Writing is a major component of this course. As such, the quality of your summaries will be a major determinant of your final grade. The quality of your work will largely be determined by your adherence to this rubric. Adherence to these guidelines alone is necessary but not sufficient for an assignment to receive a good grade–for that you’ll have to communicate with clarity and demonstrate understanding of the subject matter via well-formed, well organized summaries.

 1)  You will be submitting your work via the Turnitin.com links below. The file format may be MS-Word, Open Office (or any open document standard compliant program), rich text (.rtf), or Adobe Acrobat.2) The filename must be in the following format:  student last name_student first name_name of the assignment x (or , .odt, etc).3) Your name, the name of the assignment, and the date must be in the upper left hand corner.4) Your summary must be one-page in length.5) Your summary must be typed using Times Roman 12pt font.6) Your summary must be single spaced.7) Your summary must have one-inch margins.8) There should be no typographical errors* in your summaries.*typographical error includes but is not limited to spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, nonsensical-wording, etc.9)  Your summaries must not include any opinion or bias, only an executive summary of the argument presented in the work being summarized. In other words, these summaries are an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you’ve read and comprehended the material, not to assess the readings. Save that for the thesis-driven essay!10)  Under no circumstances should your summaries contain any quotations.11) Under no circumstances should either your summaries contain a paragraph that is a full-page in length. 

 Module 05 :  

• Naess, “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range”
• Naess, “Ecosophy T Deep Versus Shallow Ecology”
• Devall and Sessions, “Deep Ecology”

Module 06 : 

• Bookchin, “Social Ecology Versus Deep Ecology”
• Guha, “Radical Environmentalism and Wilderness”

Module 07 :  

• Russow, “Why Do Species Matter?”
• Elliot, “Faking Nature”

Module 08 :   

• Heilbroner, “What Has Posterity Ever Done for Me”
• Hardin, “Who Cares for Posterity”
• Parfit, Energy “Policy and the Further Future”

M08Lec01:

Obligations to
Future Generations

This lecture will help you understand:
• The limits of rationality, especially

economic rationality, in answering the
question about caring for posterity

• The meaning of “discounting”
• The meaning of “

Homo economicus

”
• The importance of special privileges

for preserving resources
• The link between a concern for

ancestry and concern for posterity

Garrett Hardin
(1915-2003)

Robert Heilbroner
(1919-2005)

The Question

• Environmentalists hold that one principal reason
we ought not to degrade the Earth is because we
have duties to future generations. We should
leave the Earth in good shape for them.

• But is this really so

?

• Do we have any moral obligations to future

generations? Do future people have claims
against us? Why should I care about posterity?
What has posterity ever done for me?

Robert Heilbroner (1919 – 2005)

• American economist and historian of
economic thought.

• Heilbroner was best known for The
Worldly Philosophers (1953), a
survey of the lives and contributions
of famous economists, notably
Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John
Maynard Keynes.

• “What Has Posterity Ever Done for
Me?” (1975)

No Rational Answer

• The question “Why should I care for posterity?” seems

to have no rational answer.
– “Suppose that, as a result of using up all the world’s

resources, human life did come to an end. So what? What
is so desirable about an indefinite continuation of the
human species, religious conviction apart? It may well be
that nearly everybody who is already here on earth would
be reluctant to die, and that everybody has an instinctive
fear of death. But one must not confuse this with the
notion that, in any meaningful sense, generations who are
yet unborn can be said to be better off if they are born
than if they are not.” (Professor of political philosophy at
the University of London

How Long Do We Want to
Stay on the Plane?

• Imagine a supersonic transport (SST) circling the
planet:
– The plane started circling the planet when the earth

began and now, 4.5 billion years later, just made it
once around.

– Humans got on the plane eight miles before the end
of the first circumnavigation.

– Industrial humans got on six feet before the end
– The earth’s sun will last for another 12 billion years

[sic], roughly enough time for the plane to make it
round three more times How long do we want to stay
on the plane? How long can we stay on the plane?

The End of the Earth

• In roughly 5 billion years time,

our sun will eventually
exhaust the supply of
hydrogen in its core. The core
will collapse under gravity’s
pull since it has no heat to
support it. Meanwhile the
sun’s’ outer envelope expands
and it will become a red giant.
At that point, its atmosphere
will envelope the Earth, and
our planet will be consumed
in a fiery mass.

No Rational Answer

• Why do you care if humans are still on this
planet in 100 years, 200 years, 1000 years?
– “Why should I lift a finger to affect events that will

have no more meaning for me seventy-five years
after my death than those that happened seventy-
five years before I was born?”

“Tragedy”

• “My inclination … is to conclude that the

suicide of our species would be deplorable,
lamentable, and a deeply moving tragedy, but
that it would violate no one’s rights. Indeed if,
contrary to fact, all human beings could ever
agree to such a thing, that very agreement
would be a symptom of our species’ biological
unsuitability for survival anyway.” (Joel
Feinberg)

Would it be wrong voluntarily to end
the human race?

• Answers from Four Ethical Theories:
–

Contractualist

–

Religious

– Deontological
– Consequentialist-utilitarian

Contractualist

• The contractualist would agree with Feinberg that
the act of ending the human race is regrettable,
but argue that it is morally permissible. Morality
arises only in contractual relations, but since we
have no one with whom to make the relevant
contract, no contract is possible, and so no one’s
contract has been violated.

• You cannot make or break a contract with
someone who does not exist!

Religious

• Note that the University of London economist
qualifies his statement that there is nothing
inherently bad about humanity’s coming to an
end with the phrase, “religious convictions
apart.” That does make a difference.

• Religions typically claim that there is a duty to
continue the human race. The religious person
has a duty issuing from God to perpetuate the
species.
– The Judeo-Christian tradition specifies a duty to be

“fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth” (Gen.
1:29).

Deontologist

• Kantianism argues that respect applies to an
existing rational agent.

• It is well known that Kantianism can be appealed
to in support of abortion, since fetuses are not
rational agents. As we have no obligations to
potential people in the form of fetuses, we have
no obligations to those who aren’t even
conceived, who lack even biological identity.

• So a Kantian would likely allow for the end of
humanity, as long as no moral principles were
violated.

Utilitarian

• Utilitarians have one overriding duty–to
maximize happiness. As long as the quality of life
of future people promises to be positive, we have
an obligation to continue human existence, to
produce human beings, and to take whatever
actions are necessary to ensure that their quality
of life is not only positive, but also high.

• It does not matter that we cannot identify these
future people. We may look upon them as mere
abstract placeholders for utility and aim at
maximizing utility.

• If we want a theory that supports our
conviction that we ought not allow the end of
humanity, then we should choose either
religion or consequentialism.

• If we think there are independent reasons for
rejecting a religious answer, then some kind of
consequentialism seems the best alternative.

Adam Smith’s “Man of Humanity”

• Imagine an earthquake in China
that kills millions
– How would you live your life

knowing this happened?

• Now, imagine that tomorrow you
will lose your little finger
– How would you live your day

knowing this will happen?

Adam Smith
(1723-1790)

Human Reaction

• Adam Smith thinks that the average human will be

more disturbed by the loss of one’s pinky than by the
death of millions. Does this mean that the average
human would prefer the loss of millions to his own
little finger? No
– Smith: “Human nature startles at the thought and the

world in its greatest depravity and corruption never
produced such a villain as would be capable of
entertaining it.”

• What prevents humans from acting in their own self-
interest?
– Smith thinks that a moral conscience (and sympathy)

prevents such acts of extreme self-interest

Rational Appraisal vs. Responsibility

• Smith’s thought experiment clarifies the
debate
– “For it is one thing to appraise matters of life and

death by the principles of rational self-interest and
quite another to take responsibility for our
choice.”

Heilbroner’s Hope

• “Yet I am hopeful that in the end a survivalist
ethic will come to the fore–not from the reading
of a few books or the passing twinge of a pious
lecture but from an experience that will bring
home to us, as Adam Smith brought home to his
‘man of humanity,’ the personal responsibility
that defies all the homicidal promptings of
reasonable calculation….I must rest my ultimate
faith on the discovery by these future
generations, as the ax of the executioner passes
into their hands, of the transcendent importance
of posterity for them.”

Garrett Hardin (1915-2003)

• American ecologist who
warned of the dangers of
overpopulation and whose
concepts of the tragedy of
the commons and lifeboat
ethics will be discussed later
in this course.

• “Who Cares for Posterity?”
(1977)

“Here and Now”

• Ethical systems are concerned
with the here and now
inasmuch as most ethical
decision making occurs “face to
face.”

• “Why care for posterity?” is an
ethical question concerned not
with behavior at this moment
but some distant time in the
future.

?

Cost-Benefit Analysis

• Cost–benefit analysis weighs
all the positive benefits against
all the negative costs of an
action to determine whether
to proceed

• If benefits outweigh costs,
then proceed.

Posterity and Cost-Benefit Analysis

• How do we measure costs and benefits in the
distant future?
– Are we willing to pay now for what may not be a

benefit for another 50 or even a 1000 years?
– Alternatively, are we willing to receive benefits now

for something whose costs will not come due in 50 or
1000 years?

• Do today’s benefits of damming rivers for electricity
outweigh the future costs, such as habitat loss, impacts on
aquatic animals, and the disruption of natural rhythms of
flooding that keep a river ecosystem healthy?

Weighing Present Costs
against Future Benefits

• So-called “Economic Man” rationally
calculates a price based on the rate of
interest. Thus, if the interest rate is 6%, then
paying $55.84 now will mean that your
investment will be worth $100 in ten years.

• Notice here that the item’s future worth is
discounted corresponding to the rate of
interest.

Discounting

• We calculate the present value of a future amount by

“discounting” (the opposite of compounding) .
• For example, if $1 is invested at a 10% interest rate, it will

be worth $1.10 after one year, $1.21 after two years, and
so on. Discounting reverses this process, by calculating the
value, in today’s dollars, of a given amount received in the
future. For example, if a person is promised $1.10 at the
end of a year, and their discount rate is 10%, they would be
equally happy with $1.00 today.

• We discount for two reasons.
– First, people generally prefer to receive benefits sooner rather

than later, and to pay costs later rather than sooner.
– Second, money that is available now can be invested and earn a

return. Thus, money available now is worth more to people
than money received in the future.

Homo economicus

• Homo economicus is a rational, self-interested,
labor-averse individual.

• Concept used in many economic theories that
see humans as rational and narrowly self-
interested actors.
– “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the

brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but
from their regard to their own interest.“ (Adam
Smith)

Rational Economist and Posterity

• Can Homo economicus justify taking care of
the interests of posterity?

• Can we motivate people to pay a price now
that won’t be cashed in for many generations?

• Will we sow now so future generations can
reap the benefits?

• Hardin is highly skeptical that we will be able
to motivate people to protect posterity
purely on economic/rational grounds.

“$1 to plant a redwood seedling”

• Hardin tells the story of how he spent
$1 to plant a redwood seedling that
would take two thousand years to
reach its full value of $14,000. He
confesses that as an “economic man”
he was being stupid in planting it, but
he did so anyway.
– “It is most unlikely that any of my direct

descendants will get [the value of the
tree.] The most I can hope for is that an
anonymous posterity will benefit by my
act. … Why bother?”

The Failure of Economic Reasoning

• Hardin’s answer is an admission of the failure
of economic reasoning.
– “I am beginning to suspect that rationality–as we

now conceive it–may be insufficient to secure the
end we desire, namely, taking care of the interests
of posterity.”

