Understanding Environmental Philosophy

Andrew Brennan, Y.S. Lo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317492221
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Environmental philosophy is one of the exciting new fields of philosophy to emerge in the last forty years. "Understanding Environmental Philosophy" presents a comprehensive, critical analysis of contemporary philosophical approaches to current ecological concerns. Key ideas are explained, placed in their broader cultural, religious, historical, political and philosophical context, and their environmental policy implications are outlined. Central ideas and concepts about environmental value, individual wellbeing, ecological holism and the metaphysics of nature set the stage for a discussion of how to establish moral rules and priorities, and whether it is possible to transcend human-centred views of the world. The reader is also helped with an annotated guide to further reading, questions for discussion and revision as well as boxed studies highlighting key concepts and theoretical material. A clear and accessible introduction to this most dynamic of subjects, "Understanding Environmental Philosophy" will be invaluable for a wide range of readers.

one Introduction: the place of environmental philosophy and its basic concepts

DOI: 10.4324/9781315711539-1

Overview

Most people now under twenty-five have a high probability of being around in fifty years’ time. What will the world be like then? At current consumption rates, oil is due to run out in just over forty years, and people then will be living in societies that derive much of the energy for transport from other sources. No one has worked out a viable alternative aviation fuel, so there may be less international air travel, and it may cost much more than at present. Since increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels profoundly influence climate change, there will be a drive to reduce reliance on coal as a source of energy, even though there is enough coal on earth to last for another four centuries or so (at present rates of use). Within half a century, the switch to cleaner forms of energy, and the resulting reduction in air pollution, could be one of the major differences from the present. In most of the world's major cities there should be many days where breathing is comfortable and visibility is sparklingly clear, in stark contrast to the situation at present.

Even if the air gets cleaner over the next half century, this will not make much difference to climate changes that – having already started – cannot be stopped. For some time, climate modellers have been warning of the problem of tipping points. These are thresholds for the world's climate, ocean and ecological systems, at which they experience massive discontinuities. Tipping points occur when a system begins to undergo a rapid irreversible change from one state to a quite different one. After the tipping point is reached, the change is impossible to stop, even though it may take some time for the system to reach its new state. Such tipping points might include the sudden collapse of a major ocean current, the failure of seasonal monsoon rains, the sharp intensification of severe-weather events, or a sudden and unexpected increase in the rate of melting of snowfields or ice sheets (Lenton et al. 2008). There is the (we hope remote) possibility of a domino effect. This happens when a tipping point in one system is reached, and that change then triggers a further system to tip, which in turn triggers a further system to tip and so on.

The Greenland ice sheet holds nearly 6 per cent of the planet's fresh water. When it tips into an irreversible thaw this would steadily release water into the North Atlantic with economic, social and environmental consequences. To protect against a one-metre rise in sea level, the United States would need to spend $156 billion. The island nations of the Maldives and the Marshall Islands would disappear under the waves, much of Bangladesh would be uninhabitable and other countries would lose vital agricultural land. Encroaching salt water would reduce the availability of fresh water, leading to widespread death of plants and animals and reduction in agricultural production. Another part of the planet on the verge of tipping into an irreversible change is the enormous West Antarctic ice sheet. If both the Greenland ice sheet and West Antarctic ice sheet melt faster than expected, there would be a six-metre rise in sea level, dramatically changing the shape of the world map. In less than 300 years, New York, London and Bangkok would be flooded, agriculture and fisheries would collapse, and there would be mass human starvation, while wars, disease, enormous population displacement, poverty and massive loss of life would occur. While we do not yet know whether we are at – or have passed – tipping points for these parts of the climate system, it is pretty certain that within fifty years that knowledge will be available.

