"Turning my back on modern
agriculture on one side and modern industry on the other, I climbed
past the snowline for the ascent of Moelwyn Mawr. The first snow of
the year, which lay deep and crisp, covered the tracks of summer
hikers and the fissures of frost-broken rock. The place seemed
utterly pure and pristine. The air was sharp and bracing. Swirls of
mist passed over me, hiding the winter sun, cutting me off from all
except the rolling expanse of white snow around. As I placed one
foot after the other in the crisp snow, my head emptied of the
chatter of the valley and the petty daily worries. I felt one with
the white mountain which stood like an old man who had taken many
knocks but still maintained his integrity.
But as I neared the summit, I
suddenly felt strangely melancholy. However much I tried, I could
not prevent the stark truth invading my mind. The snow around me
was not pure and pristine; it was made from acid rain and was
contaminated with radioactivity. The air was not clean; it
contained an artificial excess of hydrocarbons. A man-made layer of
carbon dioxide lay between me and the sun, inexorably heating up
the globe. In a hundred years, there might not be any more snow
falling on this mountain. Nature, in the sense of the world
independent of man, has come to an end. The human species, which
has sought to climb the highest mountains and to dive into the
deepest seas, has so dominated nature that it has begun to
transform it irredeemably.
At the top of the mountain, a few
crows had left their mark in the snow. As if to confirm my
gloomiest thoughts, a red fighter aeroplane roared low up the
valley below, practising no doubt with dummy nuclear
weapons.
Beneath its surface beauty, nature
has become scarred and poisoned. God, if he ever existed, is dead,
and only the faintest glimpse of Wordsworth's 'mighty Mind' can be
discerned in the roar of the mountain torrents and the whistling
wind of the peaks".
Peter
Marshall; Nature's Web (1992)
Evolution
Organic evolution is a process entirely
materialistic in its origin and operation, although no explicit
conclusion was made or considered possible as to the origin of the
laws and properties of matter in general under which organic
evolution operates. Life is materialistic in nature, but it has
properties unique to itself which reside in its organization, not
in its materials or mechanics. Man arose as a result of the
operation of organic evolution and his being and activities are
also materialistic, but the human species has properties unique to
itself among all forms of life, superadded to the properties unique
to life among all forms of matter and of action. Man's
intellectual, social, and spiritual natures are altogether
exceptional among animals in degree, but they arose by organic
evolution. They usher in a new phase of evolution, and not a new
phase merely but also a new kind, which is thus also a product of
organic evolution and can be no less materialistic in its essence
even though its organization and activities are essentially
different from those in the process that brought it into
being.
It has also been shown that purpose and plan are
not characteristic of organic evolution and are not a key to any of
its operations. But purpose and plan are characteristic in social
evolution, because man has purposes and he makes plans. Here
purpose and plan do definitely enter into evolution, as a result
and not as a cause of the processes seen in the long history of
life. The purposes and plans are ours, not those of the universe,
which displays convincing evidence of their absence.
Man was certainly not the goal of evolution,
which evidently had no goal. He was not planned, in an operation
wholly planless. He is not the ultimate in a single constant trend
toward higher things, in a history of life with innumerable trends,
none of them constant, and some toward the lower rather than the
higher. Is his place in nature, then, that of a mere accident,
without significance? The affirmative answer that some have felt
constrained to give is another example of the "nothing but"
fallacy. The situation is as badly misrepresented and the lesson as
poorly learned when man is considered nothing but an accident as
when he is considered as the destined crown of creation. His rise
was neither insignificant nor inevitable. Man did originate
after a tremendously long sequence of events in which both chance
and orientation played a part. Not all the chance favored his
appearance, none might have, but enough did.
Not all the orientation was in his direction, it
did not lead unerringly human-ward, but some of it came this way.
The result is the most highly endowed organization of matter
that has yet appeared on the earth—and we certainly have no
good reason to believe there is any higher in the universe. To
think that this result is insignificant would be unworthy of that
high endowment, which includes among its riches a sense of
values.
that show progress in this respect, the line
leading to man reaches much the highest level yet developed. By
most other criteria of progress, also, man is at least among the
higher animals and a balance of considerations fully warrants
considering him definitely the highest of all.
