3.3 The Development of Environmental Ethics
The Bull Mountain was once covered with lively trees.. People came with their axes and choppers; they cut the woods down, and the mountain has lost its beauty.. But soon cattle and sheep came along and browsed on them, and in the end the mountain became gaunt and bare, as it is now. And seeing it thus gaunt and bare, people imagine that it was woodless from the start.(Mencius,[1] Gaozi: Chapter 8, translated by Chan, 2002)
Anthropocentric perspective and utilitarianism are still widely spread, accepted and practiced across the Chinese society. They have changed the way Chinese people thinking, the way they behave, and what they should teach for the next generations. I have a personal experience for that. While I was in my office in Australia with the window opened, I called my sister by Skype, and my sister inquired whether the university I attend in was in remote, isolated area because she heard loud voice-like noises, which I told her, were actually made by birds. That little incident really got me thinking about the mindset that has been changed among Chinese people such as my sister and me before I came to Australia over the years. Because in most Chinese cities, you will have little or no luck to hear birds singing, watch insects crawling and wild flowers flourishing. As with my sister, having heard bird sounds, she assumed that those bird voices came from some remote, isolated, unexploited, and even more likely, from the deepest mountainous area. And what made this sad story saddest is that people are these days proud of being in such a ‘clean’ environment, without being disturbed by some seeing insects and birds which used to be considered ‘bad’ due to their crop-eating habit.
3.3.1 Environmental Ethics: Why Do We Care?
Today, growing concerns about development rights and environmental impacts are expressions of an attitude which the general acknowledges that the preservation of life on Earth is an ethical obligation both for current and future generations (O’Neill et al., 2012). Ethical debate comes into play when there is a need to justify an act of environmental preservation (ibid).
The job of environmental ethics concerns “the moral relationship of human beings to, and the value and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman contents” (Brennan & Lo, 2011, p.1). For example, environment conservation is the morally right thing to do. It is right because we humankind do it for the sake of our own and the well-being of our future generations to maintain a sustainable environment, or it is right because the natural environment and its various components have intrinsic values, or values as an end in itself that human beings should and ought to respect and protect on their behalf, irrespective of any benefit to the advantage of humans (Brennan & Lo, 2011). Some of these questions involve ethical conflicts between individuals regarding specific issues in daily life. Others refer to major global concerns faced by communities and groups, as in the case of the pollution problems bring protested in Zhejiang Province or the even bigger debate surrounding the TGDP. Philosophers from different times and places have given distinct but evolving answers to these fundamental questions. The questions concerning the value and moral status of the natural environment and its nonhuman contents, have led to the emergence of quite different approaches to environmental ethics (ibid).
Contemporary attitudes and behavious toward environment owe much to these nineteenth-century ideas advocated by philosophers such as John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, Alexander von Humboldt, C Ritter, F. Ratzel, Rachel Carson, and Gifford Pinchot. They have argued about these and other ideas relating to human interaction with the world. In what follows I shall discuss a number of these ideas, with an aim to enhancing our understanding of the ethical issues surrounding the TGDP. Large dam construction projects such as the Three Gorges Dam, as I argued, can be seen as humankind’s attempt to control nature.
