Summary on Chapter from Modules 05-08 philosophy

M05Lec01: Deep Ecology This lecture will help you understand: • The Distinction between “Deep” and

“Shallow” Ecology • The “Man-in-environment image” vs.

the “Relational, total-field image” • The Nature of Self-realization • The Nature of Biocentric Egalitarianism • 8 Basic Principles of Deep Ecology

Arne Naess (1912-2009) University of Oslo

• On September 3, 1972, the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess gave a lecture at the third World Future Research Conference in Bucharest, Romania, entitled "The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecological Movement." In this lecture he compared two opposing views toward the environment. – Shallow ecology

• The standard view of conservationists. Concerned with fighting pollution and resource depletion, which threatened the good of humanity. An anthropocentric, individualistic, Western movement, concerned with the health and affluence of people in the developed countries.

– Deep ecology • Involves a deeper questioning and a deeper set of answers to our

environmental concerns. Specifically, calls into question some of the major assumptions about the consumerism, materialism, and individualism that govern our civilization.

The Inadequacies of Shallow Ecology

• Shallow ecology is like treating cancer using a Band-Aid. It is treating symptoms, not the disease.

• The disease is our whole materialistic, consumer- oriented, technocentric, and anthropocentric egoism.

What Is Deep Ecology?

• The philosophical study of the interactions between environments and organisms, especially as it concerns the valuing, ethics, and political ideals of humans and environment – Deep ecology attempts to “articulate a

comprehensive religious and philosophical worldview”

Deep Ecology in Contrast to Dominant Worldview

• Dominant worldview sees humans as isolated from, independent of, and superior to nature

• Dominance is the central theme of Western culture – Dominance of humans over non-human nature – Dominance of masculine over feminine – Dominance of wealthy over the poor – Dominance of Western over non-Western cultures

Ecocentrism + Spiritualism “For deep ecology, the study of our place in the Earth household includes the study of ourselves as part of the organic whole. Going beyond a narrowly materialist scientific understanding of reality, the spiritual and the material aspects of reality fuse together. While the leading intellectuals of the dominant worldview have tended to view religion as "just superstition," and have looked upon ancient spiritual practice and enlightenment, such as found in Zen Buddhism, as essentially subjective, the search for deep ecological consciousness is the search for a more objective consciousness and state of being through an active deep questioning and meditative process and way of life. Many people have asked these deeper questions and cultivated ecological consciousness within the context of different spiritual traditions - Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism, and Native American rituals, for example. While differing greatly in other regards, many in these traditions agree with the basic principles of deep ecology.” (Duvall and Sessions)

Shallow vs. Deep Ecology Shallow

• Materialist/Materialistic • Natural diversity is valuable as a

resource for us. • It is nonsense to talk about value except

as value for humankind. • Plant species should be saved because

of their value as generic reserves for human agriculture and medicine.

• Pollution should be decreased if it threatens economic growth.

• Third world population growth threatens ecological equilibrium.

• "Resource" means resource for humans.

• People will not tolerate a broad decrease in their standard of living.

Deep • Spiritualistic • Natural diversity has its own (intrinsic) value. • Equating value with value for humans reveals

a racial prejudice. • Plant species should be saved because of

their intrinsic value. • Decrease of pollution has priority over

economic growth. • World population at the present level

threatens ecosystems; the population and behavior of industrial states does so more than that of any others. Human population is today excessive.

• "Resource" means resource for living beings. • People should not tolerate a broad decrease

in the quality of life but in the standard of living in overdeveloped countries.

• Man is egoistic but not necessarily so.

7 Principles of Deep Ecology

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image 2. Biospherical egalitarianism 3. Principles of diversity and of symbiosis 4. Anti-class posture 5. Fight against pollution and resource

depletion 6. Complexity, not complication 7. Local autonomy and decentralization

1. Rejection of the man-in- environment image

• “Rejection of the man-in-environment image in favour of the relational, total-field image. Organisms as knots in the biospherical net or field of intrinsic relations. An intrinsic relation between two things A and B is such that the relation belongs to the definitions or basic constitutions of A and B, so that without the relation, A and B are no longer the same things. The total-field model dissolves not only the man-in-environment concept, but every compact thing-in-milieu concept — except when talking at a superficial or preliminary level of communication.”

