Philosophy of Environmentalism Research Paper

Developments in the 1950s and 1960s—concerns about population growth, nuclear war and nuclear technology, the appearance of Carson’s book on the effect of pesticides (1965), and the development of the science of ecology—helped to create the environmentalist outlook (McCormick 1989, pp. 47–68). The Club of Rome’s influential study Limits to Growth (Meadows 1972) used computer models to argue that exponential growth in population, use of resources, pollution, and industrial growth, as well as interaction between these factors are leading the world rapidly toward environmental catastrophe. Although the assumptions made by the Club of Rome have been subjected to extensive criticism, environmentalists have found no reason to doubt that serious problems exist, are becoming more severe, and cannot be solved without far-reaching moral and political changes.

Environmentalism can be understood as a theoretical position (a view about the nature and causes of environmental crises), as a moral position that poses the question of what our relation to nature ought to be, and as a social and political movement aiming to bring about a society capable of living within environmental limits. These aspects of environmentalism are interdependent but will be dealt with separately in the following sections.

1. Explanations Of Environmental Crises

Imagine a commons, says Hardin, where a community of herdsmen graze their cattle. As time goes by, the demands they make on the pasture increase, and they are aware that it will be destroyed in the not so distant future unless they impose limitations on their activities. Nevertheless, each herdsman reasons that it is in his best interests to continue to add more cattle to the commons. Since the cost of adding an extra cow will be borne by the community as a whole, he will gain more than he loses from the addition to his herd. If, for the sake of future benefits, he puts limits on the size of his herd, then he is likely to lose future as well as present gains, since the other herdsmen cannot be trusted to do the same (Hardin 1972, p. 117). ‘Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush each pursuing his own best interests in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons’ (Hardin 1968, p. 1244).

Hardin applies this lesson primarily to the problem of population growth, but it can easily, and more plausibly, be adapted to account for other kinds of environmental problems—pollution, overuse of resources, and destruction of environments and species. Factory owners who spill wastes into the air or the water are exploiting the freedom of the commons. Fisherfolk whose activities wipe out the fish populations on which they depend and farmers whose irrigation practices cause rivers to become saline can be understood to be operating according to the logic Hardin describes. In fact, the dilemma he identifies, or something like it, can be used to account for destruction of environments that are not commons (contrary to what he supposes). Farmers who recognize that a farming practice will eventually ruin their own land may continue to use it because this is the only way in which they can remain competitive and avoid losing out in the short term.

Hardin regards the ‘tragedy of the commons’ as the consequence of human nature coming up against environmental limitations. Others, noting that some societies have managed to live within these limitations, think that the underlying causes of environmental destruction are cultural and historical. White (1967) blamed Christianity, particularly puritanical Protestantism, for encouraging a disdain for nature. Leiss (1972) claimed that domination of nature is the rationale behind Western science and technology. Other environmentalists prefer to think that the problem is due to certain kinds of technological development (Commoner 1971) or a particular scientific worldview (Matthews 1991). Marxists blame capitalism for the exploitation of nature, although they have had to acknowledge that socialism is not necessarily a remedy. Anarchists regard environmental destruction as one of the consequences of political centralization and social hierarchy (Bookchin 1980), and ecofeminists have argued that domination of nature and domination of women have the same social-cultural roots (Plumwood 1993).

The interest in finding the cause of environment crisis has waned. Most contemporary environmentalists suspect that the problems they are concerned with have many causes, and that it is a mistake to try to reduce this complexity to a single explanation or to assume that all have the same cause. Although Hardin’s ‘tragedy of the commons’ analysis does not provide an explanation of all environmental problems or a complete explanation of any, it has the virtue of explaining how environmental destruction can persist when almost everyone acknowledges the need to do something about it. Any proposal for social and political change must come to grips with this problem.

