Sagoff6-7

Chapter 6: Nature and the National Idea

The purpose of the chapter is announced on 125.

The first part of the chapter’s central argument is summarized on p. 144; I have also used wording from p. 127A:

1 National purpose should (at least in part) determine national environmental policy. (144)

2 National purpose with respect to nature is revealed by the history of the idea of nature in America. (because we our perceptions of nature are social constructs which reflect our national identity -- 127-8, 144)

3 What American history reveals is that Americans have made a "covenant with nature, which is as much an obligation to use well our national environment as to protect it -- and ... not to destroy it wantonly or in a wasteful manner." Our virtue as a people depends on our benevolence toward nature. (141)

So 4 National environmental policy should be (at least in part)

to use well our national environment, to protect it, and

not to destroy it wantonly or in a wasteful manner.

Sagoff also says that the meanings we discover in our environment intimate features of the national identity (128).

Sagoff's account of the history has these features:

Puritans at first on a mission to establish a religious utopia saw wilderness as the enemy
Then, as prosperity rose, they saw it purely in economic terms (126-8)
Next it was seen as a kind of Eden and a manifestation of the glory of God; and many suspected that prosperity was apostasy, nationalism was secularism and happiness was emptiness (131) Wilderness assures Americans of a special relation to God. (133) This leads to both to Emerson's transendentalism, the chief feature of which is that nature and man are equally divine, and to Jefferson's agrarianism, in which farmers are seen as God's chosen people (134-5).
The movement west renewed the antipathy toward nature and saw in the march of civilization a heroic endeavor (136-7).
But late 19^th century this reverted to lamentation at the destruction, rapine and luxury, as expressed in the writings of James Fennimore Cooper. (137-9). This leads to a litany of confession. (140) But guilt is a great resource; it motivates responsibility. (142)

Chapter 7: Can Environmentalists Be Liberals?

Classical liberialism =df the idea that that state is an instrument for satisfying the wants that people have, rather than a means of making people good. (146)

Environmentalism =df "a movement that follows Leopold in espousing on ethical grounds the political goal of maintaining harmony between people and their environment"; bases policy on shared or public values and in that sense is communitarian. (149) [Sagoff briefly considers Pinchot's conservationsism as another kind of environmentalism.]

Liberalism =df "the political theory that holds that many conflicting and even incommensurable conceptions of the good may be fully compatible with free, autonomous and rational action ... [and] that political and social institutions should be structured to allow free and equal individuals the widest opportunities consistent with the like opportunities of others, to plan their own lives and to live the lives they plan." (150-1) Also "The liberal state does not dictate the moral goals its citizens are to achieve; it simply referees the means they use to satisfy their own preferences." (151)

It would appear that the two are incompatible, since environmentalism is communitarian while classical liberalism is individualistic.

1 According to classical liberalism, "the state is an instrument for satisfying the wants that men happen to have rather than a means of making good men." (146) Classical liberalism keeps moral ideals out of politics.

2 "Environmentalists base social regulation largely on shared or public values, which may not express our wants and preferences as individuals but our identity, character, and aspirations as a community." (147) Environmentalism wants moral ideals in politics.

Classical Liberalism’s attitude toward the environment is exemplified by the conservationist policies of Pinchot.

This incompatibility liberalism is borne out by a more detailed inquiry. Traditional liberal theories of are two sorts:

Deontological Liberalism =_df the view that the state exists merely to enforce negative rights; "a legal or political action is right insofar as it is just and fair and respects the fundamental equality of persons. For the deontological liberal the principles of justice are established independently of social interests and preferences, and ‘against these principles neither the intensity of feeling nor its being shared by the majority counts for anything’." (152; Interior quote is from Dworkin)

Utilitarian Liberalism =_df the view that the state exists to assure the maximization of utility; "a policy or decision is right not independently of its effect on social welfare but precisely because of it ... [so that] the principles of justice are themselves to be justified in relation to their consequences for social welfare." (152)

Utilitarian liberalism takes the good (understood consequentially) to be prior to the right; deontological liberalism takes the right to be prior to the good.

Neither traditional form of liberalism (as a Comprehensive View) is compatible with environmentalism (162). Argument of 162 summarized:

1 Environmentalists base policies on cultural, aesthetic, or moral responsibilities [these are the only acceptable options].

2 Such responsibilities are different from maximizing utility.

So 3 Policies that merely maximize utility are unacceptable to

environmentalists (1,2)

4 Appeals to the rights of future generations or nonhumans fail. (pp. 156-7)

5 [All environmental policies that enforce rights appeal to the rights of future generations or nonhumans.]

6 [Environmental policies that fail are unacceptable to environmentalists.]

So 7 Policies that enforce rights are unacceptable to

environmentalists. (4,5,6)

So 8 If maximizing utility or enforcing rights are the only

possible liberal principles, then environmentalists cannot

be liberals. (3,7)

Supporting arguments for premise 4:

1 Appeals to the rights of future generations in order to protect natural areas amount to no more than long-run utilitarian conservationism (156)

2 Utilitarian conservationism is not an appeal to rights.

So 3 Appeals to the rights of future generations fail.

1 Only individuals can possess rights

2 Environmentalists who appeal to the rights of nonhumans are concerned to protect collections (species, communities, ecosystems, etc.); it is unclear how the rights of individual nonhumans are connected with the goals of environmentalism. (156-7)

So 3 Appeals to the rights of nonhumans fail.

The upshot is summarized at the top of 158.

But there is a conception of liberalism which is not methodological or comprehensive and which "attends to the views individuals express, and not simply to their rights or wants." We may call it:

Sagoff’s Liberalism -- (1) the state must not interfere in civil society; it must not "try to improve upon, or even influence, the intimate personal, or religious activities of its citizens, provided that the freedom of conscience of one person does not infringe on the like freedom of another," (165) and (2) social structures must be "neutral among conceptions of the good and treat individuals as equals independently of their race, sex, color, preferences, principles, or beliefs," (they are Rawlsian) (166) but social policies should be open to a variety of conceptions of the good and a "willingness to experiment with and judge each on its merits with respect to particular issues." (167) In such a society, rights that preserve the integrity of the structures (free market, representative legislature) trump any conception of the public interest that emerges from them, because only in this way can democratic decision-making be preserved (164).

This means that (1) the state may regulate corporations and municipalities, as opposed to civil society, and (2) environmental values may be among those pursued in social policy.

Hence environmentalism is compatible with this form of liberalism.

And only this form of liberalism is compatible with democracy (170).

General observation: Sagoff’s examples nearly all concern the twin problems of preserving natural areas and eliminating pollution. These are not the central environmental issues. If environmentalism penetrates more deeply into human life, it may not be compatible with liberalism.