"Discuss critically religious and secular ethical arguments about environmental issues"

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

Sarah Sidgwick

In his book, 'The End Of Nature', Bill McKibben highlights the fact that we are destroying the natural environment at an increasing rate, for our own short-term gain. Since the day that man created agriculture, and industrialisation to follow, the imbalance between man and nature has been growing[1/2]. This has been accompanied by a massive population increase, tripling in the twentieth century alone[3]. Human pressure on nature has never been so great. Such pressure has resulted in 'environmental issues', ranging from global warming and eutrophication, to the depletion of natural resources and an increase in the number of landfill sites.

A distinction must be drawn between 'anthropogenically created’ environmental issues, and 'natural' ones. The extinction of most of the dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago was not caused by man, but rather an entirely natural disaster, perhaps a meteor or extreme tectonic activity. It is difficult to apply any man-made ethic to situations that are not man-made, so for the purpose of this essay, 'environmental issues' will be taken to be current issues actively cause by human beings.

During the last few decades, many thinkers from different disciplines have been searching for a new ethic to confront environmental issues with - an 'environmental ethic'. Whether religious or secular in nature, this must be able to define the environment and the proper relationship that should exist between human beings and the natural world.

The stance that one takes concerning environmental issues, whether from a secular or religious position, is firstly affected by what they consider to be 'rights'. Almost everybody agrees that humans have rights, based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drawn up by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948. These are things such as the right to life, freedom of speech, and equality[4]. This tends to be where the unanimity of opinion ends, some may then consider animal rights, and more extremely, the 'rights' of non-sentient beings like plants, or even inanimate entities, such as rocks.

Views towards ecology on the basis of rights can be separated into 'deep ecology' and 'shallow ecology', distinguished by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess[5]. Quite broadly, shallow ecology dictates that only human beings have rights, other organisms and the environment itself do not. Deep ecology believes that this is not so, and that animals and the natural world do have rights. Shallow ecology is anthropocentric, maintaining that the environment should be handled in whichever way is most beneficial to humankind. No value is placed in the existence of non-human animals, other organisms, and the environment, further than their instrumental use to us.

Shallow ecologists would argue strongly against the idea of inanimate entities such as mountains and other ecosystems having 'rights' or 'interests'. However, regardless of whether the mountain itself is able to be 'interested' in its own continued existence, it sustains a great number of living entities on its slopes. The existence of these animals and plants is contingent upon the existence of the mountain, their environment. By destroying a species' habitat, we destroy the species. Human beings, however, do not stop at the destruction of individual ecosystems. Through air pollution over generations, the overall climate of this planet has been altered significantly. McKibben notes: "by changing the very temperature of the planet, we inexorably affect its flora, its fauna, its rainfall and evaporation, the decomposition of its soils – Every inch of the planet is different..." We now alter "even those places where we're not."[6]

Deep ecology stems from Aldo Leopold's 'Land Ecology', and opposes shallow ecology by proposing that species, ecosystems, or even the biosphere as a whole be considered, rather than individual organisms. An example of this type of theory is James Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis.

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Lovelock proposes that the Earth is a giant organism in itself, and that all life forms are part of the self-regulating system. Some choose to interpret this theory as a symbiotic relationship between all organisms on Earth. What one organism does affects not only all others, but also itself, as all beings are related as part of one greater 'being'. The parts – all individual life forms on Earth – must serve the whole, as the survival of the whole is vital to the existence of all of its parts. Currently, however, human beings act detrimentally towards the environment, selfishly and in their own interest, causing environmental problems that effect all life on the planet.

The predominant Western attitude towards nature and the environment is a combination of Hebrew writings such as the Bible, and Greek thought, primarily that of Aristotle. St. Thomas Aquinas merged Aristotle's ideas with those of the Catholic Church, an amalgamation that resulted in the theory of Natural Law, which states that everything has a purpose that is revealed in its design.

For Aristotle, a thing is good if it is fulfilling its purpose, or intrinsic nature. One way of looking at this is that beings with less reasoning ability exist purely for the use of those of higher abilities, that is their purpose. So plants exist to be eaten by animals, which consequently exist to be eaten or otherwise used by humans. As everything has a purpose, nothing exists unless it of some use to man, we should use other creatures as we wish and see fit[7].

