Land Ethic 2: Instrumental Arguments

Land Ethic is posted in a series of six sections. This essay was published previously in New Philosophy (Jan-June 2005). - Editor.

Other sections: 1: Introduction; 3: Utilitarian Arguments; 4: Intrinsic Value Arguments; 5: Theological Arguments; 6: New Church Arguments

Instrumental Arguments

Starting at the most external level is the economic set of arguments used to promote a land ethic. They are called instrumental arguments because they value nature’s use to mankind as a source of products such as coal, wood, food – a source of all basic necessities. Nature (land) is seen as having instrumental value to man as a means of meeting his needs, both material and aesthetic. The instrumental arguments used suppose that human life is good and that future human life is desirable. Therefore it is wrong to imperil human life by irreparably damaging the natural world that supports it.

The philosopher Holmes Rolston points out that this is “an ethic that is secondarily ecological” (Rolston, 13, Wild). He goes on to show that the laws of health are non-moral but we break them to our own detriment. Therefore most people impose an “antecedent moral ought,” which in the case of health is “you ought not harm yourself”. By extension then you, “ought to preserve human life” is the antecedent moral ought to the “moral imperative” of conservation and preservation of land (Rolston, 13-16, Wild).

Leopold used instrumental arguments to support his calls for greater intimacy in our relationship with the land. Perhaps it was a function of his time, perhaps he knew that few people would be able, or willing to follow his reasoning without the inclusion of economic reasons for acting “properly”. Indeed since the days of Marsh, Roosevelt, and Pinchot the conservation movement has primarily restricted itself to utilitarian arguments even when the proponent’s real motives are deeper. Rachel Carson clearly had deeper reasons than the economic value of songbirds or the aesthetic value of raptors motivating her to write A Silent Spring, but the reasons she used to justify her proposal to ban chlorinated pesticides such as DDT were mostly utilitarian. The unknown consequences of losing a top predator such as a raptor could hypothetically be detrimental to human life. She also emphasized the loss of our “humanity” if these species were driven to extinction, and the way causing agonizing deaths in poisoned animals reduces our humanity (Nash, 80).

Nearly all writers on the topic of environmental ethics begin their essays by listing the horrendous statistics about the state of our world. The hope is that selfish desires to preserve our own lives can be put to use protecting the natural world. Along these lines some people propose letting the free market decide how to value the natural world. The argument is that if we are overdrawing our natural capital, all we need to do is structure the economy such that everything is given its appropriate value. There is a great need for thinking in this manner to be implemented. New York City’s purchase of development rights in the Catskill Mountains as protection for its water supply is a good example of this model in action. It costs less to preserve land as is than to build complicated and energy intensive infrastructure to serve the same purpose. But as a basis of land protection a purely economic approach fails as Gorke demonstrates. He points out that a species of animal or plant must bear the burden of proof in a system operating on these principles. The only way it will be protected is if it can meet three criteria.

1. Utility must be approximately known.
2. It must be quantifiable.
3. After a cost benefit analysis it must outweigh costs and other competing values. (Gorke, 138)

The third point here is especially illuminating because it essentially says there will be some species not worth saving. The construction of the Tellico dam on the Tennessee River is a perfect example of this. A small endangered fish of no economic value, Percina tanasi, lost its entire habitat to the creation of a reservoir behind this dam. A special exemption was made in the endangered species act to allow for the completion of the multi-million dollar dam. Eventually a “god squad” designed to assess the values of species preservation versus large economic development projects was allowed by the courts. When the dam was completed the snail darter became the first species consciously and willingly exterminated for economic reasons (Freyfogle, 19-20). Acting thus is not in keeping with the spirit of the land ethic. Leopold came to a similar conclusion 25 years before the snail darter controversy when he wrote, “of the 22,000 plants and animals native to Wisconsin, it is doubtful whether more than 5 percent can be sold, fed, eaten, or otherwise put to economic use (Leopold, 210).

A second utility argument that is very often made is ecological in bent. Since the web of life is so complex we must exercise great caution in removing any of the strands, or so the reasoning goes. We cannot know the effects of our actions in advance so it is best to operate under the precautionary principle of “first do no harm”. Gorke shows this to be insufficient grounds for a land ethic by discussing the concept of a keystone species. The very concept of a keystone points to the fact that some types of organisms are more important or vital than others. Removing one of the “others” therefore has little or no effect on the whole, and certainly doesn’t affect ecological integrity to the point that human life might be jeopardized (Gorke, 148). Swallowtail butterflies are a good example of this. If all the swallowtail butterflies in North America went extinct other insect pollinators would fill their niche. Hypothetically then it would be possible for ecologists to identify keystone species thereby freeing us to destroy most others. Gorke also directs our attention to the fact that keystone species are probably not rare and “ecology is far from being able to demonstrate we really these (non-keystone) species” (Gorke, 154).

