In his article "Aldo Leopold and the Moral Community," Jon Moline shows that the debate between Leopold's indirect holism and animalliberationist's emphasis on the direct preservation of individuals is not as clear cut as might at first seem, and that the case against Leopold may not be as decisive as some take it to be. In this paper I will explore the reasoning of Leopold, Moline, Paul Taylor, and several others, to the conclusion that, seen in their full complexity, these theories may not be as irreconcilable as Taylor, at least, seems to take them to be.
Aldo Leopold uses the term 'community' to describe what 'land' is and why it
should be conserved!, his referent being the interdependence of all natural things, living
and non-living. 2 By extension of this, Christopher Stone proposes "that we give legal rights to forests, oceans, rivers and other so-called 'natural objects' in the environment-
indeed, the natural environment as a whole."3 Paul Taylor agrees that there is a conception of legal rights that can quite easily be applied to plants and animals,4 but thinks that rights talk generally involves unnecessary complications,s and wants to emphasize respect for inherent worth and duty to individual animals over Leopold's duty to the health and integrity of the community upon which individuals depend, what Moline calls his indirect holism.6
Taylor claims that Leopold's "position is open to the objection that it gives no place to the good of individual organisms...we are not given any nonhuman-centered reason to maintain the order of the whole system, "7 he says. However, I hope to show that, to say that Leopold emphasized the well-being of the connnunity is not to say that he would have us ignore the good of individual organisms. Rather, as Moline reminds us, Leopold advocated an radical 'extension' of our traditional ethic, one which broadens our concerns while keeping self as central. Leopold's reluctance to specify that our duty is directly to individual animals stems from the recognition that our interdependence inevitably involves death and decay in order that life and growth may continue. And humans no less than any other part of nature have a right to self preservation. Leopold can defend the rights of humans on the same grounds that he can defend the felinocentrism of cats and the arachnocentrism of spiders,s that is, on the grounds that everything living has this purpose, this telos, or good of its own, which is to say, it is responsible for its own survival and well-being. We can universalize this same telos to all centers, privileging none, thus recognizing 'biocentric equality'--and still hold human survival and well-being as primary to us. Humans are as justified as any part of nature to see to their own self-preservation, and to some extent, bound to see all else in relation to this end. We are part of the competition which is necessary to balance cooperation in order to preserve the unity of the human-land community.9 And so to attempt to protect and preserve all animals would be to interrupt the critical flow of energy through the biotic pyramid, and thus harm the very connnunity upon which all individuals depend.
However, humans will be justified in certain acts that may harm 'nature' or its
parts only as long as and to the extent that they recognize their well-being as limited by the well-being of others. Part of our responsibility to our own best interests will involve
considering what is best for others whom we effect when we act and whose reactions will effect us. The thing is, having so much more power than other life forms, humans also have that much more responsibility, i.e. to fair play in the interdependent community. Proper function requires that humans morally evaluate their choice of actions as they go. As Leopold's conception of the 'moral community' would suggest, we have an obligation to save rivers, watersheds, and biosystems, not from themselves or from 'nature,'
from damage caused by human action. "An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence. An ethic, philosophically, is a differentiation of social from anti-social conduct. These are two definitions of the same thing." 1o
Thus, there is no contradiction here. We may justify the actions necessary to our survival and well-being, and even, with Leopold, human rights, and still preserve a dedication to the biocentric equality of these rights for all. We have a responsibility to ourselves which is primary to us, as others telos is primary to them; but our interdependence means that we all have a responsibility to all others, in our own and everyone else's interest. ..in the interest of the whole. Even nonliving entities might have such rights, Leopold argues, though there are major differences between them and living systems; it doesn't matter--as long as such 'natural objects' as rivers and the soil nourish life, and thus have something reasonably called 'health' which roughly translates into a 'good'--if not of its own, clearly a good to all who depend on it for their well-being.I1
Thus, Taylor's claim that "no account of the organic system of nature-as-a-whole
can explain why moral agents have a duty to preserve its good" 12 is entirely too strong. It ignores, if not denies altogether, the concepts of 'relationship' and 'process' which Leopold holds central to his holism. The interdependence which these imply does explain why moral agents have a duty to preserve its good--because it is just an extension of the self in a system in which what goes around comes around.