Protecting Posterity

• How can one protect posterity, if not

through rational economic means?
– Dawn redwood survived because it was

considered sacred
• Posterity and Sacred

– “That which is sacred or taboo is generally
protected by legends that tend to make
the taboo operational: bad luck, the evil
eye, the displeasure of the gods….being
treated as sacred can protect an object
against destruction by impoverished
people who might otherwise discount the
future in a simplistically rational way.”

“A hungry stomach has no ears”

• If hungry enough, humans will steal from the
future to survive now
– Aquinas: “necessity knows no law”
– “In discounting the future a man’s personal

discount rate is directly related to the emptiness
of his stomach.”

• When will seeds for the future be preserved
even against the hungry, poor, or dying?

Privileged Institutions and Posterity

• To protect seeds of the future, society needs
to develop institutions that will put a few
individuals in places of authority and privilege
to protect the seeds
– Special privilege for posterity

• is not intended to serve the interests of the rich
• is intended to help break the cycle of poverty
• does not guarantee that seeds will be protected, but it

makes it possible to protect them against those who
would use them now

Twofold Conclusion

1. For poor societies, posterity is served by institutionalizing

special privilege and making that privilege hereditary.
– By having a connection with one’s family and heritage, one is

likely to want to keep that tradition in place. By keeping one’s
family history alive, one looks toward the future. Thus
connecting with the future requires connecting with the past.
(As Edmund Burke (1729-1797) says, “People will not look
forward to posterity who never look backward to their
ancestors”).

2. For prosperous societies, posterity is served by modifying
existing institutions, including instilling a sense of history
through education
– Instilling a sense of identity with one’s past and one’s place will

help to preserve the environment for the future

Hardin’s Argument

• Hardin’s argument tells us how to protect
future generations and who should protect
them.

• But, Hardin, like Heilbroner, does not tell us
why we ought to protect future generations
who are not yet born!

Next Lecture

• Derek Parfit offers a consequentialist
argument for sacrificing a present benefit for
the sake of posterity.

• M08Lec01: Obligations to Future Generations

The Question
Robert Heilbroner (1919 – 2005)
No Rational Answer

• How Long Do We Want to�Stay on the Plane?

The End of the Earth
No Rational Answer
“Tragedy”

• Would it be wrong voluntarily to end the human race?

Contractualist
Religious
Deontologist
Utilitarian

• Slide Number 14

Adam Smith’s “Man of Humanity”
Human Reaction
Rational Appraisal vs. Responsibility
Heilbroner’s Hope
Garrett Hardin (1915-2003)
“Here and Now”
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Posterity and Cost-Benefit Analysis

• Weighing Present Costs�against Future Benefits

Discounting
Homo economicus
Rational Economist and Posterity
“$1 to plant a redwood seedling”
The Failure of Economic Reasoning
Protecting Posterity
“A hungry stomach has no ears”
Privileged Institutions and Posterity
Twofold Conclusion
Hardin’s Argument
Next Lecture

M06Lec02:Guha’s Third World
Critique of Deep Ecology

This lecture will help you understand:
• The Third World critique of Deep

Ecology
• Wilderness preservation vs. Third

World environmental concerns
• The German Greens
• The Chipko movement
• The integration of ecological

concerns with livelihood and work

Ramachandra Guha,
Indian sociologist and
historian (1957-)

Guha’s Third World Perspective

• When deep ecologists critique “the” dominant
worldview, they fail to acknowledge that many
humans are not part of that dominance. Thus
deep ecologists are too broad in their critique
and, consequently, too broad in their positive
program.

Wilderness Preservation

• Guha argues that, despite its claims to
universality, deep ecology is uniquely an
American ideology, essentially a radical branch
of the wilderness preservation movement.

• If it were put into practice, deep ecology
would have disastrous consequences,
especially for the poor and agrarian
populations in underdeveloped countries.

Guha’s Two Claims

1. Deep ecology is uniquely American.
2. The social consequences of putting deep

ecology into practice on a worldwide basis
are very grave indeed.

4 Defining Characteristics of Deep
Ecology

1. Transition from an anthropocentric to a
biocentric perspective.

2. Focuses on the preservation of unspoiled
wilderness and the restoration of degraded
areas to a more pristine condition.

3. The invocation of the Eastern spiritual
tradition.

4. Deep ecology believes itself to be the leading
edge of the environmental movement.

1. Criticism of the Anthropocentric-
Biocentric Distinction

• According to Guha the anthropocentric-
biocentric distinction is irrelevant to
environmental concerns.
– It is irrelevant because it has nothing to do with

the two fundamental ecological problems facing
the globe. These are:

• Overconsumption by the industrialized world and by
urban elites in the Third World.

• Growing militarization, both ongoing regional wars and
the arms race, i.e., the prospect of nuclear annihilation.

2. Criticism of the Emphasis on
Wilderness

• He rejects the view “that intervention in
nature should be guided primarily by the
need to preserve biotic integrity rather than
by the needs of humans.”

• In his view, India’s tiger reserves are an
example of “elite ecological imperialism”
that results in “a direct transfer of resources
from the poor to the rich.”
– “Thus, Project Tiger, a network of parks hailed

by the international conservation community
as an outstanding success, sharply posits the
interests of the tiger against those of poor
peasants living in and around the reserve.”

3. The Invocation of the Eastern
Spiritual Tradition

• “Complex and internally differentiated religious
traditions–Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism–are
lumped together as holding a view of nature believed
to be quintessentially biocentric.”

• Guha argues this “appropriation of Eastern traditions”
is selective and lazy.
– It does not bother to differentiate between alternative

religious and cultural traditions and does violence to the
historical record.

• Not all of Eastern traditions can be said to rest on a mystical
affinity with nature. Eastern cultures, as well as Western cultures,
have manipulated nature and caused significant ecological
destruction too!

The “Orient”

• Guha argues that this romantic and
essentially positive view of the East is merely
the flip side of the scientific and essentially
negative view of the so-called “Orient” by
Western scholars.

• According to Guha, “both views are
monolithic, simplistic, and have the
characteristic effect of denying agency and
reason to the East and making it the privileged
orbit of Western thinkers.”

4. Deep Ecology Believes Itself to Be
Radical

• Although deep ecology views in itself as the
leading edge of the environmental movement
it is best viewed as merely a radical trend
within the wilderness preservation
movement.

• Its practical emphasis on the preservation of
unspoiled nature is virtually identical with the
American wilderness preservation movement.

American Elitism

• At worst Deep Ecology is elitist in its attempts to
preserve wilderness experiences for only a select
group of economically and socio-politically well-
off people, namely, you and me!

• To this extent, deep ecology coexists with the
consumer society without seriously questioning
its ecological and sociopolitical basis.
– It views nature as a source of aesthetic pleasure and

contemplation.

Green Party of Germany (Die Grünen)

• The Green Party traces its origins to
the student protest movement of the
1960s, the environmentalist
movement of the 1970s, and the
peace movement of the early 1980s.

• The focus of the environmentalist
protest was nuclear power, and the
movement was directed especially at
German labor, businesses, and
politicians, all of whom
enthusiastically endorsed the use of
nuclear power, particularly after the
sharp rise in oil prices in 1973.

The Chipko movement (literally “to
cling” in Hindi)

• Social ecological movement
that practiced the Gandhian
methods of satyagraha
(“”insistence on truth”–“soul
force”) and non-violent
resistance, through the act of
hugging trees to protect them
from being felled.

• The modern Chipko movement started in the
early 1970s in the Himalayas with growing
awareness towards rapid deforestation.

• March 26, 1974, a group of peasant Indian
women acted to prevent the cutting of trees
and reclaim their traditional forest rights that
were threatened by the contractor system of
the state Forest Department.

Survival

• “The sections of society
most critically affected by
environmental degradation–
poor and landless peasants,
women, and tribals. . . . [For
them] it is a question of
sheer survival, not of
enhancing the quality of
life.”

Livelihood and Work

• Both the German and Indian environmental
traditions allow for greater integration of
ecological concerns with livelihood and work.

• They also place a greater emphasis on equity and
social justice on the grounds that without social
regeneration environmental regeneration has
very little chance of succeeding.

• This is of course the same kind of claim we find in
social ecology.

Guha’s Conclusion

• “A truly radical ecology in the American
context ought to work toward a synthesis of
the appropriate technology, alternate lifestyle,
and peace movements. By making the (largely
spurious) anthropocentric-biocentric
distinction central to the debate, deep
ecologists may have appropriated the moral
high ground, but they are at the same time
doing a serious disservice to American and
global environmentalism.”

Green Missionaries?

• Guha likens deep
ecologists to what
he calls “Green
missionaries.” They
represent a
movement aimed
at further
dispossessing the
world’s poor and
indigenous people.

Deep Ecology’s Response

• Deep ecology movement is not narrowly focused
on wilderness. For instance, bioregionalism is
highlighted as an ecologically sensible way of life
for people throughout the world.

• There is also a critique of inappropriate
technology.

• There is also critique of over-consumption by the
rich.

• Arne Naess is a recognized world authority on
Gandhi’s philosophy and has incorporated Gandhi
into his personal ecological philosophy.

• Guha is not the “impartial” or
representative spokesperson of the Third
World.

• There are many people throughout the
Third World who place a high priority on
efforts to protect biodiversity and wild
Nature in their countries.

• For example, the well-known Indian
physicist/ecofeminist, Vandana Shiva,
claims that deep ecology’s insistence on
the intrinsic value and protection of wild
species and habitat is the only way to
ensure a healthy life-style for the world’s
poor in the long run.

Vandana Shiva,
philosopher,
environmental activist,
and eco feminist (1952-)

The Question

• To what extent are environmentalists justified
in displacing indigenous people from their
homes in order to set up preserves to protect
wild ecosystems, endangered species, and the
evolutionary development of nature?

• M06Lec02: Guha’s Third World Critique of Deep Ecology

Guha’s Third World Perspective
Wilderness Preservation
Guha’s Two Claims

• 4 Defining Characteristics of Deep Ecology
• 1. Criticism of the Anthropocentric-Biocentric Distinction
• 2. Criticism of the Emphasis on Wilderness
• 3. The Invocation of the Eastern Spiritual Tradition

The “Orient”

• Slide Number 10
• 4. Deep Ecology Believes Itself to Be Radical

American Elitism
Green Party of Germany (Die Grünen)

• The Chipko movement (literally “to cling” in Hindi)
• Slide Number 15

Survival
Livelihood and Work
Guha’s Conclusion
Green Missionaries?
Deep Ecology’s Response

• Slide Number 21

The Question

M06Lec02:Guha’s Third World
Critique of Deep Ecology

This lecture will help you understand:
• The Third World critique of Deep

Ecology
• Wilderness preservation vs. Third

World environmental concerns
• The German Greens
• The Chipko movement
• The integration of ecological

concerns with livelihood and work

Ramachandra Guha,
Indian sociologist and
historian (1957-)

Guha’s Third World Perspective

• When deep ecologists critique “the” dominant
worldview, they fail to acknowledge that many
humans are not part of that dominance. Thus
deep ecologists are too broad in their critique
and, consequently, too broad in their positive
program.

Wilderness Preservation

• Guha argues that, despite its claims to
universality, deep ecology is uniquely an
American ideology, essentially a radical branch
of the wilderness preservation movement.

• If it were put into practice, deep ecology
would have disastrous consequences,
especially for the poor and agrarian
populations in underdeveloped countries.

