why environmental philosophy? advent of “environmental crisis” in the 1960s: oil spills fouling...
Post on 25-Dec-2015
220 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
Why Environmental Philosophy?
Advent of “environmental crisis” in the 1960s:oil spills fouling beaches and killing shore birds
municipal and industrial offal polluting waterurban smog making city breathing toxic
[2nd wave of the environmental crisis in 1980s6th mass extinction
stratospheric ozone depletionglobal warming / climate change]
Student demand for “relevancy” in university curriculum
Response in the 1970s:1st college course in environmental ethics (1971)1st journal articles in environmental ethics (1973-1975)
(Naess/Norway; Routley/Australia; Rolston/US)Dedicated journal Environmental Ethics (1979)
Exponential growth in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s:Proliferation of college coursesMore journals, anthologies, textbooks, monographsTwo learned societies (ISEE, IAEP)Two-volume A-Z encyclopedia (2009)
Advent of Environmental Philosophy
Seminal Text
Lynn White Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis” (Science 1967)
modern science —> modern technology —> environmental crisis
European origins—Judeo-Christian worldview
Genesis 1:26-28: man created in image of God
given dominon over creationcommanded to multiply and subdue
White’s Seminal Subtext—repeated refrain
Axiom: What we do depends on what we think
Corollary: To change what we do we must change the way we think
?????Environmental crisis = Nature’s way of speaking back:
We thought Nature was constructed like a big machineWe thought God was the cosmic engineerWe thought we were junior engineersOur engineering produced many wonderful benfits
but also many unanticipated consequences
What must be rethought?the nature of Nature
human naturethe relationship between “man” and nature
Thinking about such big questions is the job of philosophers
In the 1970s, the fate of the world seemed to lie in the hands of us philosophers
These are the oldest philosophical questions raised anew
Can Philosophy Save the World?
Rethinking Like a Presocratic
20-century Anglo-American Analytic philosophy concededthese questions to science and assumed they had been
answered definitively. Pursued narrow problems of word-object relations
20th-century Continental philosophy (phenomenology) turnedaway from nature into the structure of human
consciousness
Environmental philosophy = a neo-Presocratic philosophy
The Tasks of Environmental Philosophy
Two primary moments of environmental philosophy
(1) Critique legacy of Western ideas
(2) ReconceiveThe nature of NatureHuman natureThe appropriate relationship between “man” and Nature
White had begun by critiquing Judeo-Christian legacy
What about Greco-Roman legacy?Democritus/Epicurus/Lucretius—atomism/materialismPlato’s otherworldlinessAristotle’s teleological anthropocentrism
What about modern legacy?Bacon’s coercive philosophy of scienceDescartes dualism and dominionismNewton’s mechanismLocke’s concept of private property and property rights
The Critical Moment
The Creative Moment
White offered two suggestions for second moment:(1) Comb the Western legacy for “recessive memes”
Pythagorean/Franciscan panpsychismHeraclitean/Whiteheadian process philosophyAristotelian orgnicism Spinozistic monism
(2) Adopt nature-centered non-Western worldviewsZen Buddhism—control desires, not natureHindu monism and holismDaoismAmerican Indian “all my relations” ideas
The Creative Moment Revisited
Neither historical Western ideas nor borrowed exotic ideas likely to influence the contemporary Zeitgeist and become the prevailing worldview
My preferred approach:Explore the wonderful metaphysical and moral implications of the second scientific revolution
Special and General Theories of RelativityQuantum TheoryEvolutionary BiologyEcology
NeoPresocratic Philosophy for the New Millennium
Environmental Crisis of the 20th century a crisis of ideas
Raises anew the oldest questions of philosophy first posed by the Presocratics:
The nature of Nature
Human nature
The proper relationship between “man” and Nature
Domains of Environmental Philosophy
Metaphysics and Ontology: Of what is Nature composed?Physics: matter or energy? particles or force fields?Ecology: organisms? boiotic communities? ecosystems?
Epistemology: Is ecology an exact experimental science like physics or a descriptive, historical science like geology? Is science the only way of knowing Nature? What about indigenous traditional ecological knowledge?
Axiology: What is the ethical and aesthetic value of Nature?Is Nature intrinsically valuable? What is natural beauty?
The Nature of Nature & Human Nature
General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Field Theory
Space-time not a vacuum but a universalcontinuum
Matter and energy are interchangeable configurationsof the universal space-time continuum
Moral analogy: Human beings and other organismsare as structured vortices in a flux of matter-energy in the dynamic space-time continuum
The Nature of Nature
Newtonian image of nature: machine composed of externally related, independent parts.
