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A PLURALISTIC HUMEAN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHIC:
DEALING WITH THE INDIVIDUALISM—HOLISM PROBLEM

By

Jason P. Matzke

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Philosophy

2003

ABSTRACT

A PLURALISTIC HUMEAN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHIC:
DEALING WITH THE INDIVIDUALISM—HOLISM PROBLEM

By

Jason P. Matzke

Environmental ethicists often argue for ethical holism, granting moral standing to
ecosystems and species. However, this conflicts with traditional ethics and commonsense
which attribute moral standing to individual organisms based on characteristics wholes do
not possess, such as sentience or autonomy. Despite the apparent inconsistencies
between these two approaches, any acceptable holistic environmental ethic must account
also for these individual-oriented convictions. This is the individualism-holism problem.
Marry Anne Warren and J. Baird Callicott have each offered solutions which they claim
are monistic in that they provide a single systematic approach which can generate one
right answer to each moral dilemma. I synthesize their views and reinterpret them as a
pluralistic Humean environmental ethic, one which ameliorates but cannot fully eliminate
the conflict.

Warren proposes a number of moral principles reflecting multiple sources of
value which confer moral standing to both individuals and wholes. This, she argues,
avoids the need for both higher level theories, which engender problematic conflicts
between individualism and holism, and pluralism, which comes dangerously close to
relativism. Callicott develops a community model in which the moral standing of various

entities, and the strength of our corresponding obligations, is determined by their roles

within nested circles of communities. His work builds on both Hume and Aldo Leopold
by arguing that our increased ecological awareness should inform our sentiments in ways
that incline us to include ecosystems and their constituent parts in our moral community.
Warren’s principles—revised here in light of my contention that interests play the central
role in determining the moral standing of individual organisms—provide substance to
Callicott’s otherwise more abstract approach. Callicott’s work, in turn, provides
theoretical coherence for Warren’s principles.

Humean sentimentalism, however, is open to the charge of relativism, especially
since Hume’s appeal to universal agreement on central moral values and beliefs cannot be
sustained in a world so obviously diverse. I respond by arguing that Humean
sentimentalism can be reinterpreted pluralistically. Differences in experience and culture
prevent universal agreement, but the common experience of living as humans in this
world, with its particularities, limits the range of acceptable alternatives. Furthermore,
because reason informs sentiment, there are grounds for critically assessing Humean
moral claims.

Despite Callicott’s and Warren’s rejection of pluralism, I argue that in making
room for difference, their views become more consistent with the Humean insight that
ethics exists only in the context of experience. A pluralistic approach to moral reasoning
provides an alternative to the continuing theoretical and practical stalemate between
individualists and holists. It allows room for both sets of concerns in theory building and
encourages compromise as a morally justifiable, not simply a politically efficacious,
solution to practical dilemmas. Choices may have ethical remainders, but neither side of

a debate can so easily insist that compromise threatens their moral integrity.

Copyright by
JASON P. MATZKE

2003

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are several people without whom this project would not have been
undertaken, much less completed. I owe a deep gratitude to all of them and wish to
mention a few of them here.

Before beginning my graduate student career, I was torn between working in
biology and ecology or in philosophy and religious studies. Two professors at Oregon
State University—Peter List and Marcus Borg—showed me how to bring my interests
together by introducing me, as a young graduate student, to environmental ethics. For
that I will be forever grateful.

In my subsequent seven years of study at Michigan State University, no one has
been more patient, more helpful, and more influential than my dissertation chair, Prof.
Fred Gifford. Among other things, he forced me to think critically about my intuitions
regarding nature and nonhuman animals. I am also indebted to Prof. Martin Benjamin,
who has shaped my thinking about moral theory in ways I would never have guessed. He
introduced me to, and finally convinced me of, the virtues of moral pluralism. Many
others at Michigan State have also provided me with guidance, served as examples of
excellence in teaching and research, and encouraged my work. Among them are Prof.
Steve Esquith, Prof. Richard Hall, Prof. Robert Pennock, and Dean Wendy Wilkins. I
also owe a thanks to the many fellow graduate students, fiiends, and undergraduates (too
numerous to mention by name) who constantly stimulated my thinking about nature and
ethics.

Two dear friends deserve a special thanks. John Mariana and Julie Aultman have

provided the support only friends can, on this project and throughout my graduate career.
Together we have sat for long hours over coffee and beer arguing about philosophy, have
explored the north woods and lakes, have commiserated when things were tough, and

have celebrated when times were good.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1
PLURALISM AND THE INDIVIDUALISM—HOLISM PROBLEM ...................... p. 1
Introduction .................................................................................................... p. 1
Ethical Pluralism ............................................................................................ p. 7
Individualism and Holism .............................................................................. p. 25
CHAPTER 2
INDIVIDUAL ENTITIES AND MORAL CONSIDERABILITY ............................ p. 33
Introduction .................................................................................................... p. 33
Singer, Regan, and Interests ........................................................................... p. 37
The Life-ethic Account .................................................................................. p. 49
Autonomy and Moral Agency ........................................................................ p. 55
Conclusion ..................................................................................................... p. 66
CHAPTER 3
MARY ANNE WARREN’S PRINCIPLE-BASED SOLUTION
TO THE INDIVIDUALISM—HOLISM PROBLEM ............................................... p. 68
Introduction .................................................................................................... p. 68
Principle-Based Approaches to Ethics .......................................................... p. 71
Mary Anne Warren’s Principle—Based Approach ......................................... p. 79
The Respect for Life Principle ........................................................... p. 81
The Anti-Cruelty Principle ................................................................ p. 85
The Agent’s Rights Principle ............................................................. p. 92
The Human Rights Principle ............................................................. p. 94
The Ecological Principle and the Interspecific Principle ................... p. 97
The Transitivity of Respect Principle ................................................ p. 105
Conclusion ..................................................................................................... p. 106
CHAPTER 4
THE VALUE OF NATURE......: ............................................................................... p. 111
Introduction .................................................................................................... p. 111
Pinchot’s Conservationist and Muir’s Preservationist Approaches ............... p. 115
Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic ............................................................................ p. 131
Humean Ethics and the Problem of Relativism ............................................. p. 140
Conclusion ..................................................................................................... p. 158
CHAPTER 5
PLURALISM IN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS ...................................................... p. 163
Introduction .................................................................................................... p. 163
Monism and Pluralism in Environmental Ethics ........................................... p. 168
Callicott’s Environmental Ethic as Monistic ................................................. p. 172

vii

Callicott’s Environmental Ethic as Pluralistic .............................................. p. 185
Concluding Thoughts ..................................................................................... p. 192

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................... p. 197

viii

CHAPTER 1

PLURALISM AND THE INDIVIDUALISM—HOLISM PROBLEM

Introduction

Environmental thought in America has developed through several, sometimes
interweaving strands: the Judeo-Christian stewardship tradition emphasizing care of
God’s creation, the nature mysticism and aestheticism of the likes of John Muir, and the
utilitarianism or “wise-use” approach of Gifford Pinchot’s Forest Service, among others.
This diversity has been drastically narrowed in the relatively young field of academic
environmental ethics in what has sometimes appeared as a discipline-wide consensus that
we are in need of a “new ethic” to replace the overly anthropocentric and individualistic
thrust of Western ethics.l It is claimed that extensions of traditional codes of ethics
governing human-human relationships are unable to justify the desired level of protection
of nature. The proposed alternative is ecocentrism, or environmental holism, in which
ecosystems, rather than their individual constituent parts, have intrinsic value and hence
moral standing. In J. Baird Callicott’s words, “nothing less than a sweeping
philosophical overhaul—not just of ethics, but of the whole Western world view—is
mandated”; ecosystems are to be the “locus of intrinsic value.”2 Aldo Leopold’s

injunction to evaluate actions according to the extent to which they protect the “integrity,

 

lSee for example: Richard Sylvan (Routley), “Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental Ethic?”
Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology, ed. Michael E. Zimmerman, et al.
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993), 12-21.

2]. Baird Callicott, “Introduction: The Real Work.” In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in
Environmental Philosophy (Albany: State U of New York P, 1989), 3.

stability, and beauty of the biotic community,”3 is the often cited mantra of contemporary
holistic environmental ethics.

A growing number of authors have more recently, however, been calling for a
second major shift in how philosophers should think about the environmental. On their
view, the single-minded focus on environmental holism“ has left academic theorists
isolated from those working to solve problems “on the ground.” Rather than spending all
of our effort trying to develop the single right version of holism and defending it against
individualism, we should make room for diverging beliefs and competing values. In
order to maximize our effect on policy, this should involve focusing on those views
which already enjoy currency in public debates—perhaps traditional individualistic and
anthropocentric approaches.’ The search for the one right version of holism regarding
ecologically complex entities, has done little to further solutions to real world problems.6
Holism has so far not captured the public’s imagination, and environmental activists
continue to operate with a wide range of arguments (including holism) in support of their

cause, largely ignoring the work of academic philosophers.

 

3Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford U P, 1987), 224-25.

4“Environmental holism,” or “ecocentrism,” refers to an eco-centered approach to ethics. It can be
contrasted both with “anthropocentrism” (or “homocentrism”), which refers to humamcentered ethics, and
with “biocentrism,” which refers to life-centered ethics concerned with the moral standing of all individual
liVing organisms.

5Anthropocentrism is usually assumed to be individualistic since it is “human-centered,” and most Western
human-centered ethics are in fact individualistic. However, it is possible to have a human-centered holistic
ethic if human groups (perhaps cultures) are taken to be the primary locus of moral value.

6See, for example: Andrew Light and Eric Katz, “Introduction: Environmental Pragmatism and
Environmental Ethics as Contested Terrain,” Environmental Pragmatism, ed. Andrew Light and Eric Katz
(London: Routledge, 1996), l-l8; and Andrew Light, “Taking Environmental Ethics Public,”
Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, What Really Works, ed. D. Schmidtz and E. Willott (Oxford:
Oxford U P, 2002), 556-66.

The new voices in environmental ethics are correct that the single-minded focus
on a holistic approach has limited the discipline’s impact on public policy and behavior.
This is largely because it fails to resonate with already held individualistic views and,
relatedly, because it leads to counterintuitive advice in cases where individuals and
wholes conflict. Holistic views are notoriously inept at accounting for the moral
standing, or moral considerability, of individuals. Positing standing for objects such as
ecosystems makes it difficult to account for the commonsense view that individual people
and nonhuman animals not only matter also, but perhaps matter most significantly.
Individual entities and wholes such as ecosystems seem too different in kind for a single
theory to cover both. Nevertheless, many of us want both: individual humans and
animals do count morally, as do ecosystems and species. Mark Sagoff points out the
difficulty of this position: “The [holistic] environmentalist would sacrifice the lives of
individual creatures to preserve the authenticity, integrity and complexity of ecological
systems. The [animal] liberationist . . . must be willing, in principle, to sacrifice the
authenticity, integrity and complexity of ecosystems to protect the rights, or guard the

”7 Tom Regan, defending rights for animals, goes so far as to call

lives, of animals.
thorough-going environmental holism “environmental fascism” due to its allowing for the

sacrifice of individuals to further the good of ecosystems—on the holistic account,

humans have no more standing than do any other member of the biotic “team.”8 The

 

7Mark Sagoff, “Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Bad Marriage, Quick Divorce,”
Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology, ed. Michael E. Zimmerman, et al.
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993) 90.

8Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: U California P, 1983), 361-63. Regan admits that
things such as ecosystems might possess value that is not reducible to the stuff rights are concerned to
protect—namely interests—but claims that rights protect individuals in ways that cannot be overcome by
concerns not tied to rights. Rights outweigh other concerns, and ecosystems and species cannot have

problem for holists who think that individuals count too is. then, not merely of
developing a system locating moral worth in wholes, but of explaining how it is that
individual people and animals can nevertheless also enjoy acceptable levels of moral
considerability. A similar problem exists for individualists who think also that
ecosystems and species are morally considerable.

