Nature Ethics

It is an interesting exercise to explore what might be imagined if we were to live toward an ethic of caring for nature, as if unfrozen from a disembodied enchantment of the consumerist worldview. If we could depart from a human-nature ethic that has devastated the planet and that has resulted in substantial inequity of people around the globe, I wonder if we might uncover the “dormant sensitivities” of humanity—namely, deep and profound care for the Earth. I envision that these sensitivities have been suppressed over the last few centuries, and have consequently limited our ability to place analogous value on the more-than-human world. The phenomenon of care, as a dimension of the human world, can be explored with its relevance to our humanness and nature ethics.

One might argue that the dominant ethical stance of the human condition, when it comes to nature, is one that places humans above the natural world in the name of “progress.” In addition to this human-centered thinking, an estimated 3-billion people, nearly half the world, live on less than $2.50 per day, while 95% of people living in developing countries live on less than 10¢ per day (Shah 2008).

According to David Suzuki, the top 500 billionaires in the world own half of all the world’s wealth – surely a most prodigious inequity of the global wealth. The philosophies of science and technology, born from the industrial revolution, are harnessed to “power-over,” conquer and profit from the natural world and from one-another (Merchant, 1999; Evernden, 1985).

This exploitative human conception of nature and mass oppression of people has resulted in an Earth at the advanced stages of exhaustion. Since the present ecological nightmare has been the responsibility of humans, one might suggest that all is not well within the human psyche (Roszak, 1993; Abram, 1996).  This pervasive aggressive mental attitude is transformed into values that lead to exclusion, aggression and the will to dominate (Boff, 1991, p. 6). 

Never before in our human history have we created a predicament of unprecedented vanishing species, human suffering, starvation, and climate change threatening the future of life on the planet. When has it been more urgent and serious that humans emerge as agents of our human and more-than-human history?  With our growing awareness of the ecological crisis and acknowledgement of the recklessness of our attitude toward the Earth, it may be considered negligent and hence unethical to continue to “progress” in the same direction.

The ancestry of human ethics and morality is thousands of years old, yet during the Enlightenment period, predominant human values took a distinct turn toward an ethics of “human-centeredness” (Haidt, 2006). Rarely do we recognize that our Western approach to nature ethics is peculiar from the perspective of other civilizations and cultures (Abram, 1996). According to Skolimowski (1985), it could be said that traditional forms of ethics bring us back to a context in which we have outgrown. We might then ask the question:  Is our present form of ethics failing us?

Skolimowski continues:
E.F. Schumaker’s Small is Beautiful is a seminal statement of the 1970’s.  During the last years of his life he called for a “metaphysical reconstruction”.  In his opinion, Western civilization, and especially the technological society have been on a mistaken course.  This course is based on metaphysical error, or a philosophical error: we have conceived wrongly what is most important in life. (1985) p.4

I resonate with Skolimowski in that the foundation of present day ethics toward non-human and fellow-human entities is based on a set of assumptions, truths and values that now are known to be harmful to life on the planet. If we are truly concerned about the ethical and moral development of our children, we must now put into question our approach to (or absence of) nature ethics in education, parenting, and all aspects of our living.     

Leonardo Boff (1991) in Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor explains:
Ecology is accordingly knowledge of the relations, interconnections, interdependencies, and exchanges of all with all, at all points, and at all moments.  From this standpoint, ecology cannot be defined by itself, in isolation from its implications for other kinds of knowledge.  This kind of knowing deals not with objects of knowledge but with relations among objects of knowledge.  It is knowledge of interrelated knowledges. (p. 3)

Boff’s suggestion of interdependencies of knowledge(s) could be readily conceived as counter to the sorts of knowledges that are promoted in our culturally endorsed manner of living.  Using education as an example, the fragmented curriculum and daily classroom activities that present mathematics, social sciences and language arts as separate subjects corresponding to school periods, and objective standardization of preferred “knowledge” and outcomes are all examples of how our modern schooling reflects a fragmented, mechanistic worldview.  Moreover, treating ecology like it is a separate topic is absurd. What topic could be more important than life on Earth?