One other system at risk of tipping is the Indian summer monsoon. In May each year, heating of the Indian land mass draws moisture-laden air in from the surrounding oceans. As the air strikes the Himalayas it is deflected upwards, creating powerful low-pressure systems generating massive downpours and flooding to which local populations and agriculture were adapted. Land clearing, agriculture and air pollution make an impact on the planetary albedo (reflectance) over the Indian subcontinent, hence affecting the basic mechanism driving the monsoon. Some models predict worsening of the monsoon, others a weakening of it. Either result could wreak vast damage on agricultural production. In the light of concerns about these – and several other – tipping points, it is small wonder that people worry about whether the next century will see the beginnings of environmental catastrophe, with increasing floods, rapid rises in sea levels, droughts, famine, massive increases in environmental refugees, and wars breaking out as populations are displaced and fresh water becomes ever more scarce. In fifty years’ time, it should be possible to identify which tipping points have been triggered, even though we will then be unable to do anything to reverse the changes taking place.

One prominent environmental pessimist, Clive Hamilton, gave a lecture to the Royal Society of Arts in Sydney in 2009, where he stated:

It now seems almost certain that, if it has not occurred already, within the next several years enough warming will be locked in to the system to set in train feedback processes that will overwhelm any attempts we make to cut back on our carbon emissions. We will be powerless to stop the jump to a new climate on Earth, one much less sympathetic to life.

(Hamilton 2009)

Who stands to lose most from the new climate that is “less sympathetic to life”? The picture for the future is quite mixed. Bangladesh, the Marshall Islands and other low-lying countries are already feeling the effect of rising sea levels, and parts or all of these countries will probably disappear before too long, rendering their inhabitants not so much homeless as landless. On the other hand, income-rich industrial cities and countries are planning already to improve their coastal defences to protect cities, suburbs and agricultural land. London may have to bring forward the date on which it replaces its existing flood barriers on the Thames, and Venice may have to rethink its current strategies on preventing major flood destruction. Further south, India and Pakistan face severe losses in agricultural production, but predictions for prosperous northern countries are better. The United States and Canada may benefit from increasing crop production and more harvests in a carbon-enriched and warmer atmosphere. In Europe, the rich countries of the north may do quite well under a changed climate, while agriculture in Spain, Italy and Greece will come under pressure.

In fact, while the effects of climate change will be felt all over the world, the human impact of climate change will be strongest in the income-poor countries of the world, and will be felt most sharply by the poorest people in these countries. So why care about it? If you, reader of this book, are already living in one of the income-rich industrial countries, you have little to fear for your own prosperity or that of your children. Or if you are prosperous and have the means to move, you are unlikely to suffer much from climate change even if you live in an income-poor country. It is the poorest and most vulnerable people who generally suffer most from storms, droughts, floods and other disasters. The so-called “natural” disasters are – in common with war, disease and other afflictions – not democratic in the way they strike groups of people. There is much uncertainty about the future. But one thing is certain: climate change will certainly not affect all people equally. So, in the light of scary predictions about the future, what would be the most rational thing to do? Maybe to try to get as rich as possible, so as to look after ourselves and our families?

This book is about philosophy and ethics, not about making money. Ethics goes beyond self-interest. The possibility of ethics in practice relies on the very fact that people (or most of them anyway) are open to considerations other than self-interest. Ethics assumes we are moved by consideration of other people's interests and suffering. So, if you are not capable of being motivated by the plight of other people, and if you only do things that you think will advance your self-interest, then you may as well stop reading this book now. The arguments we discuss will have no relevance for you unless you are capable of – or at least willing to be open to – being moved by considering the well-being of others.

If you do care about such issues you are not alone. In a review published by the UK Treasury in 2006, Nicholas Stern commented that under modest assumptions about climate change over the next fifty years:

generally, poor countries, and poor people in any given country, suffer the most, notwithstanding that the rich countries are responsible for the bulk of past emissions. These features of climate change, together with the fact that they have an impact on many dimensions of human well-being, force us to look carefully at the underlying ethical judgements and presumptions which underpin, often implicitly, the standard framework of policy analysis.