Moline appeals to the complexity of this system of relations, and to 'Socratic ignorance' to defend this indirectness of Leopold's holism, which is to say that we simply do not know enough to understand what consequences might flow from a more direct form of intervention that involves a focus on preserving every teleological center of life.l 3 Taylor himself, despite his reluctance to take these aspects of interdependence seriously, will be forced to agree with Leopold, because, according to his own Rule of Nonintervention (one of the four key principles which ought to guide us in our relations with nature) we are obligated "to have regard for the processes of nature as a whole" along with enough impartiality to be "firmly committed to a 'hands off' policy with regard to natural events and processes as well as to the lives of individual organisms in the wild." 14
This commitment then would--"all things considered" 15--demand an attitude of Socratic humility and caution, and thus indirect conservation where nature's processes are concerned, including those which involve human predation--for to do otherwise would be to "play favorites" in exactly the way that Taylor is trying to avoid...albeit against, not for, our own species.
So it is that Taylor thinks the goal of respect for nature can be argued for without the complication that the concept of 'rights' brings to it,16 while Moline takes up the task of showing how Leopold "ingeniously" integrates "a theory of rights flexible enough to apply at both individual and species levels with a theory of ecological functions as the biotic basis for rights. "17 In this process, Moline says, Leopold goes a long way toward resolving the ancient and perennial problem of reconciling the vital interests of the community with those of the individual.
When we use the word 'right', he explains, we typically think of what Goodpaster
calls "moral significance",1 8 rather than "moral considerability", with which Leopold was initially concemed. 19 (Taylor takes up the issue of 'moral significance' in his discussion of priority principles, where conflicts of duties are cousidered and weighed.) It's true that the ground for being a member of a moral community was, for Leopold, "subsidiary to another--the good (i.e. harmony, integrity, diversity, and stability) of the ecological-moral community. "20 However, in Leopold's conception of this, individual "creatures are members of the biotic community, and if (as I believe)," Moline says, "its stability depends on its integrity, [then] they are entitled to continuance. "21 Thus, using the concept of rights as he did was "not...a philosophical and rhetorical mistake for Leopold," because by equating 'rights' with 'entitlements' in this way, he is able to put the foundation for a "right to preservation" under all who (actually or potentially) contribute to ecosystem health and well-being;22 that is, to any and all who have "the potential for contribution to a biotic community". 23 According to this view, "A members' claim to a right to preservation is its unique pattern of symbiotic relationships with other members, its capacity to perform biotic tasks, jobs, or functions. "24 On this--and claims to Socratic ignorance--Leopold is able to defend a very conservative policy of saving everything, every member of a community that might conceivably contribute to the health and well-being of the rest. Thus, the indirectness of Leopold's holism is justified "by our ecological, psychological, and social ignorance" which makes conservation prudent in destructive activity.25
Before examining this further, it seems important to note that one reason Taylor takes up Leopold's claim to begin with is because he thinks its logic is less than sound,
which is not to say he thinks Leopold's conclusion is necessarily wrong. Rather, Taylor criticizes Leopold's assumption that 'is' leads automatically to 'ought', not his claim that
there are oughts which follow.26 It's true that Leopold was not convinced by the so-called naturalistic fallacy that a factual statement cannot imply an ethical one...not when that which 'is' involves the interdependence of the community of life. There simply are certain 'oughts' which follow naturally from the facts of human dependence on the interdependent whole in this delicate balance of life--for the same reason that an ecological ethic and a philosophical ethic are "two definitions of the same thing" .27 As noted later in this paper, Leopold felt that our very understanding of Darwin's theory of evolution ought to have taught us more about how we ought to act than we have managed to learn. Deep ecologists think we might learn this from visionary traditions such as Zen Buddhism, Taoism,
Native Americans, the Greeks, Christianity, and others.28 They and Leopold agree then
that our interdependence leads to the intuitive, if not strictly logical, conclusion that there is an obligation or duty, whether prudential or moral, to respect and to do what preserves the health of nature. Thus, they come to the same conclusion as Taylor, with the main, if not only, difference being that Taylor does not think intuition is enough to make the case. Thus, the logic of this duty is examined in detail in Chapter 4 of his book, Respect For Nature, showing, I think, that Taylor's chief objection to Leopold is that he simply 'leaps' from 'is' to 'ought' where an argument is needed. Taylor's book seems to constitute this argument.