The relata (A and B) precede the relation

• Dominant worldview sees you and me as isolated from, independent of, and superior to nature:

The relation produces the relata (A and B)

• Deep Ecology argues that the identity of you and me is made possible through the relationship with nature:

A B

“No man is an island” No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe [Nature] is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own Or of thine friend's were. Each man's [organism’s] death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind [nature]. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee. John Donne Meditation 17, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

John Donne 1572-1631) English metaphysical poet

Deep Ecology

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image 2. Biospherical egalitarianism

Deep Ecology

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image 2. Biospherical egalitarianism 3. Principles of diversity and of symbiosis

Deep Ecology

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image 2. Biospherical egalitarianism 3. Principles of diversity and of symbiosis 4. Anti-class posture

Deep Ecology

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image 2. Biospherical egalitarianism 3. Principles of diversity and of symbiosis 4. Anti-class posture 5. Fight against pollution and resource depletion

Deep Ecology

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image 2. Biospherical egalitarianism 3. Principles of diversity and of symbiosis 4. Anti-class posture 5. Fight against pollution and resource depletion 6. Complexity, not complication

Deep Ecology

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image 2. Biospherical egalitarianism 3. Principles of diversity and of symbiosis 4. Anti-class posture 5. Fight against pollution and resource depletion 6. Complexity, not complication 7. Local autonomy and decentralization

Holism

• Like Leopold's land ethic, deep ecology is holistic, not individualistic.

• It attributes intrinsic and objective value to nature and the things in nature, not simply to humans.

• It seeks to live in harmony with nature, rather than view humanity as dominant over nature.

• It espouses ecological egalitarianism, evaluating all forms of life as equally valuable, with equal rights to flourish.

• In many ways deep ecology looks like a spiritual/philosophical elaboration of the land ethic.

“Ecosophy T”

• Deep ecology or Ecosophy T (“ecological wisdom”)

• The T stands for “Tvergasten,” Naess’s rustic Norwegian retreat cabin, suggesting that ecophilosophy must begin with local concerns and simple living.

• Naess (also Devall and Sessions) highlights two features that separate shallow and deep ecology: self-realization and biocentric egalitarianism.

Self-realization

• What is the self and where is the self? – According to Naess, Western philosophy has failed

to answer these questions properly. – Since Plato, the ego (or self) = a soul (or mind)

mysteriously lodged in a body. – This dualism, however, is undermined by the fact

that the “I” is not a fixed, individual, independent, and separated thing, as many Westerners suppose.

“self-in-Self” (Atman)

• Naess appeals to the Hindu idea of Atman for a richer understanding of the interconnected Self. For Hindus the Atman (universal Self) is Brahman (God). – "He whose self is harmonized by yoga sees the Self abiding

in all beings and all beings in Self; everywhere he sees the same." Gandhi translated this passage, "The man equipped with yoga looks on all with an impartial eye, seeing Atman in all beings and all beings in Atman.“ (Bhagavad Gita)

• We are all in God, part of God as sparks are part of a grand fire. Self-realization “in its absolute maximum” is “the mature experience of oneness in diversity,” as depicted in the verse just quoted.

Self-Realization

• Self-realization more easily achieved in a non- dominating society.

• Self-realization best achieved through a meditative, deep questioning process.

• The “self-in-Self” = “organic wholeness.” Realized when we see our own lives is inextricably bound up with the lives of not only fellow human beings, but “whales, grizzly bears, whole rainforest ecosystems, mountains and rivers, the tiniest microbes in the soil and so on. – Summarized by the phrase: “no one is saved until we are

all saved.”