In light of the primafacie theoretical inconsistency between individualism and
holism, one might reason that because (i) two inconsistent theories cannot both be right,
(ii) the aim of environmental ethics is to develop ways of understanding which will
justify high levels of protection for ecosystems or species, and (iii) individualistic
accounts seem to fall short of this goal, then (iv) the correct theoretical approach is not
only holism, but a monistic holism: the moral considerability of ecosystems and species
is to be accounted for by a single, unifying theory focusing on wholes. The individualist
could reason similarly to a monistic individualism. Rather than arguing for one or the
other monistic theory, I will argue for a pluralistic account which makes room for both
holistic and individualistic elements, despite their seeming inconsistency. This means,
though, that in cases where these elements conflict there will not always be a single
correct answer demanding our compliance. Ethical pluralism, as I am using the term,
refers to the belief that there exists, as Susan Wolf puts it, “pockets of indetenninancy” in
moral reasoning: “No principle or decision procedure exists that can guarantee a unique
and determinate answer to every moral question involving a choice among different

”9

fundamental moral values or principles. This indeterrninancy is due to rationally

 

(though individual trees might have) rights.

9Susan Wolf, “Two Levels of Pluralism,” Ethics 102.4 ( 1992): 785 and 788.

irreducible difference with respect to moral principles, values, beliefs, theories, and the
like. In the case at hand, there may be irresolvable conflicts among our beliefs regarding
the interests or well-being of various individuals and wholes.

Unfortunately, because it suggests the possibility of more than one acceptable
theory or set of principles, values, and the like, pluralism faces serious challenges. J.
Baird Callicott worries, for instance, that it will fail to provide guidance for action
because multiple resolutions to particular moral dilemmas will be the rule rather than, as
in a monistic account, the exception.10 Relatedly, it will seem overly relativistic for some
if it turns out that there is not only a plurality of principles and evaluations of particular
cases, but no covering-theory determining when to be individualistic and when to be
holistic, when to apply this set of principles as opposed to that, or how to weigh
competing claims. If these concerns can be answered, as I think they can, we may end up
with a vision of ethics which will better account for inter- and intra-personal clashes of
intuition and make compromise——and hence progress on real problems—more likely, as
disputants more readily recognize the possibility that opposing views might be of equal
moral legitimacy. If so, this will be of interest outside of environmental ethics as well.

In the remainder of this introductory chapter, I describe and defend my preferred
version of ethical pluralism and say more about the individualism—holism conflict in
environmental ethics. In Chapter Two, I explore what makes individual entities morally
considerable. I reject life, moral agency, and autonomy in favor of interests as the most
relevant property. In Chapter Three, 1 consider Mary Anne Warren’s principle-based

approach to solving the individualism-holism problem. She provides us with principles

 

l0J. Baird Callicott, “The Case Against Moral Pluralism,” Environmental Ethics 12.2 (1990): 109 and 1 10.

based largely on different sources of value, such as sentience and closeness of
relationships. Warren’s work is noteworthy because she tries to account for our
commonsense intuitions regarding both individuals and wholes without subscribing to
pluralism and succumbing to the related worries of relativism. I suggest some revisions
and a reordering of her principles to reflect the conclusions of Chapter Two and argue
that something more is needed at a higher theoretical level. That something more is
provided by Callicott’s Humean concentric circles model discussed in the subsequent
chapters. I also argue in these later chapters that this Humean model is best interpreted in
pluralistic terms, thus implicating Warren’s work in a pluralism she tries to avoid.
Following a brief discussion of John Muir’s and Gifford Pinchot’s competing
accounts of the value and protection of ecosystems, Chapter Four considers more closely
Callicott’s concentric circle approach to environmental ethics, which builds upon Aldo
Leopold’s “land ethic” and David Hume’s sentimentalist ethics. Like Warren, Callicott
defends a monistic account of ethics which he thinks adequately justifies moral
considerability to both individuals and wholes. I argue that Callicott’s approach ends up,
against his wishes, going too far in favoring individual humans and other entities over
ecosystems. To bolster his view, I suggest that we see nonhuman nature not only as an
object or collection of objects, but also as an element of our own self-conception or
understanding. This has the effect of making nonhuman nature more significant in our
moral community than Callicott’s original version seems to allow. Because Callicott‘s
work (as well as my friendly addition) is best interpreted in Humean terms, I conclude the
chapter defending sentimentalist ethics against the charge of relativism. Chapter Five

returns to the issue of pluralism and argues that Callicott’s view, supplemented with

Warren-like principles, is best interpreted as a pluralistic ethic, due in particular to the
incommensurability of the individualistic and holistic elements. Although I have recast
both Warren’s and Callicott’s work, in the end I hope to have moved their project of
accounting for both individualistic and holistic concerns and intuitions further ahead.
Contrary to their stated wishes, however, this means that single correct answers to cases

pitting individuals and wholes against one another will often be lacking.

Ethical Pluralism

A triad of considerations typically motivates the call for pluralism: an
acknowledgment of diversity and the desire for both tolerance and the ability to rationally
criticize competing views. Noting the vast diversity of moral values and beliefs in the
world, pluralists object to the assumption of, for example, utilitarians and Kantians that
there is a single correct answer to each moral dilemma.” They propose instead various
conceptions of ethics which have in common the belief that more than one set of
competing values, principles, theories, or judgments of particular cases can be morally
legitimate, but nevertheless rationally evaluated, whether the conflict is between people
or within a single person. This situation results from both the world being so complex
and our knowledge so finite that ‘we are incapable of decision, and the fact that some good
and important values, such as mercy and justice, may be inconsistent (not mutually
realizable) and incommensurable (not comparable on a single scale or reducible to a

common denominator) with one another.

 

I'On my pluralistic interpretation of Callicott’s and Warren’s work, utilitarianism and Kantianism retain at
least some of their explanatory and prescriptive roles in moral thinking. They cease being, however, all-
encompassing, singly correct moral theories.

It is important to note that a “plurality” of views can figure into monistic theories
in various ways as well without making them pluralistic in any interesting way. Kantians
might be faced with the choice of either telling the truth or harming someone, as in the
oft-cited example of having to decide whether or not to lie to the Gestapo about a Jewish
person hiding in one’s house. Utilitarians might admit that people have conflicting
desires. And followers of W. D. Ross will argue for a non-rankable, often conflicting, set
of prima facie moral principles. Nevertheless, these are all best described as monistic
approaches, as they have in common the aim of eliminating difference with respect to
evaluations of particular cases through the use of some unifying element. The categorical
imperative for Kantians, the principle of utility for utilitarians, and the details of
particular cases and our moral intuitions for Rossians, are supposed to provide one correct
answer to each moral quandary. It is not clear, however, that each of these theories
always succeeds in providing single correct answers. But if not, how is pluralism
different from monism?

A distinction is helpful here. Monism refers to the belief that there is a single
unifying theory or set of principles by which to evaluate particular situations. Absolutism
is the belief that there is one right answer to each of these situations. Although they are
not synonymous, these two concepts most ofien come as a pair. It is possible to have a
monistic theory that leads to no determinate, or unique, answer to particular cases. In
utilitarianism, for example, it is theoretically possible for two actions to result in the same
amount of overall happiness or desire satisfaction, or at least for us to be unsure, due to
the complexity of the world and our limited understanding, which act will lead to the best

outcome. Generally, however, those who are monists are so because they are looking for

a systemized way of evaluating particular cases which will in fact result in one,
unambiguous answer. Callicott, for one, is pushed towards monism not only by worries
of theoretical consistency, but also by the concern that pluralism does not provide specific
enough direction for action. The utilitarian can interpret even the case of two actions
resulting in equal utility in absolutist ways: the one right answer in such a case is to
choose one or the other act by flipping a coin or by some other random method; the
obligation is to do at least one of these acts and doing one will leave no duty unfulfilled.
As Susan Wolf suggests, “In such cases, it seems rational to be indifferent about which
choice gets made—either decision would be (perfectly) fine.”'2 In other cases, monists
might take the existence of more than one “right” answer under a particular ethical theory
as evidence not of rationally irreducible difference, but of the need for better theory or a
redescription of the situation in question. On a pluralistic account, differences of view
will not be so easily unified or reconciled.

It is unquestionable that there exists great diversity of beliefs, values, and
commitments among people throughout the world. From a typical Western perspective,
the outmoded Eskimo practice of killing normal healthy infants or putting their elderly
out on the ice to die sounds horrific. The Hindu prohibition against killing cows even
when people are underfed sounds odd at best. And the fundamentalist Islamic belief that
women should not be heard, and barely seen, in public seems a clear violation of human
dignity and rights. From a different perspective, the Western prohibition against eating

horses and dogs, the insistence on individual freedom, and the never ending accumulation

 

12Wolf, “Two Levels of Pluralism,” 788. See also: Ruth Barcan Marcus, “Moral Dilemmas and
Consistency,” The Journal of Philosophy 77.3 (1980): 126.

of material goods must seem strange, or even immoral. Some differences are fairly
specific, such as disagreements on the relative importance of freedom and equality; others
are best described in terms of world views. Lives built around, for example, the general
belief that good and evil are in constant flux and balance will differ substantially from
those built around the belief that evil can and must be vanquished. The differences will
be manifest in everything from attitudes regarding illness and death to understandings of
predator-prey relationships in nature.

Some of these differences may not, upon reflection, be specifically moral in
character,‘3 but might instead merely reflect customs, manners, or culturally embedded
preferences, as do, for example, expectations regarding gift giving and paying gratuity for
various services. These sorts of differences do not pose particular challenges to us.
Promise keeping, helping those in need, and treating others with respect are, however,
primarily moral concerns. There is, of course, much disagreement about what makes a
claim a moral claim. But whatever it turns out to be, one element is likely to be some
sense of universality, or at least intended universality. Even in a pluralistic account, the
claim that it is right to do x (or wrong to do x, as the case may be) is usually intended to
mean that anyone in a similar enough situation would be right to do x, or one of the
legitimate alternatives. All musi act within limits of morally acceptable behavior, even
though the alternatives may be mutually inconsistent.

The above examples of diverse beliefs and values are in one sense merely

descriptive facts about the world—what John Rawls calls “the fact of pluralism as

 

'31 am using “ethics” and “morality” interchangeably.

lO

such.”” In another sense, phrases like “should not” and “violation of human dignity and
rights” point also to the underlying prescriptive intent. How, though, could it be both
morally acceptable and unacceptable to kill healthy infants, consume certain animals but
not others, or oppress different people on account of their race or gender? What are we to
make of this diversity when it involves claims that are, presumably, advanced as
universal? One obvious choice is to dismiss this difference as the result of our human
cognitive failings and to continue to look for the single correct set of moral truths. Under
this view, at least one side of each dispute is mistaken, even if we are unsure which. A
pragmatic pluralism might be in order here: because we are not (yet) sure who, in some
disputes, is correct, we should allow for the possible legitimacy of each and seek
compromise, flip a coin, or vote. An alternative is to claim that the legitimacy of moral
norms and the systems of which they are a part are relative to particular cultures; to act
morally just means acting according to the norms of one’s society. The choice is between
a unifying monism (with its corresponding tendency to absolutism) on the one hand, and
cultural relativism on the other. Proponents of each camp might recognize the fact of
diversity in the world with respect to moral values and beliefs, but differ in the extent to
which they prefer either to be able to critically evaluate or to be tolerant of these views.
The choice at this point is between the belief that there is a culturally transcendent
evaluative schema and the belief that there are no such objective moral standards by
which to evaluate culturally embedded moral claims.

Monism and relativism are each, however, plagued with problems. The monist is

challenged to defend his or her particular ethical theory from counterexamples pointing to

 

l“John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia U P, 1993 ), 36.

ll

the preferability of an alternative monistic ethic, as is commonly seen in the never-ending
exchange between Kantians and utilitarians. They also must explain why it is that we
seem as far as ever from finding a single, agreed-upon moral theory which yields or
reflects acceptable commonsense evaluations of particular situations." Furthermore, the
notion of tolerance must be limited for monists. At most, it can involve a pragmatic
acknowledgment of our uncertainty and a corresponding prohibition against forcing one’s
views upon (albeit, misguided) others. Alternatively, culturally relative differences might
be dismissed as disagreements about things not specifically moral in character. Genuine
tolerance, in the sense of acknowledging the legitimacy of competing views (even within
a single person), is not an option for the monist.

