In Defense of Leopold’s Land-Ethics as a Global Environmental Approach for Cross-Cultural Dialogue.
Jeannine G.M. de Caluwe
Koninklijk Atheneum B.S. Leerboom, Auguste DeMaeghtlaan 41, 1500 Halle, Flanders
Research Institute for Environmental Education Klingla Desh, Mustalahdentie 229, 29700 Ahlainen, Suomi-Finland
Guido J.M. Verstraeten
Satakunta University of Applied Sciences, Tiedepuisto 3, FI 28000 Pori, Suomi-Finland
Karel de Grote Hogeschool
Nationalestraat 5, B-2000 Antwerp, Flanders
Cross-cultural dialogue is the straighforward answer to the ecological problems our planet is faced to. Evanoff (2007) suggested that there is no need for Callicott’s universal monism neither for Norton’s convergence hypothesis because both are reductionistic and totalizing. He proposed an alernative bioregional perspective based on pragmatic constructivism. The boundary criterion of this constructivism is the way how successful it enables humans to function in different geographical regions and cultural contexts.Common ground must not be found on the level of moral premises but on agreement on the relationship between humans and nature. Particularly this constructivism argues against Callicott’s metaphysic claims concerning Leopold’s Land-Ethics based on Hume’s conception of ethics as a matter of affection and sympathy complemented by a Darwinian account of extended moral concern to all participants of the land. Moreover the new constructivistic approach joins the synchronic spacelike relations to diachronic relations of all organism, humans and non-humans.
At first glance we agree with pragmatic constructivism concerning the substantial role of the particularity of space and time for actualizing ethical care for all organism and the landscape. We put forward three fundamental premises, however, in order to add metaphysical support to the basic concepts of Leopold’s Land-Ethics, namely, integrity and autonomy of the land. Firstly we adopt the Leibnizian conception of space and time leaving the basic Newtonian conception adopted by the Enlightment. Secondly we adopt Warwick Fox’claim that self-identification of any individual of the Land exceeds personal identification and will be extended to the particularity of the land and all its participants. For inhabitants the land becomes homeland and as a consequence the concept of foreigner emerges. The irrevocable ethical care for the foreigner evolves from care for the completeness of the own homeland, a consequence of any individuals transpersonal self-identification. This universal formal premise claims a universal status though it starts from a particular place and a particular time. Thirdly we leave Enlightment’s absolute rationalism to adopt Gadamer’s hermeneutics of the multicultural traditions present on the common homeland. Care for the Land evolving from the universal ethical status of the foreigner in the homeland results into a renewed internal and external cross-cultural dialogue.
1. Why does Callicott claim a single global land-ethic?
The core matter of the environmentally sustainable society, the conception of natural capital, how environmentally sustainable societies can be reconciled with economic grow, how ecological footprints are affecting the condition the planet, what to do with pollution of air, soil, oceans and fresh water are no longer concerns just for academic people. Energy depletion, declining supply of prime matter to the contrary, are economic realities and involve raising prices of food, goods and mobility, in fact a nightmare for politics and social life. Cross-cultural dialogue is the straighforward answer to the ecological problems which our planet is faced to. But is this dialogue just a matter of international policy or does it starts from an ethical link between environmental problems and the life of humans , non-humans and the whole planet?