(Stern 2007: §2.3)

We are going to assume that you – like Stern – do care about others. Since ethics goes beyond considerations of narrow self-interest, environmental ethics will raise questions that go beyond purely human interests. This is a book about environmental philosophy, so we also assume that the reader is interested in questions about non-human living things, and about environmental systems and the planet as a whole. The Stern review suggests that up to 40 per cent of species could face extinction due to climate change, and many people have found this a matter of moral or ethical concern also. We turn to species later in the book. At first, we look at ways of going beyond the here-and-now (Chapter 2) by thinking about the interests of future people, and our duties – if any – to them. Questions about future people take us outside the circle of our immediate cares for ourselves, our loved ones and the people we know, and make us consider our responsibilities to those who are distant from us, those who belong to different racial, ethnic and religious groups, and so on. This is the first stage of expanding the circle of our moral concern and starts the journey of exploring how our moral concerns, sentiments and motivations can be extended beyond human beings, to animals, their lives and interests and then outward to other living things and to nature in general.

After future people, we turn to animals. Newspapers the world over feature stories about cats rescued from trees, sewers, washing machines and other less likely predicaments, and volunteers spend days trying to save beached whales. The lives and behaviour of animals – especially mammals – can readily catch our imagination and trigger thoughts about whether we owe them responsibilities or duties of any kind. Chapter 3 asks about the moral status and value of animals, seeing how far beyond self-interest our moral capacities will take us. Despite our love of some animals, others are often treated as nothing more than mere resources for human use and consumption. Is there something morally problematic with a purely instrumental attitude towards our coinhabitants of the earth? Some philosophers have argued that animals, living things and natural things in general all have a value in their own right, which they possess independent of their use to humans, and they therefore call for restraint from humans in using them. We begin to examine these arguments in Chapters 3 and 4, seeing whether they stand up to rational scrutiny. By then, we will find that philosophy seems able to take us a long way beyond self-interest, and we start to face interesting questions about the limits of our capacity for ethics and morality. Are there any things that we cannot come to see in a moral light and consider as having actual or potential moral value?

It is not uncommon in environmental management to cull feral animals or some individual members of overpopulated indigenous species for the protection of the integrity of the ecosystems of which they are parts. We ask in Chapter 5 whether these actions – harmful to many individuals but beneficial to the environment as a whole – are morally permissible. For some commentators, the culling of overabundant species is not just permissible, but actually mandatory for the greater good. We examine this logic to see if it is ever acceptable to sacrifice individuals for the sake of the good of the larger system to which they belong. One big problem is whether individuals are just instruments for promoting the larger good of the system in which they are placed. Is this a way of applying to nature a philosophy that, when applied to human affairs and communities, would be a kind of fascism or totalitarianism? We explore whether some ideas about environmental management amount to a kind of “eco-fascism” that fails to show the proper respect due to individual animals and living things.

Environmental philosophy over the past forty years has often argued for recognizing the value of things that are natural, wild and free. In Chapter 6 we turn to the examination of the idea of nature. Do natural things have a certain value that manufactured things – artefacts – necessarily lack? Some writers have argued that domestic animals – because they are bred, designed and created by humans – are nothing more than artefacts, and that their value is thereby reduced. According to this view, a wolf is much more valuable than a dog. Likewise, an old-growth forest devoid of human interference is seen as more valuable than a botanic garden. Consider a mining company that had performed open-pit mining in some previously unspoiled area, and then subsequently restored the land form and surface ecology of the area. What is the value of the restored environment? Might it be just as valuable as the original unspoiled, untouched, environment, or does it lack the authentic value of the original?

Human beings themselves – never far from the focus of all philosophical enquiries – have a puzzling status and Chapter 6 also explores this topic. We ask whether everything with which human beings interfere thereby becomes unnatural, and whether humans themselves can be in nature while still having culture. What is it for something to be natural? We explore different senses of the word “natural” and examine the way naturalness has been thought to be morally relevant in a variety of environmental philosophies. Some philosophers have claimed that all natural things are beautiful, but are they beautiful simply because they are natural? Alternatively, is there something else about natural things that makes them beautiful? These provocative questions take us into the consideration of topics that span environmental philosophy and other areas of aesthetics and ethical theory.

