Land Ethic is being posted in a series of six sections over the next six days. Stay tuned as Edmund lays out various philosophical and religious arguments for land ethics. His essay was published previously in New Philosophy (Jan-June 2005). - Editor.
Other sections: 1: Introduction; 2: Instrumental Arguments; 3: Utilitarian Arguments; 5: Theological Arguments; 6: New Church Arguments
Next we come to the topic of intrinsic value. It is here that the Land Ethic truly makes its case. Intrinsic value arguments are made under many different names and assumptions, from the deterministic ‘biophilia’ of E.O. Wilson, to Naess’s ‘Deep Ecology’, and to Callicott and Gorke’s ‘Holism’. The common ground they share is the belief that humankind is a small part of a larger world, a dispensable part, and that life would go on fine without humans around. The first of eight points to the deep ecology platform is that, “the flourishing of human and non-human life on Earth has intrinsic value. The value of non-human life forms is independent of the usefulness these may have for narrow human purposes” (Arne Naess, Ecology, Community and Lifestyle, Cambridge, 1989, CUP, p.29).
In developing the idea of a land ethic Leopold had much more than the economic value of nature to humans in mind. He used instrumental arguments since they are generally common ground for all people. He used economic rationale to support the stances he took, but more often than not he writes of the sacrifices required to have a true land ethic, and the main thrust of his essays are for the development of a relationship with the land, a valuing of it for what it is, not simply for what it can provide. He writes that, “It is inconceivable to me that an ethical relation to land can exist without love, respect, and admiration for land, and a high regard for its value. By value I of course mean something far broader than mere economic value; I mean value in the philosophical sense” (Leopold, 223). “We can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in” (Leopold, 214). Clearly Leopold thought that the land ethic must grow out of a ‘love’ for the natural world.
Here it also becomes apparent that Leopold was first an ecologist and second (or later) a philosopher. Callicott has devoted much of his career to giving the land ethic first proposed by Leopold a voice in philosophical academia. He claims that much of modern academia’s trouble grasping the land ethic stems from three fundamental stumbling blocks: “(1) Leopold’s extremely dense prose style in which an entire conceptual complex may be conveyed in a few sentences, or even in a phrase or two; (2) his departure from the assumptions and paradigms of contemporary philosophical ethics; and (3) the unsettling practical implications to which the land ethic leads” (Callicott, 76, In Defense). In a more critical and perhaps accurate observation he writes, “Leopold, I should hasten to point out, was no better a student of philosophy than most professional philosophers are of conservation and its concerns. Hence his characterization of an ethic, ‘philosophically,’ is, put most charitably, incomplete" (Callicott, 60, Beyond).
Callicott unpacks the concepts crammed into the land ethic and gives them voice. The conclusion he draws is that the land ethic is in essence a Humean-Darwinian-Leopoldian worldview (Callicott, 101, Beyond). By Humean he means that it is first and foremost emotive, by Darwinian and Leopoldian that it also has grounding in scientific observation of the world. The usual charge leveled at Humean philosophies is that they are subjective, what is good for one person is not necessarily good to another. I might find a coyote howling nearby to be an exciting and wonderful experience, but a city dweller might be disturbed and scared by the same noise and wish never to hear it again. Put another way, the philosophy lacks a normative force, or if it is allowed that there is force, then it must be purely deterministic, that moral sentiments in favor of an environmental ethic are solely determined by our genes. If this were true the only way to develop an abiding land ethic would be to breed it into the human race. Also, following a deterministic line of thinking, if the current sentiments in society hold that environmental values are of little importance, then there is no way that this can be wrong in and of itself. Even if a change in the gene pool allowed for a strong land ethic to grow it would not be better, just different (Callicott, 109, Beyond). The concept of ‘biophilia’ proposed by the renowned entomologist E.O. Wilson is deterministic. Although he argues that the love of life is already in everyone’s genes, it needs the proper environment in order to develop.
Callicott diverges from Wilson and does not follow the route of radical determinism. Rather he ends up on the side of what I consider gentle determinism. He writes that we are indeed shaped by our genes in as much as they instill in us a desire to participate in culture. But culture is mutable, based on understood truths, and can change rapidly when faced with new truths or facts (Callicott, 114, Beyond). This in turn can quickly cause a change in the modus operandi of the individuals that compose it.