Guha’s Two Claims

1. Deep ecology is uniquely American.
2. The social consequences of putting deep

ecology into practice on a worldwide basis
are very grave indeed.

4 Defining Characteristics of Deep
Ecology

1. Transition from an anthropocentric to a
biocentric perspective.

2. Focuses on the preservation of unspoiled
wilderness and the restoration of degraded
areas to a more pristine condition.

3. The invocation of the Eastern spiritual
tradition.

4. Deep ecology believes itself to be the leading
edge of the environmental movement.

1. Criticism of the Anthropocentric-
Biocentric Distinction

• According to Guha the anthropocentric-
biocentric distinction is irrelevant to
environmental concerns.
– It is irrelevant because it has nothing to do with

the two fundamental ecological problems facing
the globe. These are:

• Overconsumption by the industrialized world and by
urban elites in the Third World.

• Growing militarization, both ongoing regional wars and
the arms race, i.e., the prospect of nuclear annihilation.

2. Criticism of the Emphasis on
Wilderness

• He rejects the view “that intervention in
nature should be guided primarily by the
need to preserve biotic integrity rather than
by the needs of humans.”

• In his view, India’s tiger reserves are an
example of “elite ecological imperialism”
that results in “a direct transfer of resources
from the poor to the rich.”
– “Thus, Project Tiger, a network of parks hailed

by the international conservation community
as an outstanding success, sharply posits the
interests of the tiger against those of poor
peasants living in and around the reserve.”

3. The Invocation of the Eastern
Spiritual Tradition

• “Complex and internally differentiated religious
traditions–Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism–are
lumped together as holding a view of nature believed
to be quintessentially biocentric.”

• Guha argues this “appropriation of Eastern traditions”
is selective and lazy.
– It does not bother to differentiate between alternative

religious and cultural traditions and does violence to the
historical record.

• Not all of Eastern traditions can be said to rest on a mystical
affinity with nature. Eastern cultures, as well as Western cultures,
have manipulated nature and caused significant ecological
destruction too!

The “Orient”

• Guha argues that this romantic and
essentially positive view of the East is merely
the flip side of the scientific and essentially
negative view of the so-called “Orient” by
Western scholars.

• According to Guha, “both views are
monolithic, simplistic, and have the
characteristic effect of denying agency and
reason to the East and making it the privileged
orbit of Western thinkers.”

4. Deep Ecology Believes Itself to Be
Radical

• Although deep ecology views in itself as the
leading edge of the environmental movement
it is best viewed as merely a radical trend
within the wilderness preservation
movement.

• Its practical emphasis on the preservation of
unspoiled nature is virtually identical with the
American wilderness preservation movement.

American Elitism

• At worst Deep Ecology is elitist in its attempts to
preserve wilderness experiences for only a select
group of economically and socio-politically well-
off people, namely, you and me!

• To this extent, deep ecology coexists with the
consumer society without seriously questioning
its ecological and sociopolitical basis.
– It views nature as a source of aesthetic pleasure and

contemplation.

Green Party of Germany (Die Grünen)

• The Green Party traces its origins to
the student protest movement of the
1960s, the environmentalist
movement of the 1970s, and the
peace movement of the early 1980s.

• The focus of the environmentalist
protest was nuclear power, and the
movement was directed especially at
German labor, businesses, and
politicians, all of whom
enthusiastically endorsed the use of
nuclear power, particularly after the
sharp rise in oil prices in 1973.

The Chipko movement (literally “to
cling” in Hindi)

• Social ecological movement
that practiced the Gandhian
methods of satyagraha
(“”insistence on truth”–“soul
force”) and non-violent
resistance, through the act of
hugging trees to protect them
from being felled.

• The modern Chipko movement started in the
early 1970s in the Himalayas with growing
awareness towards rapid deforestation.

• March 26, 1974, a group of peasant Indian
women acted to prevent the cutting of trees
and reclaim their traditional forest rights that
were threatened by the contractor system of
the state Forest Department.

Survival

• “The sections of society
most critically affected by
environmental degradation–
poor and landless peasants,
women, and tribals. . . . [For
them] it is a question of
sheer survival, not of
enhancing the quality of
life.”

Livelihood and Work

• Both the German and Indian environmental
traditions allow for greater integration of
ecological concerns with livelihood and work.

• They also place a greater emphasis on equity and
social justice on the grounds that without social
regeneration environmental regeneration has
very little chance of succeeding.

• This is of course the same kind of claim we find in
social ecology.

Guha’s Conclusion

• “A truly radical ecology in the American
context ought to work toward a synthesis of
the appropriate technology, alternate lifestyle,
and peace movements. By making the (largely
spurious) anthropocentric-biocentric
distinction central to the debate, deep
ecologists may have appropriated the moral
high ground, but they are at the same time
doing a serious disservice to American and
global environmentalism.”

Green Missionaries?

• Guha likens deep
ecologists to what
he calls “Green
missionaries.” They
represent a
movement aimed
at further
dispossessing the
world’s poor and
indigenous people.

Deep Ecology’s Response

• Deep ecology movement is not narrowly focused
on wilderness. For instance, bioregionalism is
highlighted as an ecologically sensible way of life
for people throughout the world.

• There is also a critique of inappropriate
technology.

• There is also critique of over-consumption by the
rich.

• Arne Naess is a recognized world authority on
Gandhi’s philosophy and has incorporated Gandhi
into his personal ecological philosophy.

• Guha is not the “impartial” or
representative spokesperson of the Third
World.

• There are many people throughout the
Third World who place a high priority on
efforts to protect biodiversity and wild
Nature in their countries.

• For example, the well-known Indian
physicist/ecofeminist, Vandana Shiva,
claims that deep ecology’s insistence on
the intrinsic value and protection of wild
species and habitat is the only way to
ensure a healthy life-style for the world’s
poor in the long run.

Vandana Shiva,
philosopher,
environmental activist,
and eco feminist (1952-)

The Question

• To what extent are environmentalists justified
in displacing indigenous people from their
homes in order to set up preserves to protect
wild ecosystems, endangered species, and the
evolutionary development of nature?

• M06Lec02: Guha’s Third World Critique of Deep Ecology

Guha’s Third World Perspective
Wilderness Preservation
Guha’s Two Claims

• 4 Defining Characteristics of Deep Ecology
• 1. Criticism of the Anthropocentric-Biocentric Distinction
• 2. Criticism of the Emphasis on Wilderness
• 3. The Invocation of the Eastern Spiritual Tradition

The “Orient”

• Slide Number 10
• 4. Deep Ecology Believes Itself to Be Radical

American Elitism
Green Party of Germany (Die Grünen)

• The Chipko movement (literally “to cling” in Hindi)
• Slide Number 15

Survival
Livelihood and Work
Guha’s Conclusion
Green Missionaries?
Deep Ecology’s Response

• Slide Number 21

The Question

M07Lec01:

Why Do Species

Matter?

This lecture will help you understand:
• Arguments for protecting

biodiversity
• Criticisms of those arguments
• The “murkiness” of the concept of

species
• Aesthetic criteria for preservation
• Why duties are to “individuals”

Biodiversity

• Biodiversity: the variability among living
organisms both within and between species
and within and between ecosystems

• Of the authors that we have read (Singer,
Regan, Rolston, Schweitzer, Leopold, Naess,
etc.), who would protect biodiversity for the
sake of protecting biodiversity?

• Is there any moral reason for protecting
biodiversity?

Reasons for Protecting Biodiversity

1. Biodiversity has immediate and potential
economic value

2. Biodiversity performs environmental services
beyond price

1. Biodiversity’s Economic Value

• Many industries depend on the

natural world.

• One third of modern medicines are derived

from plants and molds.
• It is estimated that the number of species

living is 10-30 million, with only 1.7 million
named.

1. We ought to protect those things of value to humans.
2. The biologically diverse natural world has value.
3. So, we ought to protect that biologically diverse

natural world.

2. Biodiversity Performs Services
Beyond Price

• Nature serves more that human’s economic
interests.

• Nature and natural processes are irreplaceable
and are of significant value to humans and
human interests (e.g., pollination, conversion of
carbon dioxide into oxygen, etc.).

1. We ought to protect things that are irreplaceable or
priceless.

2. The biologically diverse natural world is irreplaceable or
priceless.

3. We ought to protect the biologically diverse natural world.

Intrinsic Value

• “When a species vanishes
from nature, the world is
thereby diminished. Species
do not just have
instrumental value. . . . They
have a value in their own
right, an intrinsic value.” Nicholas Rescher, Pittsburgh

University

“Preciousness”

• “The preciousness of individual

[animals] … is inversely
proportional to the population of
the species …. [T]he human
population has become so
disproportionate from the
biological point of view that if
one had to choose between a
specimen of Homo sapiens and a
specimen of a rare even if
unattractive species, the choice
would be moot.”

J. Baird Callicott
University of North
Texas

“Intrinsically Worse”

• Sylvan asks us to consider
whether killing the last
animal of its species is
“intrinsically worse” than
just killing the animal. He
thinks that it is worse.

Richard Sylvan (né
Routley) (1935-
1996)

Lilly-Marlene Russow

• What moral obligation, if any, do we humans
have toward species?

• Why do species matter? Do they matter?
• Are we justified in treating one species, even if

endangered, differently from other species?

Obligations to Species and Individuals

• Russow argues that while we might have
obligations to individual animals, these
obligations do not extend to an entire species.

Test Cases

• Russow provides eight “test cases” which
challenge our assumptions and intuitions about:
– what a species is
– importance of sheer diversity or number of species
– importance (or lack) of some species over others
– what is being preserved–species or subgroup of

species?
– what makes one group of animals special with respect

to other animals
– cases in which one can override a species’ preservation

Case 1. The snail darter

Case 2. The Chinese Père David’s deer

also known as the Milu

(Chinese: 麋鹿; pinyin: mílù)

Case 3. The red wolf (Canis rufus)

Case 4. The Northern Oriole

Baltimore
Oriole

Bullock’s
Oriole

Northern
Oriole

Case 5. The Appaloosa

Case 6. Lab rats

Case 7. Mosquito

Case 8. Zebra

Test Cases Reveal (1)

• Our concept of what a species is is ambiguous.
What counts as a species is a matter of current
fashion in taxonomy.
– If a species is only a category or class, and the class is

nothing more than a convenient grouping of its
members, then what is so important about species?

– Darwin once wrote, “I look at the term species, as one
arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of
individuals closely resembling each other.“

4 Different Conceptions of What a
Species Is

1. Morphological account, taxonomists consider a form, including
the shape, the flowers, the organs of the specimen, and groups it
with others of like morphology.

2. Phylogenetic account, taxonomists place together organisms with
identical, or nearly identical, evolutionary histories, so they will
need evidence of the organism’s past if they can get this in the
fossil record.

3. “Biological” account, biologists define a species as an isolated
interbreeding population giving rise to fertile offspring. So they
place together all individuals that do or could interbreed, and
watch to see if they mate and the offspring are fertile.

4. Nominalist account, species are more like proper-named
individuals (Steve Jobs, Chicago), than like the natural kinds (such
as humans or oak trees).

Test Cases Reveal (2)

• These test cases, according
to Russow, also show that is
not the sheer diversity or
number of species that
matters.
– If one believes that diversity

itself is a value, one would
have the obligation of creating
a new species wherever
possible, even harmful or
bizarre ones that serve no
purpose!

Test Cases Reveal (3)

• There is also the question is what
we are trying to preserve.

