This is a relatively new area of ethical consideration. At its heart is the question of whether things other than other humans (and some sorts of animals) have a moral status that is independent of human beings. This would include plants, groups such as species, habitats, ecosystems, mountains, oceans, buildings, the Earth, the Universe amongst other things. So, for example, if I were considering razing a mountain considerations such as ‘it would upset the owner’ or ‘it would rob people of a nice view’ do not count here (since they refer to duties I have to people). Rather, do I have a duty to the mountain as an object not to obliterate it? What is needed is some sort of criterion (or set of criteria) which confers independent moral status on objects such as mountains but not, say, on a wormcast or a piece of litter. Finding such criteria is fundamental to environmental ethics.
Initially, we might address is what ‘environment’ is. Clearly, it is the physical surroundings of an organism but there is more to it than that. It also includes other organisms in the surroundings. Both of these ‘surroundings’ can range from the immediate to the distant. There is also a relationship between an organism and its surroundings such that changes in one elicit changes in the other. To illustrate these points, take a dog. Its physical surroundings may be the house and garden in which it lives, perhaps the village or town. It will also be influenced by the presence/absence of other dogs, cats, humans and the like. The behaviour of our dog will vary – depending on the number of lamp-posts and the visits of other dogs, our dog’s pattern of urinating will vary. And the places in which our dog urinates alters the environment of other dogs.
Having given this brief outline a second point to make is that we should always be clear whose environment we are considering. Increasing the lighting in a town to reduce road accidents or burglary may have a negative outcome on those people in the area who want a good view of the stars. This environmental focus is human-centred: it ignores the effects the lighting will have on the environments of dogs, moths, hedgehogs and so on.
A final introductory note is that, though of course humans are part of the environment, our interactions with them are not taken as a part of environmental ethics (otherwise it becomes indistinguishable from ‘ethics’). What is of concern, however, is the effect of environments in which humans live on ourselves as well as on other organisms. Humans affect the environment much more rapidly, radically and purposefully than any other organism or natural activity and it is generally the investigation of this human activity and its consequences that most preoccupy the environmental ethicist.
As mentioned in the opening paragraph, is it possible to find a justification that confers independent moral status on a broader range of things than humans (normal ethics), sentient animals or animals which are the ‘subject of a life’? Some environmental ethicists think that this is not possible and so utilize arguments that are common to ones used which are human-centred. Others disagree and think that it is possible to show that ethical consideration should extend well beyond such groups. In his original paper on this sort of distinction, the Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss referred to ‘shallow’ and ‘deep’ but since the former carries negative overtones, the more popular distinction is to acknowledge a spectrum of positions from ‘light green’ (acknowledging only humans as having independent moral status) through ‘mid-green’ (some non-human animals also have such status) to ‘deep green’ (all natural beings have independent moral status). It is the justification of the ‘deep green’ position that will occupy us here.
One such justification comes from Val Plumwood and Richard Sylvan. They maintain that a core principle of our ethical system is that humans should be able to do whatever they wish without doing harm to others. They point out that this is a useful principle to recruit for some environmental concerns – a farmer shouldn’t pollute a stream because it might harm people who drink it, or wish to fish in it, and so on. However, it is not useful to a ‘deep green’ ethicist since if there were no people to drink, or fish, etc. then the pollution would be permissible. They say another core principle is that only objects or concern or use to humans (or are the product of human labour or ingenuity) are of value – and value is taken into account when considering ethical behaviour. Again, this is inadequate for the ‘deep green’ ethicist who wishes to claim value for other categories of things.
Their justification stems from the introduction of a range of examples but from which we can use the best-known: ‘the last man’. Here, they ask us to consider the case where all other humans have been wiped out. The ‘last man’ then systematically sets about killing all other species, polluting oceans, razing mountains, and so on. What the Routleys expect is that we will intuitively agree that the ‘last man’ is behaving badly, and that the ‘last man’ is destroying things of value. From this intuitive appreciation we can move to a demonstration that the core principles (of harm and value) are inadequate and so force us to concede that we need a ‘new ethic’ to support our position. The demonstration is fairly straight-forward – the ‘last man’ harms no human, destroys no object of value to humans and therefore has done no wrong. Since this contradicts our intuition that he has done wrong then the premises (our core principles) are inadequate.
Unfortunately for the ‘deep green’ ethicist a simple rebuttal is to say that, in fact, the ‘last man’ has not done wrong and has not destroyed anything of value. In other words, the intuitive agreement about the behaviour of the ‘last man’ may not be universal.
A ‘light green’ line which can be taken to resist this is to try to piece together an argument which says that, in fact, the ‘last man’ is harming a human, is destroying something of value to a human being: himself. Indeed, since there is currently no really persuasive ‘deep green’ argument (and given that humans are threatening the environment now), we should press this argument to prevent further environmental degradation until a persuasive one comes up. Such an argument draws on the enrichment of a person’s life that comes from a deeper appreciation of the lives of other species and the understanding of our natural environment. From this sort of consideration we can argue that wanton destruction of species and natural objects impoverishes us (and other humans too – including those in the future).
