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New Directions In Environmental Ethics
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20302 |
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Section : |
SPECIAL SECTION
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1992 |
4,818 Words |
| Author
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Bryan Norton
Bryan G. Norton is a professor in the School of Public Policy
at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. He is the
author of numerous articles and the recent book Toward Unity
among Environmentalists (Oxford University Press, 1991). |
In the 1960s ecology was called the "subversive" science by Paul Shepard, who emphasized the ways in which the ecological worldview turns attention away from individuals and toward dynamic interrelationships. One would think that environmental ethics--drawing heavily as it does on analogies from ecology and with the full force of rational ethics to back it up--would be doubly subversive. But in fact neither radical ecology nor radical environmental ethics has proven persuasive to everyday voters or politicians, who generally see environmental cleanups as one more obstacle to a balanced budget. While over 60 percent of Americans consider themselves environmentalists, only a small minority of these embrace "deep ecology" or the confrontational tactics of organizations such as Earth First! Why has environmental ethics, even when espousing radical ideas, had little impact on policy debate or formation?
Both phenomena can be understood historically. Environmental ethics was christened a separate subdiscipline in philosophy in 1979 when Eugene Hargrove began publishing the journal Environmental Ethics. Pioneering papers in the field, published in the early 1970s, had been profoundly shaped by a single essay. Writing in Science in 1967, the historian Lynn White, Jr., had argued that the modern "ecologic crisis" could be traced to the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition, "the most anthropocentric religion to passages in Genesis I in which Jehovah gives humans "dominion" over all other species and admonishes them to "subdue the earth," White argued that this dominant idea, once augmented by developing science and technology, has led to an arrogant disregard for the effects of our actions on other species and natural systems. In response to this hypothesis, early writers in environmental ethics posed as their central question whether plants and animals might be "morally considerable" and have their own intrinsic value, a kind of value that in most western ethical systems is reserved for individual human persons. This new attitude was sharply contrasted with the traditional Western view that nature exists as "mere resources" of instrumental value to humans.
The role of environmental ethics was seen, in this intellectual context, as one of describing and supporting these human-independent values as a counterpoise to human consumption and arrogance. Environmental ethicists, it seemed, had carved their own subject matter--human-independent values in nature--which was distinct from traditional human rights ethics and from the anthropocentric utilitarianism of modern economics.
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