2. Environmentalist Ethics

Environmentalism was motivated from the beginning by a concern about human survival and well-being. This is a moral as well as a prudential worry. Those living now—at least those who are older—may escape the worst, but environmental damage is left as a legacy for their successors. A concern for future people and the future of humanity—so obvious as a motivation to most people that it hardly needs to be stated— continues to be the moral reason for the protests and actions of most environmentalists. However, environmental problems raise issues that require theoretical reflection on moral and social values. They pose questions about how human beings ought to live and what they should regard as conducive to their wellbeing. They create a need to think about requirements of justice in respect to both relations between existing people and our relations to future generations. Even more fundamentally, they bring into question attitudes toward nature, and give rise to reflections about how nature should be valued.

2.1 Environmental Humanism

The moral point of view that most environmentalists have adopted could be called ‘humanism.’ Humanism demands that every human individual be treated with equal respect. An action or policy can be judged morally right only if the interests of all affected individuals have been equally considered and taken into account—and these individuals, environmentalists insist, have to include not only everyone in the world but members of future generations.

Humanism takes many forms and humanist environmentalists often disagree with each other in their moral theories and the conclusions they reach about what should be done. Proponents of ‘lifeboat ethics’—those who think that the wealthy should refuse aid to poor countries that do not make efforts to become environmentally sustainable—are consequentialist humanists who think that the greatest good, taking into account the interests of present and future individuals, is best served by this policy (Hardin 1974). Marxists who respond to environmental crises by favoring a democratic socialism that eliminates waste and exploitation are humanists who think that respect for individuals requires the promotion of egalitarian and cooperative social relations. Environmental humanists with a liberal concern for social justice emphasize the need for an equitable distribution of resources and risks among existing and future individuals.

The issue of what we should do for future generations is a central concern of environmental ethics which requires not only that we think about what we ought to preserve for our descendants. It also brings into question common ideas about the scope of our duties to future people. It is commonly accepted that we have duties of justice only to our immediate successors. However, environmentalists point out that some of our activities—for example, our use of nuclear technology—leave behind waste products that can harm people thousands of years from now.

2.2 Ecocentric Ethics

The main debate in environmental ethics is about how nature should be valued. Humanism—indeed the whole Western ethical tradition—has been persistently challenged by those who object to its anthropocentrism—its assumption that only human beings and their interests are ethically considerable. Ecocentered environmental ethics—the view that value in nature cannot be reduced to what promotes human wellbeing—has always been a minority position among environmentalists. Nevertheless, ecocentered environmentalists have had considerable influence in the environmental movement and an even larger impact on ethical theory. More radically than the animal liberation movement, ecocentrism has challenged traditional ways of thinking about value and morality.

Leopold, commonly thought to be one of the first to put forward an ecocentered position, notes that Odysseus, returned home from his travels, had no moral qualms about killing the slave girls who had consorted with his enemies. ‘The girls were property. The disposal of property was then, as now, a matter of expediency, not of right and wrong’ (Leopold 1949, p. 217). We no longer think that any human being should be treated as the property of another, he continues. But our relation to the land, soil, plants and other creatures that are part of our biotic community remains an economic one. He calls for a land ethic that ‘enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, animals, or collectively: the land’ (Leopold 1949, p. 224).

Leopold claims that a land ethic is the natural result of a process of ethical evolution. Some philosophers make a case for ecocentrism by attempting to show that the scope of humanitarian ethics can and should be widened to include as objects of moral concern all living organisms—and perhaps other things in nature. Most morally sensitive people, says Taylor, are already convinced that many of the qualities that make human beings morally considerable are possessed by sentient animals. They too have interests and feelings, and can be hurt or benefited by what we do. These similarities are a good reason for saying that animals as individuals are deserving of moral respect. A plant or a nonsentient animal is like a sentient creature in that it has a good of its own—the full development of its biological powers. If we acknowledge that this is so, and acknowledge human dependence on the complex web of life, we will be predisposed to recognize each organism as having inherent worth—a value that compels our moral respect (Taylor 1986, pp. 59–98). Johnson argues that species, wilderness areas, and other natural systems have interests in their own right and thus are valuable for the same reasons that human beings and other sentient animals are valuable (Johnson 1991, pp. 97–183).