At the outset, this difference in their dependence on intuition vs. logic is apparent in
their writing and perhaps thinking styles. It helps us to account, I think, for why they seem to be in conflict over ends, despite so much apparent agreement. Seeing this
difference, we find evidence that Leopold's advocacy of the rights of communities is not meant to disqualify individuals from our concern or allow us to disrespect them in any way, as Taylor takes it to, but is meant to involve as a necessary result the good of individuals who depend on the good of the whole, and I would argue that it does this by a form of 'entailment' which is beyond logical proof. Understanding how communities are interconnected and how our duties to other member follow, he says, goes "beyond words" to successive stages of the beautifuJ.29 Consider Leopold's way of presenting his reflections from the point of view of an atom traveling through space and time, or a sawblade cutting through the rings of a giant oak. Clearly, Leopold thought that the truth of interdependence is better 'shown' than 'argued', and thus, that entailment is not purely logical, but both an "intellectual and emotional process" .30 His approach communicates by giving rise to insights and images--but this does not necessarily mean that Leopold's thought experiments are not 'proofs' in their own right, not at least if they manage to compel understanding and acceptance from his readers.
Leopold's task, according to Moline, is to square our connotation of our environmental responsibility with the denotation or true referent of it which ecologists have discovered; the ethic already exists, and Leopold takes it as his job to get people to recognize it.3 1 The argument could indeed be made that such a book as The Sand County Almanac can and has 'reached' countless more than any number of strictly logical treatise ever could... At any rate, Leopold seems to trust that one can 'see' in this way32 how indirect responsibilities to communities are actually only another approach to fulfilling our direct duties to individuals. 33
Taylor, on the other hand, takes up the task of arguing logically for these responsibilities to individuals, using a more rational approach to make his points, to be sure. And yet, he does not disagree that it takes more than logic to convince, and he admits that good grounds for respecting nature are based partly in a "special kind of knowledge",34 such that "the whole biosphere of the earth and the role that human life plays in it are encompassed in one unified vision. "35 And yet, "To have such a grasp" Taylor says, "one must be able and disposed to think objectively, disinterestedly, logically, informedly, lucidly, critically, and autonomously. "36 And so he builds his appeal to this "unified vision" by a method which includes, but is not limited to, applying the tests of deductive validity and inductive probability to the issue...noting only late in the argument the requirement of empathy; "To respect nature," we are told at last, "is to be willing to take the standpoint of each organism, no matter what its species, and view the world from
the perspective of its good. "37 Further on, this seems to translate into what Taylor calls
'moral concern', as distinct from 'moral strength', the constituents of which are
benevolence, compassion, sympathy, and caring; "For we have seen that willingness to take the standpoint of an organism is part of what it means to regard it as an entity
possessing inherent worth. And unless and until we so regard it we have not taken an
attitude of respect toward it. "38
Leopold's holistic conception of community thus agrees that "every member. ..is
entitled to be preserved in our tinkering. "39 "But these are not individuals in the usual philosophical sense...which makes it conceptually more difficult to regard them as units," Moline admits, and perhaps this accounts for Taylor's narrow reading of Leopold. Moline notes that Leopold's theory that all members of the community have the right to continuance is not impossible to apply,40 which is to say, it does not require every individual be preserved, as some animal liberationists would prefer him to have said. This certainly will not be strong enough to satisfy Taylor. But as Leopold rests this claim on the necessity of competition and our part in it, he makes it hard to refute. Looking more closely at this may clarify this complication in this dialogue regarding the treatment of animals.