In contrast, the ethical relativist will say that even distinctly moral claims are
relative to groups, and that claims to universalism are false. Tolerance is, then, to be
expected. However, cultural relativism, understood as the view that any standard of

evaluating moral choices is culturally bound,” suffers from more objectionable problems

 

l5Utilitarians are particularly adept at responding to counter examples (e.g., that utilitarianism would
require us to kill innocent people if this would maximize utility) by either reformulating utilitarianism itself
(as in the shift from act to rule utilitarianism) or by redescribing the situation in question to show that
utilitarianism would not in fact conflict with commonsense views. One could, for example, change the
outcome of a utility calculation by changing the number of people whose interests are significant enough to
be considered (perhaps by changing what “significant enough” means) or by altering the length of time
over which an action’s effects are to be measured. Too often, though, such solutions seem ad hoe—it is
wrong to kill innocent people not because of utilitarian consequences, but because people matter in and of
themselves. Utilitarians might argue that convicting innocent people for crimes in order to appease the
public is wrong because this would not maximize utility—the fear it would cause among the population
would outweigh any potential benefit. But even if this is true, it is only contingently so. Changing
circumstances could justify or even require—contrary to commonsense views—the conviction of innocent
people on utilitarian grounds.

16When I refer to “relativism” or to the “worry of relativism,” l have in mind any extreme version of the
claim that beliefs and values are relative to cultures such that there are no standards by which we can make
cross cultural evaluations. There may be more moderate versions of relativism where many things are
relative to cultures but where there will nonetheless be some means by which beliefs and actions can be
critically appraised within and between groups. Presumably, even the utilitarian will find that many
preferences are culturally relative. This need not mean, however, that there are no standards of

12

than does the typical monistic theory: it fails to make sense of moral progress, it leaves
no room for praise of reformers, it raises serious questions regarding which groups get to
count as the bearers of moral standards, and most importantly, it paralyzes our ability to
rationally criticize practices such as spousal abuse or genocide done within the confines
of a different culture. Furthermore, even the claimed virtue of tolerance is left without
the grounding purported by some relativists: tolerance toward other cultures is the
morally correct attitude only if one’s culture happens to say it is so. Individual relativism
can avoid the problem of which social groups get to count since the importance of
cultures disappears as each individual becomes the locus of moral validity. But for this
very reason, this version of relativism eliminates any hope of rational moral reasoning
and criticism even within cultures.

Ethical pluralism, carefully constructed, is one way out of this impasse: we can
acknowledge diversity while both acting with tolerance and retaining the means to
rationally criticize divergent views. We can respect difference at the levels of evaluations
of particular actions, principles, theories, and even worldviews while thinking there
nonetheless exist some standards by which to evaluate such claims.'7 Good and
important values, principles, and the like, sometimes (perhaps often) conflict in ways

irresolvable by reason alone. Rawls calls this “reasonable pluralism” in contrast to the

 

evaluation—the principle of utility would retain its critical edge. These more moderate versions of
relativism pose no threat to either traditional ethical theories or to the Humean pluralism I am defending
here.

17Notice, this is anti-monistic because it does not seek a single theory or set of principles by which to

evaluate each case (or which reflects prior evaluations of cases), and it is anti-absolutist in that it
anticipates more than one right answer to particular moral dilemmas.

13

mere “fact of pluralism as such.”18 The difficulty is describing pluralism in a way that
allows for a range of possible views, yet sets limits of acceptability for this range, despite
the fact that many of the legitimate possible views will be inconsistent or
incommensurable.

Pluralists need not give up the notion of moral truth, but believe that, as Wolf puts
it, “though there may be a moral truth, the truth will be more complicated than one might
have wished—complicated, specifically, in such a way as to make the answers to certain
questions indeterminate.”l9 In this brief description can be found two different sources
of, or perhaps even two different sorts of, moral pluralism—Wolf acknowledges that
sometimes we are simply mistaken in our beliefs, but argues that this does not mean that
always one of a set of competing views must be wrong.20 An epistemological
interpretation would claim that life is too complex and our knowledge too finite to always
be able to determine single correct answers to moral quandaries. An ontological
interpretation, on the other hand, would have it that sometimes single right answers are
unavailable even in cases where our knowledge is complete. It is not always clear which
is at play in any particular case, and in fact, both may be.

In his seminal defense of pluralism, Isaiah Berlin argues that it is not always due

to our human insufficiencies that rationally irreducible conflict remains, but rather, it is

 

18Rawls, Political Liberalism, 36. I will use “diversity” (or some similar word) where Rawls uses “the fact
of pluralism,” to refer to the descriptive fact of the existence of diverse views and beliefs. 1 will stick with
his term “reasonable pluralism” to refer to the evaluation of such differences as rationally irreducible, and
will use “ethical pluralism” (or simply “pluralism”) to refer to the meta-ethical position that there are no
unifying, or monistic, theories or sets of principles by which we can order or unify all of the reasonable, or
legitimate differences in order to generate singly correct answers to particular cases.

l9Wolf, “Two Levels of Pluralism,” 789.

”ibid, 787.

14

because “not all the supreme values pursued by mankind now and in the past were
necessarily compatible with one another.” For him, a world of objective values exists,
but these values often clash.” This suggests that Berlin thought of pluralism under the
ontological interpretation since the incommensurability or incompatibility of values is
evident with no claimed lack of knowledge. Without deciding here what exactly “moral
truth” means, we can take pluralism to be roughly the view that good and important
values sometimes conflict in rationally irreducible ways, for both the epistemological and
ontological reasons, such that more than one right answer may exist for particular moral
quandaries.22 Moral pluralism thus does not imply that there are no wrong answers, nor
that all the acceptable ones are equally so.23

Two clarifying comments are in order before proceeding further. First, rationally
irreducible difference can occur among beliefs and values of different people or within
the set held by a single person. In either case, the source of conflict may be
epistemological or ontological. This means there could be difference between people due
to their different experiences, psychological predispositions, and cultural settings which
would be reducible if only our understanding were not so limited. Alternatively (though

not necessarily exclusively so), these differences—again, perhaps due to different

 

2|Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal” The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays (New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997), 7-11.

22Moral truth means minimally that “X is morally right” has a truth value, or is not simply an assertion of
personal preference or Kantian hypothetical imperative. The Humean account appealed to later naturalizes
ethics, thereby taking out some of the mystery from the notion of moral claims being objectively true or
false. For Hume, moral claims in such an account come from humans living human lives with particular
needs and desires, and do not exist independent of moral agents’ experiences.

23I am indebted to Martin Benjamin, who, in both class and private conversations, led me to this particular
description of moral pluralism.

15

experiences, predispositions, and the like—may involve inconsistencies or
incommensurabilities of equally good and important values not reducible even in light of
all the relevant information. Similarly, beliefs and values within a single person may be
at odds due to the inability to sort out the more from the less correct or desirable ones, or
to their inherent incompatibility. It is likely that all four of these phenomena occur. In
fact, the intra-personal pluralism (epistemological or ontological) is likely to provide
some of the explanation for the existence of inter-personal pluralism. To the extent that
each of us is unsure of, or comes to different understandings of, the proper arrangement
or balance between mercy and justice, or freedom and equality, differences between
people will likely arise. This would be especially the case between those who do not
share cultural settings or experiences.

The second clarifying point has to do with the “levels” of moral thinking at which
differences could generate pluralism. We might sometimes talk of pluralism as existing,
or being located, at the level of world views, theories, principles, or the like. We may
have, for instance, a variety of principles (both within and between people), unordered by
a covering theory with which we can evaluate particular cases. This is an example of
moral pluralism (or an interesting example) on my description only if this arrangement
leads to diverse judgments about particular cases. Similarly, differences at the level of
moral theory could lead to pluralism if this difference is rationally irreducible and would
result in different judgments of particular cases, whether through divergent sets of
principles or not. The source of pluralism could also be located right at the level of moral
intuitions regarding particular cases quite independent of articulated principles or theory.

Such difference would likely be traceable to (perhaps very unarticulated) differences of

16

worldview, religion, etc., which impact one’s beliefs regarding, for example, sources of
value in the world. Pluralism, then, could occur in various ways, have different sources,
and can be both intra- or inter-personal.

Possible objections to pluralism include the claims that it is not well motivated or
needed, and that it leads to unwanted consequences. I will discuss the following
criticisms: (a) the argument in favor of pluralism from the existence of moral dilemmas
is seriously flawed, (b) having not yet found the one right monistic moral theory does not
mean that it does not exist, (c) diversity of moral beliefs and values can be accounted for
without pluralism, and (d) pluralism leads to relativism.

It may be argued first that a major motivation for pluralism—the existence of
moral dilemmas—is fatally flawed. “Moral dilemmas” refers here to rationally
irresolvable moral conflicts where choosing any option means leaving the remaining
option(s) wrongly undone. The existence of such conflicts, the pluralist claims, points to
differences of values and beliefs that are unresolvable, or un-orderable, by a single
unifying theory or set of principles. Others, though, have argued that such dilemmas
cannot exist because we are obligated to do only that which it is possible to do, and it is
impossible to do both of a pair of incompatible actions. Hence, this ground for moral
pluralism looks blocked.

An example of a possible moral dilemma is suggested (though in the end,
rejected) by Alan Donagan: In Judges 11, Jephthah promises to God that he will sacrifice
the first living creature he sees upon returning from battle, but to his horror his daughter
runs out to greet him before he sees any of his livestock. Jephthah realizes that he would

be doing wrong whether he kills his daughter to fulfill a promise to God or refrains from

17

killing her, thereby breaking his promise to God.24 Examples more common to our own
lives include making (even in good faith) two promises only to find out that they cannot
both be fulfilled. In such circumstances, choices, it is sometimes said, are not made
without ethical remainder. This is the case not only when the choices are equal in moral
importance, but also when one act seems to be more strongly required. Even in this latter
case, failing to do at least one of the actions amounts to at least one of our duties
remaining wrongly unfulfilled.

There as been much debate regarding the existence of moral dilemmas. Some
take the guilt we often feel when we are unable to fulfill two jointly unfulfillable duties as
confirmation of the existence of such dilemmas. Pluralists then sometimes use the
existence of moral dilemmas as evidence against monistic theories since such theories
typically promise (at least implicitly) single correct answers to moral quandaries. There
are at least three options here: either (a) moral dilemmas exist and we should feel guilty,
(b) moral dilemmas exist but we should not (or need not) feel guilty, or (c) moral
dilemmas do not exist.

It has been suggested in favor of option (c) that exception clauses can be added to
principles or that principles can be rank ordered to resolve any apparent dilemmas. Ruth
Barcan Marcus rejects these two possibilities: “What is incredible in such solutions is the
supposition that we could arrive at a complete set of rules, priorities, or qualifications

which would, in every possible case, unequivocally mandate a single course of action.”25

 

24Alan Donagan, “Moral Dilemmas, Genuine and Spurious: A Comparative Anatomy,” Ethics 104.1
(1993): 15-16. Donagan does not think that genuine moral dilemmas exist.

25Marcus, “Moral Dilemmas and Consistency,” 124.

18

Her reaction seems on target—it is unlikely that principles, much less the values the
principles embody, such as liberty, equality, beneficence, and mercy, can be so neatly
arranged or specifically tailored as to avoid what appear to be dilemmas. A second way
of supporting option (c)’s rejection of moral dilemmas is to conclude that contradictory
obligations are “an indispensable sign that a particular theory is defective,” rather than a
sign of actual moral dilemmas.26 This, however, seems to be more of an assertion than an
argument. There is no way, short of a monist theory eliminating what seem to be moral
dilemmas, to know if the problem resides in the theories we construct or in the world. It
is not clear that either side has the edge here, though the lack of an agreed upon order and
fiirther specification of principles, as well as the existence of feelings of guilt regardless
of which option is chosen point to the existence of moral dilemmas.

The more serious objection to the argument from moral dilemmas to pluralism
involves the philosophical adage that “ought implies can.” We cannot be obligated to do
the impossible, which in this case would be to fulfill two mutually exclusive or
inconsistent duties. Therefore, any guilt we feel upon making a choice in such a situation
is needless—we can feel guilty, but we are not in fact guilty of a wrong. I take this
objection to be damaging. There are cases where we should feel guilty when we fail to
uphold two mutually exclusive duties, but these are cases in which the dilemma exists
because of some prior wrong we committed. This occurs when we, for example,
knowingly promise both to our children to spend Saturday playing ball with them and to
our boss that we will come into work that day. The wrong lies, however, not so much in

our leaving undone something we were unable to do, but in promising to do something

 

26Donagan, “Moral Dilemmas, Genuine and Spurious: A Comparative Anatomy,” 13.

