out individual characteristics that have given humanity particular advantage. Obvious examples are upright posture or the prehensile thumb. But in a broad sense, or to use your word a collective sense, it is humanity's ability to adapt to the various available environments of the ecosphere that has lead to her collective success. And what does humanity do in those environments? She produces, she proliferates, and she consumes. This is what I mean when I say that humanity’s efficient consumption is the capability that has been selected for by the ecosystem itself. And it is this advantage that is responsible for humanity’s fantastic success. It is what we are as a species and therefore it is our biologic imperative.

I do not use the term success in an ethical or a moral sense. Here it is use in a Darwinian sense. We are, for better or worse, the most successful species the ecosystem has produced. We are a natural product of that ecosystem. We play by the rules of that ecosystem and we have succeeded by those rules. And we may proceed to self destruction by those rules as well.

This is the challenge in formulating an environmental ethic.

An environmental ethic is a statement of principals, of axiomatic assumptions that form the foundation of the environmental project. An environmental ethic does not state our hopes. It’s not enough to want a model of sustainability to succeed over a model of efficient consumption. We need to propose some way in which that might actually happen. Its not enough to want the "Iroquois" to have succeeded over the "euro Americans". As it happened, it didn’t turn out that way. Its not enough to idealize a pastoral harmony between spiritually attuned humans and nature. Particularly when human biological behavior has been so consistent over the past 100,000 years and Nature herself has rewarded us with ever increase in numbers.

In order to move from growth to sustainability, would we not have to behave in a way so fundamentally different from our nature that it would be “unnatural”? Our behavior throughout the history of our species is at least habit and I have termed it “biologic imperative”. Can we stop? What gives us the faith that we have the capability to stop? Do we not have to propose a capability beyond our nature (i.e. supernatural)? From an environmental stand point, what is success? Clearly it is not the same as Darwinian “success”. Don’t we have to stop succeeding in a Darwinian sense in order to succeed in an environmental sense? But isn’t Darwin describing how the world actually is?

Sorry for the diatribe but I find these ideas hard to get past. I’m looking for a vigorous critic.

Jim Field

Jim, I appreciate your framing your ideas here, I have several questions. There are certain elements of your surmise of which I am skeptical. For example: "A lion is successful in the Darwinian sense if she reproduces. More particularly she is successful if she reproduces at rates greater than her competitors. Her reproduction is fundamentally dependant on her capability as a predator. This is evident in the numerous adaptations that she possesses that function to make her a capable predator (speed, strength of jaw, claws, etc)." This is certainly an attractive argument, the features of a species are produced by natural selection and are therefore necessary and important for present Darwinian success. But this would ignore the phylogeny of the species, and its sociobiology. A lion that claims and holds all the game for itself from all comers will be ousted from the pride. Cooperative sociobiology (or behavioral ecology as it has come to be termed) shapes interspecies and intraspecies interactions.

These social systems, like morphological adaptations, exist within a community of populations, prey, predator and otherwise, any adaptation if it is not quickly countered (ironically) can lead the death of the predators population, as it kills off far more prey than can be replenished. The 'bottom line' in natural selection is affected by history of the creature, the reproductive time, the community in which it exists, etc. Maximum efficiency in reproduction does not necessarily make an evolutionarily stable strategy - but could easily lead to population collapse within the lifetime of a parent.

You wrote: "But in a broad sense, or to use your word a collective sense, it is humanity's ability to adapt to the various available environments of the ecosphere that has lead to her collective success. And what does humanity do in those environments? She produces, she proliferates, and she consumes. This is what I mean when I say that humanity’s efficient consumption is the capability that has been selected for by the ecosystem itself. And it is this advantage that is responsible for humanity’s fantastic success. It is what we are as a species and therefore it is our biologic imperative."

I find that speaking of what 'humanity do[es]' is often a distraction - environmental ethics, I believe, should be concerned with all the myriad ways that work, rather than identifying the our own failings. People speak of 'we' and 'humanity' the same way, however, we are not humanity, or decisions are not the decisions of humanity, and it is hubris to say so.

It seems that you are positing that in order to reduce our impact to a sustainable level we (meaning all human beings) must learn to control their biologic imperative? Is that so?

Thank you. L Hamm 20:39, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Environmental philosophy

"Environmental philosophy" redirects to this article, which starts out suggesting that environmental philosophy and environmental ethics are the same thing. However, the second full paragraph of the article contradicts that: "Environmental ethics is properly but a sub-section of environmental philosophy, which includes..." I agree that environmental ethics are a sub-set of environmentally-related philosophy, so I'd like to take out the "or environmental philosophy" clause in the lead sentence, but I don't know what we should do about the redirect. Schi 16:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I've just come across the same issue with the article. You could have turned the environmental philosophy redirect into a stub article, or put it up in Articles for Deletion (WP:AfD). It's a shame no one has fixed this sooner. —Pengo 22:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)