As noted in the deep ecology literature, there are problems with the implications of "mutual predation" for those who take a "hands off" approach to nature, such as Regan's
"categorically abolitionist" view, deep ecology's "biocentric equality", and Taylor's "species impartiality". That "all species use each other"41 is a fact which indicates that a certain amount of predation is healthy and desirable in nature, and all things considered, a good thing. Are humans not themselves a part of nature? Leopold thought this to be undeniable, and our part in the natural world to be inextricable. At times, Taylor seems to want to extract humans from the natural system altogether, as if there is no proper way for humans to effect animals.42 But Leopold shows that the flow of energy through ecosystems (and perhaps the bioculture too) is, after all, cyclical, and the biotic pyramid is a natural hierarchy with humans in position to wield incredible power throughout the entire system. It is the potential for misuse of this power which necessitates ethics to begin with, but it is the potential for wise use of our power which is the end of ethics, not the elimination of our power all together. Thus, accordingly, we "interact with each other as units within the whole; 'When a change occurs in one part of the circuit, many other parts must adjust themselves to it.' This adjustment takes the form of appropriate responses to changes in the flow of energy. Leopold tacitly requires similar functional responsiveness in human behavior or activity. "43 And "it is clear that these responses cannot be reduced to cooperation ...preservation of biotic communities also requires competition. "44
Such claims as that made by deep ecologists--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 ..."45--tend to ignore this natural predation and our part in it, and they
cannot be upheld without qualification, it would seem. "The only certain truth," Leopold says, "is that its creatures must suck hard, live fast, and die often, lest its losses exceed its gains. "46 Thus, individual animals cannot be guaranteed protection on Leopold's view (though they each have whatever right to self-preservation they deserve), acting as they do as energy conduits in cyclical symbiotic relations, and thus, being bound by natural forces to sometimes suffer for the good of the whole and others who depend on it. This, again, as Taylor points out, does not excuse our actions, but only makes them the proper subject of careful moral scrutiny.
It remains to be seen then just where Taylor will find himself in all of this, for it seems inevitable that, despite the principles he lays out which express the requirement of
respect for all individuals, necessary prioritizing may very well require that the good of some may have to override the good of others in our careful weighing. Of significance here is Taylor's view that human sustenance may overweigh the other principles of respect for nature,47 and his view of the variance involved in harming what would harm us.48 Thus, even on Taylor's own view, there apparently may be good reasons, as opposed to excuses, for that 'harm' which is done in the act of preserving ourselves and defending ourselves against aggressors, and this is not far from Leopold's own view.
But Leopold adds a significant catch, as Moline notes, which may reconcile his view with Taylor's, for "on Leopold's view, animal and plant populations earn their continuance by their capacity for ecologically sensitive work, not by their members capacity for suffering. "49 Again, it is true that "every member ...is entitled to be preserved in our tinkering,"so but the task then seems one of discerning between what is unjustifiable "tinkering", and what amounts to doing our necessary and responsible part for the proper flow of energy through the chain of life.51
Here then is where Leopold squares with Taylor, who thinks that we ought not simply assume "the desirability of human survival"52 for it is not yet clear that human's are responsible enough to be "functionally responsive" when we ought to be.53 We are too often the aggressors, and in this we invite justifiable self-defense from the rest of nature. And yet both Leopold and Taylor think this privilege of participation can be earned, for humans may be entitled to continue on in the biotic community ...jf we can discern the line between what we ought to do and those actions which cannot be morally justified.
On this, Taylor steps in to help. His four key principles of nonmaleficence, noninterference, fidelity, and restitutive justice are specifically designed to help us toward this end, i.e. discerning the delicate balance of justice in order to act with true respect. 54 His priority principles show, I think, how the good of individual organisms can be outweighed by other considerations, including human good. According to Taylor's ordering, both fidelity and restitutive justice can override noninterference, restitutive justice can override fidelity, and nonmaleficence overrides both fidelity and restitutive justice. But nonmaleficence and noninterference can never conflict, he says, and this seems contrary to intuition, especially as Leopold has framed it. For to say that the duty to not harm cannot conflict with the duty to not interfere is to ignore the role that humans play in the cyclical flow of energy through the community. What about cases where, say, eating meat, which constitutes 'harm', comes up against not eating meat, which according to Leopold, may very well constitute 'interference'? If we change our behavior in the food chain, are we not interfereing with its flow? To not harm, in this case, may be to interfere with nature's flow, whereas to not interfere with this flow would be to continue to harm. If the argument can be made (and even Leopold is not sure that it can) that abstinence from participating in the food chain constitutes "intruding into the natural world" by interfering with the natural flow of energy upon which others in the food chain depend, then we can see that the duty to not harm can conflict with the duty to not interfere, despite Taylor's claim.ss The solution is not as obvious as some take it to be. And so we are left to discern that line between justifiable/unjustifiable harm/interference.