19

we knew we could not do. In situations where we are confronted with, but are not
responsible for, what appear to be dilemmas, the ought implies can adage suggests that if
we do our best and fulfill the more weighty of the two duties, we are guilty of no wrong.
In cases when the duties are equal in weight, we should use some fair (perhaps random)
decision procedure to make the choice. In either case, although we might have a duty to
do two acts individually, we do not have a duty to fulfill the conjoined duties if such
would be impossible. In this way, they are like prima facie duties.27

The non-existence of faultless moral dilemmas, however, does not entail monism
or absolutism. It may be true that moral dilemmas do not exist where this means that by
doing only one of two (or more) mutually inconsistent actions, each of which is one’s
duty, one duty remains wrongly unfulfilled. Moral dilemmas of a more general sort,
however, surely do exist and do suggest pluralism. Even if we cannot be held morally
accountable for not fulfilling both of a pair of inconsistent duties, it may sometimes be
that prior to a decision either option would have been the correct choice. Monism, or
more precisely, the aim of absolutism which motivates monism, would have it that if this
were the case, it would be the exception rather than the rule, and that problems with our
theories would be to blame. A Kantian theory which tells us never to lie but always to
protect the innocent should be altered to avoid leading to a dilemma. In contrast, the
pluralist insists that rationally irreducible conflicts, both between people and within single

persons, is a permanent and ubiquitous feature of our world. The existence of moral

 

27It is true that commonsense morality would have us try to make amends to the party whose interests went
unfulfilled due to our choosing the other of two options in an apparent dilemma. However, this is
generally the case where we are, or might appear to be, at fault in the origin of the apparent dilemma. In
other cases, the need to make amends is due to the general prescription to help those in need, especially
those close to us, who usually happen to also be those most effected by our daily choices.

20

dilemmas of this more general sort (hereafter, “moral quandaries”) is what the pluralist
needs, not moral dilemmas in which there is the possibility of ethical remainder.

In summary, then, on the narrow view of moral dilemmas, option (c), which
denies the existence of the dilemmas, seems correct. On the more general (and
commonsense) definition of moral dilemmas (what we are now calling “moral
quandaries”), option (a) is correct when the situation is due to our own wrongdoing, and
option (b) is correct when we are blameless—guilt is an appropriate response when, and
only when, a moral dilemma exists due to some fault of our own. Eliminating moral
dilemmas in the narrow sense does not, I have argued, pose a problem for the necessity of
pluralism, while the existence of moral quandaries is a strike against moral monism.

A second complaint regarding the lack of motivation for pluralism points out that
the fact that we have not yet found the one right monistic theory does not entail its
nonexistence. No human knowledge is complete; perhaps we have not yet been clever
enough or worked hard enough to find what we are looking for. This may well be the
case, but given the inability thus far of any particular monistic approach to win the day,
we should at least explore the option of pluralism. The monistic theories most widely
accepted contain many important insights, and any pluralistic theory ought to take
seriously what we have learned from the likes of Kantian, utilitarian, religious, and care
ethics, recognizing, however, that there are many inconsistencies between them. Of
course, we should seek theoretical consistency where possible, and it might end up that a
monistic theory will emerge through the struggle to arrive at a coherent pluralistic
account as the inconsistencies are worked out; pluralism would turn out to have arisen

from epistemological and not ontological sources. But aiming specifically to reduce all

21

difference to a single unifying theory has so far been a dead end.

One might object additionally that pluralism is not needed because diversity can
be accepted in monistic theories without always resorting to the claim that at least one of
a set of competing views is wrong. In a different context, Rachels argues that it often
only appears that moral views diverge across cultures. The contexts in which people live
and differences in non-moral beliefs are the cause of this illusion. Eskimo infanticide, for
example, looks much less inconsistent with Western moral views once we note the
harshness of their environment and real difficulty of providing enough food for additional
children. Eskimo people do not in fact care less for each other or think less of human life
and suffering. Similarly, the Hindu prohibition against killing and eating cows makes
moral sense from any perspective once it is realized that for them these cows may be
reincarnated relatives.28 Pluralism, then, is not needed—moral differences are reducible
to religious, metaphysical, or situational differences.

Rachels appears to be largely right about these cases, but it seems likely that there
are others that involve differences not so easily reducible. Consider for instance Berlin’s
examples of freedom and equality, and Roman vs. Christian virtues. In the first case, we
are faced with conflict between two primary values, and as such, our worries about how
to balance them cannot, on the face of it, be reducible to simpler elements. Furthermore,

conflicts regarding primary values such as these can occur within a single person,

 

28James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy 3rd ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1999), 27-29. Rachels
is not here arguing against pluralism, but against cultural relativism. His examples demonstrate a
significant overlap of values between cultures despite what looks initially to be evidence that even
judgments regarding such serious matters as taking another’s life are relative to culture. The pluralists can
take from Rachels’ discussion the lesson that there are enough shared values to provide common ground by
which to criticize other views.

22

severely limiting Rachels’ approach which points out that some apparent moral
disagreement disappear as we note situational differences or differences in nonmoral
belief. In the case involving Roman and Christian virtues—one emphasizing courage and
justice and the other compassion and mercy—we find not only inconsistent sets, but
alternative rankings of virtues. This differs from Rachels’ examples where moral
disagreement disappears once the relevant situations are better described.

The differences between Roman and Christian virtues might, though, be traceable
to different religious or metaphysical views. But locating the source of a moral
disagreement in religious or metaphysical beliefs does not eliminate the moral
disagreement. We are still faced with a moral conflict: we must still decide what we
ought to do or what kind of people we wish to be. It is not that these different groups of
people share moral views but differ simply with respect to religious and metaphysical
views, but that these nonmoral beliefs directly impact, or are intertwined with, the moral
views. For instance, belief in a particular image of, and the human relationship with God
leads to valuing mercy rather than military courage. So, while it might be true that if
Berlin’s Romans and Christians had shared religious and metaphysical beliefs they would
have shared moral views, it is also true that these religious and metaphysical differences
made it such that they did not in‘fact share moral views. Furthermore, unlike the case of
most factual disagreements, because there is often no non-question begging way of
determining the truth of the competing religious and metaphysical views, the related
moral views remain entrenched. It is also worth noting that although a political solution
or a compromise can often be found, in many cases of moral disagreement these

possibilities do not by themselves resolve the moral questions.

Lastly, a very different concern (though one at the heart of monistic thinking) is
whether explicitly seeking to accommodate difference would lead to an unwanted
relativism. After all, what kind of standard by which to evaluate moral claims could
possibly exist in light of the diversity of beliefs and values? If we pick some values over
others, it seems that we are simply favoring one group’s views over another’s. Berlin’s
answer is that while there is significant difference of belief and values, this difference has
limitations due to the embeddedness of beliefs and values in specific human societies:
“There are, if not universal values, at any rate a minimum without which societies could
scarcely survive;” most generally, we must “avoid extremes of suffering.”29 James
Rachels argues similarly, saying that every culture must care for its young, discourage
lying, and limit homicide: “Not every rule can vary from society to society.”30 Common
standards by which we can make moral evaluations across cultures exist, however
loosely, even amid difference. The worry that pluralism leads to an unwanted relativism
may always remain in the background. Berlin’s and Rachel’s comments do, however, go
along way to minimizing these concerns. The work here in the second and third chapters
goes further by demonstrating how at least some limits can be set to the range of
legitimate moral claims.

Pluralism, then, is an attempt to respond to the fact of rationally irresolvable
differences of beliefs and values, and the desire both for tolerance and the ability to
rationally evaluate competing claims. This rationally irresolvable difference can occur

both within and between persons and is the result of either (or both) epistemological and

 

29Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal,” 14-15.

3ORachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 29-30.

24

ontological causes. The differences in question can be located at different levels of moral
thinking—theory, worldviews, etc.—though to be moral pluralism there must result
differences in evaluations of particular cases. Furthermore, pluralism does not depend
upon the existence of moral dilemmas where this means that one does wrong regardless
of which of two (or more) conflicting or mutually exclusive duties one completes. Nor,
does it reduce to relativism despite taking difference seriously. Finally, it does not
become monistic or absolutist when some moral disagreements are traceable to religious

or metaphysical differences.

Individualism and Holism

If, as many environmentalists hope, things such as ecosystems and species turn
out to be morally considerable, a pluralistic account might prove useful as a way of
avoiding Sagoff‘s dilemma that either wholes or individuals get to count morally.31 Lest
this seem like merely an intellectualist dispute between individualists and holists,
consider the decades old, and still unresolved case of mountain goats in the Olympic
Peninsula of Washington state. Two to three hundred non-indigenous mountain goats
have been living in the relatively isolated Olympic mountains since being introduced in

the 1920's, threatening native plant species—some of which live only there—and causing

 

31Moral pluralism as described in the previous section might be the correct way of thinking about ethics in
general even if the conflicting sources of value behind individualism and holism do not both turn out to be
legitimate. The individualism-holism conflict is just one potential source of unresolvable moral difference.
Or to put it another way, if pluralism is the right way to think about ethics in general, perhaps it would
direct us to a new and useful way of thinking about the individualism—holism problem.

25

serious soil erosion.32 Ideally, the goats could be caught alive and relocated to their native
habitat of the nearby Cascade Range or Rockies or sterilized so the problem would
gradually run itself out. However, because of the extreme terrain of the Olympic
Mountains and the lack of a sterilization program which would remove enough of the
animals, the only viable way of protecting the environment is to remove the goats by
killing them. Despite the harshness of this solution, many environmentalists prefer it to
leaving the goats alone, especially since there are many mountain goats in other areas of
the West. Predictably, animal welfarists object to anything that would significantly harm
the goats.33

Perhaps a resolution could be found without invoking pluralism. After all, not all
individualistic perspectives would argue for leaving the goats alone. Gary Varner has
argued that hunting is acceptable on an animal welfarist approach when not hunting
would lead to worse suffering for the animals involved.34 Because natural predators have

been extirpated from much of the contiguous United States, deer hunting, for example,

 

32There appears to be some uncertainty as to the extent of damage to the plants and whether the goats are
the primary culprits. The specifics of the case matter less, however, than does the possibility that the case
suggests: there will be times when individualistic and holistic concerns collide. With this in mind, 1 will
proceed with the assumption that the goats are the primary cause of the environmental damage and that the
plants in question are in fact endangered by the goats.

33See for example: “Goats Not Native to Park,” Vancouver (WA) The Columbian, 23 July 2000, available
from Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, online data-base, lntemet; Mike Black Bothell, “Olympic National
Park Animals—Special-Permit Hunt of Mountain Goats Would Benefit Many Interests,” The Seattle
Times, 1 February 1997, Letters to the Editor, available from Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, online data-
base, lntemet; “Opposition Mounts to Killing Goats,” Vancouver (WA) The Columbian, 24 July 1995,
available from Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, online data-base, lntemet; “Mountain Goat Foes, Friends
Lock Horns in Hearing,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 4 May 1995, available from Lexis-Nexis Academic
Universe, online data-base, lntemet.

34Gary E. Varner, “Can Animal Rights Activists Be Environmentalists?” People, Penguins, and Plastic

Trees: Basic Issues in Environmental Ethics 2"d ed., ed. Christine Pierce and Donald VanDeVeer
(Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1995) 254-73.

26

prevents that population from reaching unsustainable levels leading to slow and painful
starvation for tens of thousands of the animals each year. Hunting in this case is less
harmful than is not hunting in terms of the welfare of individual animals. Those who die
generally do so much more quickly and with much less pain, and those who live do so
with much less hunger. Varner points out that this would be good from an
environmentalist perspective also since the controlled deer population would be less
destructive to the plants and trees upon which they feed. The individualistic and holistic
perspectives converge, then, on Varner’s view. But even if he is right with respect to deer
herds, he would likely admit that such convergence is unlikely in the mountain goat case:
doing nothing seems clearly best for the goats but clearly not so for the plants (especially
since, mountain goats do not reach their ecosystem’s carrying capacity as quickly as do
deer).