Finally there are the aesthetic utility arguments. Nature is beautiful and it must be preserved so that mankind has a place to go for reflection and recreation. In his essay on wilderness Leopold waxes poetic about the value of wild places to the development of the human psyche, (Leopold 192-194) and later in The Land Ethic he writes, “turn him (modern man) loose for a day on the land and if the spot doesn’t happen to be a golf links or a ‘scenic spot’ he is bored stiff” (Leopold, 224). He writes that education could ameliorate some of this problem, but not alone prove a remedy to it since there are plenty with PhDs in ecology who cannot ‘see’ nature in the right way (Leopold, 174). The quotations above demonstrate the weakness of the aesthetic argument, for whose definition of beauty are we to use? Some people might find the cultivated feel of a city park to be beautiful while others find it overdone and restricted. Some might find the deep woods of northern Minnesota to be beautiful while others find them scary and disorienting. The typical aesthetic argument therefore plays up the scenic spots and totally ignores the fact that there are also negative aesthetic reactions to the natural world (Gorke, 167). To some snakes, muck on the bottom of swamps, and coyotes howling nearby are profoundly disturbing experiences. Aesthetic arguments are simply too subjective to provide the basis of an environmental ethic.

The next section of this essay is: Utilitarian Arguments.

References

Berry, Wendell. Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community. New York: Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, 1993.

Black, John. The Dominion of Man. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1970.

Callicott, J. Baird. Beyond the Land Ethic. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1999.

Callicott, J. Baird. In Defense of the Land Ethic. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1989.

Folsom, Rev. Paul. And Thou Shalt Die in a Polluted Land. Ligouri, Missouri: Ligourian Pamphlets and Books, 1971.

Freyfogle, Eric T. Bounded People, Boundless Lands. Washington DC: Island Press, 1998.

The Holy Bible, trans. Unknown. New King James Version. New York: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984.

Gorke, Martin. The Death of Our Planet’s Species: A Challenge to Ecology and Ethics. Washington DC: Island Press, 2003.

Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac. New York: Oxford University Press, 1949.

Leopold, Carl A. “Living with the Land Ethic,“ in Bioscience, vol 54, no 2 (February 2004), p. 149-154.

Nash, Roderick F. The Rights of Nature. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, Ltd., 1989.

Rolston III, Holmes. Environmental Ethics. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 1988.

Rolston III, Holmes. Philosophy Gone Wild. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1986.

Singer, Peter. Practical Ethics, second edition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Swedenborg, Emanuel. Arcana Caelestia, Vol I: Trans. John Elliot. London: The Swedenborg Society, 1983.

Swedenborg, Emanuel. Arcana Caelestia, Vol III: Trans. John Elliot. London: The Swedenborg Society, 1985.

Swedenborg, Emanuel. Divine Love and Wisdom, Trans. George Dole. West Chester, Pennsylvania: The Swedenborg Foundation, 2003.

Swedenborg, Emanuel. Love in Marriage, Trans. David F. Gladish. New York: The Swedenborg Foundation, 1992.

Swedenborg, Emanuel. The True Christian Religion, Vol I: Trans. John Chadwick. London: The Swedenborg Society, 1988.

Wenz, Peter S. Environmental Ethics Today. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

White, Lynn. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis,” in Science, 155:1203-1207.

Wright, Richard T. Biology Through the Eyes of Faith, revised. San Francisco, California: Harper Collins Publishers, 2003.

Thanks also to Rev. Grant Odhner for his paper, “Key Ideas on Nature from the Heavenly Doctrines”.

Edmund Brown

Edmund was raised in Bryn Athyn where he attended New Church schools. He lives near Cooperstown, New York where he works as a registered nurse. He is currently plotting his departure from nursing by engaging full-time in setting up a farmstead cheese making operation. He finds the greatest joys in life from his marriage to Normandy Alden, his dear family and friends, and spending time in the woods and fields of his farm.

Comments

[Lincoln Smith]

I find this article so useful. I appreciate the clear and deliberate gathering together of the assumptions underlying people's (and my) thinking on land ethics.

[Lincoln Smith]

I tend to give a little more weight to the idea that, "Since the web of life is so complex we must exercise great caution in removing any of the strands." Yes, people can observe special roles played in ecosystems by organisms we label "keystone species", and fail to observe important functions in other species. But why should we be confident we haven't missed something important that a non-keystone species is doing?

An example of a previously unobserved role might be the "vernal nutrient dam" species: often small ephemeral herbs growing on forest floors that have been discovered to have a profound effect on retaining scarce soil nutrients in the ecosystem during spring snow melt and rains. Those plants were performing that role before we realized they were. They aren't keystone species, but the system would suffer without them.