3.3.2 Historical Roots, Religion and Anthropocentrism
The world, we are told, was made especially for man- a presumption not supported by all the facts…. Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? – John Muir, 1867
Many traditional western ethical perspectives are characterized as anthropocentric or human-centered, because they regard only human beings or human experience (or consciousness) as having intrinsic value. Everything else that exists shall be regarded only as a means to serve the ends of human interests. For example, Aristotle (Politics, bk.1, ch.8) maintains that “Clearly, then, we must suppose … that plants are for the sake of animals, and that other animals are for the sake of human beings.…, nature, …must have made all of them for the sake of human beings” and that the value of nonhuman components in nature is merely instrumental or utilitarian-defined. ‘Epistemological anthropocentrism’ was also evident in Descartes, Locke, Hegel, and Kant. According to them, “humans are the measures of all value” (Nash, 1990, p.10). Descartes, for example, emphasized the separateness of humans and animals by claiming that animals “were insensible and irrational machines…Lacking minds…They do not suffer…They were unconscious” (quoted in Nash, 1990, p.17-18). John Locke, held what might deemed to be a ‘consensus view’ of his time when it came to the distinction between man and nature. Mankind for Locke: is “the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker” (Locke & Peardon, 1952, chap. 2, par. 6). He claimed that the value of land is expressed by its usefulness for human interests and ends, as we saw earlier in this chapter: “land that is left wholly to nature, that hath no improvement of pasturage, tillage, or planting, is called, as indeed it is, ‘waste’; and we shall find the benefit of it amount to little more than nothing” (Locke & Peardon, 1952, chap. 5, par. 42). In Hegel’s point of view, nature exists only to have man to produce social collaborative knowledge; only man has the ‘absolute spirit’ and abilities to possess nature, to know it and dominate it (Butchvarov, 2013). According to Kant, men are conscious beings for which there is nothing except ‘wonder and astonishment’ by virtue of their natural ‘superiority’ in their capacity over all concrete ends that motivate them to act or interact with space (ibid).
The dichotomy of ‘person-versus-nature’ paradigm has long existed in western civilization. Historian Lynn White jr. (1967), in a widely-cited essay on “the Historical Roots of the Environmental Crisis”, suggests that Judeo-Christian tradition, due to its anthropocentric (men centered) attitude towards nonhuman nature, and with the help of rising science and technology as tools, is the ideological source of our exploitative treatment of the environment today (Nash, 1990; Brennan & Lo, 2011). In order to maintain the superiority of humans in the natural world, and depict all other forms of life as created for the service of humans, man is given the role as caretaker of the gardens of earth (Gunn & Vesilind, 1986; Nash, 1990; Whitney, 1993; Attfield, 2001; Brennan & Lo, 2011). White believes that “Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen…God planned (the creation) explicitly for man’s benefit and rule; no item in the physical creation had any purpose other than to serve man’s purpose” (Gunn, 1986, p.21). The Judeo-Christian version of argument make explicit, White expounded, that the first man Adam is created in God’s own image and provocatively, that the first woman, Eve, was made from the Rib of Adam. And since God is infinite transcendent who is above and outside of the nature he created, which implies by extension that human beings are themselves sharply separate from nature. This perspective explicitly supports the anthropocentric view that the needs of humans are to be served fully by every other being on earth. Consequently, this concept of ‘arrogant species’ implies that human beings can, with impunity, utilize and exploit nature for human’s benefits without restrain (Nash, 1990; Brennan & Lo, 2011). For example, Genesis 1:27-8 states: “God blessed them, and said to them, Be fruitful and increase, and fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish in the sea, the birds on heaven, and every living thing that moves upon the earth” (quoted in Gunn, 1986, p.21). However, Brennan and Lo (2011) challenged White’s interpretation over the Judeo-Christian ideas of the ‘stewardship’ or ‘duty of care’ by reinterpreting traditional doctrine. They doubt that the systematic exploitation of nature was explicitly encouraged by the idea of the superiority of man in the Judeo-Christian Hierarchy. Instead, modern science and technology as tools are partially blamed and responsible for the massive mindless environmental expropriation (Brennan & Lo, 2011).
Since the industrial revolution of the seventeenth century, and propelled onward by science and technology, the “dominant western view”, as Routley called it, has radically separated the human from the rest of the world by ascribing unique properties to humans (Routley & Routley, 1980; Gunn, 1986). The anthropocentrism expressed in the form of what he called ‘specialism’ or “human chauvinism”, which is “unjustifiably discriminates against those outside the privileged class” (Brennan & Lo, 2011, Ch2).
