Seminar discussion post

NATURE AND MORALITY

In recent years, people have come to realize that natural resources and animals, plants, and trees are not boundless but are subject to diminishment, destruction, and loss through careless exploitation, pollution, and the general encroachment of civilization. In the past, despite inklings of this realization in cases such as the near extinction of the American buffalo in the old West through wholesale slaughter, people assumed that natural resources would last forever and were there merely to be used and exploited. Water, air, forests, animals, plants, and minerals were considered to exist in abundance and without end. In recent years, however, with the rise of industrialized, technological, producing, and consuming societies, people have discovered that this is just not so. There indeed are limits to the natural resources of the world, and it is possible to eliminate whole species of animals by means of lack of concern for their survival and willful exploitation.

At this point one may wish to review the discussion of the four aspects of morality in Chapter 1, and especially the second aspect, nature and morality, which has to do with human beings and their relationship to nature. For most modern, “civilized” people, “nature and morality” was a new category, but in reality it was an ancient idea among primitive human beings who tended to see themselves as being much more closely allied with nature than we do. Even our modern-day concerns are often centered around nature’s destruction as that affects our own lives rather than nature having value in and for itself. In this sense, human relations with nature could be subsumed under the social aspect having to do with people in relationship to other people.

However, many people do consider nature as being valuable in and of itself and insist that we have specific moral obligations toward it and all that it contains, especially those animals that are close to us in nature’s order. In this chapter, we will look at both aspects but will concentrate upon nature and morality.

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICAL ISSUES

Several environmental ethical issues will be discussed throughout this chapter, and it is important to describe them briefly now.

Waste and Destruction of Natural Resources

For years we have assumed that our natural resources will last forever, that our water, air, oil, minerals, earth, plants, and trees will always be there for us to use and will never be depleted. However, in recent times we have discovered that there is a limit to everything, including our natural resources. Some believe that we are very close to the end of nature. As we willy-nilly cut down trees for use in wood and paper products, for example, we began to realize that our forests were disappearing. When we had oil shortages in 1973, 1998, 1999, and 2000, and Americans were held hostage by the Arab nations, we began to realize that there was only so much oil in the ground and the sea, and that our pumps would not bring up oil forever. As our rainfall diminished along with our water supply, we began to realize that there was a limit to our water as well, and we simply could not overwater our lawns or let water flow down the drains of our sinks, bathtubs, and toilets or we would actually run out of it.

As each of these realizations hit us, we were shocked that the earth’s bounty would not last unless we stopped destroying without rebuilding or replanting and unless we began to conserve our precious natural resources. We simply could not continue cutting down trees without planting new ones to take their place. We also had to recycle paper so that not as many trees would be used up to make it. We had to be careful not merely 352353to let water flow but to restrict our use of it. We couldn’t just use and misuse our land by destroying it in digging for oil, coal, and other minerals, and we had to be careful not to exhaust its fertility by continuing to plant in the same soil without protecting it and letting it lie fallow.

Exploiting, Misusing, and Polluting the Environment

We also discovered, probably with what first happened to the air in Los Angeles, California, that heavy industrialization and a tremendous proliferation of automobiles polluted the environment so badly that we found it difficult to breathe, grow things, or even to see on particularly smoggy days. We further discovered that such heavy pollution also destroyed the ozone layer that protects the earth against excessive rays of the sun.

Additionally we found that we could not continue to dump our waste in the ground and in the rivers, lakes, and oceans without dire effects on those bodies of water and their inhabitants. If we drilled for oil in the ocean and sprung a leak or had a spill, we could adversely affect the natural and recreational environments surrounding them, including the plants, animals, or fish within them. As our industrialization and technology increased, so did the toxicity of the waste, and we found ourselves burying in the land or dumping in bodies of water very dangerous and poisonous materials, such as strong chemicals, atomic waste, and other dangerous materials that seriously affected our whole environment as well as us its inhabitants.

Exploiting, Abusing, and Destroying Animals

One of the most controversial ethical issues concerning the environment is the question of animal rights and whether we have moral obligations toward animals. These issues encompass destroying animals for food or for parts of their bodies (e.g., furs, skins, or tusks); hunting them for sport; and using them for scientific and other experimentation.

HUNTING AND DESTROYING ANIMALS FOR FOOD AND BODY PARTS.

Since human beings are basically carnivores—that is, meat eaters—and have been throughout history, destroying animals for food has been and is quite common. In the past, we hunted animals for food and often used their skins or other parts of their bodies for clothes. Primitive people seemed, however, to use only what they needed and did not destroy whole herds of animals just for the sake of killing them. Hunting for food and other necessities is an ancient activity. Hunting and acquiring food and other items were combined, but early human beings seemed to have more respect for animals and the environment than modern ones do.