Dissolving Boundaries

• The central intuition of Deep Ecology is that there is no clear-cut boundary between human and non-human existence. – Warwick Fox: “It is the idea that we can make no

firm ontological divide in the field of existence: That there is no bifurcation in reality between the human and the non-human realms . . . To the extent that we perceive boundaries, we have fallen short of deep ecological consciousness.”

Gandhi and Snakes

• Naess points out that Gandhi permitted poisonous snakes in his ashram and that antipoison medicines were frowned upon. Gandhi believed that “trust awakens trust, and that snakes have the same right to live and blossom as the humans.”

• Is this true? Why do most primates, apart from lemurs, have an innate fear of snakes?

Biocentric Egalitarianism

• Two Californian philosophers, Bill Devall (1938–2009) of Humboldt State University and George Sessions of Sierra College in Rocklin, have further developed the ideas of deep ecology.

• They reiterate Naess's idea of “self-in-Self,” where "Self” stands for organic wholeness, but they develop the idea of biocentric egalitarianism further.

Biocentric Equality

• “The intuition of biocentric equality is that all things in the biosphere have an equal right to live and blossom and to reach their own individual forms of unfolding and self-realization within the larger Self-realization. The basic intuition is that all organisms and entities in the ecosphere, as parts of the interrelated whole, are equal in intrinsic worth.” – Biocentric Equality: all things in the biosphere are

equal and have equal rights to reach actualization of their respective existences

– Harming anything in nature ultimately harms us

Anti-Animal Liberation/Rights

• “Mutual predation is a biological fact of life, and many of the world's religions have struggled with the spiritual implications of this. Some animal Iiberationists who attempt to side-step this problem by advocating vegetarianism are forced to say that the entire plant kingdom including rainforests have no right to their own existence. This evasion flies in the face of the basic intuition of [biocentric] equality. Aldo Leopold expressed this intuition when he said humans are "plain citizens" of the biotic community, not lord and master over all other species.”

“simple in means, rich in ends.”

• The practical implications of this intuition entail that we should live with a minimum rather than maximum impact on other species and on the natural environment in general.

• Guiding principle: “simple in means, rich in ends.”

8 Basic Principles of Deep Ecology 1. All life on Earth has intrinsic value 2. Diversity and complexity of life forms contribute to the realization

of intrinsic value 3. Humans ought not to reduce bio-diversity except to satisfy vital

needs 4. Human and nonhuman flourishing depends on decreases in the

human population 5. Human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive and

needs to decrease 6. Social and economic policies must change to reflect principles 1-5 7. Ideological change needs to focus on quality of life and not

necessarily an increasing higher standard of life 8. Those who subscribe to the above have a duty to implement

changes consistent with deep ecology

Comments on the Principles 1. All life on Earth has intrinsic value. Our fundamental connection to

the entire biosphere (including rocks, rivers, mountains, and other non-living entities) calls for our respect and concern for the planet’s ecology

2. Diversity and complexity of life forms contribute to the realization of intrinsic value. Evolution gives evidence of the value of increasing diversity and complexity, which are valuable in themselves

3. Humans ought not to reduce bio-diversity except to satisfy vital needs. What constitutes “vital needs” is vague so as to allow for differences across cultures and environments

4. Human and nonhuman flourishing depends on decreases in human population. Although the rate of growth has slowed down, population has still increased. In particular decreasing populations in over-consuming, developed countries is a high priority.

Comments on the Principles 5. Human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive and

needs to decrease, though human interference is inevitable. The important point is to determine the nature and extent of interference.

6. Social and economic policies must change to reflect principles 1-5. Current economic growth and policies are inconsistent with principles 1-5. “Sustainability” needs to be understood in relation to the whole biosphere and not just humans.

7. Ideological change needs to focus on quality of life and not necessarily an increasing higher standard of life. “Quality of life” should be understood qualitatively and not quantitatively.

8. Those who subscribe to the above have a duty to implement changes consistent with deep ecology. While there are differences of opinion about what the priorities are, what is important is that there is debate, and ultimately action, on these priorities

Criticism

• See Murray Bookchin’s essay “Social Ecology vs. Deep Ecology” in the next lecture.