The deleterious effects cause to the environment by that unbridled technological development, coupled with relentless economic expansion and population growth, have been massive, so much so, that ‘man’ has been obliged to reappraise his ethical relations with the very source of his sustenance ― mother nature. The call for a ‘basic change of values’ associated with the environment rendered a need for the renovation of ‘environmental ethics’ under the discipline of philosophy and education (Brennan & Lo, 2011). Environmental ethics could be regarded as having emerged from an increasing consciousness of moral awareness. In the 1970s an intellectual climate of philosophical debating on the serious issues of ecological crisis occupied much public discourse. Environmental ethicists and animal rights proponents challenged the conventional views on the inferior moral standing of animals, plants and other non-human objects constituents of the natural world such as trees and even mountains. Indeed, debate led to strong criticism of the foundational epistemology upon which anthropocentrism was built (Wolff, 2008). They persuasively argued that “value and morality cannot be reduced to matters of interest or concern to human beings alone, and that there are no justifiable reasons for excluding the interests of other species from moral consideration” (Wolff, 2008, p.7). Out of this discourse also emerged a burgeoning discussion about the rights of nature and environmental ethics. Within this context questions were asked about whether one could assign ethical standing to insentient entities such as trees, some primitive species, and/or ecosystems (Nash, 1990; Wolff, 2008). Anthropocentrism was thus challenged and rejected philosophically and morally for failing to recognize the intrinsic value of the environment and its non-human components, and for justifying many of the destructive environmental practices which followed from it (ibid).
While many philosophers from last century have written on this topic, two papers published in Science ― Lynn White’s “The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis” (March 1967) and Garett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” (December 1968), along with two important books at that time largely contributed to this inspiration of environmental ethics. Rachel Carson in her book Silent Spring alerted readers the serious public health and environmental problems, particularly the destruction of wildlife caused by the widespread use of chemical pesticides such as DDT, aldrin and deildrin and its increasingly concentrated levels through the food chain. Paul Ehrlich, the Stanford ecologist, who published The Population Bomb (1968), which warned that the spiraling population growth, and the overexploitation of the earth’s limited resources, for exceeded the earth’s carrying capacity. In an influential paper, “The Land Ethic” [from A Sand County Almanac (1949)], Aldo Leopold explicitly advocated an “appreciation and conservation of things ‘natural, wild and free’” and claimed that the roots of the environmental crisis were fundamentally philosophical (Brennan & Lo, 2011, Ch.2). The land ethic, then, “changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respecting for his fellow-members, and also respecting for the community as such” (Leopold, 1949, p.200). Leopold’s concerns for land conservation were motivated by the reflection of environmental ethics and the value of the aesthetic quality of nature. He also urged the rejection of the conventional subordination of nonhuman components in the biotic community (Starkey, 2007). A land-use decision “is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise” (Leopold, 1949, p.224-245). Leopold’s ‘Land Ethics’ prompted a variety of debates regarding our moral obligations and ethical concerns toward ‘ecological wholes’, such as whole species, biotic communities (soils, waters, plants, and animals), and ecosystems, not just a single species (Brennan & Lo, 2011).
Arne Naess’ paper “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement” in 1973, proposed a theory of deep ecology which calls for a holistic appreciation and respect for the natural order, followed by Paul Taylor’s Respect for Nature in 1986 and Holmes Rolston’s Environmental Ethics (1989). Rolston (1975) argued that it is the moral duty of humans to protect all species on earth. Not only is “a species of living thing intrinsically valuable, but the value of a whole species should be regarded to be generally more valuable than the individual specimens that constitute it” (Rolston 1989, Ch.10). Since the loss of a single species would set off a chain loss of genetic possibilities, the moral gravity of the situation is thereby heightened. Routley further develops Leopold’s moral concern for the natural environment and its nonhuman objects, such that nonhuman components in the natural environment have intrinsic value, which is independent, that is to say, of their usefulness for humans (Brennan & Lo, 2011). J. Baird Callicott (1989) created a collection of his essays in environmental philosophy, In Defense of the Land Ethic (1989), to ‘articulate, defend and extend’ the seminal environmental ethics of Leopold (Starkey, 2007). Other author’s works regarding this topic include Mark Sagoff’s, The Economy of the Earth (1990), Eugene C. Hargrove’s, Foundations of Environmental Ethics (1996) and Bryan Norton’s, Why Preserve Natural Variety? (1992), followed by Toward Unity among Environmentalists (1994).