Taylor's principles could help. Leopold stressed that "we can change what we are proud (or ashamed) of, and improve our performance of biotic tasks or functions, "56 and ought to, because nature has a way of eliminating ill-functioning parts. So we are all responsible for ourselves and to the whole community to the extent that we can effect it.
Indeed, potential for such character is what makes us special, if anything does.57 This,
and the will to achieve our highest potentials is, Leopold claims, the clearest objective
evidence of human superiority. 58 And it is also what can help us understand how everything is special from its own point of view, its own responsibility to defend and develop, and always an intricate part of the complex, biocentric whole. 59
Thus, admitting that "even the Rule of Nonmaleficence can be overridden in certain circumstances by the system of human ethics based on respect for persons," Taylor also notes that the justifiability of some unavoidable harm does not eliminate the rightful "sense of regret and anguish" which accompanies the performance of such actions and motivates restitution. 60 It is our ability to feel remorse for the damage we have done6 1 and responds in selfless ways which could bring humans to such "functional responsiveness" as would actually "promote the long-term integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community," 62 and thus, accord us the right to preservation and continuance that we too often simplyvassume. Taylor and Leopold agree that this potential is our best hope. It is our status as properly functioning beings, and not merely our status as living beings, which entitles us, or any entity, to preservation.
Richard Dawkins' claims as much in the oft' neglected final chapters of his 'new edition' to The Selfish Gene. He argues that, despite the self-interest of genes (for which
his book is usually remembered) humans do indeed have the ability to override the will of some biological tendencies by power of altruistic choice, and indeed, despite appearances to the contrary, "nice guys finish first".63 And yet, there are no guarantees we will live up to this potential which is still and always ours. We may simply get caught up indefinitely in the traps of the naturalistic fallacy, wondering endlessly if what 'is' tells us anything about what we 'ought' to do, and continuing on, meanwhile, with our irresponsible and aggressive tinkering.
Moline and Leopold both note with sadness how slow to learn we can be:
"We can, as individual humans, do dramatic damage or dramatic good. The individual rabbit is the vehicle of cycles. The individual human can drive, but few have learned how."64
"It is a century now since Darwin gave us the first glimpse of the origin of the species. We know now what was unknown to all the preceding caravan of generations; that men are only fellow-voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution. This new knowledge should have given us, by this time, a sense of kinship with fellow-creatures; a wish to live and let live; a sense of wonder over the magnitude and duration of the biotic enterprise. Above all we should, in the century since Darwin, have come to know that man, while now captain of the adventuring ship, is hardly the sole object of its quest, and that his prior assumptions to this effect arose from the simple necessity of whistling in the dark."65
We see here the ethics which Leopold thought 'ought' to follow from our evolutionary consciousness, and this seems key to his conception of the 'human-land community•.66 Taylor can disagree, but only with regard to means, I think, not as concerns ends.
And so, in conclusion, I hope to have shown that, while Taylor takes himself to be
opposing Leopold at the outset,67 in the end he has managed to elaborate and refine something very close to Leopold's own ethic. What's more, I think this is a refinement Leopold himself would welcome, since he felt that "no important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions." 68 However, he also felt that "education must precede rules",69 and so we are left wondering what else is involved in doing the right thing than merely taking Taylor's word for the abstract principles of our duty...