• Clearly not all varieties are of
interest. Nobody cares about the
various strains of lab rats, but we
seem to care a lot about the
Appaloosa, so much so that a
concerted effort is being made to
gather together the few remaining
specimens and reestablish the
breed.

Three General Replies to
“Why do species matter?”

• “Why do we have a least a prima facie duty
not to cause a species to become extinct, and
in some cases, a duty to try actively to
preserve species?” Because:
1. We are stewards” or “caretakers”
2. Species have extrinsic value
3. Species have intrinsic value

1. Steward or “Caretaker” View

• Feinberg: we are rational custodians of the planet and
have an obligation to be stewards and preserve
species.

• Russow: the job of a custodian is to protect that which
has value. But, whether species have value is what is
trying to be answered. So, either the Steward View
– assumes that what has value is what the steward is

steward of, thus begging the question
OR
– or, it does not answer the question as to what has value

for the sake of preservation

2. Species-Have-Extrinsic-Value View

• View: species matter because they form or are a part
of some other good
a. Extrinsic good as warning: vanishing species tell us when

something is wrong or harmful to the environment (e.g.,
DDT) and, thus, harmful to humans

b. Extrinsic good as alternative use: vanishing species may
provide important medicines for human use

c. Extrinsic good as essential ecosystem niche: extinction of
a species will lead to ecosystem imbalance and
preservation of species is good for the whole ecosystem

d. Extrinsic good as link in evolutionary chain: preservation
of species is important in maintaining links in
evolutionary chain

Replies to
Species-Have-Extrinsic-Value Views

• Reply to Alternative Use: one could likely find some
subspecies or other species of comparable use to humans

• Reply to Niche: problem of test cases–zoos are of no
significance; David deer are isolated from ecosystems and
have no ecological “role” to play; Appaloosa horse is no
better or worse situated than any other domesticated
horse and, thus, has no special value; encephalitis-bearing
mosquitoes ought to be preserved because they have
adapted; why fight invasive species if the ecosystem
continues to function?

• Reply to Darwin: extinction of a species and replacement
by another is part of evolution

3. Species-Have-Intrinsic-Value View

• View: A species has intrinsic value and ought to be preserved for no
other reason than it is valuable in itself

• Reply: What grounds intrinsic value? What makes something
intrinsically valuable? Is there some non-arbitrary, non-
anthropocentric way of determining what has intrinsic value or how
much intrinsic value a species has?
– Russow thinks not: “If intrinsic value does not spring from anything, if

it becomes merely another way of saying that we should protect
species, we are going around in circles without explaining anything.”

– Even if we could determine what has intrinsic value, we cannot
determine how much intrinsic value something has: “In short, to say
that something has intrinsic value does not tell us how much value it
has, nor does it allow us to make the sorts of judgments that are often
called for in considering the fate of an endangered species.”

Aesthetic-Preservation-of-Species
View

• Preserving species is often
compared to preserving
natural wonders
– Natural wonders ought be

preserved because of their
beauty and splendor

– Analogously, species ought be
preserved because of their
aesthetic value

Implications of

Aesthetic-Preservation-of-Species View

1. Some species have no aesthetic value, thus they are not worth
preserving (e.g., snail darter)

2. The aesthetic value of species can be compared and ranked, and
the allocation of resources determined appropriately

3. Aesthetic value of a species can be overridden for a greater good
a. We would be justified in expending more resources to preserve

some species over other species
b. The extinction of a species for pure economic gain may be immoral,

but the extinction of a species for some other justifiable human good
might be moral (e.g., malaria-carrying mosquito)

4. We could not explain why an endangered species is more valuable
than an unendangered species

a. Each species is unique, regardless of how many there are

Clearing Up a Fundamental Confusion

• We really do not admire species at all. They
really do not have aesthetic or any other
value. What we value is the existence of
individuals with appropriate aesthetic
qualities.

• Russow argues that changing the focus from
species to individuals allows us to make sense
of our feelings about endangered species in
two ways:

1. Rarity

• “First, the fact that there are very few members of a
species–the fact that we rarely encounter one–itself
increases the value of those encounters. I can see
turkey vultures almost every day, and I can eat apples
almost every day, but seeing a bald eagle or eating wild
strawberries are experiences that are much less
common, more delightful just for their rarity and
unexpectedness. Even snail darters, which, if we
encountered them every day would be drab and
uninteresting, become more interesting just because
we don’t–or may not see them everyday.”

2. Possible Future Encounters

• “Second, part of our interest in an individual carries over to

a desire that there be future opportunities to see these
things again (just as when, upon finding a new and
beautiful work of art, I will wish to go back and see it
again). In the case of animals, unlike works of art, I know
that this animal will not live forever, but that other animals
like this one will have similar aesthetic value. Thus, because
I value possible future encounters, I will also want to do
what is needed to ensure the possibility of such
encounters–I.e., make sure that enough presently existing
individuals of this type will be able to reproduce and
survive. This is rather like the duty that we have to support
and contribute to museums, or to other efforts to preserve
works of art.”

Russow’s Summary

• “We have moral obligations to protect things of
aesthetic value, and to ensure . . . their continued
existence; thus we have a duty to protect
individual animals (the duty may be weaker or
stronger depending on the value of the
individual), and to ensure that there will continue
to be animals of this sort (this duty will also be
weaker or stronger, depending on value). . . We
value and protect animals because of their
aesthetic value, not because they are members of
a given species.”

The Tiger
by William Blake

Tiger, tiger, burning bright,
In the forest of the night,

What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

• M07Lec01: Why Do Species Matter?

Biodiversity
Reasons for Protecting Biodiversity
1. Biodiversity’s Economic Value

• 2. Biodiversity Performs Services�Beyond Price

Intrinsic Value
“Preciousness”
“Intrinsically Worse”
Lilly-Marlene Russow
Obligations to Species and Individuals
Test Cases
Case 1. The snail darter
Case 2. The Chinese Père David’s deer
Case 3. The red wolf (Canis rufus)
Case 4. The Northern Oriole
Case 5. The Appaloosa
Case 6. Lab rats
Case 7. Mosquito
Case 8. Zebra
Test Cases Reveal (1)

• 4 Different Conceptions of What a Species Is

Test Cases Reveal (2)
Test Cases Reveal (3)

• Three General Replies to�”Why do species matter?”

1. Steward or “Caretaker” View
2. Species-Have-Extrinsic-Value View

• Replies to�Species-Have-Extrinsic-Value Views

3. Species-Have-Intrinsic-Value View
Aesthetic-Preservation-of-Species View

• Implications of�Aesthetic-Preservation-of-Species View

Clearing Up a Fundamental Confusion
1. Rarity
2. Possible Future Encounters
Russow’s Summary

• Slide Number 35

M05Lec01:

Deep Ecology

This lecture will help you understand:
• The Distinction between “Deep” and

“Shallow” Ecology
• The “Man-in-environment image” vs.

the “Relational, total-field image”
• The Nature of

Self-realization

• The Nature of

Biocentric Egalitarianism

• 8 Basic Principles of

Deep Ecology

Arne Naess (1912-2009)
University of Oslo

• On September 3, 1972, the Norwegian philosopher
Arne Naess gave a lecture at the third World Future
Research Conference in Bucharest, Romania, entitled
“The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecological
Movement.” In this lecture he compared two opposing
views toward the environment.
– Shallow ecology

• The standard view of conservationists. Concerned with fighting
pollution and resource depletion, which threatened the good of
humanity. An anthropocentric, individualistic, Western movement,
concerned with the health and affluence of people in the
developed countries.

– Deep ecology
• Involves a deeper questioning and a deeper set of answers to our

environmental concerns. Specifically, calls into question some of
the major assumptions about the consumerism, materialism, and
individualism that govern our civilization.

The Inadequacies of Shallow Ecology

• Shallow ecology is like treating
cancer using a Band-Aid. It is
treating symptoms, not the
disease.

• The disease is our whole
materialistic, consumer-
oriented, technocentric, and
anthropocentric egoism.

What Is Deep Ecology?

• The philosophical study of the interactions
between environments and organisms,
especially as it concerns the valuing, ethics,
and political ideals of humans and
environment
– Deep ecology attempts to “articulate a

comprehensive religious and philosophical
worldview”

Deep Ecology in Contrast to
Dominant Worldview

• Dominant worldview sees humans as isolated
from, independent of, and superior to nature

• Dominance is the central theme of Western
culture
– Dominance of humans over non-human nature
– Dominance of masculine over feminine
– Dominance of wealthy over the poor
– Dominance of Western over non-Western cultures

Ecocentrism + Spiritualism

“For deep ecology, the study of our place in the Earth
household includes the study of ourselves as part of the
organic whole. Going beyond a narrowly materialist
scientific understanding of reality, the spiritual and the
material aspects of reality fuse together. While the
leading intellectuals of the dominant worldview have
tended to view religion as “just superstition,” and have
looked upon ancient spiritual practice and enlightenment,
such as found in Zen Buddhism, as essentially subjective,
the search for deep ecological consciousness is the search
for a more objective consciousness and state of being
through an active deep questioning and meditative
process and way of life.
Many people have asked these deeper questions and
cultivated ecological consciousness within the context of
different spiritual traditions – Christianity, Taoism,
Buddhism, and Native American rituals, for example.
While differing greatly in other regards, many in these
traditions agree with the basic principles of deep
ecology.” (Duvall and Sessions)

Shallow vs. Deep Ecology

Shallow

• Materialist/Materialistic
• Natural diversity is valuable as a

resource for us.
• It is nonsense to talk about value except

as value for humankind.
• Plant species should be saved because

of their value as generic reserves for
human agriculture and medicine.

• Pollution should be decreased if it
threatens economic growth.

• Third world population growth
threatens ecological equilibrium.

• “Resource” means resource for
humans.

• People will not tolerate a broad
decrease in their standard of living.

Deep
• Spiritualistic
• Natural diversity has its own (intrinsic) value.
• Equating value with value for humans reveals

a racial prejudice.
• Plant species should be saved because of

their intrinsic value.
• Decrease of pollution has priority over

economic growth.
• World population at the present level

threatens ecosystems; the population and
behavior of industrial states does so more
than that of any others. Human population is
today excessive.

• “Resource” means resource for living beings.
• People should not tolerate a broad decrease

in the quality of life but in the standard of
living in overdeveloped countries.

• Man is egoistic but not necessarily so.

7 Principles of Deep Ecology

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image

2. Biospherical egalitarianism

3. Principles of diversity and of symbiosis
4. Anti-class posture
5. Fight against pollution and resource

depletion
6. Complexity, not complication
7. Local autonomy and decentralization

1. Rejection of the man-in-
environment image

• “Rejection of the man-in-environment image in favour
of the relational, total-field image. Organisms as knots
in the biospherical net or field of intrinsic relations. An
intrinsic relation between two things A and B is such
that the relation belongs to the definitions or basic
constitutions of A and B, so that without the relation, A
and B are no longer the same things. The total-field
model dissolves not only the man-in-environment
concept, but every compact thing-in-milieu concept —
except when talking at a superficial or preliminary level
of communication.”