Another interesting facet of debate ensued when Christopher Stone (1972), a law professor at the university of southern California, reasoned that if trees, forests, rivers, oceans and other ‘natural objects’ could be given legal standing, then they could be represented in defending their own right in court by groups of long-time wilderness conservation groups such as the Sierra Club who argued against the Disney Enterprises’ plan of developing a massive ski resort (Nash, 1990; Brennan & Lo, 2011). Joel Feinberg (1974) soon after questioned Stone’s ascription of legal standing to non-human, and non-animal items with a theory-based ethic which depended upon ‘the interest principle’ and ‘cognitive equipment’ to help people rationalize such claims of rights in the sense of being able to be harmed or benefited or expressing its interests, wants, and needs as the fundamental criteria for deciding these issues (Feinberg, 1974; Nash, 1990; Brennan & Lo, 2011). As Feinberg put it, “without awareness, expectation, belief, desire, aim, and purpose, a being can have no interests, without interests , he cannot be benefited, without the capacity to be a beneficiary, he can have no rights” (Feinberg, 1974, p.51; also see Nash, 1990, p.126). This also applies to the debates of ethical extension of animal rights, which emerged strongly in the 1970s, articulated by Regan and Singer (1976), and Clark (1977). Tom Regan (1982) argues that animals have intrinsic value (or what he calls “inherent value” or “intrinsic worth”) have an equal natural right to be treated respectfully as a duty on our part, instead of as mere means to other ends (Regan, 1982, p.27). He then emphasizes his point by comparing animal liberation to the liberation of oppressed groups of humans such as blacks, women. He writes, “Blacks do not exist for whites, or women for men, so animal do not exist for us” (Regan, 1982, p.163). However, Australian philosopher John Passmore (1974, p.107) insisted that “the idea of ‘rights’ is simply not applicable to what is non-human”, which would otherwise represent a radical overhauling of traditional moral thought. For Passmore the overthrow of a widespread acceptance of moral standings of nature would have to be resonated and coherently integrated with the more comprehensive body of moral theory (Brennan & Lo, 2011). To summarize, then, Leopold’s land ethic, the Judeo-Christian historical analyses of White and Passmore, the pioneering work of Stone’s guardians of trees and valleys, the awakening works of Singer and Regan regarding animal liberation, the surprisingly egalitarian declaration of Taylor, the pioneering work of Routley, Rolston and Callicott, and the sincere warnings concerning the environmental degradation from scientists/authors like Rachel Carson, had drawn the attention from philosophers, political theorists and many members of the public firmly on the topic of the environmental ethics.
3.3.3 Utilitarianism and Environmental Ethics
Western culture’s dominant environmental paradigm has been reinforced by the ecological ideas of classical Marxists. This paradigm regards non-human ‘nature’ ― to include collective entities such as whole species and their individual members, along with ecosystems, as a resource for expropriation, having only ‘instrumental’ value as a means to humans, and thus no value in itself. On the Marxist view, non-human resources had no moral significance apart from being transformed by human labour and utilized for human interests (Regan, 1982; O’Neill et al., 2012). For example, Aristotle (Politics, bk.1, ch.8) holds that “nature has made all things specifically for the sake of man”. This ethical framework was the root of Utilitarianism.