Several changes have occurred, however, which some people see as eliminating the necessity of using animals for these purposes. First, we have created wonderful synthetic materials—even furs—that eliminate the need for killing animals for their skins. We no longer need whale blubber in order to operate oil lamps because we now have electricity. We no longer need to hunt animals for food because we now raise animals specifically for the food that we eat (creating another ethical issue that we will discuss later). Killing wild animals, then, has become a sport that many enjoy and many others decry because they feel it amounts to murdering animals for excitement and also threatens to cause certain wild animals to become extinct.

RAISING ANIMALS FOR FOOD.

Ethical issues also have arisen with regard to the raising, slaughtering, and eating of animals for food. The demands of modern humans for tastier meats and other animal products, such as eggs, butter, and milk, have caused the food 353354industry to resort to different ways of raising animals for food, some of which cause animals to suffer until they are slaughtered. For example, in the past, animals were raised in the open plains and were allowed to graze, roam, and live in the open air until such time as they were to be slaughtered for food. Nowadays, many animals are raised inside, cooped up in narrow pens, and never allowed outside to graze normally. Some animals never see the sun or breathe the open air, and they are fed food and chemicals that will make them the fattest the soonest without regard for their own likes or dislikes or any concern for their comfort or the pain such conditions or diets may bring.

Some people argue that given what we know about the way animals are raised and about what foods really are good for us, we should stop eating meat at all, thus making the need to raise and slaughter animals for food obsolete. Such people state further that even if we continue to eat meat, we ought to do so sparingly, and, at any rate, we should not use cruel and inhumane methods as we raise animals for this purpose.

USING ANIMALS FOR SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTATION.

One of the oldest controversies concerning our moral obligations toward animals is whether they should be experimented upon for scientific or medical advancement. Since the antivivisection movement of the nineteenth century protested the cutting into live animals for purposes of scientific research, these protests have expanded to include any experimentation on animals “for the good of humanity.” There are strong laws concerning experimenting on human beings, and thus animals must be used, according to science, to test drugs and scientific or medical procedures. Without the use of animals, many of our greatest scientific advancements and cures for diseases (e.g., heart disease, kidney disease, and diabetes) would never have been made. Opponents of animal experimentation argue that often it is totally unnecessary as well as harmful and fatal to the animals being experimented on. They argue that research should be conducted without the use of either humans or animals.

ENDANGERMENT, DECIMATION, AND EXTINCTION OF ANIMAL SPECIES.

Because of the encroachment of civilization, as when forests are cut down and towns are built, the natural habitats of animals have shrunk significantly or been destroyed. In addition, because of the continuing demand for animal skins, parts, and trophies, whole species have been slaughtered to the point of extreme endangerment or extinction. Animal rights supporters deplore such activities and have called for an end of the hunting of all animals, especially endangered species, and also for the restriction of any activities that will destroy the environments in which animals live and thrive. They argue that every effort must be made to stop all activities that threaten any animal species, and that attempts should be made to restore such environments to their natural states.

Many issues have arisen in our century that deal with the proper stance people should be taking toward the natural environment and all of its inhabitants. The first important question we should address concerning these issues is what lies behind the attitudes that brought the issues to a head. What caused us to see nature as something to be controlled and manipulated for our own use, regardless of the effects on it and all it contains? Why have we arrived at such a state that we have to be concerned about our relationship with the environment and animals?

OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD NATURE AND WHAT LIES BEHIND IT

Attitudes toward nature have not developed overnight; however, we cannot say that they always have been nor that they always are present in every culture. In the Native American culture, for example, there exists a kind of monistic (oneness) or wholistic view of nature and humanness as being one, not as separate from each other. Native 354355Americans historically and currently see themselves as a part of nature, as closely related to everything natural rather than as something or someone separate from it. They believe that spirits inhabit everything, not just them, and they relate to nature and animals as if they were family. They take only what they need and have a deep respect for all aspects of nature and animals.

Eastern religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, also see nature and humans as being one unified whole instead of seeing nature as subordinate to humans or as something to be manipulated and controlled by them. Here again, unlike Western religions, if spirituality is accepted by the religion, it tends to permeate everyone and everything, not just human beings. The whole universe is spiritual, not just humans and God. The Western view, however, has tended to see humans and nature in a dualistic relationship that is sometimes almost adversarial. There are two major sources in Western culture from which this dualism emerged.