The relata (A and B) precede the relation

• Dominant worldview sees you and me as
isolated from, independent of, and superior to
nature:

The relation produces the relata (A and B)

• Deep Ecology argues that the identity of you
and me is made possible through the
relationship with nature:

A B

“No man is an island”

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe [Nature] is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s [organism’s] death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind [nature].
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
John Donne
Meditation 17, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

John Donne
1572-1631) English
metaphysical poet

Deep Ecology
1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image
2. Biospherical egalitarianism

Deep Ecology

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image
2. Biospherical egalitarianism
3. Principles of diversity and of symbiosis

Deep Ecology

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image
2. Biospherical egalitarianism
3. Principles of diversity and of symbiosis
4. Anti-class posture

Deep Ecology

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image
2. Biospherical egalitarianism
3. Principles of diversity and of symbiosis
4. Anti-class posture
5. Fight against pollution and resource depletion

Deep Ecology

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image
2. Biospherical egalitarianism
3. Principles of diversity and of symbiosis
4. Anti-class posture
5. Fight against pollution and resource depletion
6. Complexity, not complication

Deep Ecology

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image
2. Biospherical egalitarianism
3. Principles of diversity and of symbiosis
4. Anti-class posture
5. Fight against pollution and resource depletion
6. Complexity, not complication
7. Local autonomy and decentralization

Holism

• Like Leopold’s land ethic, deep ecology is holistic, not
individualistic.

• It attributes intrinsic and objective value to nature and
the things in nature, not simply to humans.

• It seeks to live in harmony with nature, rather than
view humanity as dominant over nature.

• It espouses ecological egalitarianism, evaluating all
forms of life as equally valuable, with equal rights to
flourish.

• In many ways deep ecology looks like a
spiritual/philosophical elaboration of the land ethic.

“Ecosophy T”

• Deep ecology or Ecosophy T (“ecological
wisdom”)

• The T stands for “Tvergasten,” Naess’s rustic
Norwegian retreat cabin, suggesting that
ecophilosophy must begin with local concerns
and simple living.

• Naess (also Devall and Sessions) highlights two
features that separate shallow and deep
ecology: self-realization and biocentric
egalitarianism.

Self-realization

• What is the self and where is the self?
– According to Naess, Western philosophy has failed

to answer these questions properly.
– Since Plato, the ego (or self) = a soul (or mind)

mysteriously lodged in a body.
– This dualism, however, is undermined by the fact

that the “I” is not a fixed, individual, independent,
and separated thing, as many Westerners
suppose.

“self-in-Self” (Atman)

• Naess appeals to the Hindu idea of Atman for a richer
understanding of the interconnected Self. For Hindus
the Atman (universal Self) is Brahman (God).
– “He whose self is harmonized by yoga sees the Self abiding

in all beings and all beings in Self; everywhere he sees the
same.” Gandhi translated this passage, “The man equipped
with yoga looks on all with an impartial eye, seeing Atman
in all beings and all beings in Atman.“ (Bhagavad Gita)

• We are all in God, part of God as sparks are part of a
grand fire. Self-realization “in its absolute maximum” is
“the mature experience of oneness in diversity,” as
depicted in the verse just quoted.

Self-Realization

• Self-realization more easily achieved in a non-
dominating society.

• Self-realization best achieved through a meditative,
deep questioning process.

• The “self-in-Self” = “organic wholeness.” Realized when
we see our own lives is inextricably bound up with the
lives of not only fellow human beings, but “whales,
grizzly bears, whole rainforest ecosystems, mountains
and rivers, the tiniest microbes in the soil and so on.
– Summarized by the phrase: “no one is saved until we are

all saved.”

Dissolving Boundaries

• The central intuition of Deep Ecology is that
there is no clear-cut boundary between
human and non-human existence.
– Warwick Fox: “It is the idea that we can make no

firm ontological divide in the field of existence:
That there is no bifurcation in reality between the
human and the non-human realms . . . To the
extent that we perceive boundaries, we have
fallen short of deep ecological consciousness.”

Gandhi and Snakes

• Naess points out that Gandhi
permitted poisonous snakes in
his ashram and that antipoison
medicines were frowned upon.
Gandhi believed that “trust
awakens trust, and that snakes
have the same right to live and
blossom as the humans.”

• Is this true? Why do most
primates, apart from lemurs,
have an innate fear of snakes?

Biocentric Egalitarianism

• Two Californian philosophers, Bill
Devall (1938–2009) of Humboldt
State University and George
Sessions of Sierra College in
Rocklin, have further developed
the ideas of deep ecology.

• They reiterate Naess’s idea of
“self-in-Self,” where “Self” stands
for organic wholeness, but they
develop the idea of biocentric
egalitarianism further.

Biocentric Equality

• “The intuition of biocentric equality is that all
things in the biosphere have an equal right to live
and blossom and to reach their own individual
forms of unfolding and self-realization within the
larger Self-realization. The basic intuition is that
all organisms and entities in the ecosphere, as
parts of the interrelated whole, are equal in
intrinsic worth.”
– Biocentric Equality: all things in the biosphere are

equal and have equal rights to reach actualization of
their respective existences

– Harming anything in nature ultimately harms us

Anti-Animal Liberation/Rights

• “Mutual predation is a biological fact of life, and
many of the world’s religions have struggled with
the spiritual implications of this. Some animal
Iiberationists who attempt to side-step this
problem by advocating vegetarianism are forced
to say that the entire plant kingdom including
rainforests have no right to their own existence.
This evasion flies in the face of the basic
intuition of [biocentric] equality. Aldo Leopold
expressed this intuition when he said humans are
“plain citizens” of the biotic community, not lord
and master over all other species.”

“simple in means, rich in ends.”

• The practical implications of this intuition
entail that we should live with a minimum
rather than maximum impact on other species
and on the natural environment in general.

• Guiding principle: “simple in means, rich in
ends.”

8 Basic Principles of Deep Ecology

1. All life on Earth has intrinsic value
2. Diversity and complexity of life forms contribute to the realization

of intrinsic value
3. Humans ought not to reduce bio-diversity except to satisfy vital

needs
4. Human and nonhuman flourishing depends on decreases in the

human population
5. Human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive and

needs to decrease
6. Social and economic policies must change to reflect principles 1-5
7. Ideological change needs to focus on quality of life and not

necessarily an increasing higher standard of life
8. Those who subscribe to the above have a duty to implement

changes consistent with deep ecology

Comments on the Principles

1. All life on Earth has intrinsic value. Our fundamental connection to

the entire biosphere (including rocks, rivers, mountains, and other
non-living entities) calls for our respect and concern for the
planet’s ecology

2. Diversity and complexity of life forms contribute to the realization
of intrinsic value. Evolution gives evidence of the value of
increasing diversity and complexity, which are valuable in
themselves

3. Humans ought not to reduce bio-diversity except to satisfy vital
needs. What constitutes “vital needs” is vague so as to allow for
differences across cultures and environments

4. Human and nonhuman flourishing depends on decreases in
human population. Although the rate of growth has slowed down,
population has still increased. In particular decreasing populations
in over-consuming, developed countries is a high priority.

Comments on the Principles
5. Human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive and

needs to decrease, though human interference is inevitable. The
important point is to determine the nature and extent of
interference.

6. Social and economic policies must change to reflect principles 1-5.
Current economic growth and policies are inconsistent with
principles 1-5. “Sustainability” needs to be understood in relation
to the whole biosphere and not just humans.

7. Ideological change needs to focus on quality of life and not
necessarily an increasing higher standard of life. “Quality of life”
should be understood qualitatively and not quantitatively.

8. Those who subscribe to the above have a duty to implement
changes consistent with deep ecology. While there are differences
of opinion about what the priorities are, what is important is that
there is debate, and ultimately action, on these priorities

Criticism

• See Murray Bookchin’s essay “Social Ecology
vs. Deep Ecology” in the next lecture.

• M05Lec01: Deep Ecology
• Slide Number 2

The Inadequacies of Shallow Ecology
What Is Deep Ecology?

• Deep Ecology in Contrast to�Dominant Worldview

Ecocentrism + Spiritualism
Shallow vs. Deep Ecology
7 Principles of Deep Ecology
1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image
The relata (A and B) precede the relation
The relation produces the relata (A and B)
“No man is an island”
Deep Ecology
Deep Ecology
Deep Ecology
Deep Ecology
Deep Ecology
Deep Ecology
Holism
“Ecosophy T”

• Slide Number 21

Self-realization
“self-in-Self” (Atman)
Self-Realization
Dissolving Boundaries
Gandhi and Snakes
Biocentric Egalitarianism
Biocentric Equality
Anti-Animal Liberation/Rights
“simple in means, rich in ends.”
8 Basic Principles of Deep Ecology
Comments on the Principles
Comments on the Principles
Criticism

M08Lec02:The Identity

Problem

This lecture will help you understand:
• The problem of personal identity
• Parfit’s “identity problem”
• Its impact on energy policy
• The claim that a risky energy policy

is wrong “even if it is worse for no
one”

Derek Parfit
(1942-)

Robert Heilbroner
(1919-2005)

Parfit’s Question

• What is our moral obligation to future
generations when the same number of people
but different persons are affected by the
choices we make now?

• “Energy Policy and the Further Future: The
Identity Problem” (1983)

Personal Identity

• What does it mean to be you? What makes you
who you are?

• Would you be the same person if you had been
conceived on a Tuesday instead of Saturday?

• Given who you are now, would you be the same
person if you had been conceived a month later?

• What would happen to your personal identity if
the cells from which you were formed were
different from those that you did in fact develop
from?

Two Views of Personal Identity

1.

Necessity of Origins Theory

2.

Ego Theory

Necessity of Origins Theory

• You could not have
grown from a different
pair of cells. If you have
been conceived a
minute earlier or later,
you (who you are now)
would not have existed.

Yours!

Ego Theory

• You could have grown from different cells, or
even had different parents. (If Plato’s actual
parents never had children, and some other
ancient Greek couple had a child who wrote The
Republic, The Symposium, etc., that child would
have been Plato.)
– “those who take this other view, while believing that

you could have grown from a different pair of cells,
would admit that this would not in fact have
happened.”

– Logically possible, but empirically unlikely

• Parfit says, in either case, if you had been
conceived a month later than you were in fact
conceived, you would not have existed.

The Contingency of Origins!

• “A father quaffs perhaps a
bottle of wine more than
ordinary—he is in a certain
mood—the result is a
human being, the last
thing that was thought of
in the affair” (Friedrich
Schiller, The Robbers,
1781)

Friedrich Schiller,
1759-1805

Nuclear Technician

• Nuclear Technician: a
negligent technician’s
actions result in the
death and injury of
thousands two
centuries later

Risky Energy Policy

• Risky Energy Policy: there’s a choice between
two energy policies. The risky energy policy is
riskier than its competitor, but has a higher
standard of living for the next two centuries

• The Risky Policy results in a catastrophe that
results in the death and injury of thousands
two centuries later

Who Is Affected?

• In the Nuclear Technician example, the same particular

people would have been born over the next two
centuries and might have been affected by the
technician’s actions

• In the Risky Energy Policy, those who are alive in two
centuries are determined by the energy policy chosen.
Since the decision between energy policies affects the
standard of living, among other things, of the further
future, then this would have influenced the
(reproductive) decisions of future generations.

• The energy policy decision affects the further future
in ways that the Technician’s decision does not.

More Sex, Less TV!

• “The British Miners’ Strike of 1974, which
caused television to close down an hour
early, thereby affected the timing of
thousands of conceptions.”

Fourteen-Year-Old Girl Analogy
(Case 1)

• A 14-year-old girl decides to have a baby and we try to
dissuade her:
– Tactic 1: If she has child now, that would be worse for her
– Tactic 2: If she has child now, that would be worse for the

child, for if she waits until she grows up she’ll be a better
mother and give the child a better start in life

• She decides to have the child now and gives it a poor
start in life. Were we correct? Would it have been
better for the child if she had waited? The answer is
“No.”