Classical utilitarianism claims that the main purpose of any action is to maximize the total utility. Utilitarianism therefore is a consequentialist ethical theory. When evaluating the utilitarian ethics of environmental of decision-making, ‘the ends justify the means’. Within classical utilitarianism, different theories have been created by philosophers. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mills (1806-1873), ‘Hedonistic Utilitarianism’, maintains that an action is to be preferred over an alternative action if it yields more pleasure over pain quantitatively for all those affected. Utility is evaluated hedonistically in terms of psychological states such as pleasure and happiness (or the satisfaction of desire, interest, and preference, if we view it broadly), with the absence of pain (Fellenz, 2007; O’Neill et al., 2012). Accordingly, anything that increases the amount of pleasure a human experiences ― deforestation, for example ― the end goal of this action is to make room for crops, is ethical because it increases the pleasure to those who are fed by food. Bentham’s essential idea is very simple with a lot of morally intuitive appeal. He states that the just thing to do is follow the line of basic principle of “The greatest good for the greatest number”. Therefore, an utilitarian approach would be justified when an ethically moral decision is made with an aim to increase our collective benefit towards humans regarding the principles of environmental conservation ethics (Singer, 1991). For example, displacing a large population of local residents in order to make room for the Three Gorges Dam Reservoir caused a great deal of misery for those displaced who were already considered the worst off. Based on a utilitarian calculation, if it brings about more pleasure than pain for a larger population who are already well off by meeting their needs, would therefore be the ethically just thing to do provided the population is great enough (O’Neill et al., 2012).
From this perspective, utilitarianism places “too much value on consequences and not enough value on individuals” (Regan, 1982, p.70). From a consequentialist point of view, whether certain actions are right or wrong is for the most part depending conditional upon whether the consequences of an act are good or bad. The pursuit of consequences might also lead to “negative utilitarianism” (Smart, 1958, p.542), which would entail seeking the quickest and least painful approach to achieve a desirable outcome by compromising one’s integrity (Williams, 1973). In that sense, consequentialism permits too much (O’Neill et al., 2012). Sometimes, anthropocentrism also leads to anthropogenic environmental devastation, because the consequences of ascribing non-intrinsic value to environmental constituents gives rise to eco-assaults which adversely impact the well-being of current and future generations, since our well-being essentially depends on a sustainable environment (Brennan & Lo, 2011).
3.3.4 The Intrinsic Value, Holistic and Egalitarianism of Nature
Although modern environmental ethicists have quite often abstracted their theories from traditional ethical systems and theories, such as Henry David Thoreau, John Muir and others, they often want to distance themselves from the label of anthropocentrism embedded in traditional Christianity and Cartesian science. For the most part, Thoreau expresses a compulsion to “defend nature’s intrinsic value” (Cafaro, 2004, p.132). Muir often expressed the idea that nature has intrinsic value or inherent worth apart from human appreciation (Williams, 2002). His respect towards nature is well-illustrated in his 1867 proposal, “The Rights of All the Rest of Creation”. Other exemplars of the intrinsic value of nature presumption are included in “Reverence for Life”, by Albert Schweitzer (1915), “The Holy Earth” by Hyde Bailey and “The Land Ethic” termed by Aldo Leopold reflecting the liberation of nature and life (Nash, 1990).
The distinction between ‘instrumental value’ and ‘intrinsic value’ (also used synonymously with ‘non-instrumental value’ or ‘inherent value’) has been of fundamental importance (Brennan & Lo, 2011). The utilitarianism of valuing things as means to further the interests of humans is a lucid and unequivocal expression of instrumental value. Utilitarianism, though it is not tantamount to anthropocentrism, holds that the interaction between human and the natural world should be based on principles and acts which are intended to achieve the greater good. However, when utilitarianism is linked to using anthropocentric definitions of what counts as the greater good, environmental degradation is very likely to feature as a contender. Intrinsic value theories, coupled with holistic ethics strategies have better eco-outcomes (Wolff, 2008).