Old ecological image of Nature: organic whole composed ofinterdependent parts performing “functions”
New ecological image of Nature: a self-organized systemforming an emergent functional whole. Ecosystemsself-organize like economic systems; ecosystem“functions” are by-products of primary survival-reproductive activities of organic components.
The Nature of Nature
Renewal of one of the oldest ecological metaphores:The Economy of Nature
Ecology / Economy share the same etymology:Greek oikos — home
Other species occupy niches or “professions” in the economyof nature and perform roles.
Moral principle: the human economy is a subset of the economy of nature and cannot be sustained unless we
sustain the larger economy of nature.
Ecology and Economy Reciprocity
The economy of nature (EN) informs the human economy (HE)EN: materials cycle—the waste of one process the the resource for another—> HE: industrial ecologyEN: evoloved ingenious solutions to practical problemsHE: biomimicry
But HN also informs EN: Ecological assemblages self-organizebottom up, as in a free-market economy—each organismpursuing its own self-interest incidentally providesgood and services for others. EN like HN hierarchicallyorganized—smaller economies embedded in larger.
UN-sponsored Milennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005): develops ecology / economy-of-nature analogy
4 categories of “ecosystem services”Provisioning Services (food, timber, fiber, etc.)Regulating Services (pollination, flood control, etc.)Supporting Services (oxygen, soil building, climate)Cultural Services (sacred sites, ethnic identity)
“Services” amenable to economic valuation techniques—all have market prices or can be shadow priced
The Economy of Nature
Human Nature
Theory of Evolution
Humans are animals, exquisitly adapted to the precise conditions on Planet Earth in the Quaternary Era,
which we alter at our peril.
We are co-evolved with our “fellow-voyagers in the odyssey of evolution” sharing the same Earth
Our genes carry the legacy of ancestral forms of life goingback 3.5 billion years: an awe-inspiring basis
for a new natural spirituality
Human Natures
Special Theory of Relativity—no universal and absolutephysical frame of reference for assessing motion
Moral analogy—no universal and absolute cultural frame ofreference for assessing perception and knowledge
Cultural relativismValidation of alternative epistemologies, knowledges
Validation of diversity, pluralism, Validation of multiculturalism
Relationship Between Humans and Nature
Environmental Ethics
Respect our “fellow-voyagers in the odyssey of evolution”and “fellow-members of the biotic community.”
Conceive the human economy as a subset of the economyof nature and adapt the former to the latter—
biomimicry, cradle-to-cradle industrial ecology
Conceive of oneself as a node in a vast web of relationshipsboth social and ecological which define one’s
identity and apart from which one is nothing
Basic Categories of Environmental Ethics
Anthropocentric Non-anthropocentrichuman —> environment—> Human —> environment
human
Theory Theory Utilitarian/Kantian (1) extend Utilitarian/Kantian
(a) animals, (b) plants individualistic
(2) Hume, Darwin, Leopold moral sentiments
holistic
The Land Ethic
Hume: Moral sentiments—sympathy, loyalty, —basis of ethics
Darwin—moral sentiments evolved as a means of social bonding, vital to individual inclusive fitness
Darwin—as human communites grew in size and complexitymoral sentiments extended more widely: family—>tribe—>ethnic group—>nation state—>global village
Leopold—adds ecological “biotic community” to this sequence and a “land ethic” to these other social ethics
The Moral Value of Nature
Humans have intrinsic value? Nature has instrumental value(ecosystem services). Does Nature have intrinsic value?
Yes, if we choose to value it intrinsically. Ex: US ESAConfers dignity not a price.
Intrinsic value not absolute—can be over-ridden by other interests. Shifts the burden of proof to competing interests
Concluding Statement
Environmental crisis is a crisis of ideas. Incremental changesin business, industrial, and economic processes—a bit of industrial ecology here, biomimicry there—willnot get us through the crisis.
A transformation needed in the way we think about the nature of Nature, human nature, and the relationship betweenhumans and Nature, between the human economy andthe economy of Nature. We are evolved beings adaptedto specific conditions on Earth. We must value and respect Nature. Our HE is a subset of the EN. We mustadapt the HE to the EN to achieve harmony with Nature
Postscript
Our biggest environmental challenge is global climate change
GCC eclipses all other environmental problems and exacerbates them.
Is the enviornmental ethics and philosophy developed over the last 40 years up to the task.
Do we need an Earth ethic—planetary in spatial scale and millennial in temporal scale—to complement the locally and regionally scaled land ethic?
top related