The argument begins with a look at value. We can distinguish between instrumental and non-instrumental value. The former sort of value will include things which fulfil human requirements. Environmentally, we use this notion of value when we argue that nature can (or might in the future) provide us with new medicines, food or raw materials; that affecting organisms might negatively affect us because the complexity of inter-relationships between organisms and the environment means we cannot predict effects; that knowledge of a full biodiversity helps us understand ourselves and our place in nature. The latter sort of value, the non-instrumental one, says that we have a deep emotional need for things in the natural world.
Unlike things with instrumental value, things with a non-instrumental value cannot be substituted – there is something about them that has a special quality. To take a non-environmental example first, a painting by Monet may have instrumental value (if you are using it to hide a safe or prop open a door) but its main attraction is a non-instrumental value. Even if the Monet were copied perfectly and then substituted, the owner would have lost some value over and above any other value that the painting has – they would ‘feel wronged’ if they found out. Even if the owner is unaware of the substitution, there is still a deprivation of value – we ‘feel’ for them. This example leads us to another. You might have a love letter which you have lovingly treasured for years. Suppose this were copied exactly and then substituted. Again, you will have lost something of value. Here we can use the word ‘cherished’. There are objects which gain (non-instrumental) value through being cherished: they have a ‘sentimental value’. In other words, our emotions can be tied up with non-instrumental value and it is this appeal to emotion which can support the argument for valuing objects other than those with just instrumental value (including, of course, objects of concern to environmental ethicists).
Take an oak tree. This might have an instrumental value (casting a pleasant shade, for example) but its non-instrumental value lies in the fact that it cannot be adequately substituted. An ash or beech tree is inadequate. Planting another oak if the first were destroyed would go some way towards fulfilling the value but not all the way (the oaks on the Vine planted to replace those which blew down in the ’87 gale will never do so fully). This sense of loss of something cherished is an argument for not allowing the harm of ‘environmental objects’.
Notice that this feeling of experiencing a loss is not adequately addressed by merely ‘having the feeling’. A parallel argument is Nozick’s ‘pleasure machine’ that we have already met with as a thought-experiment in the Consequentialism section – you can plug yourself into the machine and experience everything you desire but without knowing that it is not ‘real’. Nozick thinks (probably justifiably) that most of us wouldn’t plug ourselves in – because ‘reality’ is something we value in itself. Similarly, environmental objects such as other species, stars and sunsets have a greater value if they are ‘real’ rather than just hypothetical. Thus, it matters that there are, say, 1001 species of bat living rather than 1000 with our causing the extinction of one of them: even though most of us will never experience all those bats, we can feel the value of having the (real) biodiversity of the bat order.
Having argued that the environment has a value, we can now turn to the question of how we might go about assigning weight to conflicting values. Clearing a bit of rainforest might have the value of providing employment and material well-being to some humans but entail the extinction of a species of beetle by destroying its habitat thus losing some non-instrumental value. Which value wins and why?
A straight-forward reply is to apply a utilitarian approach and do a cost-benefit analysis. We can put a monetary value on the various values in conflict including non-instrumental ones by, for example, asking how much would you pay for the non-extinction of a beetle or the non-clearing of a bit of rain-forest. Then it is a simple matter of doing the sums before doing the clearing or not.
The objections to this approach are threefold. Firstly, that it assumes money is an appropriate measure of the value of environmental objects (remember that things with non-instrumental values cannot be readily substituted whereas, of course, things with monetary value can be). Secondly, it assumes that people can make accurate valuations of what is good for them (and we are often spectacularly bad at making such valuations). Thirdly, it assumes that the value of environmental objects is directly linked to their being desired (whereas they have a value independent of human likes and dislikes).
A different approach is to point to the virtues that arise from a consideration of natural, environmental, objects. One salient virtue might be wonder. Here, there is an element of disinterestedness – we ‘get out of ourselves’ when swept up in a sense of wonder at, say the beauty of a sunset, the intricacies of biochemistry in a cell, the life of a flea. It is this appreciation of non-instrumental values that constitute the virtue and, since practising the virtues leads to a good life, we should preserve nature to allow us to achieve this goal. We might also consider other things to be virtues such as respect – including a proper respect for all things – and the exercise of capacities to understand the natural world. Thus, the virtue ethicist can be called on to support ideas in environmental ethics.
It is worth noting that many deeply-committed environmentalists are unconvinced that the arguments laid out above are at all adequate. These people cannot be dismissed because their views are often underpinned by a commitment to a radically different approach which is necessarily at odds with the sort of treatment we have been considering. This can only be touched on here but there are two main things to say. The first is that their approach is holistic rather than analytical – they see ‘nature’ as a whole, comprehensive and, as such, not amenable to reduction. Thus, they are much more taken with the ‘how should I live?’ question rather than technical, piecemeal arguments of the type above. They have more in common with a religious system in this respect – nothing makes sense without the belief in the ‘oneness’ (of ‘nature’ or ‘God’). The second is that this belief rests on a metaphysical theory about the ultimate nature of reality. Often, seeing things the ‘deep green’ way is described as revelatory or inspirational. To properly address such questions is well beyond the scope of this small sub-section of this small section of this small option.