Bill Kabasenche
3-19-01 Environmental Ethics
Paul Taylor, Respect for Nature, c.3
Early in Respect for Nature Paul Taylor asserts that he will need three components to develop an Environmental Ethic: the attitude of respect for nature, the biocentric outlook on nature, and a system of rules and virtues that will guide moral agents who have the attitude and outlook in question. Having described in chapter 2 what the attitude of respect for nature looks like, Taylor sets out in chapter 3 to describe and argue for the outlook that would undergird the attitude and the ethical system he espouses. The biocentric outlook (BO) justifies and renders intelligible what it means to have an attitude of respect for nature. To accept the belief system the BO describes would be to understand how and why a person would take an attitude of respect for nature (99). Taylor describes four core beliefs that make up the BO.
The first core belief is that "humans are members of the Earth’s Community of Life" on equal terms with all other living things. Under this core belief Taylor points out that the BO takes "our being members of a biological species to be a fundamental feature of our existence" (101). We are just one part of the community of life that includes many different biological species. Taylor sees five realities relevant to all biological species. First, we all have biological and physical requirements for our survival and well-being that ought to be normative guides for our preservation and thriving. Second, we (all members of all species) each have a good of our own that depends on contingencies not always in our control. We are vulnerable, and it would be arrogant and self-deceptive to fail to recognize our limits. Third, to realize our good each living thing needs a certain amount of freedom from constraint (both positive and negative, internal and external). Fourth, we all share a common evolutionary origin, and humans as a species are a relatively recent arrival on the planet. We are the product of a system of relations among species and an "order of nature" that we humans have done much to disrupt. Here Taylor explicitly notes the vanity of assuming that humans are the final and culminating goal of evolutionary process. Fifth, although we humans depend on the soundness and good health of the earth’s biosphere for our survival, it does not depend on us. We (humans) are not essential to the earth’s flourishing. Taylor’s point in making these five observations is to bring us to awareness of our animal nature, a nature that he thinks ought to make us feel more like than unlike other living things on earth.
Taylor’s second core belief, tied to many elements of his first core belief, is that humans, "along with all other species, are integral elements in a system of interdependence" (100). The survival of any living thing is, in addition to being dependent on certain physical conditions, determined by its relation to other living things. Here Taylor wants to call attention to the interconnectedness of all living things and their environments. Under this core belief Taylor distinguishes his theory from an environmental ethic in the Leopoldian tradition. Whereas Leopold is concerned for the good of ecological communities, Taylor bases his environmental ethic on the good of individual organisms-- a good not reducible to that of any other entity. Taylor retains a concern for individual organisms that he believes is lacking in a Leopoldian ethic.
The third core belief of the BO is that each individual is a "teleological center of life" (119). With this belief Taylor is moving from general beliefs about life to concern for individual organisms, each of which has a good of its own. Taylor is here asking us to consider "what it means to be an individual living thing" (121). Taylor defines being a teleological center of life as goal-oriented internal functioning and external activities that tend to "maintain the organism’s existence through time and to enable it successfully to perform those biological operations whereby it reproduces" and adapts to a changing environment (121-2). To be such a teleological center does not entail intentionally aiming at preserving life, exerting efforts to avoid death, or caring whether life or death ensues. Though Taylor does not think that being a teleological center of life need involve awareness, an implication he hopes to draw from this core belief--that we be aware of the existence of individual centers of life as being such-- seems to import awareness to those centers of life (and clearly not all living things are aware). Objectivity and wholeness of vision ought to follow from the recognition of each living thing as a teleological center of life. Objectivity Taylor describes as comprehending "the organism as it is in itself" (126). We ought to be open to a particular center of life from that center of life’s "perspective," considering its existence and nature. Wholeness of vision demands that we no longer look at plants or animals from the perspective of the role or function they have for us as humans. In asking us to consider "what it is to be that particular individual" Taylor seems to impute awareness or a sense of perspective that not all organisms would have.