An individualistic approach that pits individual plants, rather than endangered
species of plants, against individual goats would also push in the direction of protecting
the animals. lndividualistic approaches rely on certain characteristics only individuals
possess, such as having interests and preferences, to explain why it is that these things are
morally considerable. Animals such as goats have such characteristics; plants do not. A
“life-ethic,” which considers all individual living entities as morally considerable due
simply to their being alive would also have difficulty favoring the plants over the goats.
To be coherent, life accounts must make room for the acceptability of plant eaters eating
plants (and, for that matter, meat eaters eating meat), and as herbivores the goats are
doing nothing contrary to a life-ethic which would justify their removal (by killing) from

that ecosystem.

27

Furthermore, traditional individualistic and anthropocentric arguments, such as
those emphasizing the aesthetic or scientific usefulness of the threatened plants, are seen
by many environmental philosophers as too fragile a ground for something so important
as protecting nature. In such arguments it is human interests that get to count as the
relevant reasons for or against a particular action, and too often short term financial
interests win the day to the detriment of the environment. Often this is due to the
difficulty of comparing the quantifiable (in dollars) business interests with the not so
easily quantifiable aesthetic or scientific concerns. Many environmentalists are driven in
addition by the conviction that even if anthropocentric arguments justify significant
protection of nature, it is because nature has value in and of itself that it should be
protected. Because the individualist arguments fail to account for such intuitions, and in
this case fail to justify the removal of the goats, environmentalists often appeal to the
value of the endangered plant species or damaged ecosystems to make their case. It is
worth noting that in addition to the theoretical impasse, the entrenchment of individualists
and holists sometimes prevents them from reaching a mutually acceptable practical
resolution in cases of conflict. In the mountain goat example, neither side feels it can
back down because each sees the other view as seriously wrong, leaving little room for
compromise. ‘

If pluralism is the right way to think about ethics, and the individualism-holism
problem in particular, our approach as theorists and people concerned about real-world
problems is likely to differ from that of traditional ethicists seeking absolutist monistic
theories. Bryan Norton, arguing against monism in environmental ethics, distinguishes

between an applied and a practical approach to doing ethics. The former favors

28

 

developing a theory first and then bringing it to bear upon practical moral questions. In
contrast to this top-down way of doing ethics, the practical approach focuses on real
world problems using theory only as a tool to sort out relevant issues. Theory and
principles are generated from particular evaluations, not prior to them. Moral monism
and the applied approach are typically found together—theorists look for the one correct
moral theory with the expectation that it will provide unambiguous answers to particular
cases. But monists are wrong, Norton says, to think that a single theory can generate all
of our human obligations to each other and to the rest of nature. We need a pluralism at
least at the level of principles, drawing from careful work with cases, not derived a priori
and then simply applied.35

Monists, of course, need not be as oriented towards the top-down approach as
Norton supposes. They could embrace some sort of reflective equilibrium, moving
between evaluations of particular cases, principles, and theory in order to get theory and
principles that most accurately cohere with our (similarly considered) commonsense
moral intuitions. In fact, the monist’s claim that apparent moral dilemmas point to
needed changes in our theories is an example of their thinking “upward” from cases to
theory. There is, however, some truth to Norton’s description: seekers of singly correct,
unifying theories do tend in the direction of applying theory in a top-down fashion.
Reflective equilibrium might be how we arrive at the correct moral theory, but once we
have it, it could presumably generate correct answers to each moral quandary.

Pluralism pushes us more firmly towards a model of reflective equilibrium in

 

3SBryan G. Norton, “Integration or Reduction: Two Approaches to Environmental Values,”
Environmental Pragmatism, ed. Andrew Light and Eric Katz (London: Routledge, 1996) 107-108.

29

which the goal is not to eventually find the single right moral theory which we could then
apply. Rather, pluralism becomes, as Martin Benjamin has suggested, one of the
elements which “must be included among our background beliefs and theories in wide
reflective equilibrium”—as Rawls had said, reasonable pluralism is a permanent feature
of free societies.36 It is also a feature within individual minds. So unlike the monists’ use
of reflective equilibrium, an appreciation of rationally irreducible difference is, for
pluralists, an assumption one brings to the process.

In practice, this means a vastly more complex job for ethicists. We must continue
to look for consistency without too quickly assuming that inconsistency implies problems
with our principles or theories, especially where the conflicting intuitions, beliefs, and
values run deep. In the mountain goat case, we should not expect to be able to simply
apply one or the other approach—individualistic or holistic—in order to arrive at the one
correct answer. If the environmentalists’ position is one of seeing ecosystems and species
as morally considerable while not giving up on the same attribution for individual people
and nonhuman animals, perhaps they should resist a single-minded holism (and vice versa
for individualists). Furthermore, pluralism suggests a strategy of compromise when faced
with moral disagreement. This does not mean that one must sacrifice one’s integrity, but
it does mean that one should make an effort to see both sides of a dispute as potentially
legitimate—putting oneself, as much as is possible, in the other’s shoes—thereby making

compromise morally, not just pragmatically, acceptable.37

 

36Martin Benjamin, “Between Subway and Spaceship: Practical Ethics at the Outset of the Twenty-first
Century,” Hastings Center Report (July-August 2001) 27.

37See: Martin Benjamin, Splitting the Difference: Compromise and Integrity in Ethics and Politics
(Lawrence, KS: U P of Kansas, 1990).

30

Cases like that of the mountain goats pose a serious challenge to anyone wishing
to bridge the gap between the two general approaches of individualistic (though not
necessarily atomistic) and holistic ethics in a way that takes each seriously. (Though this
is not to insist at this stage that each perspective is correct—perhaps an individualistic
account alone, for example, could be shown to sufficiently account for environmentalists’
intuitions.) The problem as stated is that individualist approaches rely on criteria for
moral considerability that the sorts of things environmentalists want to protect—-—species
and ecosystems—do not possess; but, many of us are committed to moral standing for
both individual people and animals and ecosystems.

Pluralism suggests a cautious tolerance rather than blind acceptance; it does not
contend that any view is just as good as any other. At this point, I have shown that
pluralism is a plausible way to think about ethics and have responded to several broad
arguments against it. What is needed now to pursue a pluralistic ethic to address the
individualism-holism problem is a more developed theory, set of principles, or
framework by which to organize our thinking regarding what sorts of things can count as
reasons for and against moral claims. What is it about being human, for example, that
requires us to respond to each other in certain ways, allowing for a variety of possible
actions but nevertheless setting limits as Berlin had suggested? What is it about being a
nonhuman animal or an ecosystem that is relevant to how we can interact with them? For
such an account to be acceptable, it must cohere with our common sense ethical views, be
as internally consistency as possible (while not insisting upon absolute consistency), and
conform with our general world-view (it should allow that normal adult humans have free

will and its claims should fit with those of evolutionary theory, for example). Answers to

31

some of these issues push us from having made pluralism theoretically plausible towards
creating a useful and substantive pluralistic environmental ethic. This is the aim of the

subsequent chapters.

32

CHAPTER 2

INDIVIDUAL ENTITIES AND MORAL CONSIDERABILITY

Introduction

If a pluralistic theory is to lead to a better understanding of the
individualism—holism problem, it must be able to narrow the range of possible beliefs and
values to avoid an unwanted relativism. It cannot simply assert that all individual
organisms and ecosystems have moral standing. Knowing why things have standing will
likely impact the range and significance of various obligations we moral agents have
towards them. This chapter seeks to narrow the field of candidates for properties
conferring moral status to individuals. Contemporary work in philosophy regarding the
moral status of nonhuman animals provides many insights related to this project.

Prior to the publication of Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation in 1975, few people
questioned the moral acceptability of using nonhuman animalsl for food, research,
clothing, or entertainment. There had always been some prohibition against cruelty to
animals, but this was accompanied by little discussion as to why this was so. Aquinas
and Kant had each argued that what made cruelty to animals wrong was not that it
violated the integrity, rights, or interests of animals, but that it might make the person
involved more likely to harm other people. Even when the welfare of animals themselves

was considered, the use of animals for our benefit was easily justified by appealing to our

 

1F or simplicity I will often use the word “animal” to refer to non-human animals, though this is not meant
to prejudice the case in favor of a morally significant distinction between humans and other animals.

33

human interests and superior moral worth.2 Since Singer’s influential book, traditional
views regarding our relationship with animals have faced serious questioning. Nearly
everyone now agrees that causing unnecessary suffering to animals is a wrong against the
animals themselves, though this often amounts simply to a commonsense belief that
animals can suffer" and that there is a primafacie moral prohibition against causing
suffering.‘

Even research psychologists, long cited by animal-welfare activists as among the
most egregious abusers of animals, have come to recognize the moral prohibition against
causing unnecessary pain to their animals subjects. The American Psychological
Association’s (APA) guidelines for animal research, for example, state that only those
research procedures which “minimize discomfort to the animal should be used,” that “the
scientific purpose of the research should be of sufficient potential to justify the use of

animals,” and that non-animal alternatives should be used whenever possible. Clearly the

 

2It is noteworthy that the traditionally favored term “cruelty” is more of a description of the actor’s
motivation or state of mind than it is of the particular harm caused (people can act cruelly with unintended
good results, for example), indicating an overwhelming preoccupation with the human side of the
human—animal relationship.

3The commonsense belief that animals can feel pain comes, no doubt, from living with animals and seeing
that they react in ways similar to us to stimuli which cause us pain—they cry out, engage in avoidance
behavior, and the like. Sharing similar‘neurological hardware and a common evolutionary heritage are
further reasons to believe that they, unlike perhaps computers prograrned to respond to certain stimuli,
share some important experiences with us: they live subjective lives in which pain is possible. In fact, it is
the belief that some animals are quite like us that drives not only arguments against but for things like
animal research: it is only because some animals are very much like us that we can extrapolate what we
learn about them to ourselves, including what is gained in pain (both physical and emotional) studies by
psychologists. For an argument dismissing animal pain, see Peter Harrison “Do Animals Feel Pain?”
Philosophy 66 (1991).

4'Although positive states such as enjoyment and contentment are importantly related to the negative states
of pain and suffering and are thus relevant moral considerations, suffering seems to be the most
immediately relevant: although a life high in things such as pleasure is likely to be one low in suffering, a
moral proscription against causing harm seems primafacie weightier than a moral prescription to assist in
the finding of pleasure. It is for this reason that 1 will usually talk here of suffering and banning rather
than of pleasure and aiding.

34

APA, which generally supports animal experimentation, does not think the justification
for animal research lies in the fact that animals do not suffer; in fact, they declare that
“psychologists should act on the assumption that procedures that would produce pain in
humans would also do so in other animals.”5

The dispute between researchers and abolitionists is not, then, about whether or
not animals can feel pain, nor whether or when it is morally acceptable to cause pain.
Rather, the debate typically revolves around the relative value of humans and animals and
the importance of particular human and animal interests, organized on some scale of
trivial to vital. The first of these issues can be described in terms of moral considerability
or intrinsic value.‘5 Are there reasons for thinking, for example, that humans “count”
more than do animals in moral deliberation? The second issue involves the weighing of
competing particular interests, such as the need for food and shelter. These two concerns
are intimately connected. If, for example, humans are more morally considerable than are
animals, when it comes to weighing competing interests humans would enjoy an
advantage at the outset such that less vital human needs could outweigh more vital animal
needs.

In this chapter, I will argue that of the plausible candidates for properties

conferring moral considerability to individual entities—consciousness, self-consciousness

 

5 American Psychological Association, “Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in the Care and Use of Animals,”

hgtp://www.apa.org[science/ang1_r_ide.html

68y “moral considerability” I mean the extent to which one “counts” in and of oneself, independent of
one’s usefulness to others, in moral deliberation. This is often tightly tied to the notion of intrinsic value,
which can either be defined similarly or taken to be that which makes someone or something morally
considerable. Because the notion of intrinsic value is in need of justification, in either usage, to the same
extent that is moral considerability—an unexplained notion of intrinsic value is not particularly useful as an
explanation or justification for moral considerability—I will use them interchangeably unless otherwise
noted.

