Practical Environmental Ethics

A. Pablo Iannone

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781412863087
• eBook ISBN: 9781351497282
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This essential volume for professionals and academics proposes a new approach to environmental ethics and to environmental policymaking in particular. All too frequently, policy makers focus only on what ends should ideally be pursued, ignoring whether the means have any negative unintended consequences. Such approaches tend to have a focus on consequentialist, deontological, virtue-cantered, or care-based theories which makes them too singularly-minded. They are not suitable for dealing with the complexities of life and, especially, environmental policy making.

Practical Environmental Ethics distinguishes between cases in which entire ecosystems are at risk, threatening entire societies where collective consequences take precedence and cases in which whole ecosystems are not at risk where individual rights or duties take precedence. In doing this, Iannone discusses environmental controversies not only philosophically, but in the complex contexts at work within policy-making and decision-making communities. This allows for consideration of crucial concepts used in morality, biology, technology, business, economics, politics, and philosophy.

Relying on numerous actual environmental cases, Iannone helps formulate realistic ways of logically and ethically determining how environmental controversies should be addressed. Ultimately, he proposes solutions that policy makers and anyone interested in this topic may utilize to clarify environmental issues and determine how to best deal with them for the greater good.

1

Ethics, the Environment, Environmental Ethics

Senses of the Term “Ethics”

The “Personal Sense” of “Ethics” or a Person’s Morals: You Care about Each Particular Living Thing; I Care about Species and Ecosystems

The Houston toad (Bufo houstonensis) is an amphibian species found in Texas. It was discovered in the late 1940s, named in 1953, and nearly, if not totally, extirpated from the Houston area by the 1960s, probably for the most part as a result of the severe drought of the 1950s and the development of its forested habitat in the region. Official estimates are that just 3,000–4,000 adult Houston toads are left in the world. In the 1970s, it was federally listed as an endangered species.¹

People’s beliefs often differ about what is right, good, or justified about this case. Some, for example, care about each particular living thing, hence think each Houston toad should be preserved. Others care only about species and ecosystems, hence think the Houston toad species, but not each species member should be preserved. Still others care only about humans and not about other species or ecosystems unless undermining these would undermine humans, and argue that, in and of themselves, ecosystems and living beings other than humans are not worthy of moral consideration. This, however, simply establishes the fact that one person’s ethics—the person’s morals—is often different from that of others. It does not settle the question of what action is right or what individuals are worthy of moral consideration, but does provide a good example of one of the ways the term “ethics” is used: the personal sense, in which ethics is a particular individual’s beliefs and presuppositions about right and wrong, good and bad, justified and unjustified. This is something a particular person has.

The “Social Sense” of “Ethics” or a Group’s Mores: Native American versus European Attitudes about the Environment

In an attempt to resolve the question of whether it would be wrong not to preserve each Houston toad one can preserve and merely preserve the Houston toad species, one might consider appealing to a professional code, say, that of the Texas Association of Environmental Professionals.² Existing codes, however, provide little or no guidance on the subject, and whatever guidance they may provide is open to the criticism of disagreeing environmental professionals, business executives involved in economic development in the Houston area, and various members of the public. A group’s code of conduct—its mores—does not by itself settle the question of what actions are right or which practices or policies are justified. Any such code, however, constitutes an example of ethics in the social sense of the term. A conflict between these codes is exemplified by Native American versus traditionally predominant Western attitudes about the environment, whereby the former tend to seek harmony with the environment, while the latter tend to seek mastery of it.³ At any rate, in the social sense, ethics is a particular group’s predominant beliefs and presuppositions about right and wrong, good and bad, justified and unjustified. Ethics in the social sense, accordingly, is something a group has, in that the group has explicitly, however partially, formulated it or predominantly presupposes it.

Mores, Manners, Custom, and Morality

A group’s mores may not distinguish between manners (for example, thanking those who let us go out of an elevator first), practices, (for example, having pasta on Sundays among Italian descendants in Argentina), and matters of moral significance (for example, acting contrary to the rules against murder). Simplistic mores such as those here envisioned acknowledge only one category: the done thing. In such circumstances, customs can exist where there are no laws or morality. However, mores need not be—and often are not—so simplistic. They may distinguish between various types of customs, say, as just mentioned, those that concern mere manners, those that concern practices with no moral significance, and those that have moral significance. Yet, even when such complex distinctions are present, mores may be quite parochial and uncritical. For example, in ancient Greece, burying the dead was a morally significant practice, while cremating them was a morally significant practice in Persia. Ancient Greeks and Persians shocked each other when they observed each other’s practices concerning the dead.⁴

Yet, when groups with conflicting mores come into contact, more critical attitudes and judgments often develop among members of each group. For when the beliefs and presuppositions constituting a person’s or group’s ethics are in conflict with those of others, giving rise to disagreements between individuals, groups, or between groups and some of their members, the question of who is right characteristically arises. And sometimes, upon facing up to the said conflict, people become intellectually cautious and self-critical. This is where mores make room not just for the morality of a particular group, but for the general concept of morality: the standpoint from which any morality can be critically scrutinized. For critical questions can be, and actually are, asked about some of the morally significant matters the mores involve.

Law, Laws, and Morality: The Law of the Sea

One might be inclined to think that a society makes room for morality in at least one other way: by introducing a legal system. By itself, however, such a system will not suffice. To be sure, as H. L. A. Hart made plain, in evolving from a situation involving only custom, a legal system would systematize the manner in which morally significant aspects of a social group’s mores are to be addressed through official lawmaking, judging, and enforcing bodies.⁵ To the extent that it is effective, such a system introduces some desirable order in society, by doing away with such things as overbearing traditionalism and spasmodic mob rule. But it does not follow that a legal system will make room for morality beyond such minimal changes. For while making room for such minimal changes, a legal system may—and some have—become stagnant, unable to make adaptive corrections sensitive to social—say, demographic, scientific, technological, or environmental—change, leading to generalized enforcement failures and loss of legitimacy.

