Environmental Ethics

Professor John Nolt

Sam von Mizener

In chapter 6 of Paul Taylor’s Respect For Nature he argues that there are principles or rules which can help reconcile the competing value claims of humans when such claims are at odds with the welfare of non-human animals. Taylor’s principles are guides to aiding those who have an "attitude of respect for nature" in determining how to prioritize the following kind of dilemma: should we build affordable housing in a field that is abundant with wild flowers and trees? It is not clear whether the value of providing affordable housing should have priority over the destruction of a field full of trees and wild flowers. The following five principles purportedly provide a way to prioritize dilemmas such as this one. They are (1) the principle of self-defense; (2) the principle of proportionality; (3) the principle of minimum wrong; (4) the principle of distributive justice; and, (5) the principle of restitutive justice. In the end, however, I hope to make clear that Taylor’s notion of all living things having "inherent value" is so roomy that the above principles seem always to settle such dilemmas in favor of organisms, plants, and non-human animals. Put another way, Taylor’s deontological leanings suggest that human values must always play second fiddle to the good of non-human animals and organisms because the numbers of the latter vastly exceed the numbers of the former. This important objection will be perspicuous throughout this essay.

This principle becomes operative in those cases where non-human animals and organisms are a direct threat to humans. For example, it is morally permissible for me to kill a rattlesnake if it is about to strike…or is it? This principle covers only those cases where such a threat could not be avoided. Situations where humans put themselves in danger because it is their job (a la` "crocodile hunter") or because they are thrill-seekers are not intended to be covered by this principle. If I go looking for dangerous animals then it is not morally permissible for me to kill one when I find it, notwithstanding the imminent danger to me, owing to the fact that such danger could quite easily have been avoided. The kind of case that Taylor has in mind is one where a human being encounters a dangerous non-human animal or organism, where such an encounter is quite accidental, and where the only recourse is to kill the threatening non-human animal or organism. Taylor points out that this principle is akin to our principle of self-defense in the criminal law. No one is expected to sacrifice himself to another person. However, there is a problem with this principle as it applies to non-human animals and organisms. How serious does the threat have to be? A bee sting is harmful, and quite painful, but does it warrant the death of the bee? It is simply not clear where we are to draw the line here. One might claim that the concept of excessive force should be applied to such situations. Perhaps We should defend ourselves to the point where such defense wards off or subdues the attacker and not beyond that point. However, there will be cases where any defense spells the death of the organism. As Nolt has pointed out, the danger posed by pneumonia is not so great as to be life threatening in the young. I could survive pneumonia without taking antibiotics. Taking antibiotics spells death for the bacteria. At minimum, Taylor’s principle cannot resolve such cases.

These principles are closely related. Both of these principles are meant to cover cases where the "basic interests" of the non-human animal or organism are in conflict with the "non-basic interests" of humans. The principle of proportionality covers those cases where the non-basic interests of humans are "intrinsically incompatible" with the basic interests of non-human animals, plants, and so forth. Moreover, the incompatibility is one of complete indifference to respect for nature. Perhaps the best example is something like trophy hunting. Many people have an interest in engaging in such an activity. This interest shows complete disregard for wildlife. Taylor’s principle is designed to show that non-basic interests like this must cease given that the basic interests of non-human animals "have greater weight" than the non-basic interests of humans, where such interests are incompatible with the attitude of respect for nature. Still, although the principle of proportionality prohibits humans from pursuing interests which are obviously not in the spirit of an attitude of respect for nature, it isn’t clear that this accomplishes all that much. It seems too easy to justify interests as being compatible with an attitude of respect for nature merely by claiming that a particular interest is valued by most people. For example, putting up a strip mall in an untouched desert area is not obviously compatible with an attitude of respect for nature. So this principle of proportionality has a pretty small scope. Moreover, both the principle of proportionality and the principle of minimum wrong are operative only in those cases where the non-basic interests of humans are pitted against the basic interests of non-human animals: the life of non-human animals vs. what we consider to be important non-basic interests.

The principle of minimum wrong covers cases where our non-basic interests are not incompatible with an attitude of respect for nature. The interests and values we pursue here are too important to give up, even at the expense of threatening the basic interests of non-human animals. Ideally, this principle instructs us to take that course of action that produces the smallest amount of harm to non-human animals and organisms. For example, in building a park for the inhabitants of some town one should determine if there is a way to incorporate the geography of the land, thereby making as few disturbances as possible to the natural ecosystem. Not although this sounds promising – and it is certainly better that bulldozing the area and changing the landscape – in practice so much harm is done to non-human animals and organisms that the best alternative is simply to leave the area untouched. Given that billions of organisms and hundreds of thousands of small animals are killed in such an endeavor it isn’t clear that pursuing a course that causes the least harm is morally permissible. This is perhaps Taylor’s biggest problem.

To see just how big this problem is one needs to consider Taylor’s notion that every living thing has inherent worth. As a non-utilitarian, Taylor calculates harm done by counting the number of organisms and non-human animals harmed or destroyed in pursuit of some basic non-human interest. The reason being is simple. Each and every living thing – from microorganisms to earth worms to elephants (which are easy to count) – has a value that cannot be calculated in terms of hedons over dolors or preferences satisfied over preferences frustrated, etc. Such utilitarian calculations would automatically preclude plants and earthworms owing to the fact that they are not conscious beings, and so cannot experience pleasure and pain. But they are living, and hence have basic interests; both have a "good" or a telos that can be frustrated. This is why they have, according to Taylor’s theory, inherent worth. This very broad theory, although noble in claiming that all living things have value, makes it almost impossible to even calculate the enormity of the harm caused by, as Nolt pointed out, simply building a house. Since Taylor does not count the inherent worth of this or that ecosystem, but instead the innumerable organisms and non-human animals and plants that make them up, it looks like we are forever doomed to be unjust to all non-human living things.