35

or self-awareness, rationality, the ability to use language, autonomy, moral agency, the
ability to feel pain, and the having of interests or preferences—having experiential
interests including the ability to feel pain is the most important. (The question of the
moral considerability of wholes will be discussed in later chapters.) To get clear on this
claim I will begin by contrasting Singer’s utilitarian and Tom Regan’s rights-based
approaches to animal welfare. Their theories overlap in a way I find particularly useful.
Next, I will discuss the claim that being alive confers value or moral considerability.
Although I am sympathetic to this view, the difficulties with it are serious enough that it
should play a minimal role, if any, in moral reasoning, perhaps only when considering the
differences between non-experiential living entities and inanimate objects. Lastly, I will
argue that although things such as autonomy and seeing oneself as a self are relevant to
judgments regarding moral considerability and the vitalness of interests, they do not
directly confer moral considerability to their bearers. Instead, they indicate the possession
of greater awareness, sensitivity, and the like, which give the entity to which they belong
more interests, or interests that can be thwarted or ftuthered to a greater extent, than those
without these characteristics.

In terms of the larger project of developing a Humean pluralistic environmental
ethic, the claims developed in this chapter suggest certain limits to the range of acceptable
alternative moral positions with respect to individual entities. This is important because
any acceptable pluralism must not entail the possibilities that any and every moral belief

or value is equally legitimate.

36

Singer, Regan, and Interests

Some notion of interests, understood in terms of a “trivial-to-vital” continuum,
often plays a central role in our thinking about human-human conflicts. For example, a
sick or injured person generally has a greater right to a doctor’s time than does a healthy
person seeking a general exam.7 The same is true when it comes to our interactions with
animals. The APA would have scientists engaged in animal research weigh the costs to
the animals against the benefits to us. It would be good, then, to have some way of
marking off vital fiom trivial interests.8 To a large extent, this would involve empirically
finding out what interests various beings have and how central they are to their lives and
well-being. This would likely change with the situation. Factory farming, which seems
to clearly violate the vital needs of animals, would not be, all else being equal, justified in
terms of satisfying Americans’ interest in eating meat. Less intensive farming goes
further towards an acceptable balance, while sustainable hunting of non-domesticated
animals by Eskimos might fair even better if the animals are killed quickly. In any case,
it is difficult to know with any precision what would count as vital or trivial for all the
various animals. Proceeding by developing a list of human and animal interests sorted
according to rough calculations of vitalness would be, to say the least, an immense

undertaking. Fortunately, the notion of trivial-to-vital interests can work at a fairly

 

7This is not to say that ethics is only about resolving conflicts. But considerations of interests are on the
table even when wondering specifically about duties or virtues. For example, a duty to keep one’s
promises can only make sense if doing so generally furthers people’s interests.

”There are, of course, lots of other concerns. We have obligations due specifically to our actions, such as
in promise making; obligations due to familial relationships; and obligations to society in general. Further,
speaking of interests does not commit us to thinking along utilitarian lines. It is hard to imagine what a
duty to keep a promise—a typical deontology example—would mean if no one had an interest in promises
being kept. A principlist approach such as W. D. Ross’s also presumably involves some weighing of
concerns, desires, wants and needs (all of which I have been calling “interests”).

37

commonsensical level, enabling us to set this issue aside and examine that of moral
considerability. There are, after all, plenty of cases in which what is trivial and vital are
clear.9 As scientists learn more about the types of animals and the conditions for their
welfare, these insights can be brought to bear on our moral reasoning.

To make the best moral judgments possible, it would be useful to know which
entities have moral standing in the sense that moral agents must take their well-being into
account, and how much so. By itself, the trivial-to-vital continuum is not terribly useful
in making practical decisions. As mentioned, this distinction means something wholly
different in practice if there were a hierarchy of morally considerable beings as opposed
to parity of moral worth between, say, humans and the farm and research animals we are
most often concerned with. Depending upon what gives a being moral standing, a
hierarchy of moral considerability might cut across species lines. It might turn out, for
example, that human infants do not enjoy the same level of moral considerability as their
adult counterparts. This could impact how we rank the importance of various sorts of
medical research in which animals are used: work benefiting infants may have difficulty
overcoming the moral prohibition against causing nonhuman research subjects harm.

What about a being makes it such that we moral agents must provide sufficient
reasons in order to justly treat it as a means to our own ends? As mentioned, there are a
variety of plausible candidates: consciousness, self-consciousness or self-awareness,
rationality, the ability to use language, autonomy, moral agency, the ability to feel pain,

and the having of interests or preferences. Perhaps there are others, but these come to

 

9Martin Benjamin makes this point in “Ethics and Animal Consciousness,” Social Ethics 2.... ed. ed.
Thomas A. Mappes and Jane S. Zembat (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982), 498.

38

mind as the most obviously relevant given both traditional ethical theory and
commonsense moral beliefs. We should be cautious not to be too quick in picking out
pain and the ability to feel it as the only relevant considerations on the assumption that
pain is always a harm to be avoided or that all harm is somehow reducible to pain. There
are likely different ways in which one can be harmed, not all of which involve pain, cases
of pain which are not harm,'0 and complex interactions between feeling pain and other
mental properties or characteristics such as self-awareness and rationality.” Second, we
might wonder which of the proposed morally relevant characteristics best justify
commonsense intuitions such as that all entities are not equally morally considerable.
Any view which made mosquitos, or even frogs, equally morally considerable with cats
or dogs would be immediately suspect.

Peter Singer is among those who emphasize suffering (and its corresponding
opposites of happiness, pleasure, and well-being) as the most central aspect of morality.
As a utilitarian, he thinks that actions should be evaluated according to their
consequences, or more specifically, according to the extent to which they cause suffering
or well-being. Sentience is the mark of a morally considerable being. What sets Singer’s

work apart from many traditional utilitarians is the effort he has made to argue that

 

”Pain which helps its bearer to avoid bodily damage or leads to mental or emotional maturity (as with
disciplinary action) is not generally a harm.

llAs we think about these issues, it is important to keep in mind that our understanding of how, and to what
extent, these suggested characteristics play a role in nonhuman life is limited by what we can experience as
humans. Although introspection reveals a connection between pain and consciousness in our own lives, it
has limited utility with respect to others, especially when it comes to animals we think are not conscious.
Drawing conclusions about other humans is one thing, but we find ourselves on increasingly shaky ground
as we move to those not significantly structurally or behaviorally like us. It is understandably, then, that
much of what we think about various characteristics beings might possess and their connection to moral

considerability comes from thinking about our own situation.

39

because some animals are sentient, they should be included in our moral community.
Ignoring this conclusion amounts to “speciesism,” which, like sexism or racism, refers to
arbitrarily preferring members of one’s own group over those of others in moral
deliberation. There are many differences between animals and humans which might set
them apart, including levels of intelligence, kinds of social unions formed, and degrees of
autonomy. But none of these mark off humans as special, as all cut across species lines.
And in any case, while these characteristics might be important in thinking about how a
being might be helped or hindered by an action, sentience is that which makes it possible
for one to be helped or hindered. It alone establishes, for Singer, a sort of base line above
which all have equal moral standing.12

Being morally considerable means, for Singer, getting to count in a sort of cost-
benefit analysis aimed at maximizing the good in the world, where the good is happiness,
pleasure, or well-being.13 But, as Tom Regan points out, this cannot mean that all who
share the morally relevant characteristic of sentience should be, in the end, treated the
same, or even the same with respect to their differing needs and desires. UtilitarianiSm
cannot guarantee equal treatment in this sense because cases could arise where equal
treatment does not maximize utility, the ultimate moral principle for utilitarianism. So,
equal “treatment” must, for Singer, refer rather to each sentient being counting equally at

the outset, or at the beginning of the utilitarian calculus, and not with respect to the

 

l2See: Peter Singer, “Animal Liberation,” Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical
Ecology, eds., Michael E. Zimmerman, et a1 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993), 22-32; Singer,
Animal Liberation 2"“ ed. (New York: Avon Books, 1990).

l3Singer is aware of the problems of too sirnplistically focusing on happiness or pleasure and argues that
for normal adult humans, at least, preference satisfaction is the better way to calculate utility.

40

outcome. How each individual gets treated in the end is determined by which action
would maximize overall happiness, pleasure, or something similar.”

Utilitarianism does seem to capture some of our commonsense ethical beliefs. It
rightly points to happiness, preference satisfaction, or the like, as morally significant and
recognizes that consequences matter. And at times we do think that the correct decision
is the one that brings about the most happiness for the greatest number, especially when
we are making policy decisions in which we do not feel obligations to particular
individuals who might be affected. But by itself, utilitarianism falls quite short of
capturing all of our commonsense ethical beliefs, and in fact, can sometimes run directly
against these convictions. The standard criticism is that cases can easily be imagined
where utilitarianism would not only allow, but mandate an unacceptable harm to some
individual in its requirement to maximize happiness for the greatest number. Although
Singer sometimes talks about equal treatment, as we just saw, this must refer to equality
of consideration prior to the utility calculation. Whether utilitarianism can be
reformulated (perhaps as rule-utilitarianism) to avoid this traditional objection is, it seems
to me, still open for discussion.” But even if it could be recast such that individuals

would be protected from, for example, being killed or tortured, the justification would

 

“Tom Regan, “Utilitarianism, Vegetarianism, and Animal Rights,” Philosophy and Public Aflairs 9.4
(1980): 305-24.

'5 There could be a rule, for example, that stipulated that no one can be punished for a crime he or she did
not commit even if in some cases false accusations and convictions would maximize utility. The common
objection to this move, however, is to ask why, even if the rule would generally maximize utility,
utilitarianism would not demand that when breaking the rule would maximize utility the rule should be
broken. Rule utilitarianism would be reduced back to act utilitarianism with all its problems. Exceptions
could be added to the rules to cover such cases, but if exceptions are developed for every special case, we
again end up with something more like act utilitarianism. For an interesting discussion see: J. .1. C. Smart
and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1973).

41

still be that this would in fact bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
This, however, betrays our commonsense belief that maximum utility is not the reason
why individuals should be protected from harm; rather, it is because individuals matter in
and of themselves.

These doubts concerning a full-fledged commitment to utilitarianism are
important because they give us pause from simply following Singer to the conclusion that
it is all and only sentient beings which are to enjoy equal moral considerability. As a
utilitarian, Singer is committed to at least two things: to the principle of utility which
says that pleasure (or happiness, preference satisfaction, etc.) is the ultimate good to be
maximized and to the belief that all those who can experience pain and happiness (i.e., all
sentient beings) musf be equally taken into consideration in a calculation of utility. Once
this is established, Singer could simply look about to see which beings possess the
capacity to suffer in order to determine which are to enjoy equal moral consideration.
Utilitarianism and sentience go very much hand in hand in this way. But if we have
reasons to doubt that utilitarianism captures all of ethics we have reason to wonder if
sentience is the only morally relevant characteristic.

Nonetheless, the ability to suffer does seem to be one important aspect of what it
means to be morally considerable. In fact, central to both commonsense moral thinking
and phiIOSOphical moral theorizing is the prohibition against causing suffering. Sentient
beings, it might be said, have a primafacie interest in not being made to suffer.
Evaluations of our use of nonhuman animals must, as the APA guidelines cited above
reflect, take this into account. If this is right, then Singer seems correct to question the

traditional view that moral considerability cuts neatly along species lines. Not only can

42

many nonhuman animals suffer, but it seems that some can suffer to a greater extent than
can some humans (e.g., infants and the severely mentally enfeebled). The question might
be rephrased, then, to ask whether there are other characteristics in addition to sentience
that are morally significant, and to what extent these other characteristics follow species
lines.

Tom Regan is one who thinks utilitarianism emphasizes the wrong thing.
Utilitarianism allows for the treatment of individuals that runs counter to our
commonsense moral beliefs because it treats individuals as “mere receptacles” for value,
rather than as things of value in and of themselves.“5 As mentioned, even if utilitarianism
could be recast to avoid serious untoward actions against innocent individuals (for
example, by shifting to rule utilitarianism), the reason would remain that of maximizing
utility, contrary to our commonsense belief that this alone is not why individuals should
not be made to suffer. Rather, it is because, according to Regan, some individuals
possess intrinsic value. As such, they must not be treated merely as a means to our ends,
including the end of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. The
consequentialism of Singer might well treat all morally considerable beings equal at the
outset of a utilitarian calculation, but Regan thinks a focus on intrinsic value necessitates
equal treatment in the end. This is translated into practice for humans through the carving
out of certain core rights which can only be overcome by consequentialist arguments of

an extremely weighty sort. Where there is no relevant property difference (for Regan, no

 

I('Tom Regan, “The Case for Animal Rights,” Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues, ed.
Steven C. Cahn and Peter Markie (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998), 826.