Whereas the intrinsic value of things projects the value they possess in its own right, as for its own sake, regardless of their usefulness as means for other ends. For example, a river in a certain area may have instrumental value, because it provides drinking water, food, potential energy sources, and navigation. This being so, we would thus have a pragmatic reason for valuing it. China’s orthodox position, expressed by politicians and project-developers is that a river has no value in itself unless it is in some ways utilized and controlled by humans. This belief denied the intrinsic worth of rivers independent of its prospects for exploiting some ends other than its value as providing resources to be utilized by humans. This being so, the undammed rivers are ‘wasted’ in that regard. The more difficult task is to enunciate the sense in which something such as a river has a value in and of itself, and this is a matter which continues to be debated. Because a thing with inherent worth is something good as an end in itself, it is a commonly accepted concept that intrinsic value creates a direct moral duty on our part as moral agents in the biosphere to preserve or at least be obligated to restrain from damaging “whatever it is that possesses intrinsic value” (Taylor, 1981&1986; quoted in Brennan & Lo, 2011, Ch.4). The idea was not to care for nature for the sake of human interests, but to “take care of nature for nature’s sake” (Santmire, 1970, 185-186;see also in Nash, 1990, p.105). This ethical orientation meant choosing “ways of life that minimize habitat destruction” (Nash, 1990, p.155). The anthropocentric incentive to utilitarianism reduces the whole of nature to an object of consumption. On the other hand it is possible to be interact with nature in a way that respects and honours its intrinsic character and beauty without interventions from our rational faculties which define and commodity it by virtue of its potential utility for us (Brennan & Lo, 2011).
Eco-holism, as I shall call it, does not negate that we have many duties to other individuals, but rather contends that our duty to preserve the wildness, its verdant forests, diverse species, and ecosystems made up of biotic elements of flora and fauna, can take precedence in some circumstances to the interests or rights of individuals who might otherwise wish to expropriate the resources associated with these facets of nature. How we ought to behave morally, if our actions affect the life of nonhuman beings, such as a plant, or a microorganism is an engaging philosophical question. From a ‘deontological’ perspective, the morality of an action is based on the action’s adherence to certain absolute moral demands and requirements. Certain categorical imperatives, duties and rights require moral response, without considering whether the consequences are good or not. My theory of Eco-holism embraces the deontological perspective in simply doing an act because it is simply the right thing to do. For instance, a tree could be said to have intrinsic value in the sense that it possesses the moral right to respectful treatment. This being so, it follows that we have a moral duty to refrain from treating it or the forest of trees in which it grows as a mean to other ends (Regan, 1982). Eco-holism encourages the confluence of moral, political and legal aspects about the environment (Brennan & Lo, 2011). Eco-holism has expressed growing concerns about technological utilizations, which are used primarily as means-to-ends ethical processing. The means to an end conclusion includes the use of pesticide Mega-dam constructions and the use of nuclear technology. The use of deontological ethics makes large change chair to uphold animal rights activism, and the emergence of an environmental ethic as an important sub-category of existing ethical theories, as was reflected in wider scientific, social and political movements for addressing environmental issues. ‘Deep’ (compare to ‘shallow’) environmental movements were introduced in the early 1970s. Being part of the ‘green’ movement risen in Europe in the 1980s, deep ecology advocates the inherent worth of all living beings regardless of their usefulness to human interests. Ecofeminism, developed in the 1980s, has also made a significant contribution to understanding the way in which terms such as ‘Mother Mature’ and feminine gender designations for hurricanes etc. can implicitly be understand. It can reflect a philosophy of nature which is based on the parallel control of nature and women. Ecofeminism has brought psychological, philosophical and theological insight to the analysis of a number of ethical, social and political problems. Social ecology advocates a reconstruction and transformation of social, political and environmental issues. They all have had a significant impact on the development of political ecology and environmental policies. Discussion about their practical implications has been widespread and has rigorously informed modern liberal political theory and social justice research (Ferry, 1995; Brennan & Lo, 2011).
[1] Mencius is the great inheritor of the Confucian tradition in China, who lived in the early 3rd century BC.