Nowhere is the above problem more clearly seen than in the application of these two principles. Distributive justice applies in cases where self-defense is irrelevant, and where the conflict between human and non-human both involve basic interests. Taylor claims that the basic interests of both parties should be given equal moral weight. In practice, however, he claims that this is rarely possible. Human flourishing frequently requires the destruction of wildlife. Let us imagine a case where low-cost homes are being built in order to give shelter to the extremely poor. Suppose that without such affordable housing these people will have nowhere to live. But in building these homes a lot of plant life and numerous non-human animals will be destroyed. What to do? Well, remembering that Taylor claims that the basic interests or humans and the basic interests of plants and animals are to be given equal weight, the solution is obvious, but not the one that Taylor wants. The poor people should go without shelter since the number of organisms, plants, and animals harmed vastly exceeds the number of people requiring shelter. Non-human animals, organisms, and plants will always come out on top.

Of course Taylor thinks that in such a situation it wold be morally permissible to provide the housing, destroying plants and animals, provided that we make it up to them by using his principle of restitutive justice. The idea is that we make amends by making a particular stretch of land a wildlife preservation area. Here there are three problems. We cannot make it up to the dead animals and plants---they’re dead! You cannot make direct amends to dead organisms. Perhaps we make it up to them figuratively in the sense that we save the same number of plants and animals we have destroyed. But here we have another problem. How can we determine that we are saving the same number of plants and animals on this go-round? It is the problem of counting again. Finally, perhaps Taylor could claim that we make amends by being the caretaker of another ecosystem. This will not do since he is quite clear that the only reason ecosystems have value is because each living thing within a particular ecosystem has value; the value of an ecosystem is reducible to the value of the organisms, plants, and non-human animals that make it up. Hence, we are back to individuals and counting the destruction of each of them.

I think that Taylor’s difficulties are insurmountable. The sheer number of organisms destroyed whenever humans pursue their interests – even basic ones – seems to dictate that we are always in the wrong and that we cannot possibly make restitution toward them. This dilemma results from the fact that Taylor claims that each and every living thing has inherent value. One way for him overcome this problem is to define "inherent worth" as a property that organisms can have "more or less" of; beings having inherent worth are on a continuum – those on one end have very little and those on the other end have a great deal. Another way to escape from this intractable problem is to limit the scope of those beings that have inherent worth by providing stricter criteria, thus precluding certain beings from having inherent worth at all. The first solution might be achieved by making the inherent worth of organisms directly proportional to increased teleological complexity. A kind of Aristotelian model as suggested by Nolt in class. E.g., the "vegetative" soul has less inherent worth than the complexity of conscious animals such as dogs and cats, and the "rational" soul has more inherent worth than the simpler ‘animal’ (I am not sure what you’d call it) soul. The second solution would look more like Regan’s "subject of a life"; that is, Taylor might provide criteria, such as the ability to feel pain and pleasure or what not, and then claim that any being which does not meet such criteria simply has no inherent worth. Short of making the above type of changes to his theory I cannot see how he can escape the counting problem and the concomitant difficulty of trying to justify the moral permissibility of our destroying so many organisms…even in those cases where such destruction is essential for human flourishing.

It would be helpful to note how the five principles Taylor discusses in this chapter fit schematically into his ethical theory. These are meant to solve the problem of competing claims, i.e., the problem of finding a set of priority principles that cut across the domains of environmental and human ethics. These principles, being principles of morality (though more general than either human or environmental ethics), must satisfy the five formal conditions discussed in Section 3 of Chapter 1; i.e., they must be:

• General in form
• Considered to be universally applicable to all moral agents
• It is categorical, intended to be applied disinterestedly to everyone without exception
• Advocated as normative principles to be publicly acknowledged for all to adopt
• Taken as overriding all nonmoral norms

Their single material condition, says Taylor, is fairness. [This strikes me as an overly vague material condition; wouldn't it apply to any moral principles?]

Sam writes, "Still, although the principle of proportionality prohibits humans from pursuing interests which are obviously not in the spirit of an attitude of respect for nature, it isn’t clear that this accomplishes all that much. It seems too easy to justify interests as being compatible with an attitude of respect for nature merely by claiming that a particular interest is valued by most people." But why should someone who holds Taylor's view regard what is valued by most people as decisive? I don't think the fact that the principle of proportionality (or the idea of respect for nature) can be misinterpreted shows that it is too narrow in scope or that it accomplishes little.

Note that Taylor limits the application of the Principle of Minimum Wrong to cases in which humans are unwilling to forego values that are:

(a) essential to the sustenance of a high level of culture, or

(b) central to a rational person's autonomously chosen ends (282-3).

(b) seems to allow a lot of leeway.

Sam writes, "Since Taylor does not count the inherent worth of this or that ecosystem, but instead the innumerable organisms and non-human animals and plants that make them up, it looks like we are forever doomed to be unjust to all non-human living things." This is an exaggeration; not to all living things, but to many. Still, Sam's point (minus the exaggeration) is valid.

Something should be said here about the central point of sections 4 and 5, namely that in difficult cases we can avoid arbitrariness by appealing to a vision of harmony between humans and nature, i.e., of the "world order [that] would be ideal according to the structure of normative principles we have accepted."