Taylor and Johnson differ on whether parts— individual organisms—or wholes—species and environmental systems—have inherent worth. However, the difference between individualism and holism in environmental ethics is less important than it seems. The fact that human beings and sentient creatures are conscious, and thus have a point of view, gives us a natural means of distinguishing individuals from each other and individuals from the wholes of which they are part. Where consciousness is not present, individuation and the distinction between part and whole are not likely to be ethically crucial. In fact, many ecocentered environmentalists are prepared to assign inherent value to both individual organisms and the systems that contain them. A more serious disagreement among ecocentered environmentalists exists between those who value creatures or environments because they have qualities similar to human qualities, and those who think that this reason for valuing nature is fundamentally human-centered and should be rejected.

Those who reject analogical arguments for valuing nature have to find another basis for their ecocentric ethics. Some find this in a worldview that sees the cosmos or the Earth as a self (Matthews 1991, pp. 142–7). Others think that a sympathetic engagement with sciences such as ecology will lead us to an ecocentric position (Callicott 1989, p. 125), or that we will be pushed in that direction by reflection on our intuitions. Richard and Val Routley (Routley and Routley 1980, pp. 121–3) ask us to imagine that we are the last people on the planet. Would we regard it as morally permissible to destroy its ecosystems if we did not have to worry about the well-being of future generations? They expect us to answer ‘no,’ and as a result to recognize that we are already inclined to value nature for its own sake. We are then required to identify the characteristics that give natural systems value—they suggest diversity, naturalness, integrity, stability, and harmony—and to give these valuable systems their due when we engage in moral reasoning.

Its critics regard ecocentered environmentalism as implausible or even potentially dangerous. Why should we extend the scope of our moral concern beyond creatures who are capable of suffering? How can we accept an ethics that might prescribe policies contrary to the human good? Moreover, ecocentric ethics faces conceptual problems. If it asks us to value anything that can be perceived to have a good of its own or every system that is balanced, ordered, and integrated, then how can we avoid a requirement to value for their own sake machines, bodily organs, or social systems? Why should such an ethics have a special regard for creatures now living and systems now existing rather than equally (or more) complex, integrated environmental systems that have existed or might exist?

However, even if ecocentered ethics turns out to be implausible or unacceptable, its objective of persuading us that nature should be valued for what it is—and not simply as a resource—is reasonable and can be achieved within the confines of a human-centered ethics. If, for example, things in nature are valuable because of their aesthetic qualities then we have reason to make an effort to appreciate and preserve them. In doing so we are valuing them for what they are. Wilderness, landscapes, species, the land itself can also be appreciated as heritage or simply loved and cherished because these environments or creatures are part of our world. Regarding ourselves as part of a community that includes our natural environment (as Leopold recommended) can enhance our sense of belonging to a place and thus enrich our lives. Such valuing retains its human center—but it may give us sufficient reason for thinking that the last people should not destroy their world.

2.3 Deep Ecology

There is another approach to valuing the environment that is sometimes regarded as an ecocentric ethics. Instead of recommending that we widen the scope of our ethical concern, deep ecology asks us to broaden and deepen our sense of self. Influenced by Buddhism and Gandhi’s philosophy, Arne Naess (1973) argues that self-realization requires an identification with others. Having this identification means that self-love becomes love for others, and individuals seek not only their own ends but also the good of those with whom they identify. Naess believes that recognition of the equality of living things makes it natural and desirable for the self to identify with all creatures. By doing so we realize ourselves in a more complete and satisfactory way.

Deep ecology has been criticized, particularly by ecofeminists, for trying to master the world by incorporating it into the self (Cheney 1987). They insist that beings in nature have an independent existence and should be appreciated for what they are. It is true that some of the feats of identity that deep ecologists claim to perform are pretentious if not silly (‘I am the black bear’). But there is probably no great distance between deep ecologists and feminist critics. It seems undeniable that people can learn to care about natural creatures and environments to the point where they feel diminished if these things are destroyed, and that this kind of caring can be a motivation for environmental preservation.

