Nature as Property and the Land Ethic

1
Nature as Property and the Land Ethic
2
Announcement

• Change of schedule
• March 13 The Nature of Animals Animals as
  Machines
• March 18 Environmentalism on Campus
• Guest speaker Ann Kildahl, Sustainability
  Coordinator for HKU

3
Midterm

• 20 of overall grade
• Mostly very good. High scores, curved
• A 78
• B 65-77
• C 52-64
• Section Two, Question 1
• A few people didnt answer the second part of
  the question do you think Gores views best
  characterized as conforming to virtue ethics,
  natural law ethics, deontology or utilitarianism?

4
Projects

• Find a contentious environmental issue
• Present both sides of controversy fairly
• Take a stand
• Defend your stand on the basis of philosophical
  ideas that we have discussed
• 10 minutes powerpoint presentation in class 5
  minutes discussion time
• Develop into final paper (1500-2000 words)
• Individual tutorials (15 minutes each) next week
  to talk about the issue youve chosen
• Time slots Thursday, March 13 400, 415
• Tuesday, March 18 1235, 400, 415, 430,
  445
• Thursday, March 20 1235, 400, 415, 430,
  445, 500

5
Nature as Property

• John Locke
• British Philosopher (1632-1704)
• Empiricist
• Social contract theorist
• The Two Treatises of Civil Government (1689)
• Chapter V Of Property
• What is private property? How does land become
  personal property?

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The creation of private property

• The earth and all its resources was given by God
  to Man in common.
• The land and its plants and animals originally
  belonged to everyone.
• Something becomes private property when a person
  takes it out of nature through his labor, e.g.
• -- the apples become mine when I gather them up
• -- the deer belongs to the Indian that killed it
• This works as long as there is sufficient natural
  resources for everyone. There is plenty for
  everyone to take via their own labor
• No body could think himself injured by the
  drinking of another man who had a whole river of
  the same water left him to quench his thirst.

7
Plenty of land

• Land becomes private property when it is improved
  by a persons labor.
• God and his reason commanded him to subdue the
  earth, i.e. improve it for the benefit of life.
• As much land as a man tills, plants, improves,
  cultivates, and can use the product of, so much
  is his property.
• But only take enough for yourself to enjoy,
  without spoilage.
• Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or
  destroy.
• As long as everyone uses only as much land as
  they can benefit from, there is no scarcity of
  land in the world since there is land enough in
  the world to suffice double the inhabitants,
  e.g. in the uncultivated waste of America
• World population in C17th 500 million
• World population now 6.65 billion

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The value of labor vs. the earth

• Cultivating land is a public good it increases
  the resources available to humanity.
• Labor is the largest contributor to the value of
  earths products, in fact the contribution of
  labor is (usually) 99, while the contribution of
  the earth is a mere 1.
• If we rightly estimate things as they come to
  our use what in them is purely owing to nature,
  and what to labor, we shall find, that in most of
  them ninety-nine hundredths are wholly to be put
  on the account of labor.
• land that is left wholly to nature, that hath no
  improvement of pasturage, tillage, or planting,
  is called, as indeed it is, waste and we shall
  find the benefit of it amount to little more than
  nothing.
• nature and the earth furnished only the almost
  
• worthless materials

9
The Land Ethic

• Aldo Leopold (1887-1948)
• U.S. ecologist and forester
• A Sand County Almanac (1949)
• Influential thinker in biocentrism movement
• Biocentrism all forms of life are equally
  valuable humanity is not special
• Contrast with anthropocentrism only humans have
  intrinsic value, and the value of anything else
  is measured by its effect on humans

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Ethics and the Land

• Ethics evolves, e.g. people once regarded as mere
  property
• Ethics should now evolve to include ethical
  responsibility to the biotic community/the land,
  i.e. land should not be regarded as mere
  property, but as something with intrinsic value
• The land (ecosystem)
• soil
• waters
• plants
• insects
• higher animals

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The Biotic Community

• The land is a community, and people are members.
• The land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens
  from conqueror of the land-community to plain
  member and citizen of it. It implies respect for
  his fellow-members, and also respect for the
  community as such.
• The biotic community (the land/ecosystem) is
• a biotic pyramid
• an energy circuit
• an interacting web of food chains
• interdependent
• potentially fragile

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Not mere property

• A land ethic, then, reflects the existence of an
  ecological conscience, and this, in turn reflects
  a conviction of individual responsibility for the
  health of the land.
• All members of the biotic community have
  intrinsic value
• birds should continue as a matter of biotic
  right, regardless of the presence or absence of
  economic advantage to us.
• But, are all members of the biotic community
  equal?

13
Instrumental value of the land

• Ecosystems have instrumental value to human life,
  as well as
• intrinsic value, i.e. caring for the biotic
  community is also in
• our own self-interest (as a community)
• People have largely ignored the importance of
  nature in history, e.g. bluegrass vs. dust bowl,
  resiliency of nature in Europe vs. America.
• People and nature live together symbiotically,
  and our health and well-being depend on the
  health and well-being of nature.
• Nature not just 1!
• The health of the land effects everyone, so it is
  not ethical for private landowners to disrupt or
  damage their own land. Despoiling your own land
  (your own property) damages the whole community.
  Land is not mere property. The health of the
  biotic community is a common concern.

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Caring for ecosystems

• When people disturb an ecosystem, things can go
  haywire.
• native plants and animals kept the energy
  circuit open others may or may not man-made
  changes are of a different order than
  evolutionary change, and have effects more
  comprehensive than is intended or foreseen.
• Many members of an ecosystem have no obvious
  economic value, e.g. wildflowers and songbirds.
• Yet these creatures are members of the biotic
  community, and if (as I believe) its stability
  depends on its integrity, they are entitled to
  continuance.
• Species may have roles in the health of the
  ecosystem that are not yet understood (e.g. beech
  trees good for soil fertility), and eliminating
  or drastically reduces their numbers brings
  unseen dangers.
• Changing the energy circuit also has its dangers,
  e.g. importing energy (via guano) from Pacific
  islands.

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Solution a new ethic

• We need a new ethic that gives land a moral
  value.
• It is inconceivable to me that an ethical
  relation to land
• can exist without love, respect, and admiration
  for land,
• and a high regard for its value. By value, of
  course, I mean something broader than mere
  economic value I mean value in the philosophical
  sense.

Examine each question in terms of what is
ethically and esthetically right, as well as what
is economically expedient. A thing is right when
it tends to preserve the integrity, stability,
and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong
when it tends otherwise.
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Problems with the land ethic

• A thing is right when it tends to preserve the
  integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic
  community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.
• Is this a definition of morality or an instance
  of one moral good?
• Are biotic communities valuable as a whole, as
  systems (why?), or are they valuable as
  collections of individual members?
• Should the interests of individual members be
  subordinate to the health of the whole
  (fascism?)?
• Are biotic communities stable? Should they be?
• What does beauty have to do with ethics?

17
Readings

• Required
• Leopold, Aldo (1949), The Land Ethic in A Sand
  County Almanac, New York Oxford UP, 1989,
  available at www.luminary.us/leopold/land_ethic.h
  tml
• Descartes, René (1637 ) Discourse on Method,
  Part 5 , in Discourse on Method and Meditations
  on First Philosophy, available at
  www.literature.org/authors/descartes-rene/reason-d
  iscourse/
• Environmental Ethics, Chapter 9, on handout
• Optional
• Locke, John (1689) Of Property, in Two
  Treatises of Government, available at
  www.lonang.com/exlibris/locke/loc-205.htm