ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS: A study of conceptual and moral issues concerning the growth of human population, consumption of resources, animal rights, the moral status of nature and species, etc.

SOME ISSUES IN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

• Why should we care about the planet? Or about its non human residents?
• Do we have any obligations to future generations?
• Who, or what, are the proper subjects of moral considerations?
• Do animals have any serious moral standing? Do they have moral rights?
• Can we use animals and nature in any way that suits us?
• On what foundations should we rest our concern for rain-forest, marine ecology, or natural landscapes?

TWO KINDS OF ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGIES

•  Morally-Indirect Environmental Strategies (this is what Regan calls "the indirect duty view):
  • We ought to protect the natural environment because, in the long run, it is good for us. 
• Morally-Direct Environmental Strategies:
  • We ought to protect the natural environment because it is good for natural environment
  • or something which is part of natural environment
  • the nature contains something that is intrinsically good
  • the natural environment itself, or some objects in it, or some features of these objects, are intrinsically good)

 CALLICOTT (AND OTHERS) ON THREE SECULAR APPROACHES TO ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

• Traditional and protracted humanism (homo-centrism):
  • Only humans (both current and future) have moral standing
  • The natural environment must be protected only in so far as, in the long run, it is good for humans.
  • we only have indirect duties to animals
• Extensionism: Standard ethical principles (e.g., utility principle, imperatives analogous to those developed by Kant and Kantian philosophers, rights, etc.) apply to animals. That is, all sentient beings (both humans and animals), or all beings having certain level of mental development, have moral standing.
  • Singer: What ultimately matters is animal suffering.
  • Regan: What ultimately matters are animal rights. (See: The Case for Animal Rights )
• Ecocentrism: Some non-sentient beings and organisms have moral standing.
  • Some individual being in nature have moral standing
  • Species, ecosystems, even the nature as a whole may have moral standing.
  • A problem -- it seems like we need to base this view on different principles than those proposed by utilitarians and Kantians. So, how to justify this view?

THE GENERAL IDEA OF ENVIRONMENTAL ARGUMENTS

1. A General Moral Principle: If a practice or action destroys some intrinsic goodness (or brings about some intrinsic evil), then it is morally wrong except if we have very good reasons for continuing this practice.
2. A Factual Claim: Certain forms of treating the natural environment destroy some intrinsic goodness and/or bring about some intrinsic evils.
3. A Specific Moral Claim: There are no good reasons for continuing these forms of treating the natural environment.
4. Therefore, these forms of treating the natural environment are morally wrong. [from (1)-(4)] 

INTRINSIC VALUE AND THE ISOLATION TEST

• x has an intrinsic value (it is intrinsically good or bad) if an only if it has some value (it is good, or it is bad) taken in itself. (Otherwise an object may have only, at most, instrumental value.)
• We determine whether or not something has an intrinsic value by assessing it in isolation from its results (what it leads to) and its causes (how did it arise)

 WHAT KIND OF THINGS CAN HAVE INTRINSIC VALUE?

•  HEDONISM (Bentham and Mil, Singer(?)):
  • Pain and suffering are intrinsically bad no matter whose pain or suffering it is.
  • Pleasure and happiness are intrinsically good no matter whose pleasure or happiness it is. pain and pleasure, no matter whose pleasure it is.
•  EUDAIMONISM (Aristotle): happiness (eudaimonia, flourishing) is intrinsically good unhappiness is intrinsically bad.
•  PREFERENCE SATISFACTION THEORIES (economists, perhaps Singer):
  • the satisfaction (and frustration) of someone's interests (desires, preferences), no matter whose interests they are.
•  "AESTHETICISM" (G.E. Moore, Stef):
  • The experience of beauty is intrinsically good ( no matter who has this experience).
  • Perhaps beauty itself is intrinsically good.
•  "VITALISM" (Paul W. Taylor, "The Ethics of Respect for Nature"):
  • Life itself, there being something alive (no matter whose life it is.
•  "ECO-HARMONISM" (Aldo Leopold, J. Baird Callicott)
  • there being ecosystems that function and develop in harmonious ways.
• PLURALISM (Stef): many different things are intrinsically valuable

THE TRADITIONAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS ANIMALS (TATA)

A. Pointless cruelty to animals is morally wrong; we ought to eliminate such cruelty.
B. We ought to eliminate also the unnecessary suffering of animals; e.g. suffering that does not lead to the satisfaction of any important human needs.
C. It is morally permissible to use animals to satisfy important human interests, and needs.
D. In general, it is permissible to experiment on animals.
E. It is also permissible to raise them for food.

THE BACKGROUND FOR SINGER'S ARGUMENT: FEATURES THAT SEEM

MORALLY IRRELEVANT	MORALLY RELEVANT
How tall or short or heavy or light someone is? What is the color of one's eyes or hair or skin? What is someone's gender or race?	How much would someone suffer? Would someone's interests be satisfied or frustrated? (Singer would stop here, Regan goes further) Is someone treated merely as a means? Is someone (ab)used? Are someone's autonomy violated? Do we disrespect someone who has "inherent" value?

  

SINGER'S MAIN POINT: The moral basis of equality among humans is not equality in fact, but the following principle of equal consideration of interests:
"...the interests of every being that has interests are to be taken into account and treated equally with the like interests of any other being".
"If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration, and, indeed, to count it equally with the like suffering (if rough comparisons can be made) of any other being" .