Baird Callicott ( 1994I , 1994II ) has proposed that Aldo leopold’s land-ethic beadopted as a single global ethic of the land. Aldo Leopold published in 1949, one year after his tragic and incidental death, the foundation of what is called ‘Land ethics’. We summarize his ideas in six headlines:
· All ehics so far evolved rest upon a single premise:that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts
· To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering
· That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics
· The land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it
· We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong we may begin to use it with love and respect
· Anything is right when it tends to preserve the integritry, stability, and beauty od the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. (1949,224-5)
The latter is for Aldo Leopold a key value for all participants to the land. He emphasizes the moral need for integrity and intrinsic value of the land. Leopold failed to give adequate arguments as support for this eco-philosophical point of view that is rooted in Arne Naess´ outstanding paper about Deep Ecology (1973). Deep ecology assigned intrinsic value on humans as well as non human life and the landscape. But all types of deep ecology struggle with the same fundamental problem: What is a metaphysical foundation of non humans and the landscape in order to assign intrinsic value because the anthropogenic roots of morality is out of the question. To provide such metaphysical Baird Callicott (1986) added to Leopold’s conception of the land the principle of inherent value. This concept does not imply the intrinsic value of the land – the land is not a moral value of its own – neither the moral value of the land is embedded in the instrumental or aesthetical value attributed by the self-reflective human. The land is a value for its own. This issue is that Leopold did not define the land properly. Callicott’s suggested that land ethics has to be developed as a complete ecological metaphysics as discussed by Warwick Fox (1990). Therefore there is need for a renewed metaphysical conception of space and time.
Callicott’s claims start from diagreement with the individualistic point of view of Singer (1975) and Regan (1976) in their approaches to formulate an extended ethics for animals as centres of life, potentially suffering from pain. In order to formultate a moral philosophy containing moral considerations for non-humans Callicott suggested a new paradigm based on the biotic communities as most appropriate unit for moral considerations. It is straighforward that Callicott adopted thebasic idea’s of Aldo Leopold, particularly the integrity of the land. This ‘holistic’ vision is completed by making room for the Darwin’s evolutionary concepts with his claim that the care for the land is a next stage of human oral evolution (1993,10). Eventually he is folowing David Hume for whom morality is grounded in feelings, not reason
(1992,253). Baird Callicott conlcudes that collectivities such as ecosystems or biotic communities are appropriate objects of value the human self as continuous with the world suggests that if the self is intrinsically valuable, then the nature is intrinsically valuable (1989). Callicott formulated an exiological value theory by attributing moral value to other sybjects than humans but he recognizes that morality is anthropogenic but not anthropocentric. The word value, however, should be used as verb, not as a noun. Nature and all its non-human participants don’t not have intrinsic value but by their function within the ecosystem they obtain a inherent value , for their own sake regardless of any instrumental value for men.
Because of the current global environmental crisis Callicott claims the emergence of a global environmental moral consciousness out of any cultural tradition or particular condition of a special ecosystem. Land-ethics claim single global moral concern for all partcipants of the world. Despite difference in culture, human needs according to the particular environmental conditions at a particular time, He claims universality for the world community because the basic concepts of his land ethic are interaction of all participants with the land, extended moral feelings as next stage of evolution and feelings instead of ratio as origin of morality.
2. Evanoff’s proposal for transacting bioregionalism
Criticism against Callicott is focused around his conception of the community as independent moral subject and as a mesure of autonomy to its constituents parts. In fact Callicott tried to reconcile the so called Shallow Ecology which is antropocentric with the Deep Ecology which is ecocentric. Bryan Norton developped his convergence theory with arguments that the unbridgeable chasm between Shallow and Deep is completely rendered irrelevant when plocy makers need a device for environmental management. He proposed that deep ecologists must make assumprions about the relative priority claims of unit of life against unit of life.Moreover protecting the long-term human factor needs the protection of the ecologically robust context in which they evolved (Norton, 1991:240)
Evanoff (2010) suggested that there is no need for Callicott’s universal monism neither for Norton’s convergence hypothesis because both are reductionistic and totalizing. Indeed Callicott focuses exclusive moral value on the land and on the community as a whole. He forgets the different ways how humans can legitimately interact with the land and its non-human participants. Callicott doesn’t make room for individual ans societal moral choises and responsabilities in their interaction with the land. The latter is considered as a static unit and so he denies the possible evolution of the land by human intervention and by natural processes as well. In defence of Callicott we refer to later writings (1996, 372) where a more dynamic conception of the care for the lad appears: “A thing is right when it tends to disturb the biotic community only at normal spatial and temporal scales. It is wrong when it tends otherwise”
Evanoff (2010) proposed an alernative bioregional perspective based on pragmatic constructivism.