By this stage in the book, environmental philosophy has taken us beyond self-interest in many ways, but in a surprising way it has also brought us back to questions about ourselves. We have examined a range of theories, and certain shared features have now emerged. The common underlying strategy in many attempts to extend our ethics involves a logic that forces us to confront a question about ourselves rather than about others. Here is the reason why. Many theories of environmental philosophy take humans as their starting-point, and share a basic commitment to the inherent worth humans possess. That shared commitment is the common basis for extending the scope of ethics beyond the human world and out to include animals, plants, ecosystems, and even rivers, mountains and glaciers. So the extension of value to natural things is nearly always based on the assumption that human beings themselves are valuable. But this value is itself mysterious. What is the source of universal and equal human dignity and worth? One important source of this idea is a religious framework in which the Creator loves all that he has made, especially humans – the jewel of creation – fashioned in his own image. God's love for the whole of nature, what he sees to be good, gives a coherent metaphysical foundation for the existence of value that is spread widely throughout nature and not located just within one species. Chapter 7 explores this idea and then subjects it to investigation. Some analysts have pointed out that a huge problem faces us in a world without faith: the ethics by which people live only appear to make sense within the very framework that secularism rejects. As Ivan Karamazov famously contended, if there is no God then everything is permitted. For those who do not want to found a theory of ethics and value on religion, the puzzle is to find a new structure within which notions of value, dignity and equality can make sense. The chapter explores the possibility of basing value and ethics on a purely secular foundation. If this is not possible, then neither environmental, nor human, ethics will be credible in the absence of a religious framework.

At a time of continuing and deepening environmental anxiety, we naturally wonder if people in some societies and cultures behave better toward the environment than people in others. If that is the case, we need to find out which societies and cultures are more environmentally friendly and which ones are not so. We also need an explanation as to why that is the case. If successful, we can perhaps gain insight into how we should reorganize our way of being in the world in order to better relate to the larger environment. A great deal of work has theorized the pathology of contemporary environmental crises, suggesting that some of our underlying cultural, religious and political beliefs and attitudes are responsible for our behaving badly toward the environment. In other words, our religious worldviews, our basic political and social ideas, are not environmentally innocent. Human-centredness – anthropocen – trism – is the number one suspect. The anthropocentric perspective is that by and large human beings are the only intrinsically worthwhile things on earth, and that everything else exists to service our wants and needs. As we show in Chapter 8, many theorists in the field blame this perspective for our environmental problems. This is why so much effort in environmental philosophy has been expended trying to refute anthropocentrism. We examine a number of theories in which anthro-pocentrism plays a key role as the guilty party. But we also show that the case against anthropocentrism has not yet been clearly proved.

In our final chapter, we turn to some underexamined parts of environmental philosophy, asking to what extent our troubles are related to the consumer society and the pressures it generates. We also consider whether environmental care is an individual responsibility. What about the great corporations, whose financial and economic activities have impacts on culture, economy and environment alike? Are they the hidden destroyers of nature and do the people who work for them have any chance of holding them in check? What role can governments play in controlling the greedy hunt for growth at all cost, and can science and research play a part in finding ways for us to manage ourselves and the natural world better than we presently do?

Environmental philosophers have often seemed to think that if people no longer believe that they are the most i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction: the place of environmental philosophy and its basic concepts
• 2. Future generations: what consideration do we owe them?
• 3. Animals: are they as morally valuable as human beings?
• 4. Living things: ethics for the non-human world
• 5. Community: how big is our moral world?
• 6. Natural things: the puzzle of what “natural” means, and whether humans belong to nature
• 7. Foundations: can there be a secular basis for the ideas of human dignity and intrinsic value in nature?
• 8. Origins: political, religious and cultural diagnoses of environmental problems
• 9. Beyond individual responsibility: governance and the affluenzic society
• Questions for discussion and revision
• Further reading
• Bibliography
• Index