***
Taylor's closing chapter six, on priority principles and competing claims, lives up in many ways to expectations developed earlier in his book, Respect for Nature. This chapter deals with those issues which arise when human interests are detrimental to life, at any level, individual organisms, species populations, or life communities. Such conflicts cannot be avoided, but modem industrialized nations have made an art of manipulation, exploitation, and grand-scale destruction of the natural environment. From an ethical standpoint, the nature of interaction is not a struggle for survival, but, if we so choose, a moral order. "There is no reason why, together with humans, a great variety of animal and plant life cannot exist side by side on our planet." [p.258] Since Taylor's conception of respect for nature is congruent with respect for other persons, "we may consider it our duty to allow people to exercise their moral rights, despite the fact that doing so inevitably involves using the resources of the natural world, including animals and plants themselves, for human benefit."[p.259] We thus inevitably have competing moral claims, and so responsibility for finding a set of priority principles that cut across environmental and human ethics so as to determine general, universally applicable, disinterested criteria for fairness. [p.260] The argument in chapter five, that humans have equal moral rights, does not imply an inequality between those rights-holders and other living things.[p.261] "All living things have a good of their own, the realization of which is the central goal of their lives (even if that goal is not an end consciously aimed at), their having the opportunity to pursue our autonomously chosen values is to us. The sameness of importance is not undercut by the conceptual point that we have the right to pursue our values but they do not have the right to pursue their good."[p.262] The five principles are (a) self-defense, (b) proportionality, (c) minimum wrong, (d) distributive justice, and (e) restitutive justice. [p.263] The will cover all the major ways conflicts can arise, says Taylor, but not every possible way; the 'hard cases' remain 'hard cases'. They are not meant to provide a "logically complete system", only a "unified and comprehensive vision" of a "total world order pictured as ideal" which is meant to guide, not direct.[p.307] This "best possible world" has human civilization in harmony with nature, and Taylor says this is consistent with the moral traditions of all belief-systems.[p.309] Much variation is consistent with this moral ideal, but an exploitive attitude is inconsistent with a will to survival and well being. "The biocentric outlook is a rational and scientifically enlightened way of conceiving of the place of humans in the natural world, but it need not be the only world view accpeted by cultures when the ethical ideal of harmony between human civilization and nature is achieved." [p.309] Harmony means preserving the balance between human values and the well-being of the rest of the natural world. "A mysticism in which the highest state of human consicousness is understood as a matter of having one's self become one with the naturtal world is also quite compatible with the moral attitude of respect for nature." [p.309] But so is an attitude which recognizes and forgives that harm which comes to the individual members of communities that results from the ongoing processes of evolution, adaptation, and natural changes in environmental circimstances, and not from human actions. [p.309] (This seems to take Taylor closer to Leopold, but then we still are left to wonder about those cases where human action partakes in the processes of evolution, adaptation, and natural change, (as some would argue that, say, meateating and other sustinance activities are) such that discontinuing the practice would constitute interfering with such natural processes [see "Leopold's Holism and Taylor's preservation of Individual Organisms"). Our role as moral agents involves directing our moral conduct; we are not responsible for more than we can actually effect. However, "Although we cannot avoid some disruption of the natural world when we pursue our cultural and individual values ...the realm of nature is not considered as something to be consumed, exploited, or controlled only for humans ends, but is shared with other
creatures. Althouth one part of human civilization, the bioculture, does consist in making use of other living things for the benefit of people, no such relationship of dominance and subordination is found in the human treatment of the creatures of the wild." [p.310] (This is curious ...) In terms of practical decision making, this is an ideal at which to aim, one which does not compete with, but actually adds value to the greatest good principle, according to
Taylor. It does not replace our diverse values systems, but supports them, and reminds us of the ideal on which most if not all of them were founded. It is not an impossible ideal, one which can be put into practice by a moral reorientation toward the world as it ought to be. It will be difficult, but not impossible.
Jim Anderson criticizes Taylor's view that "members of every species are deserving of equal concern and consideration on the part of moral agents,"[p.349] rejecting it (along with Lombardi) on account of it appeal to a singular good of an organism. Rather, Anderson sees a plurality of sources of value proper to various organisms. Anderson reassess Mill's claim that a life which includes a broader range of goods is better than a life which includes fewer. Anderson's claim, as I understand it, is that not every good is an intrinsic good, Building on Aristotle, he notes that the vegetative capacities are shared with all living things, whild the animal capacities we share with a wide range of organisms. But the cognitive goods we share with a relatively few. He qualifies this: "The claim that humans are, for example, superior, SIII, to prarie dogs does not entia! that humans would be justified in subordinating them." [p.262] He says we'd need an argument for this; I think we do not.
Endnotes
I Leopold distinguishs between 'conservation' and 'preservation', noting that the latter implies human purposes, while the former indicates that the pnrpose for onr actions is the health and well-being of the land commnuity itself. A!do Leopold, Sand County Almanac, p.258*. Oxford University Press, 1949.
2 Leopold, pp.xviii-xix. Also note his contrast of commnuity with commodity at p.xviii, and his contrast between ecological and economic concerns at pp.xvii, 243-245. This is an important theme ...one which I will not take up here.