43

difference in intrinsic value), there should be no difference with respect to rights.
Respect for intrinsic value trumps consequences; rights trump utilitarian calculations.
Regan is developing a Kantian line of thought here, though he does not suppose
that it is autonomy or moral agency that distinguish beings with intrinsic value from those
without. Instead, Regan agrees with Singer that what matters ethically is the ability to
suffer. Regan might deny this, saying that Singer emphasizes pleasure and pain while he
himself focuses on an entity’s experiencing itself as a “subject of a life that is better or
worse for [itself].”17 But, while the differences between their views are vast due to their
allegiances to competing ethical theories, their views concerning what makes a being
morally considerable are more alike than either would probably care to admit. What
matters for both is experience connected to the satisfaction or frustration of interests. For
Regan, being an experiencing subject of a life means that one has interests that can be
thwarted or furthered, which makes a being intrinsically valuable and hence protected
from being treated merely as a means. For Singer, a sentient being is one who has
interests that can be thwarted or furthered, which makes a being a receptacle for pain,
pleasure, happiness, etc., all of which are morally relevant. Even the deontological
charge to treat morally considerable beings as ends in themselves reflects the possession
of interests—after all, one cannot be disrespected if one does not, or cannot, care. So,
although the standard view is to see Singer and Regan as representing wholly opposing
camps, they are in loose agreement that experiencers, and only experiencers, have

interests the frustration or satisfaction of which is what ethics is all about. The empirical

 

l7Tom Regan, “Animal Rights, Human Wrongs,” Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to
Radical Ecology, ed. Michael E. Zimmerman, et al. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993), 44.

44

question then becomes who exactly is an experiencer, while a remaining theoretical
question is which moral theory (say, utilitarianism or deontology) is correct.”

There are two main parts to Regan’s argument: the claim that what makes a being
morally considerable is the possession of intrinsic value, and the negative argument that if
human intrinsic value buys rights which trump consequences, then the same must be the
case for nonhumans with intrinsic value. Reliance on the notion of intrinsic value,
however, faces the problem of explaining what this value amounts to. Such value is not,
after all, something empirical research can measure. It might be that to say of something
that it possesses intrinsic value is just to say that we do not think its interests can be
thwarted simply to further another’s (trivial) interests. But, if we ask why we think these
interests should not be treated so lightly, we cannot then simply repeat that the entity in
7 question possesses intrinsic value. We need some account for either the claim that
something has intrinsic value or that it should not be treated merely as a means. Regan
seems to appeal to commonsense moral thinking about human life: it is clear that most of
us think that humans cannot be treated merely as a means (consequences are not the only
thing that matters ethically) and the reason seems to have something to do with each of us
being centers of subjective experience with desires, goals, hopes, preferences, and the
like, which confers value upon an individual. If we accept this without further argument,
we ought to accept it with respect to those animals who also are experiencing subjects of

a life. Perhaps we cannot get much beyond these commonsense moral convictions.

 

"I do not want to push this too far. Sentience is a trait which is no doubt attributable to a much larger
class of entities than is being an experiencing subject of a life since Regan means to include in this latter
notion a sense of self, projects, and other things dependent on a fairly developed cognitive capacity. I also
certainly do not mean to suggest that Singer and Regan go about making moral evaluations in the same
way—after all, one is very much a utilitarian and the other a rights theorist.

45

Utilitarians have a similar problem (and perhaps a similar response) of explaining why
pleasure, happiness, or preference satisfaction is the ultimate good. In any case, by
intrinsic value Regan does not mean something mystical which must be “intuited” by us.
Rather, it is supposed to capture the widely held commonsense moral conviction that it is
interest-holding beings themselves which count, not some overall abstract happiness. As
Christopher Stone puts it, “A right is not . . . some strange substance that one either has or
does not have,” but to override them one “must go through certain procedures to do so
[which] are a measure of what we value as a society.”

It might be objected that even if talk of intrinsic value is simply shorthand
(whether or not Regan thinks of it this way) for saying that beings with interests are not to
be treated as mere means (i.e., that they are morally considerable), this does not mean that
such beings have rights. First, there are general worries that properly speaking, there are
no such things as rights: rights are simply rhetorically useful ways of saying that in some
cases individuals (or groups) matter more than do consequences. Regan’s answer is that
absent rights, per se, we would still object to actions which cause non-trivial harm if the
justification is simply that it brings about maximal utility. So, if there are no “rights,”
properly speaking, we would still need an explanation for why we would object to
violations of individual integrity.20

Regan seems right to say that we do not need to decide whether rights language is

the most appropriate in order to agree that in some cases consequentialist reasons are not

 

l9Christopher Stone, “Should Trees Have Standing?: Toward Legal Rights For Natural Objects,” Should
Trees Have Standing? And Other Essays on Law, Morals and the Environment 2"‘1 ed. (Dobbs Ferry, New
York: Oceana, 1996), 27.

20Regan, “The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism,” 162.

46

sufficient to justify using morally considerable beings as mere means. I agree that if there
are rights, beings with intrinsic (as opposed to merely instrumental) value are the types of
thing that have rights, and that any acknowledgment that rights talk is simply politically
useful short hand for something else does little to harm Regan’s central claims.

An objection which cuts more deeply rests on the assertion that duties to other
humans arise because of the special relationships we have with them: people can fight
for, negotiate, or otherwise ask for things from us. Nonhumans cannot. So, although
humans have rights, nonhumans do not; or to put it another way, although we owe duties
to other humans, we do not owe them to nonhumans.

It is unlikely, however, that we would be willing to say that we do not have duties
toward humans unable to make claims on us, such as infants or the severely mentally
disabled. Perhaps instead, the reason we have duties only to other humans is, more
precisely, that we are in reciprocal relationships with them: people have rights (or
whatever they stand for) to which we have corresponding duties only when we have
rights to which they have corresponding duties. And because animals are not moral
agents, they can have duties to no one. But this too seems not to fit with our
commonsense moral beliefs, even with respect to human-human relationships. We think
we do have duties to infants and. the mentally disabled even though they may not be moral
agents. Of course, our commonsense moral beliefs might be wrong on this count.
Perhaps the duties we owe these individuals are due to the fact that they are potential
moral agents or that we value familial relations to such an extent that we are unwilling to
treat infants as mere means. If we go the potential-persons route, we need an account of

moral considerability which, unlike Singer’s and Regan’s, sees properties of being a

47

person, such as moral agency or autonomy, as the morally relevant characteristic. I have
doubts about these properties themselves conferring value or moral conSiderability, as
will be discussed later. If we go the second route (through the valuing of familial
relationships), we may have to acknowledge that infants or the mentally disabled without
family members or other loved ones may, unless we can think of other consequentialist
reasons against it, be used as mere means when it suits us. This, it seems, would be a
hard pill to swallow.

So at this point, we have two competing moral theories with different, though not
tenibly different, criteria for moral considerability. The criteria themselves seem to fit
with our commonsense moral views in that they refer to experiential qualities of the sort
we generally take to be important, and emphasize the commonsense moral prohibition
against causing harm. In addition, we have reasons against thinking only in terms of
consequences, as Singer’s thorough-going utilitarianism would push us to do. Regan’s
counterbalance seems welcome, though it comes with the need for an account of intrinsic
value and perhaps need not be couched in terms of rights. The real problem, if we like
some of what we see in both approaches, would be to work out some schema that makes
room for both consequentialist and deontological reasoning, perhaps in some sort of
pluralistic moral theory. After considering some alternatives, I will return to Singer’s and
Regan’s belief that what makes something morally considerable is having experiential

interests which can be thwarted or furthered.

48

The Life-ethic Account

One reason to try to move beyond the focus on interests of the experiential sort is
that some think that there are other individual entities which are morally considerable but
which do not meet Singer’s or Regan’s criteria. Many think, for example, that plants
such as California’s ancient redwoods are intrinsically valuable and deserve protection
independent of our interests. If they are right, then Singer and Regan must be wrong in
thinking that only sentient creatures or experiencing subjects of life get to count morally.
Perhaps we should draw the net of moral considerability more widely.

Singer had argued for an expanding ethical circle, pointing to the gradual
inclusion of women and non-whites into the circle of equally valuable beings to suggest
that sentient animals would be next.2| Christopher Stone pushes this notion further to
include all living things, even the nonsentient. He is primarily concerned with the
granting of legal rights, but his argument for the expansion of the circle is cast largely in
ethical terms, as can be seen in his focus on interests. Stone argues that natural objects
such as plants can clearly communicate their needs to us: “[My] lawn tells me that it
wants water by a certain dryness of the blades and soil—immediately obvious to the
touch—the appearance of bald spots, yellowing, and a lack of springiness after being
walked on.”22 In a later essay he seems to have backed off talking about the “wants” or

“interests” of non-experiential beings, admitting that “preference-enlisting works only in

 

2'Darwin and Aldo Leopold offer two interesting earlier descriptions and uses of the expanding ethical
circle concept. See for example: Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
(New York: Oxford U P, 1949).

22Stone, “Should Trees Have Standing?: Toward Legal Rights For Natural Objects,” 18.

49

regard to nonpersons at the higher end of the intelligence scale.”23 He argues that
“disinterested things” be nonetheless protected independent of our interests and urges us
to use commonsense intuition backed up by ordinary language and scientific
understanding of the “essence of things” to make judgments regarding our interactions
with them. Thinking about such objects as we do future persons and the comatose,
neither of which enjoy full personhood, should guide us in protecting, for example, a
river’s “riverhood.”2‘ Presumably, we should think of what their interests would be had
they interests. If healthy grass is green and lush, it can be said to have (pseudo) interests
in nutrient-rich soil, water, and sunlight. For Stone, then, the circle of ethical concern
ought to expand in terms of interests (in this way he is similar to Singer and Regan), and
where we encounter disinterested objects we should proceed as if they have needs
analogous to those of interested beings.

It is not clear, however, how far we can push analogies between rivers, future
persons and the comatose, and full persons. In the future-persons and comatose cases we
are dealing with beings who would otherwise be fairly similar to us in preferences—at
least as similar as we would expect anyone to be as a fellow human. In the river case, we
are dealing with something we are not sure what since it is not clear what counts as a
river: just the water, the banks, algae, fish, birds, animals who drink out of it, the entire
watershed? And, although we know what we, and perhaps even presumably interested

fish or otters, want the river to be like, we could never even guess as to the river’s

 

23Christopher Stone, “The Nonperson in Law,” Should Trees Have Standing? And Other Essays on Law,
Morals and the Environment 2MI ed. (Dobbs Ferry, New York: Oceana, I996), 61.

24Stone, “The Nonperson in Law,” 62.

50

preferences (Might a particularly wild river prefer to be a lazy stream, at least on Sunday
aftemoons?) Future persons and comatose cases are similar enough to full persons that
we are able to make reasonable guesses as to what they would want—not so with rivers.

Unlike Stone, Kenneth Goodpaster does not try to justify granting moral
considerability to all living things simply by stretching the notion of experienceable
interests. He offers two alternative arguments. First, he claims that because neither
rationality nor sentience are necessary for moral considerability, the use of them to
demarcate the morally valuable is arbitrary. Life is the only nonarbitrary characteristic by
which to do this.25 We might wonder, however, why he thinks being alive provides a
nonarbitrary condition for moral worth. He seems to think that, unlike sentience, which
leaves many animals and plants outside the moral circle, life captures everything which
could plausibly be morally considerable, and is hence nonarbitrary. But why does being
alive rather than not make something morally considerable? A line is still being
drawn—this time between living and nonliving—and to make the case that this line is
nonarbitrary he must give some additional argument.

One response might be that living things, unlike rocks or water, have interests or
the capacity to experience. After all, it is difficult to describe why doing something to a
being or object is a wrong to that being or object if it not only does not care, but cannot.
But then it is not being alive that matters, even in the unlikely case that the class of living
things turns out to be exactly coextensive with the class of experiencers or interest

holders. Goodpaster wants to avoid sliding into a Singer or Regan-like account, however.

 

25 Kenneth E. Goodpaster, “On Being Morally Considerable,” Environmental Philosophy: From Animal
Rights to Radical Ecology, ed. Michael E. Zimmerman, et al. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993),
51.