Man is the result of a purposeless and
materialistic process that did not have him in mind. He was not
planned. He is a state of matter, a form of life, a sort of animal,
and a species of the Order Primates, akin nearly or remotely to all
of life and indeed to all that is material. It is, however, a gross
misrepresentation to say that he is just an accident or
nothing but an animal. Among all the myriad forms of matter
and of life on the earth, or as far as we know in the universe, man
is unique. He happens to represent the highest form of organization
of matter and energy that has ever appeared. Recognition of this
kinship with the rest of the universe is necessary for
understanding him, but his essential nature is defined by qualities
found nowhere else, not by those he has in common with apes,
fishes, trees, fire, or anything other than himself.
It is part of this unique status that in man a
new form of evolution begins, overlying and largely dominating the
old, organic evolution which nevertheless also continues in him.
This new form of evolution works in the social structure, as the
old evolution does in the breeding population structure, and it
depends on learning, the inheritance of knowledge, as the old does
on physical inheritance. Its possibility arises from man's
intelligence and associated flexibility of response. His reactions
depend far less than other organisms' on physically inherited
factors, far more on learning and on perception of immediate and of
new situations.
Discovery that the universe apart from man or
before his coming lacks and lacked any purpose or plan has the
inevitable corollary that the workings of the universe cannot
provide any automatic, universal, eternal, or absolute ethical
criteria of right and wrong. This discovery has completely
undermined all older attempts to find an intuitive ethic or to
accept such an ethic as revelation. It has not been so generally
recognised that it equally undermines attempts to find a
naturalistic ethic which will flow with absolute validity from the
workings of Nature or of Evolution as a new Revelation. Such
attempts, arising from discovery of the baselessness of intuitive
ethics, have commonly fallen into the same mistake of seeking an
absolute ethic or one outside of man's own nature and have then
been doomed to failure by their own premises.
The ethical need is within and peculiar to man,
and its fulfillment also lies in man's nature, relative to him and
to his evolution, not external or unchanging. Man has choice and
responsibility, and in this matter, too, he must choose and he
cannot place responsibility for Tightness and wrongness on God or
on nature.
According to the the palaeontologist George
Gaylord Simpson, the fact of responsibility and the ethic of
knowledge have many ethical corollaries, among them that blind
faith ("blind," or "unreasoning," to be emphasized) is morally
wrong. In connection with high individualisation, another human
diagnostic character, the resulting ethics include the goodness of
maintenance of this individualisation and promotion of the
integrity and dignity of the individual. Socialisation, a necessary
human process, may be good or bad. When ethically good, it is based
on and in turn gives maximum total possibility for ethically
good individualization.
Such ethics have wide applications in social and
personal conduct. They stand in strong opposition to authoritarian
or totalitarian ideologies. They confirm the existence of many
evils in current democracies, but the good state, on these
principles, would inevitably be a democracy. The principles do not
label every human action as good or bad —to do this would
violate the prior conclusion that valid ethics cannot be absolute.
Moreover, individual variability and flexibility are in themselves
desirable, from the point of view both of ethics and of evolution,
biological and social.
There remain mysteries deeper still, unplumbed by
paleontology or any other science. The boundaries of what can be
achieved by perception and by reason are respected. The present
chaotic stage of humanity is not, as some wishfully maintain,
caused by lack of faith but by too much unreasoning faith and too
many conflicting faiths within these boundaries where such faith
should have no place. The chaos is one that only responsible human
knowledge can reduce to order.
It is another unique quality of man that he, for
the first time in the history of life, has increasing power to
choose his course and to influence his own future evolution. It
would be rash, indeed, to attempt to predict his choice. The
possibility of choice can be shown to exist. This makes rational
the hope that choice may sometime lead to what is good and right
for man. Responsibility for defining and for seeking that end
belongs to all of us.
Ecosystems
Taking life within ecosystems to be a
fundamental metaphor for all nature suggests interdependence,
rather than domination, as a norm for all relations. Ecosystems
abound in co-operation and symbiosis, as well as competition and
conflict. There is a logical viewpoint by which relations involving
dominance are in fact one type of interdependency.
One of the earliest scientific observations about
ecology was made in 1721 by Richard Bradley, who wrote: 'All Bodies
have some Dependence upon one another and . . . every distinct Part
of Nature's work is necessary for the support of the rest; and ...
if any one was wanting all the rest must be consequently out of
order'.1 Nevertheless, ecology as a science did not
emerge until the latter part of the ninteteenth century. The term
'ecology' was adopted by the scientific community after the
International Botanical Congress in 1893.