• Therefore, our claim (that it would have been better
for the child if she had waited) is false.

Risky Policy and Girl Analogy

• The girl’s decision to have the child affects the
further future. The decision she makes affects the
identity of the person she eventually begets.
– Is the girl’s choice worse for the child? No

• The Risky Policy decision affects the further
future. The decision one makes (Safe or Risky
Energy Policy) affects the identity of persons who
exist two centuries later
– Is the choice of the Risky Policy worse for anyone? No

• How many of us can truly claim, “Even if
railways had never been invented, I would still
have been born”?

Benefiting Persons

• Parfit’s question: “If we cause someone to exist, who
will have a life worth living, do we thereby benefit
this person? This is a difficult question.”

• There are two possible responses:
– Assume causing to exist does not benefit

• Given people have a life worth living, is it worse when catastrophe
hits as a result of Risky Policy than if they had never existed? No.

– Assume causing to exist can benefit
• Given people have a life worth living, is it worse when catastrophe

hits as a result of Risky Policy than if they had never existed? No
• Risky Policy actually benefits them because they exist (and would

not have under Safe Policy)

Risky Policy Is Not Worse

• The result of these assumptions about
personal identity is that the Risky Policy is not
worse for those who exist.

Does this make a moral difference?

• Some philosophers claim:
– “Wrongs Require Victims: Our choice cannot be

wrong if we know that it will be worse for no one.”

• If they are correct, then there is nothing
wrong with the choice of the Risky Policy

• However, Parfit does not believe this.

Parfit Denies that Wrongs Require
Victims

• Parfit: “I deny that wrongs require victims.”
• Indeed, Parfit believes that the catastrophe

caused by the Risky Policy is just as morally
wrong as the Nuclear Technician’s actions.

• If this is so, then is morally irrelevant that our
choice of Risky Policy will be worse for no one.

Depletion and

Conservation

• A society must choose between two alternatives
for using certain resources

• Depletion: decision will result in a slightly higher
quality of life over the next two centuries, but
lower quality after that time

• Conservation: decision will result in a lower
quality of life over the next two centuries than in
Depletion, but still a life worth living. After two
hundred years, the quality of life will be higher
than Depletion

Effects of Choice on Future Standard of
Living

Conservation

Depletion

200 years

Q
ua

lit
y

of
L

ife

Deplete or Conserve?

• Is our choice of Depletion worse for any of those who live

after two centuries? No
• Will our choice of Depletion make the lives of those who

live after two centuries worse than those who might live
following a decision of Conservation? Yes

• The conflicting answers are troublesome and point to a
moral objection (a utilitarian one) even though we make
things worse for no one
– It seems that choosing Depletion will result in a lower quality of

life and this seems bad despite the fact that our choice does not
make the lives of those who live worse

– Since they are different persons, in either case, then they
cannot be worse off given the decision because they would not
have existed under the alternative decision.

Review of Risky Policy and Depletion

• We assume that actions which result in the
death of innocent individuals or reduce the
quality of life of individuals are wrong actions.

• Suppose we choose the Risky Policy or
Depletion and this decision results in the
people’s deaths or a lower quality of life.
– We think these decisions are bad because these

decisions make life worse for those future people
– But, life is not worse for those future people!

Can We Be Morally Criticized for Depletion
Even If It Is Worse for No One?

1. Our choice of Depletion will cause people to
be worse off than the different people who, if
we had chosen Conservation, would have
later lived.

2. This appears to be a bad effect, even though
we know that our choice will be worse for no
one.

3. Therefore, we can be morally criticized for
our choice of Depletion.

Assigning Blame

• “Can we not deserve blame for causing others to
be harmed, even when our act is not worse for
them?”

• Parfit’s answer is yes.
– “Suppose that I choose to drive when drunk, and in

the resulting crash cause you to lose a leg. If you had
not lost your leg, you would have been conscripted in
the army, and been killed. So my drunken driving
saved your life. But I am still morally to blame.”

• In assigning blame, we must consider not actual
but predictable effects.

Is There Benefit in Life that
Compensates for Past Decisions?

• Because of the choice of Risky Energy Policy,
the people who will in fact later live suffer
certain harms.

• This seems to provide an objection.
• But they owe their existence to this same

choice.
• Does this remove the objection? No.

Fourteen-Year-Old Girl Analogy
(Case 2)

• A 14-year-old girl decides to have a baby and we try to
dissuade her:
– Tactic 1: If she has child now, that would be worse for her
– Tactic 2: If she has child now, that would be worse for the
child, for if she waits until she grows up she’ll be a better
mother and give the child a better start in life

• But suppose she knows that, because she has some
illness, she will become sterile within the next year.
Unless she has a child now, she can never have a child.

• Therefore, it would seem that there is no objection to
this girl’s choice (unlike in the first case).

Risky Energy Policy Is Like the First Girl

• “The objection to our choice [Risky Energy
Policy] cannot appeal only to effects on those
people who will later live. It must mention
possible effects on the people who, if we had
chosen otherwise, would have later lived.”

Principle “A”

• “(A) It is bad if those who live are worse off
than those who might have lived.”
– This suggests that the Risky Energy Policy is wrong

even though it will be worse for no one.
– But can we justify (A)? Indeed, is (A) true?

Social Policies and Personal Identity

• Parfit wonders whether ethical decisions
about social policies should ignore the
ramifications of personal identity.

• Parfit seems to think this is justifiable:
– “We can then use such claims as a convenient

form of shorthand. Though the claims are false,
we believe that this makes no moral difference.
So the claims are not seriously misleading.”

Justifying (A)

• Still, not everyone will agree that we should
adopt a false claim just because it leads to the
right kind of outcome.
– “it would then be dishonest to conceal the point

about identity.”

• So, we are still stuck with the question: How
might we go about justifying (A)?

Same or Different Number of People?

• It seems our ethical decision making about the

further future concerns three groups:
1) Same people
2) Same number of different people
3) Different number of different people

• Most moral decision-making is concerned with
choices about (1) same people

• (A) appears to apply only to choices about (2)
same number of different people

• Can (A) be extended to choices concerning (3)
different number of different people?

Where does this leave us?

• Parfit contends that it leaves us looking for an as-yet-

unformulated principle X that will be able to guide us in
thinking about difficult cases in which different numbers of
people would exist depending on what energy policy we
adopt.

• Whatever that principle is—and Parfit says he doesn’t know
what it is—it should be able to help decide whether
conservation or depletion, for example, is the best policy.
– Note that conservation won’t necessarily be the best policy

from a consequentialist perspective if depletion results many,
many more people being born whose lives are still worth living,
even if they suffer environmental harms.

• Parfit has left quite a problem for you future environmental
philosophers to work out!

Average View

• One attempt to extend (A) is the Average View
– “it would be worse for there to be more people if

the average person would be worse off”
– Parfit argues elsewhere that the Average View,

though popular, is implausible
– But, this does not invalidate (A), it just shows that

(A) is incapable of covering choices about
Different Number of Different People

Restating (A) to Make It Explicit that It
Covers Same Number Choices and

Same People Choices
• (A) can be restated as follows:

– “(B) If the same number of lives would be lived
either way, it would be bad if people are worse off
than people might have been.”

• (B) can cover both Same Number Choices and
Same People Choices because “people” can
refer to different people

Person-Affecting Principle (PAP) and
(B)

• (B) sounds similar to the more familiar Person-
Affecting Principle (PAP):
– “It is bad if people are affected for the worse”

• In Same People Choices, (B) and PAP coincide
and give similar answers

• In Same Number Choices, (B) and PAP diverge
and give different answers

Adopt (B)

• Consider the Depletion account:
– If we choose Depletion this will lower the quality of

life of people in the future
• But, if we apply PAP with the understanding of personal

identity, then we see that the lower quality of life will be
worse for no one

• But, if our intuitions are that personal identity makes no
moral difference, then we should reject PAP

• (B) does not have the same ramifications as PAP
– Depletion will be a morally unacceptable choice even

for the same number of different people

Conclusion

• “We may thus conclude that this part of
morality, the part concerned with human
welfare, cannot be explained in person-
affecting terms. Its fundamental principle will
not be concerned with whether acts will be
good or bad for those people whom they
affect. If this is so, many moral theories need
to be revised.”

• M08Lec02: The Identity Problem

Parfit’s Question
Personal Identity
Two Views of Personal Identity
Necessity of Origins Theory
Ego Theory

• Slide Number 7

The Contingency of Origins!
Nuclear Technician
Risky Energy Policy
Who Is Affected?
More Sex, Less TV!

• Fourteen-Year-Old Girl Analogy�(Case 1)

Risky Policy and Girl Analogy

• Slide Number 15

Benefiting Persons
Risky Policy Is Not Worse
Does this make a moral difference?

• Parfit Denies that Wrongs Require Victims
• Depletion and Conservation
• Effects of Choice on Future Standard of Living

Deplete or Conserve?
Review of Risky Policy and Depletion

• Can We Be Morally Criticized for Depletion Even If It Is Worse for No One?

Assigning Blame

• Is There Benefit in Life that Compensates for Past Decisions?
• Fourteen-Year-Old Girl Analogy�(Case 2)

Risky Energy Policy Is Like the First Girl
Principle “A”
Social Policies and Personal Identity
Justifying (A)
Same or Different Number of People?
Where does this leave us?
Average View

• Restating (A) to Make It Explicit that It Covers Same Number Choices and Same People Choices
• Person-Affecting Principle (PAP) and (B)

Adopt (B)
Conclusion

M07Lec02:

Elliot on the

Restoration Thesis

This lecture will help you
understand:
•

The Restoration Thesis

•

Conservation

vs.

Preservation

• Early 20th-Century American

Environmentalism
• Parallels between Art and Nature
• Differences between Art and

Nature

Torrey Pines

• The question is:
– Would it be morally right to lease the

area to the mining company?
– Would it make a difference to your

answer that the money the state
received from the company would be
used to build better schools, hire
better teachers at higher salaries,
and generally promote the living
conditions of the poor?

– What do you think?

The Restoration Thesis

• “The destruction of something of value is
compensated for by the later creation
(actually, ‘recreation’) of something of equal
value.”

Conservation

• Anthropocentric conservationists accept the
restoration thesis as good stewardship of the
wilderness.
– They would agree to the offer. The prospects of

promoting the human good would outweigh the value
the wilderness had as a habitat for other living beings
and the pleasure it provided to nature lovers.

– Besides, only part of the coastline would be closed
down and then for only a year–or a few years, if we
consider the time to restore it.

Preservation
• Most preservationists, including deep ecologists,

biocentrists, and restoration ecologists, would no
doubt reject the offer as sacrificing something of
inestimable intrinsic worth. Nature-the wild-is
irreplaceable. It has deep intrinsic value. The
new-growth forest would be the product of
human control and management, so not really a
wilderness.

• At least two things are missing:
I. the natural process that produced the natural entity in the

first place
II. an appreciation for the wilderness as valuable in

itself

• Preservationist biocentrists object to the
restoration thesis and to the kind of reasoning
used by conservationists. A “restored” nature
is not natural. At least two things are missing:
– the natural process that produced the natural

entity in the first place
– an appreciation for the wilderness as valuable in

itself

Conservation

• Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946)
• First head of the United

States Forest Service and a
leading spokesman for the
sustainable use of natural
resources for the benefit of
the people.