3. Environmentalist Politics

Environmentalists believe that by promoting an environmental ethics they are making it more likely that environmental problems will be solved. However, few deny that there is a need for an environmental politics: not merely campaigns to save the environment or to educate citizens but an environmental political theory and a long-term strategy for achieving an environmentally sound society. There are two major questions for environmentalist political theory. The first is what it means for a society to live within environmental limits. The second is how this goal is related to important political values such as liberty, democracy, justice, equality, solidarity, or liberation of women.

3.1 From ‘No Growth’ To ‘Sustainability’

The Club of Rome report and other warnings of imminent environmental disaster encouraged environmentalists to believe that an environmentally sound society had to be a ‘no-growth society,’ and that achieving it had to become a priority everywhere in the world. The goal of ‘sustainable development’ popularized by the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) allows that development and growth can occur within the carrying capacity of the planet. Sustainable development is supposed to leave room for development within poorer countries and encourage those in wealthier countries to look for more environmentally sound ways of maintaining their living standards.

There is a lot of room for disagreement, not only about what the environment can sustain but also about the relation between environmental preservation and sustainability. Sustainable development does not necessarily mean that wilderness areas or threatened species will be preserved, or that the values that ecocentered environmentalists find in nature will be respected. ‘Sustainable development’ also raises normative questions about how much environmental risk it is legitimate to impose upon present and future people for the sake of development.

3.2 Environmentalism And Political Values

There are three basic ways in which environmentalists have answered the question of how environmental objectives should affect or be affected by political values. They can be called ‘pessimist,’ ‘compatibilist,’ and ‘utopian.’ Pessimists think that political values such as freedom and democracy have to be abandoned or severely limited, at least temporarily, for the sake of avoiding environmental disaster. Saving ourselves and the environment has to take priority over all other objectives. Compatibilists think that necessary environmental reforms are compatible with the preservation or achievement of political values—although some restrictions on the realization of these values have to be accepted. Utopians think that in the right sort of society people would not only live in harmony with nature but enjoy more freedom, democracy, justice, equality, and communal solidarity than we do at present.

3.2.1 The Pessimist Approach. Ophuls regarded environmental crises as calling for a new social contract. We need a Leviathan, a Hobbesian state that is not impeded from taking the steps necessary for protecting the environment (Ophuls 1977, pp. 222– 48). Heilbroner concluded from an assessment of human behavior and existing social systems that democracy cannot be expected to survive the trans- formation to an environmentally sound society (Heilbroner 1974, p. 90).

Ophuls and Heilbroner feared the imminent col- lapse of environmental systems. Those who do not regard the danger as so great or so immediate are not inclined to accept their assessment of our social possibilities. Ophul’s advocacy of a Hobbesian solution to the political problems posed by environmental crisis has been widely condemned as unnecessarily authoritarian. It is also open to the criticism that an authoritarian solution is naive. There is no guarantee that a ‘green dictatorship,’ once installed, would be willing or able to save the environment.

3.2.2 The Compatibilist Approach. Liberal compatibilists argue that an environmentally sound society can be achieved within the framework of a free, just, and democratic society, although doing so is likely to require adjustments and restrictions. Most compatibilists agree that more restrictions will have to be placed on individual freedom. Polluting activities will have to be curbed, use of resources restricted, and, in some countries at least, population growth checked. The debate centers on what kinds of restriction would be effective and morally acceptable. Let us assume, for example, that restrictions on family size are an effective way of limiting population growth. The question remains whether the measures required constitute an unacceptable abuse of freedom. Would a scheme of incentives or disincentives be more acceptable from a moral point of view—even though they are likely to affect the poor more than the rich?

Many compatibilists also accept the necessity of restrictions on the scope of democratic decision making. Recognizing environmental rights of individuals, it has been suggested, would define the limits within which democratic decision making should operate. Christopher Stone (1974) argues that natural objects, such as rivers or wilderness areas, would be better protected if they were accorded legal rights.

Liberals who aim for an environmentally sound society cannot ignore questions of justice. Although environmental problems are global, they affect some people more than others. The burden of solutions to environmental problems can also be unfairly distributed. A pollution control measure that has the effect of raising consumer prices will disadvantage those who are in the least well-off sections of the population unless the costs are offset by other factors. A scheme of incentives or disincentives for limiting family size or the use of private cars and other environmentally harmful activities is likely to be experienced by the poor as a form of coercion. Revising or adapting theories of distributive justice to deal with environmental problems and devising measures for achieving an environmentally sound society compatible with justice is one of the biggest challenges for environmentalist political theory.