It would appear that the call to re-educate our children (and ourselves) toward a nature ethic to help heal the degradation of the Earth is our uppermost priority. If the human potential exists for both caring as well as violent capabilities, would it not be the right approach to cultivate in our children a nature ethic that promotes caring for oneself, one-another and the Earth? Has the present goal of education—education for a “successful” career—prepared students to live and care for their local place, and the global and ecologically connected community?     

With this ethical concern for our responsibility toward reversing ecological problems, “greening the planet” has moved from an earlier movement aimed to protect endangered species and parkland, to an acknowledgement of our predominant worldview, which places humans above nature and not within it. If we were adjusting our ethical settings to values, which acknowledge and respond to the more-than human voices of suffering stated earlier, how would we foster such a nature ethics in our manner of living?   

We live in a culture we don’t see. Nature does not have the human conceptions and socially endorsed notions of race, gender, class, and religious dogmas that are cultivated in the human world through socialization and through the instrument of education. Nature just Is. Given the planetary predicament, our current form of ethics toward nature is driving the planet into mass deterioration and to further demise of life on the planet. What we may be witnessing is what Vetleson describes as the consequence of  “psychic numbing”—the inability to feel and take notice of the suffering of the [planetary] others. This dimension of human existence, as emerged from our problematic worldview, suggests ecological psychic numbing as a pervasive cultural phenomenon in the world today (Vetleson, as cited in Bai, In press). Thomas Berry continues: “We no longer hear the voices of the rivers or the mountains, or the voices of the sea… Everything about us has become an "it" rather than a "thou" (1993, para. 14).

It would appear to me that survival depends on a new nature ethic to pass on to our children (and by example for ourselves)- one that aligns us with a distinct and important educational goal: to realign our form of human valuing toward restoration, healing one-another and caring for the planet.

Nature ethics is a way of modeling for our children a consciousness of “responsibility” for the planet on which we all depend. It is also a call to bring to an end to our dualistic rationalizing that separates our innate ability to care for the planet -the problematic higher values placed on reason (as the only way of knowing), individualism, and consumerism entrenched and embedded in our worldview. A caring approach to nature must acknowledge and celebrate our human capacity to love and restore the natural world—our most important and transcendent human attribute.

References
Abram, D. (1996). The spell of the sensuous: Perception and language in a more-than-human world. New York: Pantheon Books.

Bai, H. (in press). Re-animating the universe: Environmental education and philosophical animism. In M. McKenzie, H. Bai, P. Hart, & B. Jickling (Eds.), Fields of green: Re-imagining education. New Jersey: Hampton Press.

Berry, T. (1993). The meadow across the creek. In T. Berry, The great work: Our way into the future. Retrieved July 2, 2008, from http://www.thomasberry.org/Essays/MeadowAcrossCreek.html

Boff, L. (1997). Cry of the earth, cry of the poor. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books.

Evernden, N. (1993). The natural alien: Humankind and environment. Toronto: Toronto University Press.

Haidt, J. (2006). The happiness hypothesis: Finding modern truth in ancient wisdom. New York: Basic Books.

Li, H. (1996). On the nature of environmental education: Anthropentrism versus non-anthropocentrism: The irrelevant debate. Retrieved 03/20, 2009, from http://www.ed.uiuc.edu.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/EPS/PES-Yearbook/96_docs/li.html

Merchant, C. (2005). Radical ecology: The search for a livable world (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

Roszak, T. (1993).  The voice of the earth: An exploration of ecopsychology. New York: Touchtone.

Shah, A. World hunger and poverty. Retrieved 03/20, 2009, from http://www.global issues.org/issues/6/world-hunger-and-poverty

Skolimowski, H. (1986). Eco-theology: Toward a religion for our times. Ann Arbor: Eco-philosophy Centre.

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