However, contrary to this, deep ecologists are often attracted to Aristotle's philosophy as he considered the world to be a whole, with all beings striving to reach their purpose, or 'end'. When humanity interferes with other organisms, for example in deforestation or hunting, the subject being is prevented from reaching its end. Aristotle believed that stopping another entity from actualising its end and flourishing was wrong.

The theory of natural law, therefore, could on the one hand be used to condone the way that humanity uses the environment for their own gain, regardless of whether the condition of the environment and its other inhabitants is subsequently damaged. On the other hand, one could use this theory to condemn environmental degradation caused by human activity, as when we change the environment, we are preventing others from reaching their end, which is good in and of itself.

In the 13th century, when Aquinas developed Aristotle's theory, he added that a things natural purpose is that which was assigned to them by God, adding a religious aspect to the theory. Everything has a purpose because when God created the world, he was revealing his own ultimate purpose in the created beings. As he endowed human beings alone with the faculty of reason, we are able to actively look for this end and know and follow the end God has determined for us. We must use our reasoning to search for and pursue the purpose that God has put into the world as its creator. However, human initiative is brought into question when we start using this 'reason' and intelligence to build nuclear bombs capable of destroying the entire planet several times over, freely burn materials that took an age for the Earth to create, and destroy the very environment that sustains us.

The former natural law concept (that all life exists to be of use to man) may be seen to correspond with a purely secular branch of environmental ethics termed 'conservation ethics'. According to this approach, the natural environment should be conserved if it is a benefit to mankind. Nature does not have inherent value, but preserving it is instrumental to our continued existence. Some of those who choose to follow Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism believe that the natural environment has no other purpose than to serve us, as human beings, and provide us with happiness or pleasure. Other animals, plants, and environmental entities do not have rights or intrinsic value, but should be preserved only in order to produce pleasure for the greatest number of human beings. The environment is a means to an end rather than being an end in itself[8/9]. For example, a conservation ethicist might campaign for the preservation of a woodland not because they believe in the actual value of the trees as living organisms themselves, but because they have realised that the forest helps maintaining human life in various ways. Equally, though, they may support the destruction of the forest in order to provide timber and land for human use.

As with the natural law approach, a utilitarianist may also consider environmental issues in the opposite fashion. That is, as a species living on this planet, we require a healthy environment in order to be happy. Consequently, to gain this healthy environment, we must take care of the earth, rather than exploit it.[10]

The Hebrew ideas that modern western tradition has incorporated stem mainly from the Bible. One of the most influential passages with concern to the environment is found in Genesis 1:28 –

"And God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

There has long been debate among Christians concerning the meaning of the word 'dominion', in this context. Many would like to believe that it is more an instruction to look after the planet, rather than simply do with it whatever benefits us most. However, in light of The Flood, when God Himself destroyed nearly all life on Earth (Genesis 6:17 - "I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish"), there is little justification in the former verse for such an idea. To take the Bible as a whole though, rather than one verse out of context, the over-riding theme is of love, not destruction. It can be seen in the very next chapter of Genesis, that God instructs man to look after the earth:

Genesis 2:15 – "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."

If the world was good when God created it, as many Christians believe, there is the question as to why natural evil manifests itself in environmental disasters. According to St. Augustine of Hippo, evil was a result of angels who turned away from God, misused their freewill and tempted Adam and Eve. The sins of Adam and Eve resulted in a loss of order within nature, destroying the delicate balance of the world, and distancing humanity from God. Since all humans were 'seminally present in the loins of Adam', we are all born with original sin. Augustine described natural evil as the punishment for sin and moral evil.

There are of course, many other religions besides Christianity. The Quran, the holy book of Islam, teaches that "God has created every animal from water..." (Chapter 24 'Light', Verse 45). If all beings on this earth are created equally by God, what right do we have to treat other animals as anything less than equal human beings? The Quran frequently refers to heaven as a beautiful garden, and so many Muslims believe that proper care of our Earthly environment makes sense. Could it ever be right to misuse a 'heavenly' environment and favour a man-made, industrialised setting?[11]

In addition to the great world religions such as Christianity and Islam, the three ancient philosophies of China are Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. These traditions all generally teach care towards the environment, Taoism stating that destroying the environment destroys the natural balance inside us. This is obviously true in our society today. Environmental degradation is both caused and suffered by human beings. Man expels chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere, and then complains of a rise in skin cancer from increased UV radiation through the hole in the ozone layer. This hole being the inevitable result of the expulsion of CFC's.