The boundary criterion of this constructivism is the way how successful it enables humans to function in different geographical regions and cultural contexts.Common ground must not be found on the level of moral premises but on agreement on the relationship between humans and nature... “Precisely because nature and non-human participants cannot make choices for us and for themselfs that we have to engage in reflective dialogue on the courses of action we will take and actively construct ethical norms to guide us in our interaction with natural environment” (2010: 116).
Evanoff want to embed the care for land and environment into the aim for a sustainable society, governed by social justice and wellness for all. He rejects the actual dominant development paradigm because it creates unequality between rich and poor, it disturbs the carying capacity of the Planet and in denies cultural diversity, biodiversity and the particularity of any ecosystem. He adopts a transactual bioregionalism that emphasizes that any interaction with nature must be object of human dialectic thinking and calibrated according to moral standards based on the local and acutal efficiency of this action in order to enforce the dynamic integrity and autonomy of the participants of the land. Moreover the new constructivistic approach joins the synchronic spacelike relations to diachronic relations of all organism, humans and non-humans.
His transactional approach takes into account the indvidualal human choices, the indiviual and common responsability and the particularity of space and time. However moral values evolve from the balances of efficiency of interactions and efficiency can only calibrated by human’s in the scope of cultural and economical standards. What about natural interactions that are not efficient such as the sexual life of species like giant panda’s, what about the social behaviour of some societies, sanctioned as good within the particular society, but catastrophic for the environment such as the slaughtery of the wild bisons, the hunt for rinoceros’ horn, the elevation of cattle on Greenland by the first Norvegean immigrants. Moreover this transactional approach leads to complete moral relativism because why sanctioning some action as good on a particular place and time while it is rejected on another place and another time. What is the ultimate criterion: the efficiency for a few on that place and time? In that case this bioregional approach produces the same moral unequality as the perfide dominant development approach. Moreover thinking according such a criterion is as much totalizing than Callicott’s ultimate moral appreciation of land’s integrity.
3. A global Land Ethic revised
At first glance we agree with pragmatic constructivism concerning the substantial role of the particularity of space and time for actualizing ethical care for all organism and the landscape. Adopting the metaphysical claims of Verstraeten&Verstraeten (2014) we put forward three fundamental premises, however, in order to add metaphysical support to the basic concepts of Leopold’s Land-Ethics, namely, integrity and autonomy of the land and we articulate a basic fundament for moral considerations.
3.1 The Leibnizian conception of space and time.
Firstly we adopt the Leibnizian conception of space and time leaving the basic Newtonian conception adopted by the Enlightment. The latter conception renders any reflexive being the status of observing and judging subject outside a four-dimensional spacetimelike container.
The Leibnizian worlds, however, are differents worlds, with particular times ans places, produced by the participating units, biotic as well as abiotic. The essence of all participants evolves frm the creation of the space and time as a dynamic system in any particular world. And in consequence this essence is spacetimelike and it is It is out of the question to define human essence outside the particularity of this world since human essence, like other biotic or abiotic unit, depends on complete ensemble of any possible spatial and temporal interaction.
Above this Leibnizian infrastructure phenomenology of space and time adds the conception of space as authentic place of dwelling, the guarantee for organic unity and constancy, creating a new reality that exceeds the sum of the parts
According to Norberg-Schulz (1980 ) space is the boundary condition of human activity and determines how borders, environmental organization and institutes are sustained. Moreover
Jacobs (1995) and Cheney(1989) put phenomenological claims of identity, self understanding and ethical care, both constituted by the interrelations of all participants and resulting in a new private integer reality of creation. This is the homeland that owns all participants in their mutual care for integrity.