3.2.3 The Utopian Approach. One of the first responses to predictions of environmental disaster was Blueprint for Survival (Goldsmith 1972) which urged not only the reduction of waste and the stabilization of population but the creation of a decentralized social system. It recommended the relocation of the population of existing states into self-sufficient communities of about 500 people who would use small-scale, low-impact technology to provide for their own needs. The communalist vision of an environmentally sound society has been popular particularly among left-wing environmentalists who rejected both the capitalist state and centralized socialist bureaucracies, and turned to anarchist ideas about social organization and community. Many Green parties, for example Die Grunen of Germany, regard the achievement of decentralized, egalitarian, and democratic political and economic institutions as their ultimate political goal. The US bioregionalist movement advocates self-sufficient, ‘human-scale’ communities dedicated to preserving and enhancing the diversity of native ecosystems. Many ecofeminists think that only in a nonhierarchical society where qualities associated with the feminine are valued will nature and women be truly liberated.

The reasoning that motivates these visions of environmental utopia is that people who relate to each other in a face-to-face nonhierarchical community, exercise control over the conditions of their lives through participatory democracy, and have a close relation to their environment will live in harmony with each other and nature without the imposition of coercive political rule. They will not experience restrictions imposed on their activities for the sake of the environment as a sacrifice of their self-interest, because they value and identify with their community and its caring relation to the environment.

Some critics think that ecoanarchism depends on an implausible view of human nature. Be that as it may, traditional societies and small communities have often been nondemocratic, restrictive, hierarchical, and patriarchal, and they have not always lived in peace with their neighbors. Ecoanarchists tend to assume, without sufficient discussion, that decentralization will produce the best results as far as communal life is concerned rather than one of the worst. Ecoanarchists also fail to provide sufficient detail about how communities will coordinate their affairs in order to deal with environmental and other intercommunity problems. The tragedy of the commons, even if avoided at a local level, could reappear as a problem concerning the relation between communities.

Ecosocialists claim with some justification that Marx’s criticisms of capitalism can be used to account for the existence of many environmental problems. Driven by the necessity for making profit, owners and managers of industry cannot afford to be too concerned about causing environmental damage. A socialist society, say ecosocialists, would be able to establish social relations on a more cooperative, democratic basis. To avoid the pitfalls, moral and environmental, of bureaucratic socialism, ecosocialists borrow heavily from ecoanarchists. They too want decentralization, close relations with nature, and participatory democracy. However, they are less prepared than ecoanarchists to do away with the state and its ability to coordinate economic activity and ensure that wealth is fairly distributed among individuals and communities (Pepper 1993, pp. 226–7).

Although it is not well known or popular among environmentalists, libertarians have also presented a utopian vision of a society that protects the environment and upholds individual rights of life, liberty, and property (the only values that libertarians think a state should protect). Right to property includes the right to enjoy it without having to suffer from the polluting activities of others. A state that rigorously protects individual rights would not allow anyone to pollute without permission of those whose lives and properties are affected (Machan 1984).

3.3 Environmentalism And Global Politics

A common failing of all approaches to political theory of the environment, whether pessimist, compatibilist, or utopian, is that they concentrate mostly on the problem of transforming national societies into environmentally sound societies. There has been comparatively little reflection on practical and normative issues in relation to global society: for example, how environmental policies should affect or be affected by ideas about global justice; how utopian visions of the good life in an environmentally sound society can be translated into a blueprint for the world as a whole; whether the creation of more effective and powerful cosmopolitan institutions should be an environmentalist objective; whether global democracy, redistribution of the world’s resources, and/or the recognition and protection of environmental rights as universal rights are feasible and desirable objectives; whether individuals should come to regard themselves as ‘planetary citizens’ and what this would mean. Finding answers to these questions is going to become more urgent as the twenty-first century progresses.

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