3 Legal becanse "the Conrt may be at its best...at the very task that is called for; of summoning up from the human spirit the kindest and most generons and worthy ideas that abound there, giving them shape and reality and legitimacy ...awakening us to moral needs which, when, made visible, could not be denied. "[p.121] Stone emphasizes the role that the conrt often plays in contributing to "a change in popular consciousness"[EEP, p.121] For it may be that the idea of giving legal rights to trees seems to us unthinkable in just the same way that it seemed unthinkable to give rights to Black Americans only a short century ago. Christopher Stone, Should Trees Have Standing?--Toward Legal Rights for Natnral Objects, pp.3-8, 24, 27-33,45-46, 48-54. (Portola Valley, CA: Tioga Publishing Company, 1974.) Reptinted in Environmental Ethics and Policy Book, p.113. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1994)
4 Paul Taylor, Respect For Natnre: A Theory of Enviromnental Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.) p.222.
5 Taylor, pp. 182, 219, 226.
6 Jon Moline, "Aida Leopold and the Moral Commnuity." Enviroumental Ethics, (Summer 1986) pp.99=>. Note that Leopold's view is not 'indirect' in the way that Tom Regan characterizes the direct/indirect duty view. Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, (Berkeley: University of California Press) p.ISO.
7 Taylor, pp.118-119.
8 Moline, p.120.
9 Leopold, p.24.
I 0 Moline, p.110. From Leopold's Almanac, p.238.
11Note Leopold's discussion of 'health', p.258, and his discussion of 'proper function', p.253.
12 Taylor, p.118.
13 Moline, p.107.
14Taylor, pp.208-210.
15 Taylor, p.192.
16 Taylor, p.256.
17 Moline, p.112.
18 Kenneth E. Goodpaster, "On Being Morally Considerable" Environmental Ethics and Policy Book, (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1994) p.113.
19 Moline, p.112.
20 Moline, p.112.
21 Moline p.112, Leopold, pp.246-247. 2 2 Moline, p.113.
23 Moline, p.113.
24 Moline, p.l13, Leopold, pp.28, 78, 118, 190, 240, 251.
25 Moline, p.117.
26 Taylor, p. 51.
27 Moline, p.llO.
28 Bill Devall and George Sessions, Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered. (Layton, UT: Peregrine Smith Books, 1985) pp.65-73. Reprinted in Environmental Ethics and Policy Book (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pnblishing Company, 1994) pp.216-218.
29 Leopold, p.l02.
30 Leopold, p.263.
31 Moline, p. 111.
32 Perhaps this is similar to what Marilyn Frye calls "the loving eye" [Merilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (Trumansburg, N.Y.: Crossing Press, 1983)] and to what Maria Lugones calls "loving perception" [Maria Lugones, "Playfulness, 'World'-Traveling, and Loving Perception" First appeared in Hvoatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, vol.2, no.2 (Summer 1987) Also in Lesbian Philosophies and Cultures, ed. Jeffner Allen (New York: State University of New York Press, 1990) pp. 159-180].
33 It might be said that Leopold's 'community' has the same objective referent as that 'nature' which Taylor wants us to respect, if perhaps different particular objects. Inhis book, Toward A Unified Ecology. T.F.H. Allen shows (brilliantly) how these scholars can be concerned with the same objective referent as seen from different frames or scales of reference. By integrating and organizing all of the subdisciplines of ecology with this method, including organismic, community, ecosystem, landscape, biome, and biosphere, Allen shows how all of these apparently competing schools of thought are actually ouly complementary, interactive, and flexible perspectives on the same complex but comprehensive object of knowledge. Thus, the conflict between perspectives should not confuse us or dominate our dialogues any too long, for it is not a question of who is right about which, community or individual, should be valued because each is a point of view on the same essential object. Words often miss the mark of the objective referent to which they point. Socrates would recommend that we not be surprised at this, and study "the things themselves. 11 [Theaetetus] Subjectivity nowhere distorts the objective truth more than when it beocmes defensive on behalf of one view over the other. As Polanyi/Suzuki said, A finger is used to point at the moon, and should not be confused with the moon at which it points. It is at the intersection of our view that objects lie, and so the task is not to decide which view to choose to exercise duty toward, individual or community, but to recognize the interdependence of both, hence, the objective referent toward which both Taylor and Leopold point, call it 'nature', 'community', 'the land' or 'all things wild and free'.