Another issue critics of the land ethic raise, assuming they buy the reasoning given thus far in support of it, is the possibility of ecofascism. If all life is valuable and the six billion humans on the planet threaten the “integrity, stability, and beauty,” of the biosphere, then does the land ethic demand a culling of the human population to a more sustainable level? It most certainly advocates such actions in the case of rabbits, and deer when their populations exceed the carrying capacity of their habitat. Gorke’s model of duty levels is illuminating on this topic. Gorke has a four tier system where each lower tier encompasses all the prior tiers.
It is worth noting that Gorke is not directly addressing the ecofascism charge with this system, but it is useful in helping to conceptualize the defense. The duties must extend in concentric circles as in the system, beginning with those to other people, then to animals, then to plants, and finally the natural world. The land ethic is not meant to shoulder all other ethical reasoning out of the way; taken too far it could easily be misanthropic, or even murderous. Leopold saw it as a step in the direction of an expanding moral sphere, and augmentation of existing systems (with some radical ramifications), but not that it should be used to justify any abridgment of interpersonal ethical conduct (Callicott, 71, Beyond).
How does one develop a value system that includes the natural world without going down the road to ecofascism? The philosopher Holmes Rolston III has written fairly extensively on values pertaining to the natural world. He writes, “Values appear only in the human response to the world. To ask about values in nature is, then, to form a misleading question, for values are only in people, created by their decisions” (Rolston, 74, Wild). He addresses the idea of levels of value, which is connected to the topic from the previous paragraph, and then goes on to “examine the kinds of values that arise in association with nature, being founded on physical and biological properties there” (Rolston, 75, Wild). He claims that the creation of value is not a one-way street. Things are valued by humans for what they are but also for where they are (both the human subject and the valued object). According to Rolston, “Value attaches to a non-subjective form of life, but is nevertheless owned by a biological individual, a thing in itself. These things count, whether or not there is anybody there to do the counting...They do their own thing, which we enjoy being let in on, and which we care to see continue when we pass on” (Rolston, 111, Wild). He, like other philosophers who write in favor of environmental ethics, tries to develop an objective or normative basis for the more subjective act of valuing. The point here is that we can value our relationships with people, and we can value the natural world. Creating a value system that includes the natural world need not demote humans to an equivalent place with sparrows.
I find most of the ideas generated by ethicists when they argue for environmental ethics meritorious. Where I depart from Leopold, Callicott, and Gorke is when they argue from an evolutionary perspective that because humankind is part of a larger, greater world, a great sea of life, we are obligated to preserve and protect it. Leopold says, “In the beginning, the pyramid of life was low and squat; the food chains short and simple. Evolution has added layer after layer, link after link. Man is one of thousands of accretions to the height and complexity of the pyramid” (Leopold, 215-216). In giving more precise voice to the land ethic Callicott writes, “Evolutionary theory provides the conceptual link between ethics and social organization and development. It provides a sense of ‘kinship with fellow-creatures’ as well, ‘fellow-voyagers’ with us in the ‘odyssey of evolution’” (Callicott, 82, In Defense). And Gorke writes, “Either one essentially rejects the religious, teleological, and epistemological premises concerning the world and the role of humankind outlined above; then one can hardly continue to hold an anthropocentric worldview. Or one feels compelled to adhere to this worldview because one still finds a large number of these premises accurate” (Gorke, 248). He uses evolutionary biology to support his case for the rationality of rejecting the anthropocentric worldview. I do not see how one steps from belief that one is part of a larger natural community to compelling action to protect it. People see themselves as part of a larger human community and that belief certainly does not compel everyone to act in the best interests of the community. If it did there would be no stealing, no corruption, and no exploitation of the poor and disenfranchised. I absolutely agree with the proposition that we need to cultivate more intimate relationships with the natural world, and to limit the effects of our actions on it, but I strongly disagree that the reason we should do so is because we are, “a part of nature.”
Next section: Theological Arguments.
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Thanks also to Rev. Grant Odhner for his paper, “Key Ideas on Nature from the Heavenly Doctrines”.
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.