Fragile Freedoms

1
Fragile Freedoms

• Bryan G. Norton

2
Different Languages

• Using the traditional economic language of
  aggregation encourages the view that more is
  better.
• Using the traditional moral language of rights
  and interests encourages total prohibitation of
  exploitation.
• To get between the horns of the dilemma one needs
  to take into account the context of human action.
  

3
Strip Mining

• Thus the little girls strip mining starfish was
  wrong because it was in an inappropriate context.
  The beach was saved to teach little girls to
  love not exploit nature. By teaching people
  about ecology and history one might be able to
  encourage interest in and appreciation of nature.
  We should put faith in the power of observation
  and experience to transform worldviews (501).

4
Recognizing Context

• But, Norton doesnt think that he should have
  insisted that the little girl value the sand
  dollars in their own right, he thinks people need
  to recognize that the value comes from the sand
  dollars role in the larger environmental,
  cultural, and historical context.

5
Needing Nickels

• While the freedom and creativity of sand dollars
  is limited compared to ours, our freedom is also
  limited and fragile. Like sand dollars our
  activities are possible, gain meaning and value
  only in context. The beach provides a context,
  which far outstrips the possibilities of an
  economic context. The family didnt need the
  nickels and should have spent the time exploring
  the larger world.

6
Thinking like a Lagoon

• One should respect creatures as more than things
  that have purely economic value. One can learn
  to think like a lagoon by recognizing the context
  of and interconnections of living things. This
  doesnt mean that sand dollars have to be seen as
  the sorts of things with rights, the locus of
  value-expression. What the little girl was
  missing was perspective.  

7
Speed of Change

• Environmental problems are the result of
  interactions between slow changing ecological and
  fast changing economic contexts. One might worry
  that realizing this will entail onerous
  restrictions on personal liberty.

8
Restrictions and Anthropocentrism

• Norton thinks we need to restrict what humans can
  do, but he doesnt question anthropocentrism
  the idea that all value is perceived from the
  viewpoint of conscious beings. (503)

9
Theology and Religion

• We are free only in how we react to changing
  contexts. The insight of environmentalists was
  that our freedoms are constrained by our
  environment (not merely other people and possibly
  God). The secrets of our existence lie in
  natures ability to create more life from the
  bodies of the dead. Science and theology have
  merged here. We should look at nature not only
  as an object of exploitation but also of
  contemplation (504).

10
How Bad Will the Restrictions Be?

• The question of how bad the restrictions on our
  behavior (having adopted an environmental ethic)
  will be does not have a clear answer. It depends
  on how we conceive these restrictions they may
  be opportunities, or simply changes. The number
  of whaling jobs decline as the number of whale
  watchers goes up.

11

• Fragile freedom may be replaced with secure
  freedoms. Education is something that people
  will pay for. For example bluefish charter
  captains could act as educators and thus help
  justify limiting their catches. We need to
  encourage alternative and adaptive human
  behaviors.

12

• Humans must understand and value from a
  realistic perspective by recognizing their role
  in the larger ecological context. (505).

13
Ecological Contexts

• To solve environmental problems we need to look
  at ourselves in our ecological context.