The fourth and last core belief of the BO is the denial of inherent human superiority. This is the most important one, says Taylor, for taking the attitude of respect for nature. Taylor acknowledges differences exists between humans and other species (though he points out that not all of them are differences where we have something other species do not have). Taylor rejects superiority claims for humans made on the basis of judgments of merit; that is, claims for human superiority based on attributes or abilities of humans which are valuable or merit-worthy strictly from a human standpoint. He questions why human standards should be used to establish human superiority (he includes in this discussion the attempt to ground human superiority on our moral superiority). Taylor takes longer to deny the claim that humans are inherently superior to other animals or living things. His argument against this claim is a two-step argument. First, Taylor wants to argue negatively that there are no good reasons for accepting such a claim. Then he wants to argue positively that there are good reasons to reject it. Four views which attempt to justify a claim of inherent human superiority are criticized. Ancient Greek essentialism suggests humans are superior on the basis of their capacity for reasoning, the use of which fulfills their nature. Taylor rejects this as judging other living things against the standard of human nature; he questions the idea that animals (or other living things) fulfilling their nature have any less inherent worth than humans fulfilling theirs. The Greek view merely presupposes that human rationality endows humans with worth other living things do not have. The Great Chain of Being view, rooted in Christianity, says there is a metaphysical/ ontological and valuational hierarchy among beings. God is at the top followed by angels, humans, and then animals and plants. Humans, being "above" all other living things on earth, are inherently superior. Taylor questions the goodness of God as a creator who would ordain such a hierarchy. He notes that it suggests God has a bias against "lower" forms of life and that God’s goodness is especially questionable from the standpoint of those "lower" forms of life given that they are created to be resources for humans. Cartesian dualism is the source of the third historical argument for human superiority. Whereas animals (and plants, in a way) have only a body, humans have a body and soul/mind, and this makes the latter inherently superior. But Taylor points out the intractable problem of how body and soul/mind interact (a general problem for this type of substance dualism). Also, the distinction between humans and certain animals is blurred by biological evidence of at least a rudimentary mind in some mammals. Finally, Taylor simply questions why the addition of a mind to the body makes one being inherently superior to those with just bodies. Other living things do not need minds to be what they are, and minds are only valuable to humans. Taylor concludes the negative portion of his argument by looking at the work of Lombardi who also argues for human superiority. Lombardi argues humans are inherently superior because of their greater range of capacities. But again, Taylor will question just such a claim. Why should a wider range of capacities be the basis for inherent superiority? Taylor, by contrast, says that what gives a being individual worth is that is has a good of its own which it is "trying" to realize (148-9). Lombardi also attempts to establish human superiority on the basis of the fact that we ascribe moral rights to humans. But such rights only have a role to play in relation to other humans. Though they do not have rights, animals and plants may have equal inherent worth and be owed duties similar to those of rights-bearers. This is a matter of giving each living thing equal weight as regards their individual good. Thus, Taylor argues all claims of inherent human superiority are groundless. The second half of his argument for the denial of human superiority is to show that there are good reasons to deny human superiority. Taylor seems to think those good reasons are the first 3 beliefs of the BO. Taylor does not see this as a strict logical deduction but rather as the informal conclusion one reaches having gained appreciation for those first 3 beliefs. The claim to human superiority seems unjustified in the light of the first 3 beliefs.
Having laid out the 4 beliefs central to the BO, Taylor concludes the chapter by offering an argument for them. This argument is also a two-step argument. First Taylor has us look at what makes a philosophical outlook good in general. Four criteria are important: comprehensiveness and coherence; systemic order, coherence, and internal consistency; freedom from obscurity, conceptual confusion, and semantic vacuity; and consistency with all known empirical truths (158-9). The BO, Taylor argues, does all that a philosophical worldview should according to such criteria. Second, Taylor argues that these characteristics of the BO should make it compelling to an ideally competent evaluator. Such an evaluator would have rationality of thought and judgment, factual enlightenment (=being as fully informed of empirical data as possible), and a developed sense of reality awareness (=a "capacity for heightened awareness of the reality of individual organisms’ lives" [164]) (161). Taylor’s argument for the BO is that an ideally competent evaluator, as he has described such an evaluator, would take the four criteria for any good philosophical worldview and find that the BO does well by those criteria. What Taylor presents here by way of argument seems to provide sufficient justification for taking the BO, but it is less clear that he has provided compelling reason to take it. Yet, Taylor appears confident that all things considered the BO ought to be compelling to any ideally competent evaluator.
Comments by John Nolt
A thorough and accurate summary.
Note how often Taylor seems (illegitimately) to suggest that the organisms he is discussing are conscious. Taylor claims that there is a progression in knowing a type of organism that goes like this:
The term of "point of view" seems prejudicial here, since "view" connotes perception and hence consciousness, even though Taylor explicitly denies that consciousness is necessary for point of view.
At the end of this process of coming to know, we are supposed to achieve a state of awareness characterized by:
When we have achieved these, we have reached the most complete realization, cognitively and imaginatively, of what it is to be that particular individual. (128) (Again this smells of consciousness, since in one sense there can be such a thing as what it is to be something only if that thing is conscious..)
Bill writes at the end of his summary, "What Taylor presents here by way of argument seems to provide sufficient justification for taking the BO, but it is less clear that he has provided compelling reason to take it." I'm not sure what this means. A sufficient condition for some thesis (but maybe this is not what Bill means by "a sufficient justification") would be a claim that entails it. Hence if this is what Taylor provides, it ought to be compelling, provided that the premises of Taylor's argument are acceptable to the reader.
But I find Taylor's argument for the biocentric outlook unconvincing, because he doesn't show that the biocentric outlook is the only view that meets the demands of an ideally competent evaluator. It is reasonable to suppose that some other views that are incompatible with biocentrism (Regan's or Singer's, for example, with intrinsic value limited to animals—or even views that proclaim the superiority of humans) meet these demands as well.
Also the appeal to ideally competent evaluators is itself quite strange in this context. Why not judge the biocentric outlook directly on its merits? Why do we need to talk about ideal evaluators at all?