Preservation

• John Muir (1838-1914)
• Leading spokesman for the

American wilderness
movement at the beginning
of the 20th century and
found it the Sierra Club.

Hetch Hetchy Valley

Early 1900s Today

Robert Elliot, “Faking Nature”

• Natural areas such as a wilderness are
compared to works of art.

• Knowing that the experience you are having is
only a replica of the natural original lowers the
value of that experience.

• Fakes lack the value of the original entity.
– Note that according to Elliot “’natural’ means

something like ‘unmodified by human activity.”

Scenario 1

• You have a piece of sculpture in your

garden which is too fragile to be moved.
The local council plan to lay sewerage
pipes just where the sculpture happens to
be. The council engineer tells you of this
and explains that your sculpture will have
to go. However, he promises to replace it
with an exactly similar artifact.

• Reply: It is utterly improbable that you
would accept it as full compensation for
the original.

• Reason: Your reluctance springs from the
fact that you value the original as an
aesthetic object, as an object with a
specific genesis and history.

Scenario 2

• You have been promised a Vermeer

for your birthday. However, when the
day arrives your given a painting
which looks like a Vermeer but which
you later discover is a fake.

• Reply: You’re disappointed. It is no
good being told there is no difference
between the replica and the original.

• Reason: There is a difference and it is
one which affects my perception, and
consequent valuation, of the painting.
The difference of course lies in the
painting’s genesis.

Johanness Vermeer
1632-1675, Dutch

painter)

Han van Meegeren

The Supper at Emmaus by
Han van Meegeren (1936)

During the trial of Han van Meegeren, which
took place in 1947, the forger demonstrated
the techniques he had used to create several

convincing Vermeer forgeries. Before the
court and under police guard, he painted his

last “Vermeer”, Jesus among the Doctors.

Meegeren,
The Fawn

Scenario 3

• You given a rather beautiful, delicately

constructed, object. It is something I treasure
and admire, something in which I find
considerable aesthetic value. However he later
discover that he is carved out of the bone of
someone killed especially for that purpose. You
regard it as in some sense sullied, spoilt by the
facts of its origin. The object itself has not
changed but my perceptions of it have. I now
know that it is not quite the kind of thing I
thought it was, and that my prior valuation of it
was mistaken.

• Reply: The discovery about the object’s origin
changes the valuation made of it.

• Reason: it reveals that the object is not of the
kind that I value

Conclusion

• “Origin is important as an integral part of the
evaluation process.”

Muir on the Hetch Hetchy

• “a part of the world that had not been shaped
by human hand …. The news that it was a
carefully contrived elaborate ecological
artifact would have transformed that
valuation immediately and radically …. We
value the forest and river in part because they
are representative of the world outside our
dominion, because their existence is
independent of us.”

A Possible Objection

• It might be thought that naturalness only matters
insofar as it is perceived. If an environmentalist
engineer could perform the restoration quickly and
secretly, then there would be no room for complaint.

• According to Elliot, all this shows is that there can be a
loss of value without the loss being perceived. But,
there is still a loss of value. Just because I do not know
that my Vermeer has been removed and secretly
replaced with a fake, does not mean to say that I have
not lost something of value.

3 Examples

1. John is hooked up to an “experience machine.”
2. John is abducted, blindfolded and taken to a

simulated, plastic wilderness area. At first John
thrilled by what he sees; however, John would
be profoundly disappointed if he were to find
out that he were living in a plastic environment.

3. John is taken to a place which was once
devastated by strip mining. John, however, does
not know this, and thinks he is in a pristine
forest. Once again he has been deceived,
presented with a less than what he values most.

Nature Is Not Art

• “for one thing an apparently integral part of
aesthetic evaluation depends on viewing the
aesthetic object as an intentional object, as an
artifact, as something that is shaped by the
purposes and designs of its author. Evaluating
works of art involves explaining them, and
judging them, in terms of their author’s
intentions; it involves placing them within the
author’s corpus of work; it involves locating them
in some tradition and in some special milieu.
Nature is not a work of art though works of art
may look very much like natural objects.”

Cognitive Dimension

• “Knowing that the forest is not a naturally
evolved forest causes me to feel differently
about it: it causes me to perceive the forest
differently and to assign it less value than
naturally evolved forests.”

Duck or Rabbit?

Conclusion

• “natural” areas have values that “artificial” or
“restored” ones lack and that our “wilderness
valuations depend in part on the presence of
properties which cannot survive the
disruption/restoration process.”

A Word of Caution . . .

• “This is the strongest argument against
restoration ploys. . . . Showing that the good
won’t be delivered is thus a useful move to
make.”

Thought Experiment

• “Consider this thought experiment: God creates an incredibly

beautiful ecosystem, one that surpasses in stability and integrity the
Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and the Brazilian rain forest all put
together. But it would not be natural in the sense of being a product
of biological processes or wild in the sense of being untouched by
intentional purposes. It would be like the Garden of Eden with the
Grand Canyon thrown in. We’ll call it Super Grand Canyon II.
Suppose God has to maintain it by His power. Would it be any less
valuable for not being natural or wild? If you say no, then imagine
that by the year 2150 humans acquire the knowledge and power to
construct Super Grand Canyon III, almost as glorious as Super Grand
Canyon II but far more beautiful than the Grand Canyon. Would it
be less valuable for not being wild or natural (that is, produced by
natural causes, rather than human ‘artificial’ causes)?” (Louis
Pojman)

• M07Lec02: Elliot on the Restoration Thesis

Torrey Pines

• Slide Number 3

The Restoration Thesis
Conservation
Preservation

• Slide Number 7
• Slide Number 8

Hetch Hetchy Valley
Robert Elliot, “Faking Nature”
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
Han van Meegeren

• Slide Number 14

Scenario 3
Conclusion
Muir on the Hetch Hetchy
A Possible Objection
3 Examples
Nature Is Not Art
Cognitive Dimension
Duck or Rabbit?

• Slide Number 23

Conclusion
A Word of Caution . . .
Thought Experiment

M06Lec01:Social Ecology
This lecture will help you understand:
• What Social Ecology is
• The connection between social

hierarchy and domination and the
domination of nature

• The connection between sustainability
and democracy

• 5 essential characteristics of Social
Ecology

• A critique of Deep Ecology

Murray Bookchin (1921-2006)

Murray Bookchin (1921-2006)

• Social theorist, who began
writing in the 1960s about
the connections between
social domination and the
domination of nature.

• His philosophical views
have been characterized as
“social ecology.”

What Is Social Ecology?

• “Social ecology is based on the conviction that
nearly all of our present ecological problems
originate in deep-seated social problems. It
follows, from this view, that these ecological
problems cannot be understood, let alone solved,
without a careful understanding of our existing
society and the irrationalities that dominate it. To
make this point more concrete: economic,
ethnic, cultural, and gender conflicts, among
many others, lie at the core of the most serious
ecological dislocations we face today” (“What Is
Social Ecology?” 2003)

Roots

• Marxian Socialism
– Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• Libertarian Anarchism

– Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)

Anti-Hierarchy

• Unlike traditional Marxists, Bookchin does not
believe that the primary form of social
hierarchy and domination rests with economic
classes.

• In addition, unlike the anarchists, Bookchin
does not beslieve that the modern nation-
state is the primary agent of social
domination.

Other Forms of Domination

• young by the old
• women by men
• one ethnic group by another
• “masses” by bureaucrats
• countryside by town

Ecofeminism

• The “logic of domination”
(Karen Warren)

• Hierarchies imply the
existence of at least two
groups, one of which holds
power over the other. This
power enables the
“superior” group to
command obedience from
the “inferior” group.

Ideological Domination

• Hierarchy “is also a state of consciousness” as
well as a social condition.

• People can be oppressed by their
consciousness, their understandings and
beliefs, as much as by external forces.

• The worst slavery is when slavery becomes
inclination (e.g., serfs doff their caps to their
feudal masters!)

Domination of Nature

• “The notion that man must dominate nature
emerges directly from the domination of man
by man. . . . But it was not until organic
community relation . . . dissolved into market
relationships that the planet itself was
reduced to a resource for exploitation.” (Post-
Scarcity Anarchism, 1972)

Modern Capitalism

• “This centuries-long tendency finds its most
exacerbating development in modern capitalism.
Owing to its inherently competitive nature, bourgeois
society not only pits humans against each other, it also
pits the mass of humanity against the natural world.
Just as men are converted into commodities, so every
aspect of nature is converted into a commodity, a
resource to be manufactured and merchandised
wantonly. . . . The plundering of the human spirit by
the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the
earth by capital.” (Post-Scarcity Anarchism, 1972)

Marx Turned on His Head

• Bookchin suggests that social
structures of domination
preceded the domination of
nature.

• Denies any economic or historical
determinism to the connection
between social domination and
the domination of nature.

Free and Democratic Society

The non-hierarchical or just community:
• Rejects domination in any form, whether domination

of humans or nature.
• Democratic values such as full participation and

freedom are the norms.
• Decision-making authority is decentralized.
• Individuals complement and cooperate with each other

but do not dominate each other.
• Indeed, the ideal “anarchistic community would

approximate an ecosystem; it would be diversified,
balanced, and harmonious.

Sustainable Agriculture

• Sustainable agriculture decentralizes and diversifies
decision-making authority. In this sense, it is truly a
democratic practice.

• Decisions are made directly by the people most
affected by them.

• Sustainable agriculture reinforces a lifestyle in which
local communities become sustainable and self-
sufficient.

• In this type of world, humans experience true freedom,
and only in this type of community are humans able to
live in harmony with their natural environment.

5 Essential Characteristics of Social
Ecology

1. Rational

2. Organismic

3. Revolutionary

4. Green

5. Humanistic

1. Rational

• “Social ecology is neither deep, tall, fat, nor thick.
It is social. It does not fall back on incantations,
sutras, flow diagrams, or spiritual vagaries. It is
avowedly rational. It does not try to regale
metaphorical forms of spiritual mechanism and
crude biologism with Taoist, Buddhist, Christian,
or shamanistic Eco-la-la. It is a coherent form of
naturalism that looks to evolution and the
biosphere, not to deities in the sky or under the
earth for quasi-religious and supernaturalistic
explanations of natural and social phenomena.”

2. Organismic

• “Philosophically, social ecology stems from a
solid organismic tradition in Western
philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus, the
near-evolutionary dialectic of Aristotle and
Hegel, and the superbly critical approach of
the famous Frankfurt School.”

3. Revolutionary

• “It is revolutionary, not merely radical. . . . It is
rooted in the profound eco-anarchistic analyses
of Peter Kropotkin, the radical economic insights
of Karl Marx, the emancipatory promise of the
revolutionary Enlightenment as articulated by the
great encyclopedist Denis Diderot, the enragés of
the French Revolution, the revolutionary feminist
ideals of Louise Michel and Emma Goldman, the
communitarian visions of Paul Goodman and E. A.
Gutkind, and the various ecorevolutionary
manifestos of the early 1960s.”

4. Green
• “Politically it is Green, and radically Green. It takes its

stand with the left-wing tendencies of the German
Greens and extraparliamentary street movements of
European cities, with the American radical ecofeminist
movement that is currently emerging, with the
demands for a new politics based on citizens’
initiatives, neighborhood assemblies, New England’s
tradition of town meetings, with unaligned anti-
imperialist movements at home and abroad, with the
struggle by people of color for complete freedom from
domination by privileged whites and from superpowers
on both sides of the iron curtain.”