A WAY TO UNDERSTAND SINGER'S ARGUMENT AGAINST (TATA)

1. A General Moral Principle: If a practice or action causes excruciating suffering, then it is morally wrong except if we have very good reasons for continuing this practice.
2. A Factual Claim: Raising animals for food causes excruciating suffering (an so does using them in experiments).
3. A Specific Moral Claim: There are no good reasons for raising animals for food and using them in experiments
___________
4. Therefore, it is morally wrong to raise animals for food and to use them in experiments. [(1)-(4)]

SOME OBJECTIONS TO THIS ARGUMENT

• Animal Suffering: Animals do not suffer. (Or, they do not suffer much; or, we do not know that they suffer.)
• The Argument From 'Might': We have the power and technical means to use animals to satisfy our important interests and needs. Hence, using them is permissible.
• The Argument From What Is Frequently Done (Is A Part of the Human Tradition) Animals are frequently used to satisfy important human interests, needs, and goals. . . It is part of the commonly accepted tradition to use animals for food and to experiment on animals. . . It seems obvious that . . .
• The Argument From Species Differences: Human beings belong to one biological species and animals belong to another biological species.
• The Argument From Mental Differences: Human beings are more intelligent than lower animals.
• "Too Much Burden": It would cost us too much to change our attitude to animals. Changing this attitude is too difficult. Our interests outweigh their interests.
• "Where Is the Limit" : If we change our attitude to animals, we will have to change our attitude to plants, we'll have to stop using them. Singer's argument leads to an absurdity.
• A Religious Argument (the Dominion Argument): Man has dominion over the animals. God does not prohibit using animals. It is permissible to use animals to satisfy our needs and interests.

SOME CRITICISMS OF TRADITIONAL AND PROTRACTED HUMANISM [HOMO-CENTRISM, HUMAN CHAUVINISM (Sylvan, Val Plumwood)]

Compare the following: "treasure the Chesapeake"; "use the Chesapeake efficiently".
In 1991 many registrants bought the plate bearing the motto "treasure the Chesapeake", paying $20 to an environmental fund (see Mark Sagoff, "Zuckerman's Dilemma..." in Ch. Pierce and D. VanDeVeer, People, Penguins and Plastic Trees (Wadsworth, 1995))
This attitude shows that we do recognize the difference respecting (valuing) something taken in itself and protecting it because it is a valuable means to something.
Homo-centrism cannot account for this attitude.

SINGER'S EXTENSIONISM

BASIC TENETS OF SINGER'S VIEW: Similar interests must be treated similarly; sentience is morally relevant
What matters is suffering, pleasure and so on including animal suffering, pleasure, interests. "...the interests of every being that has interests are to be taken into account and treated equally with the like interests of any other being".

BASIC TENETS OF REGAN'S VIEW: Some animals are sufficiently like humans, they are experiencing subjects of a life
Thus, they have "inherent worth."
Hence, they have basic moral rights

CALLICOTT'S SPECIFIC CRITICISMS OF EXTENSIONISM

Specific criticism of Singer: Animal welfare is not protected adequately. E.g., imagine that animals raised for consumption live in comfort, and are killed painlessly; on Singer's view, would vegetarianism be then obligatory?
Regan escapes this criticism; the view is internally coherent; e.g., it gives adequate protection to animals.

CALLICOTT'S GENERAL CRITICISMS OF EXTENSIONISM

Extensionism does not support well enough basic environmental goals.
Non-sentient beings and objects: Extensionism gives no direct protection to plants, non-sentient animals, species per se (see Callicott, 197), forests, natural objects, ecosystems, and so on.
Ecological "Facts of Life": "To the extent that the animals liberation/animal rights ethics condemn the taking of life or the infliction of pain on a sentient being, they are irreconcilably at odds with the ecological "facts of life" (Callicott, 196).
Conflicts of Interests:: These views might imply a program of humane predator extermination, sacrificing an entire species of plans for an individual animal, sacrificing wild animals for domestic animals, and so on.

LAND ETHICS

• Aldo Leopold: "All ethics... rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts... The land ethics simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land" (quoted in Shaw, 198).
• Callicott: "[land ethics] is in sharp contrast to traditional Western humanism... [it] provides moral standing for both environmental individuals and for the environment as a whole". Leopold: "a land ethics changes the role of Homo Sapiens from conqueror of the land community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for fellow members and also respect for the community as such" (199)

DANGERS OF AN UNTEMPERED HOLISM

"Environmental fascism" or are there too many of us?
A reply: human population should be scaled down gradually; the individual humans should be respected. [On this view, do individual humans have moral rights?]

ANIMALS IN THE ECO-ETHICS

Basic tenets: The moral foundation is provided not by rights but by the principle of respect; we must respect individual animals, we may use them with respect (Callicott's favorite example are the Ojibwa (see Shaw, 201-202) who provide an example of approach based on such respect)

Objectives and Implications: human use should enhance the diversity of the biotic community, its integrity, stability, and beauty.
We must use respectfully the individual plant, animal, even rock or river, they deserve to be treated respectfully.

ONE PRACTICAL IMPLICATION OF ECO-ETHICS

Callicott: "because a vegetarian diet more directly and efficiently than a meat-centered diet, conducts solar energy into human bodies, the practice of vegetarianism could not only help reduce human hunger and animal suffering, it would free more land and solar energy for the restoration of natural communities" (203)