From the beginning it was closely linked with
ethology, the study of animal behaviour in its environment. By the
end of the century, however, the term began to be applied to a wide
variety of fields. Holistically minded biologists showed that man
and animals were living interdependently in a balanced environment.
The physical sciences warned that the dissipation of energy might
threaten human existence and the very life of the planet. Then
geographers drew attention to the finite and fragile nature of
land. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the scientific
scope of the term 'ecology' had largely been set.
The most important cultural revolution in the
twentieth century has been the transference of the insights of
ecology from the scientific to the moral and political field, and
the recognition that they cannot be kept separate. Ecology in a
broad sense assumes that humans and nonhumans are comparable, and
then applies observations about nature to human societies. It is
therefore used both in a descriptive and a normative way to suggest
how we ought to act.
Earlier in the century, professional ecologists
like Charles Elton defined ecology as no more than scientific
natural history. A new breed of ecologists described their
phenomena in quantitative terms, giving the subject a highly
rigorous mathematical treatment. But others were quite at home
making much bigger generalisations about the natural world. The
American F. E. Clements, who introduced the notion of a succession
of colonising plants into an area until it reached climax growth,
talked of plant associations in terms of superorganism: 'the plant
formation ... a complex organism, which possesses functions and
structures, and passes through a cycle of development similar to
that of a plant.'6 It was not long before the key
concepts of ecology, such as niche, food web, community, ecosystem,
diversity and stability, became established, although they remained
somewhat vague. Scientists, both in social and in physical
sciences, increasingly took note of ecology's holistic way of
thinking. Social as well as natural communities were seen to be
interrelated and interdependent organisms.
As a social and cultural movement, however,
ecology began to develop only after the Second World War, and did
not really catch on until the 1960s. It initially combined the
anti- mechanistic and holistic approach to biology pioneered by
Haeckel with the new approach to economics called 'energy
economies' which focused on the problem of scarce and nonrenewable
resources. It quickly burst out of these confines and began to
appreciate the rich philosophical and literary soil from which its
organic ideas and values had grown. Today it draws on a wide
variety of philosophical and religious traditions. In the popular
mind, it has virtually become synonymous with conservation or the
environment; it is even considered by some as a left-wing political
conspiracy against economic growth.
Deep ecology
The Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess
coined the term 'deep ecology' in 1973. He wanted to distinguish
between environmentalism, which is chiefly preoccupied with
clearing up the planet, and philosophical ecology (what he calls
'ecosophy'), which seeks to change our understanding of ourselves
and our place in nature. 'Ecosophy' derives from the Greek
sophia, 'wisdom', and
eco,'earth'; it concerns itself
with 'earth wisdom'. It studies our place in the Earth House Hold.
Although partly inspired by the science of ecology and systems
theory, it draws on much wider philosophical and religious
traditions, including 'native' American philosophy, Zen Buddhism,
Taoism and some pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, as well as Spinoza,
Thoreau and Leopold closer to home.
Those deep ecologists, like the Americans Bill
Devall and George Sessions, who follow in Naess's philosophical
steps call for a new ecological consciousness. They reject the
dominant world-view and social paradigm based on mechanical
thinking, instrumental rationality and economic growth, which
render humans isolated from each other and from nature. They call
themselves ecologists because they embrace the central insight of
ecology that there is an intermingling of all parts of the
universe. They are deep because they look to the fundamental
principles which are at the root of our environmental crisis. The
archstone of their philosophy is that all life forms have the equal
right to live and fulfil their potential.
Naess, strongly influenced by Spinoza and Gandhi,
insists that his kind of ecology is deep because it seeks answers
to the deeper questions of 'why?' and 'how?' The difference between
the shallow and the deep ecology movements is one of depth of
argumentation and questioning. The latter looks at fundamental
presuppositions of valuation as well as fact and
hypotheses.1 For Devall, deep ecology is 'settling into
the stream of things as they are. It means moving down into cooler,
more profound water.'2
Naess has called his philosophy 'Ecophilosophy T,
implying by the use of the letter 'T' that it is only one possible
formulation. He is not dogmatic and does not offer his philosophy
as a system; it is axiomatic, based primarily on intuition. Fritjof
Capra, too, has argued that deep ecology is in keeping with the
findings of modern science, but that 'it is rooted in a perception
of reality that goes beyond the scientific framework to an
intuitive awareness of the oneness of all life, the interdependence
of its multiple manifestations and its cycles of change and
transformation'.3
The subtitle of Deep Ecology (1989) by
Devall and Sessions is 'Living as if Nature Mattered'. In their
widely influential book, they state: 'Deep ecology goes beyond the
so-called factual scientific level to the level of self and Earth
wisdom.' It tries to provide a philosophical foundation for
environmental activism. It is not only concerned with cultivating
an ecological consciousness but also elaborating sound
environmental ethics.