5. Humanistic

• “Morally it is humanistic in the high
Renaissance meaning of the term,” which
requires “a shift in vision from the skies to the
earth, from superstition to reason, from
deities to people, who are no less the
products of natural evolution than grizzly
bears and whales.”

“First” and “Second” Nature

• “Human beings always remain rooted in their biological

evolutionary history, which we may call ‘first Nature,’
but they produce a characteristically human social
nature of their own which we may call ‘second nature.’
And far from being ‘unnatural,’ human second nature is
eminently a creation of organic evolution’s first
nature.” (“What Is Social Ecology?”)
– Humans are not simply the “equal biotic citizens”

described in biocentric ethics, the land ethic, and deep
ecology. Humanity as a part of natural evolution-and the
only part capable of sophisticated, rational thought has a
responsibility to act as steward of the natural evolutionary
process.

Bookchin’s Critique of Deep Ecology

•

Misanthropy

• Mysticism (“ecobabble,” “eco-la-la”)
•

Anti-Humanism

and Freedom

Misanthropy

• In his polemic against Deep
Ecology, Bookchin highlighted the
extreme views of members of
Earth First!, a radical
environmental advocacy group
that emerged in the
Southwestern United States in
1979, co-founded on by Dave
Foreman and other deep
ecologists.

The Scandal

• These views suggest that famine

and AIDS, for example, were
“nature’s revenge” for
overpopulation and ecological
destruction.

• The implication was that
starving children in places such
as Ethiopia and Somalia should
be allowed to die in the name of
some natural ecological law
concerning carrying capacity
and population dynamics.

Anti-Humanism

• “There is no difference
between the fall of a bomb
and the fall of a leaf” (James
Joyce)

James Joyce,
1882-1941

Problems with Biocentric Equality

• “One of the problems with this asocial,
‘species-centered’ way of thinking, of course,
is that it blames the victim. Let’s face it, when
you say that a black kid in Harlem is as much
to blame for the ecological crisis as the
president of Exxon, you are letting one off the
hook and slandering the other”.

Third World Critique

• Also see Guha’s “Radical Environmentalism
and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World
Critique.”

Coda

• There was a rapprochement between

Bookchin and Foreman in Defending the Earth:
A Debate (1991)

Dave Foreman,
1947-

Murray Bookchin,
1921-2006

• M06Lec01: Social Ecology

Murray Bookchin (1921-2006)
What Is Social Ecology?
Roots
Anti-Hierarchy
Other Forms of Domination
Ecofeminism
Ideological Domination
Domination of Nature
Modern Capitalism
Marx Turned on His Head
Free and Democratic Society
Sustainable Agriculture

• 5 Essential Characteristics of Social Ecology

1. Rational
2. Organismic
3. Revolutionary
4. Green
5. Humanistic
“First” and “Second” Nature
Bookchin’s Critique of Deep Ecology
Misanthropy
The Scandal
Anti-Humanism
Problems with Biocentric Equality
Third World Critique
Coda

M06Lec01:Social Ecology
This lecture will help you understand:
• What Social Ecology is
• The connection between social

hierarchy and domination and the
domination of nature

• The connection between sustainability
and democracy

• 5 essential characteristics of Social
Ecology

• A critique of Deep Ecology

Murray Bookchin (1921-2006)

Murray Bookchin (1921-2006)

• Social theorist, who began
writing in the 1960s about
the connections between
social domination and the
domination of nature.

• His philosophical views
have been characterized as
“social ecology.”

What Is Social Ecology?

• “Social ecology is based on the conviction that
nearly all of our present ecological problems
originate in deep-seated social problems. It
follows, from this view, that these ecological
problems cannot be understood, let alone solved,
without a careful understanding of our existing
society and the irrationalities that dominate it. To
make this point more concrete: economic,
ethnic, cultural, and gender conflicts, among
many others, lie at the core of the most serious
ecological dislocations we face today” (“What Is
Social Ecology?” 2003)

Roots

• Marxian Socialism
– Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• Libertarian Anarchism

– Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)

Anti-Hierarchy

• Unlike traditional Marxists, Bookchin does not
believe that the primary form of social
hierarchy and domination rests with economic
classes.

• In addition, unlike the anarchists, Bookchin
does not beslieve that the modern nation-
state is the primary agent of social
domination.

Other Forms of Domination

• young by the old
• women by men
• one ethnic group by another
• “masses” by bureaucrats
• countryside by town

Ecofeminism

• The “logic of domination”
(Karen Warren)

• Hierarchies imply the
existence of at least two
groups, one of which holds
power over the other. This
power enables the
“superior” group to
command obedience from
the “inferior” group.

Ideological Domination

• Hierarchy “is also a state of consciousness” as
well as a social condition.

• People can be oppressed by their
consciousness, their understandings and
beliefs, as much as by external forces.

• The worst slavery is when slavery becomes
inclination (e.g., serfs doff their caps to their
feudal masters!)

Domination of Nature

• “The notion that man must dominate nature
emerges directly from the domination of man
by man. . . . But it was not until organic
community relation . . . dissolved into market
relationships that the planet itself was
reduced to a resource for exploitation.” (Post-
Scarcity Anarchism, 1972)

Modern Capitalism

• “This centuries-long tendency finds its most
exacerbating development in modern capitalism.
Owing to its inherently competitive nature, bourgeois
society not only pits humans against each other, it also
pits the mass of humanity against the natural world.
Just as men are converted into commodities, so every
aspect of nature is converted into a commodity, a
resource to be manufactured and merchandised
wantonly. . . . The plundering of the human spirit by
the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the
earth by capital.” (Post-Scarcity Anarchism, 1972)

Marx Turned on His Head

• Bookchin suggests that social
structures of domination
preceded the domination of
nature.

• Denies any economic or historical
determinism to the connection
between social domination and
the domination of nature.

Free and Democratic Society

The non-hierarchical or just community:
• Rejects domination in any form, whether domination

of humans or nature.
• Democratic values such as full participation and

freedom are the norms.
• Decision-making authority is decentralized.
• Individuals complement and cooperate with each other

but do not dominate each other.
• Indeed, the ideal “anarchistic community would

approximate an ecosystem; it would be diversified,
balanced, and harmonious.

Sustainable Agriculture

• Sustainable agriculture decentralizes and diversifies
decision-making authority. In this sense, it is truly a
democratic practice.

• Decisions are made directly by the people most
affected by them.

• Sustainable agriculture reinforces a lifestyle in which
local communities become sustainable and self-
sufficient.

• In this type of world, humans experience true freedom,
and only in this type of community are humans able to
live in harmony with their natural environment.

5 Essential Characteristics of Social
Ecology

1. Rational

2. Organismic

3. Revolutionary

4. Green

5. Humanistic

1. Rational

• “Social ecology is neither deep, tall, fat, nor thick.
It is social. It does not fall back on incantations,
sutras, flow diagrams, or spiritual vagaries. It is
avowedly rational. It does not try to regale
metaphorical forms of spiritual mechanism and
crude biologism with Taoist, Buddhist, Christian,
or shamanistic Eco-la-la. It is a coherent form of
naturalism that looks to evolution and the
biosphere, not to deities in the sky or under the
earth for quasi-religious and supernaturalistic
explanations of natural and social phenomena.”

2. Organismic

• “Philosophically, social ecology stems from a
solid organismic tradition in Western
philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus, the
near-evolutionary dialectic of Aristotle and
Hegel, and the superbly critical approach of
the famous Frankfurt School.”

3. Revolutionary

• “It is revolutionary, not merely radical. . . . It is
rooted in the profound eco-anarchistic analyses
of Peter Kropotkin, the radical economic insights
of Karl Marx, the emancipatory promise of the
revolutionary Enlightenment as articulated by the
great encyclopedist Denis Diderot, the enragés of
the French Revolution, the revolutionary feminist
ideals of Louise Michel and Emma Goldman, the
communitarian visions of Paul Goodman and E. A.
Gutkind, and the various ecorevolutionary
manifestos of the early 1960s.”

4. Green
• “Politically it is Green, and radically Green. It takes its

stand with the left-wing tendencies of the German
Greens and extraparliamentary street movements of
European cities, with the American radical ecofeminist
movement that is currently emerging, with the
demands for a new politics based on citizens’
initiatives, neighborhood assemblies, New England’s
tradition of town meetings, with unaligned anti-
imperialist movements at home and abroad, with the
struggle by people of color for complete freedom from
domination by privileged whites and from superpowers
on both sides of the iron curtain.”

5. Humanistic

• “Morally it is humanistic in the high
Renaissance meaning of the term,” which
requires “a shift in vision from the skies to the
earth, from superstition to reason, from
deities to people, who are no less the
products of natural evolution than grizzly
bears and whales.”

“First” and “Second” Nature

• “Human beings always remain rooted in their biological

evolutionary history, which we may call ‘first Nature,’
but they produce a characteristically human social
nature of their own which we may call ‘second nature.’
And far from being ‘unnatural,’ human second nature is
eminently a creation of organic evolution’s first
nature.” (“What Is Social Ecology?”)
– Humans are not simply the “equal biotic citizens”

described in biocentric ethics, the land ethic, and deep
ecology. Humanity as a part of natural evolution-and the
only part capable of sophisticated, rational thought has a
responsibility to act as steward of the natural evolutionary
process.

Bookchin’s Critique of Deep Ecology

•

Misanthropy

• Mysticism (“ecobabble,” “eco-la-la”)
•

Anti-Humanism

and Freedom

Misanthropy

• In his polemic against Deep
Ecology, Bookchin highlighted the
extreme views of members of
Earth First!, a radical
environmental advocacy group
that emerged in the
Southwestern United States in
1979, co-founded on by Dave
Foreman and other deep
ecologists.

The Scandal

• These views suggest that famine

and AIDS, for example, were
“nature’s revenge” for
overpopulation and ecological
destruction.

• The implication was that
starving children in places such
as Ethiopia and Somalia should
be allowed to die in the name of
some natural ecological law
concerning carrying capacity
and population dynamics.

Anti-Humanism

• “There is no difference
between the fall of a bomb
and the fall of a leaf” (James
Joyce)

James Joyce,
1882-1941

Problems with Biocentric Equality

• “One of the problems with this asocial,
‘species-centered’ way of thinking, of course,
is that it blames the victim. Let’s face it, when
you say that a black kid in Harlem is as much
to blame for the ecological crisis as the
president of Exxon, you are letting one off the
hook and slandering the other”.

Third World Critique

• Also see Guha’s “Radical Environmentalism
and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World
Critique.”

Coda

• There was a rapprochement between

Bookchin and Foreman in Defending the Earth:
A Debate (1991)

Dave Foreman,
1947-

Murray Bookchin,
1921-2006

• M06Lec01: Social Ecology

Murray Bookchin (1921-2006)
What Is Social Ecology?
Roots
Anti-Hierarchy
Other Forms of Domination
Ecofeminism
Ideological Domination
Domination of Nature
Modern Capitalism
Marx Turned on His Head
Free and Democratic Society
Sustainable Agriculture

• 5 Essential Characteristics of Social Ecology

1. Rational
2. Organismic
3. Revolutionary
4. Green
5. Humanistic
“First” and “Second” Nature
Bookchin’s Critique of Deep Ecology
Misanthropy
The Scandal
Anti-Humanism
Problems with Biocentric Equality
Third World Critique
Coda