34 Taylor, p.l65.
35 Taylor, p.l56.
36 Taylor, p.l63.
37 Taylor, p.l79.
38 Taylor, p.203.
39 Moline, p.l13.
40 Moline, p.114.
41 Devall and Sessions, p.217. 42 Taylor, pp.l75, 208.
43 Moline, p.115.
44 Moline p.115, Leopold, pp. 247, 253, 269.
45 Devall and Sessions, p.217. What "an equal right" means is difficult to say explicitly. It is a right to noninterference? Leopold says it is "entitled to continuance" and a "right to preservation" in the Almanac, pp. 246-247. This is reprinted in Moline, p.ll2-113, Enviromuental Ethics, Summer 1986. 46 Leopold, p.114.
47 Taylor, p.!83.
48 Taylor, pp.172, 177, and see Chapter 6.
49 Moline, p.116 [emphasis added]
50 Moline, p. 113.
51 Note Leopold's discussion of 'proper function', p. 253. 52 Taylor, p.53.
53 Taylor, p.52.
54 Taylor, pp.172. 'The set of rules that make up a valid system of ethics define the true moral relations that hold between agents and subjects. When every agent carries out the duties owed to each subject and each subject accordingly receives its proper treatment, no one is wronged or unjustly dealt with. As soon as a rule is willfully violated, the balance of justice is tilted against the agent and in favor of the subject: that is, the agent now has a special burdon to bear and the victim is entitled to a special benefit, since the doing of the wrong act gave an undeserved benefit to the agent and placed an nnfair burdon on the subject. Inorder to bring the tilted scale of justice back into balance, the agent must make reparation or pay some form of compensation to the subject. "[p. 186) "One broad Rule of Restitutive Justice; that any agent which has caused an evil to some natural entity that is a proper moral subject owes a duty to bring about a countervailing good, either to the moral subject in question or to some other moral subject. The perpetrating of a harm calls for the producing of a benefit." pp.l86-187.
55 It's true that Leopold was concerned with wild systems, as noted by Claudia Card, but this seems an aritificial distinction which can lead us to underestimate, I think, the degree to which they still all are 'wild', which is to say, the systems of which we are part have their own mind apart from our control and ability to predict. Since Leopold's time, we have been forced to recognize the extent to which we are subject to natrnalforcesmuchlargerthanourselves,e.g. A.I.D.S. We cannot be so sure that, in the bioculture, we are not also members of wild ecosystems.
56 Moline, p.117.
57 Leopold, p.l17.
58 Leopold, p.119.
59 Hence deep ecologists claim that self-realization and biocentric equality are recognized together.
60 Taylor, p.206.
61 Moline, p.118.
62 Moline, p.117.
63 Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford:Oxford University Press) pp.189-266. 64 Moline, p.117.
65 Leopold, p.117.
66 Leopold, p.16.
67 Taylor, pp. 51, 118-119.
68 Leopold, p.246.
69 Leopold, p.244.
References
Allen, T.F.H. 1992. Toward A Unified Ecology. (information currently unavailable) Dawkins, Richard. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Devall, Bill & George Sessions, Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature MaJtered. 1985. Layton, UT: Peregrine Smitb Books.
Frye, Merilyn. 1983. The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory. Trumansburg, N.Y.: Crossing Press
Goodpaster, Keunetb E. "On Being Morally Considerable" Environmental Ethics and Policy Book.
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, p.l05-112.
Lugones, Maria. 1987. "Playfulness, 'World'-Traveling, and Loving Perception" Lesbian Philosophies and Cultures, ed. Jeffner Allen. New York: State University of New York Press, 1990. pp. 159-180
Leopold, A!do. 1949. Sand County Almanac. New Yark: Oxford University Press.
Moline, Jon. "AIdo Leopold and tbe Moral Conuuunity." Environmental Ethics, Sununer (1986) pp.99=>. Regan, Tom. 1983. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Stone, Christopher. 1974. "Should Trees Have Standing?--Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects." Environmental Ethics and Policy Book. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1994. pp.112- 122.
Taylor, Paul. 1986. Respect For Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.