The two ultimate intuitions or norms of deep
ecology are 'self- realization' and 'biocentric equality'. By
self-realization, deep ecolo-gists mean a form of spiritual
unfolding which goes beyond the human to embrace the nonhuman
world. It involves like Eastern religions the 'realization of the
"self-in- the Self" where the "Self" stands for organic wholeness'.
It assumes that 'no one is saved until we are all saved', from
entire rainforest systems to the tiniest microbes in the
soil.
Naess argued that 'the higher the
Self-realization' attained by anyone, 'the broader and deeper the
identification with others'.The term 'self- realization' refers to
the realization of the personal self, which can involve the
negative aspects of self-assertion and aggrandizement, while
'Self-realization' with a capital S refers to the realization of as
expansive a sense of self as possible. The former should lead to
the latter. The ecosophical outlook is therefore developed through
'an identification so deep that one's own self is no longer
adequately delimited by the personal ego or the organism.
One experiences oneself to be a genuine part of
all life.' Cosmological identification follows from the realization
that 'life is fundamentally one'. It means going from an alienated,
atomised, homeless existence to become part of the ecological and
cosmic whole, to be at one with all things: 'Now is the time to
share with all life forms . . . and Gaia, the fabulous old
planet of ours.'
The second intuition of deep ecology -
'biocentric equality' - is a moral principle. Rejecting humanist
ethics, which gives a special place to man in nature, deep
ecologists argue that since all organisms and entities in the
ecosphere are parts of an interrelated whole, they should be
considered equal in intrinsic worth. Every form of life should have
'the equal right to live and blossom'. Naess rejects the
hierarchical notions of the Great Chain of Being and the scientific
ecologists' notion of food chains with predators at the top of the
pyramid in favour of a more egalitarian vision in which 'organisms
are knots in the biospherical net'.10
Aldo Leopold puts it this way, human beings
should consider themselves nothing more than 'plain citizens' in
the biotic community; they have no more rights than amoebae. The
practical implication of the principle of 'biocentric equality' is
that we should live with minimum impact on other species and on
earth. We should follow the Hindu path of ahimsa
(nonviolence) and do as little harm as possible.
In order to give a popular expression of their
philosophy, Naess and Sessions have drawn up a list of basic
principles of deep ecology. The first three are the most
philosophically important:
1. The
well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have
value in themselves (synonyms: inherent worth intrinsic value,
inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of
the nonhuman world for human purposes.
2. Richness
and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these
values and are also values in themselves.
3. Humans
have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to
satisfy vitalneeds.
In general, deep ecologists would like to allow
all entities the freedom to unfold and evolve in their own way
unhindered by human domination. Let the river live! Let the whales
dive and blow!
From this perspective, deep ecologists like David
Ehrenfeld have attacked The Arrogance of Humanism (1978). In
their 'religion of humanity', he claims, humanists believe they
have the ability to rearrange the world of nature for their own
ends. The result has been the destruction of the natural world and
its creatures.
It would seem that the very existence of human
civil ization is an inevitable violation of biocentric equality.
For humans to enjoy the 'equal right to live and blossom', to
achieve self- realization, they must destroy plant and animal life.
However, this does not mean they should not keep their impact to a
minimum and interfere as little as possible in natural ecosystems.
Nor does it mean trying to 'civilize' the wild by eradicating
predators, thereby upsetting the natural balance. The value of
wilderness areas is independent of human purposes, whether they be
full of life, as in the Amazon rainforest, or comparatively inert,
as in Antarctica. They have intrinsic or existential value. If
humans, the most potent species on earth, set aside areas for other
creatures to enjoy, it is merely a disinterested gesture of good
will.
