“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.” – Seathl, Duwanish chief.
In investigating cosmic virtue, we have considered various philosophical positions on treatment of animals and land ethics and environmentalism by modern Western thinkers. Today we explore the perspective of America’s indigenous people. Viewpoints from three separate sources1,2,3 reveals the following distinctive beliefs. First Nature should be honored particularly for its consistency, purposefulness, and truthfulness. Second Mother Earth (Ina Maka) should be revered as the source of all life, a bountiful provider and sustainer, and as ‘holy book.’ Third fellow creatures should be respected because we, as animals, identify with them, need them for food, require them in order to avoid ‘loneliness of spirit,’ and as teachers. Finally the soil is sacred as it is eternal, “soothing, strengthening, cleansing, and healing.”4
Native peoples offer an astute critique of apparent Western indifference to Nature. Ed McGaa (“Eagle Man”) notes we all start life as great observers of Nature, but by indoctrination into ‘Dominant Society,’ we develop an attitude of Nature as a resource to be exploited.5 The result is that we commodify Nature and its parts looking only at their economic value, but the paradox is we then commodify ourselves and humanity as well. We become not members of an ecosystem, but functions in an economic order, a form of self-imprisonment.6 In the end we become alienated from Nature by ‘modernity and mass culture’ and eventually from ourselves.
John Lame Deer defines the problem in symbols. Native people believe the world has a symbolic character and symbols are central to the meaning of life. They see themselves and Nature as a circle mirroring the world- for example a rainbow, the Sun and Moon, the planets, etc. The circle is a symbol of the “harmony of life and nature.”7 In his opinion, the symbol of conventional society is the square as is seen in our houses, offices, walls, and buildings. Lame Deer believes these are symbols of separation and thus the wrong symbols, not ones of organic life or unity with Nature.
(continued next post)
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1Cleary, Kristen Marée (editor), Native American Wisdom. Barnes and Nobles Books, New York, 1996. ISBN 0-7607-0320-5.
2Garfield, Jay L., The Meaning of Life: Perspectives from the World’s Great Intellectual Traditions: Course Guidebook. The Great Courses, Chantilly Virginia, 2011. Pages 114-119.
3McGaa, Ed (Eagle Man), Nature’s Way: Native Wisdom for Living in Balance with the Earth. Harper One, 2004. ISBN 978-0-06-075048-0.
4Cleary, page 15, quoting Luther Standing Bear, Lakota Sioux.
5McGaa., page 4.
6Garfield, page118.
7Ibid. page 115-116.
Having looked at principles in the ethical treatment of animals and the more comprehensive land ethic of Leopold and Callicott, we pause briefly to consider the Christian humanist viewpoint of Steven F. Hayward on environmental ethics.1 He offers a biblical perspective on the relationship of humans to the natural world, one in which, not surprisingly, environmentalism is reworked as ‘creation care.’
Hayward places the blame for environmental degradation on the industrial revolution and technology, both of which led to alienation from nature – the secular version of sin. Eighteenth century Romanticism and nineteenth century Existentialism (especially Martin Heidegger) “developed the sophisticated view that technology separates humanity from nature in a fundamental way and is the cause of our alienation.”2 In fact Christianity offers significant principles that encourage conservation of the environment – the most important being the tenth Commandment that formulates individual property rights, that is to say, one is more likely to accept degradation of common spaces or of another persons’ property than of one’s own property. He also notes an interesting paradox: while early industrialization of a society leads to environmental degradation, advanced societies protect the environment (for example, no Western city is on the current list of the 50 most polluted cities).
Of course Nature consists of more than animals, and the virtuous person must master relationship with the entirety of Nature. Philosophy of the environment is one of the newest area in ethics and I would like to think through various writers before a synthesis. We start with J. Baird Callicott1 who, following Aldo Leopold, calls environmentalism LAND ETHICS in contradistinction to ETHICAL HUMANISM which presupposes a special status of humans and HUMANE MORALISM which assigns humans and animals equal but greater status than the environment. The focus of land ethics – what is good for the ‘biotic community’- is surprisingly dissimilar to animal rights thought. Instead of worrying predominately about domesticated animals, land ethicists are concerned about air, soils, waters, and plants in addition to wild animals specifically. Quoting Leopold, land ethics “changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land community to plain member and citizen of it.”2
Callicott believes the alternate moral systems are atomistic and axiologic, evaluating entities piecemeal while land ethics is holistic and functional – a system of duties to the biome as a whole. It begins with Leopold’s categorical imperative: “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.”3 The summum bonum for the land ethicist – i.e. the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community – is not an instrumental but an intrinsic good. Land ethics does not devalue the parts of the ecosystem, but instead provides a means or standard by which to adjudicate contradictory interests. The immediate beneficiaries are wild animals, plants, mountains, rivers, seas, and the atmosphere while domesticated species justify reappraisal. Callicott considers wild animals superior to domestic varieties due to the latter’s dependence on humans. Liberating domestic animals would be meaningless as most would be unable to survive although some might return to wild status (like mustangs in the West).
Regarding zoos, I believe a good case can be made they result in net good: (1) safety from predators, disease, extinction, (2) human exposure to animals leading to species protection, (3) scientific research and learning, and (4) entertainment value. As virtual temples to nature, zoos should have trustees committed to superb care of the animals, numerical limits consistent with natural group sizes, and maximal value as outlined above. Drive-through zoos may be more ethical than typical zoos.
The virtuous course is clear – each individual must support directly, economically, and politically the conservation of sufficient space for all existing species. One does not wish an otherwise meaningful life blemished with personal responsibility for the extinction of innocent animals.
The blanket decision to cease all classroom uses of animals seems an arbitrary moral absolute. The calculus comes back to harm to animals versus benefit to human understanding, though clearly the bias should be for limiting living animal study while promoting ethical treatment and killing of specimens.
We are left with an enigma – should one eat meat or consume eggs and milk (also requiring animal bondage)? The answer is I think a personal one, but at a minimum we should avoid eating animals treated inhumanely (e.g. veal) and seek ethical sources of food (e.g. eggs from free range chickens). Another strategy is to reduce meat consumption to the smallest quantity consistent with good health, likely no more than a few times per week. The most virtuous may choose vegetarianism or even veganism, although I doubt this is an ethical imperative for everyone.
“A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct. Whatever his acts, they are dictated by his own conscience, rather than by a mob of onlookers. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this fact.” – Aldo Leopold.
The second issue is the euthanasia of unwanted but not impaired animals. In my opinion it is unconscionable that a living thing, especially a domesticated dog or cat, be deprived of its life merely because it is “in the way,” and a virtuous society will find alternative solutions. At the personal level, my wife and I adopt only neutered, rescue dogs, and donate money only to non-kill shelters.
“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” – George Orwell, Animal Farm.
Bonnie Steinbock offers the following response. First she states categorically we cannot and should not allow cruelty to animals which she defines as unnecessary harm or suffering. However she challenges the notion that humans and animals are due equal consideration based on the following differences:
William F. Baxter proposes a utilitarian outlook. He starts by denying Nature has an independent moral standing, and suggesting Nature is protected through a ‘wise human-centric ethic.’ In other words, intelligent advocacy for human interests will indirectly lead to watching out for Nature’s interests. He rejects the proposition that there is a right or morally correct ‘state of Nature’ as there is no normative connotation to what is a human concept. Any attribution of ‘rightness’ in nature is meaninglessness or arbitrary; such attributions are opinion or preference. Instead a ‘cost-benefit’ approach to nature and the environment is the soundest policy for humanity, i.e. ethics in this realm requires decisions be based on the needs and interests of people, not Nature.