Confucianism promotes an ethic of proportionality, as it is said in The Works of Mencius:

"If the axes and bills enter the hills and forests only at the proper time, the wood will be more than can be used."[12]

Over the last 30 years, the area of forested land per 1000 people has dropped from 4.4 to just 2.8 square miles[13]. This is due to many reasons, such as the felling of trees for timber and fuel, the clearing of land, and the death of trees through acid rain caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

The final ancient philosophy of China is probably the best known – Buddhism often refers to nature and its importance; the Buddha himself became enlightened whilst sitting beneath a tree, and was born and died amongst nature. Similar to these philosophies, many indigenous ethical systems are not as anthropocentric as the Western approach, rather, choosing to believe in the inter-relatedness of all beings.[14]

In more recent years, the traditional Judaeo-Christian creation story is becoming less favourable as science and technology advance in the areas of genetics and evolution. The theory of evolution seems to show that we are as much part of our surroundings as any other entity and organism on this planet. We have grown into human beings over billions of years, stemming from the Earth just as all other life, and even inanimate entities, have. To believers of this order of events, man is given no special place, or power over the rest of the world, as they are in many religious accounts. However, some may wish to see evolution itself as a part of God's plan, and that through evolution we grow to become perfect beings with God.

The question of whether life began in the Garden of Eden or some primordial soup may never be answered. Maybe both ideas are just myths. Environmental issues, however, are very real. That they are actually caused by human action may be negotiable in some situations, but in any case, our current way of thinking and acting does not help alleviate the irreversible damage that is transpiring. In the end, we depend on the Earth and it's atmosphere to keep us alive, to provide us with food and materials. We need the world for our continued existence, but the world does not need us.

As with many other theories, for an environmental ethic to function at it's full capacity, every person must adhere to it's rules. Personally, I believe that it would make sense to alter our lifestyles in almost insignificant ways in order to try and preserve the planet now and for the future, for ourselves and our descendants, but also for other organisms with which we share this planet. Unfortunately, this ideal seems to be lost in the ever-present disagreements between and within religious and secular theories. The approaches of the Christian and the atheist both undoubtedly carry value, but the failure to reconcile any concept with the other party appears to hinder a mutual agreement.

ENDNOTES

Joe Jenkins – "Ethics and Religion", page 73/74.

Peter Vardy and Paul Grosch – "The Puzzle Of Ethics", page 215.

Bill McKibben – "The End Of Nature", page 13.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights - http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html.

Peter Singer – "Practical Ethics", page 280.

Bill McKibben – "The End Of Nature", page XV.

Aristotle – "Politics", London, 1916, page 16, in Peter Singer's "Practical Ethics", page 267.

Alan Marshall – "Journal Of Applied Philosophy", 1993, Vol.10, No.2, in Peter Vardy and Paul Grosch's "The Puzzle Of Ethics", page 217/8.

Joe Jenkins – "Ethics and Religion", page 74.

Joe Jenkins – "Ethics and Religion", page 76.

http://www.theholybook.org/TheHolyBook.html

Mencius I.A.3 - http://nothingistic.org/library/mencius/mencius01.html

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/featured_articles/980928monday.html

Joe Jenkins – "Ethics and Religion", page 75.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bill McKibben - "The End Of Nature". Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2003.

Peter Vardy and Paul Grosch – "The Puzzle Of Ethics". Harper Collins Publishers, 1994.

Peter Singer – "Practical Ethics (Second Edition)". Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Joe Jenkins – "Ethics & Religion". Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1999.

Dave Robinson and Chris Garratt – "Introducing Ethics". Icon Books Ltd, 1999.

J.E.Lovelock – "Gaia, A New Look At Life On Earth". Oxford University Press, 1991.

"Discuss critically religious and secular ethical arguments about environmental issues"

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