Nor does it follow that such a legal system will make room for morality in every society. For this reason, international laws like the law of the sea, which applies in international waters agreed upon by treaties’ signatories, are necessary—to enforce a variety of regulations concerning, for example, whale hunting—and they are effective so long as the signatory countries’ authorities ratify them and enforce them. I’ll return to this below, in the section entitled “The Moral Point of View.”

Yet, even if any legal system—the law—and international law makes significant room for morality beyond the bare minimum of doing away with stagnant traditionalism and mob rule, it cannot entirely codify morality. For there are significant differences between legal and moral rights and obligations, not the least of which is that legal rights and obligations depend on rules of legal evidence, while moral rights and obligations need not be so. Let us see why.

Suppose Jim Gelder is getting married and buys a home. The home is not new and will need some updating. Knowing this, John Kubrick, his friend, buys a certificate of deposit intending to give it to Jim, as a wedding present, to cover the expense of a set of energy-saving widows once he and his wife move into their new place. John tells them and his buddies at the gym that he intends for the money to be a gift, writes on the certificate “John Kubrick or Jim Gelder,” and, until the wedding takes place, places it in his safe in the bank. Unfortunately, shortly before Jim and his wife get married, John dies in a car accident. Jim approaches John’s estate asking for the certificate of deposit saying that it is a gift from John to him, but John’s estate responds that it is not his because it is not a gift.

Now, though Jim may be morally entitled to the certificate of deposit money, he is not legally entitled to it. For, legally, one is not entitled to gifts announced but never made. In order for something to be a gift, the giver must release control to the recipient of the object intended as a gift.⁶

Second, laws could not effectively cover all morally significant areas. Imagine the enforcement nightmare that would be created by laws meant to regulate ungrateful behavior! At the very least, they would be intrusive. Besides, given the court overload caused by laws that fall far short of regulating such matters, the said additional laws would lead to legal paralysis, hence undermine the legal system. That is, what must be established is not what is the right thing to do independently of the circumstances, but what is the right thing to do in the circumstances, especially when there is controversy and even confrontation about it. Would one want society to be like it would be if every wrong conduct were regulated by law?

Environmental Ethics and the Fact–Value Distinction

This book’s discussions are as much about facts as about values, and questions arise about what facts and values are and how they relate to each other. Some thinkers, following David Hume, have argued that, in doing ethics, one must clearly distinguish between facts and values, and that once this is done, no statement of value logically follows from statements that are purely of fact.⁷

Now, in saying that one must clearly distinguish between facts and values, the term “facts” is usually understood to mean those items whose characterization typically involves statements using words like “is” and “are.” These are the sort of statements used to characterize, for example, in biology, the relations among organisms and between them and their medium in stable ecosystems, and the different relations among and between them in unstable ecosystems. Examples are “climate change is a factor that contributes to changes in the habitat of many species” and “species are dependant for their survival on the stability of the ecosystems they form.” These statements describe purported facts. Hence, they ordinarily exemplify descriptive uses of language.

By contrast with the above, the term “values” is usually understood— and I will understand it—to mean those items whose characterization typically uses words like “ought” and “should” as in “Governments should address the issue of climate change” or evaluative words like “good” and “bad” as in “Wind turbines are good as an alternative to fossil fuels in producing electricity.” These statements ordinarily exemplify evaluative or normative uses of language. It is argued that the latter kind of statements, that is, normative or evaluative statements, does not follow from the former kind, that is, from statements of fact, without the addition of at least one normative or evaluative premise.

In the narrow sense of statements of fact in which they are purely statements about nature, for example, about ecosystems or their components and the relations among them, it seems hard to argue against the view that, in and of themselves, they do not entail evaluative or normative statements. This is the opinion voiced by Paul W. Taylor when he says:

Nothing in ecology, for example, can tell us that it is wrong to have a wholly exploitative attitude toward nature.⁸

But, first, statements about ecosystems or their components and the relations among them can and do involve or implicate statements about what promotes or undermines the system’s stability or integrity, that is, about what changes have value or disvalue relatively to the system. Also, they can and do involve or implicate statements about what promotes or undermines the well-being or very existence of life-forms in the system, that is, statements about what changes have value or disvalue relatively to components of the system. My main aim in saying this is simply to point out a second feature of statements about ecosystems or their components or, for that matter, about other facts formulated in biology or in other sciences: they can and do prompt humans to make evaluative and normative statements or judgments, for example, about what to do about the said facts.

Further, the kind of statements of fact just considered does not exhaust all the kinds of statements of fact there are. Consider “Worldwide, about 1 million people take their own lives each year,” and “In the last 45 years, the suicide rate has jumped by 60 percent.”⁹ These are statements of fact in the social sciences and not about ecology or nature in the sense of “nature” used in Taylor’s above statement. Further, there are statements of fact not merely in the sciences but also in ordinary language—for example, “I borrowed $10 from Jim and I promised to return ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Credits
• Note to the Reader
• 1 Ethics, the Environment, Environmental Ethics
• 2 Environmental Problems, Environmental Issues, and Ethical Theories
• 3 Environmental Risk Assessment
• 4 Risk Assessment Beyond Quantification
• 5 Environmental Management
• 6 The Global Environment, and the Remnants of Colonialism, Ethics, and Economic Development
• 7 The Contemporary Globalization of Development
• 8 A Comparison of Traditional Versus More Recent Environmental Policy Approaches
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index