51

He agrees that sentience is a sufficient condition for moral considerability, but rejects the
view that it, or even potential sentience, is necessary: “It is so clear that there is
something to take into account, something that is not merely ‘potential sentience’ and
which surely does qualify beings as beneficiaries and capable of harm—namely, life . .
3’26 So, the experiential aspect of the notion of interests is dropped, as it seems it would
have to be if we are talking about plants and algae.

Goodpaster attempts to bolster his case by arguing that sentience is an adaptive
characteristic which provides protection for its bearers by helping them anticipate and
avoid dangers, and therefore sentience is ancillary to something more important rather
than being itself the thing which confers moral considerability. The experience of
pleasure and pain, on this view, is not the goal of sentience, but something that “signals a
job well done, but not the completion of the job.”27 So to repeat, Goodpaster, while
agreeing with Singer and Regan that interests are what count, is trying to separate
interests from experience. But we might wonder at this point if leaving sentience or
experience behind is also to leave moral considerability behind. This seems to be the one
overriding problem with Stone’s and Goodpaster’s life-ethics. The problem is explaining
why one should care, morally speaking, about a “job well done” if there are no interests
(in the usual sense), satisfactions, pain, or well-being, at stake—where “well done” refers
to some biological process independent of any wanting, desiring, or even feeling. To
complete the argument there must be some firrther account for why “getting the job done”

(presumably, staying alive and reproducing) carries any moral weight whatsoever without

 

2‘sGoodpaster, “On Being Morally Considerable,” 56.

2liGoodpaster, “On Being Morally Considerable,” 57.

52

someone or something else caring about it.

It is worth noting that Goodpaster is careful to avoid saying that the fact that
plants have (non-experiential) interests makes them as morally significant as humans.
The interests of sentient beings are of greater weight in cases of conflict. And indeed,
this softens his position considerably. Nonetheless, it remains to be explained exactly
how disinterested plants could have interests of the sort that matter morally. It might be
that our commonsense intuitions point to individual plants as having standing, but the
failure to account for why they do should give us reason to pause. Goodpaster’s
qualification regarding sentience might suggest that the life-ethic approach does little to
change our thinking about our interactions with animals as the interests of sentient beings
would remain the primary focus of moral reasoning. However, if the life-ethic is correct,
it would complicate our moral lives in that we would have to reconsider our thinking
about individual plants, algae, bacteria, and the like. Their biological “interests” would
have to count in our moral deliberations.

Paul Taylor seeks firmer ground for a life-ethic by more richly describing the
good of individual organisms in terms of their “biological powers,” or capacities to cope
with environmental challenges in order to be strong and healthy. Arr organism’s well-
being is, he argues, an end in itself, giving us a primafacie obligation to not harm it. The
same can be said of populations or groups of organisms which reproduce and maintain
stability across generations. Like Goodpaster, Taylor claims that “having a good of its
own” does not necessarily mean that an organism has wants or interests in the usual
sense. And again like his fellow life-ethicists, he motivates his case in part by appealing

to ordinary language: we do say that trees can be harmed or benefitted by our actions.

53

But beyond this, it is the teleology of living things, understood in terms of natural
selection, that gives legitimacy to such claims.28

Taylor continues by laying out three pieces of what he calls the “ethic of respect
for nature”: a belief system, an ultimate moral attitude, and a set of rules for conduct.29
The belief system is to include lessons from ecology, such as that all life is interconnected
and that (non-static) stability is a condition of organisms realizing their own good. We
ought to derive a moral attitude of respect for all life from these beliefs, amounting to
ascribing intrinsic value to all living things. Finally, a set of rules and standards would
naturally follow by which we would evaluate our actions with respect to other living
things. In short, empirical knowledge is to inform our ethical attitudes, which, in turn, are
to provide the grounds for moral duties.

The material of the belief system is the facts we learn about the world, such as the
interdependence of all life. It makes sense that such would inform our moral attitudes.
However, as Hume warned, we cannot get an ought from an is—the stuff of the belief
system cannot get us to the second and third stage by itself. And in fact, that is one of the
worries with all three of the life ethics accounts described here: there is no clear
argument for how we get a moral good or value from a description of how plants, etc., do
in fact develop within particular ‘eco-systems. There must be something more. Is it just
that we like or need other living things? That we feel some sort of empathy for even

plants “struggling” to survive? Taylor compares his three part complex to an ethics of

 

28Paul W. Taylor, “The Ethics of Respect for Nature,” Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to
Radical Ecology, ed. Michael E. Zimmerman, et al. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993), 67.

29Taylor, “The Ethics of Respect for Nature,” 69.

54

respect for humans. Here we develop a conception of ourselves and others as centers of
autonomous choice. From this comes an attitude of respect for persons as persons; and
finally, an ethical system of duties.30 But, unlike his initial schema, here there is already
an ethical claim built into the belief system, or somewhere unarticulated between the first
and second stages, to the effect that to be a person is to have free will and all that goes
with it—tlris stuff is morally relevant by any account, however it is that it gets worked

out. The same is not obviously true of the empirical facts of ecology.

Autonomy and Moral Agency

This digression into a life-ethic challenge to Singer’s and Regan’s emphasis on
experiential interests helps make the case that it is the experiences of individual entities
that we must pay attention to when thinking about using them for our benefit. The focus
on experience has the added advantage of making it easier to know what we need to do,
or avoid doing, in our interactions with animals than would be the case under some vague
notion of naturally selected teleology. Evaluating our use of nonhuman animals must
take into account the fact that they can be benefitted or harmed in ways we take to be
morally relevant with respect to ourselves. It seems, however, that most people have very
strong intuitions that, contra Singer and Regan, we have much more serious obligations to
fellow humans than to animals. Are there characteristics which humans (or at least most
humans) possess that nonhuman animals do not that could explain or justify different
treatment?

R G. Frey argues that autonomy is such a characteristic. He does not think,

 

3°1bid., 69.

55

however, that autonomy is the only morally relevant characteristic. In fact, he is careful
to state that when it comes to cases of suffering, it is sentience and not autonomy which
matters. But, when it comes to the taking of life, it is worse to kill an autonomous than a
nonautonomous being because autonomy confers additional value upon an individual. If
he is right, then we have another thing to consider in using animals to further our own
wants and needs. Perhaps we would still not be allowed to use animals in painful
experiments where we were not also willing to use humans, but when it comes to killing,
we would have a way to argue for preferring to kill non-autonomous animals over
autonomous humans—or, if autonomy comes in degrees, for preferring to kill those
beings with less autonomy.

Autonomy makes a difference for Frey because it adds value to its possessor. It
makes a life richer. There is something special, Frey argues, to “our making something
of our lives,” to “our making something of our lives,” and to “our molding or shaping our
lives in accordance with our ends or conception of the good life.”31 Happiness comes
most fully through a sense of personal achievement, which is only possible if we are not
slaves to our first order desires or the wishes of others. This is value conferring because
value is a function of the quality of life.32 Furthermore, the kind of autonomy he is
talking about is not, Frey thinks, extendable to nonhuman animals. To attempt this would
be to weaken the sense of autonomy such that it would lose the special meaning it has in

human lives. Animals and nonautonomous humans may be able to initiate action in

 

3 ‘R. G. Frey, “Autonomy and the Value of Animal Life,” The Monist 70.1 (1987): 52-54. Emphasis in
original.

”Ibid, 57.

56

 

pursuing basic needs and desires, but autonomous humans have the ability to order
preferences in accordance with their views of the good life.33 Frey sums up his view by
stating: “Both a dog and a man may be the experiencing subjects of lives; yet, the man’s
life is both richer and richer through being a life that he has, in the appropriate sense,
made for himself.”34

It is not clear, however, that autonomy itself makes some beings more morally
valuable than others. It is true that some people value their own lives less than do others
and likely that highly autonomous people frequently value their own lives more as they
have become more autonomous. But it is also quite possible that a less autonomous
person might value her life just as much as, if not more than, a more autonomous person,
especially where the more autonomous person is plagued by existential angst brought on
by the realization of her freedom. Gary Comstock argues that increases in autonomy
might actually diminish the quality of life for some because the value of personal
autonomy clashes with the sometimes deeply held value of self-sacrifice.” Whether this
is the case or not, Comstock points to the possibility that Frey’s conception of a richer
and more valuable life is biased in the direction of individualism and rationality at the
expense of emotion and community. Furthermore, the autonomous man probably does
think his life is more valuable than is the dog’s. But of course this is from his
perspective. Perhaps not being so autonomous makes the dog’s life extra valuable for

him or her. Steve Sapontzis adds that when we try to imagine what it is like to be a dog,

 

”lord, 60-61.
34rind, 62.

”Gary Comstock, “The Moral lrrelevance of Autonomy,” Between the Species 8.1 (1992): 21-23.

57

we end up thinking not of the animal, but of ourselves. We mistakenly think being a dog
means being “a prisoner, a consciousness which is capable of doing a variety of things
confined to a way of life which does not permit her to actualize those capacities, although
she remains aware of these capacities and feels fi'ustrated by the lack of opportunity to
actualize them.”36

Even if the lives of more autonomous individuals are deemed to be richer and
more fulfilling, however, it is not clear that this makes such a person more morally
considerable. Do we really think that as happiness or satisfaction with one’s life
increases so does the value of one’s life? Frey seems to be mistaking a person liking her
life more than she used to for that life being more valuable vis-a-vis other lives. It seems
doubtful that we would want to say that the life of a melancholy artist is worth less,
morally speaking, than that of a happily successful, self-employed millionaire, even if the
artist were unhappy in large part due to her not having chosen to be an artist. More
autonomous people do not seem to be more morally considerable.” And if degrees of
autonomy do not distinguish between more or less morally considerable humans, we
should not expect it to be useful in setting (most) humans apart from (most) other
animals, unless, as seems doubtful, autonomy is an all-or-nothing sort of thing.

On the other hand, being. autonomous might make one more open to ways of

being harmed. In saying why killing an autonomous being is worse than killing a

 

3‘SSteve F. Sapontzis, “Response: Autonomy as an Excuse for All-Too-Human Chauvinism,” Between the
Species 8.1 (1992): 31.

37T‘1ris is not to say that autonomy is not centrally important in ethical thinking. One obvious role it plays is
in our evaluations of responsibility and accountability. Autonomous beings are also given room to make
their own decisions, enjoying extra protection from interference, though this can be explained in terms of
having interests in acting freely and being in control of ones own destiny.

58

nonautonomous being, Frey argues that the former sort of being has a concept of herself,
can project herself into the future, has desires that extend into the future, and has a strong
desire to go on living. To kill such a being is to cause harm in ways not possible with
respect to the nonautonomous.38 But described in this way, autonomy—or rather, other
characteristics such as having a conception of oneself and projecting oneself into the
future, which are necessary conditions for autonomy—is morally relevant because of its
role in the possession of interests which can be furthered or thwarted. This complicates
Singer’s and Regan’s more straightforward approach to experiential interests, but it does
not fundarnentally challenge them. An advantage of interpreting the relevance of
autonomy in terms of interests is that it accounts for the commonsense belief that it is
better to use animals than people for such things as early stage drug testing (though this is
not an argument that animals should be so used). Second, it allows us to make finer-
tuned distinctions regarding interests than either Singer’s or Regan’s account seems to
allow, without introducing autonomy as an additional—and likely
incommensurable—concem.

Perhaps there are other characteristics by which we can further refine our
evaluations of our interactions with nonhuman animals. Martin Benjamin argues that
although sentience is a sufficient condition for moral considerability, normal adult
humans and perhaps some higher primates are more valuable than are other sentient

creatures—i.e., greater justification must be given to override their interests. He argues

 

38Frey, “Autonomy and the Value of Animal Life,” 51.

59

that the ability to use language39 enables a being to reason, reflect, and see itself as a self
enduring through time. Most normal adult humans, unlike most nonhuman animals and
the seriously mentally disadvantaged have “the capacity to more or less transcend [their]
particular world view and way of life and to view [themselves] and the world as a whole
from a more detached or external standpoint.’”° It is language which enables us to do so
by “bring[ing] possibilities before the mind?”1 Neither the use of language nor the
resulting abilities mentioned, however, are what make the moral difference. Rather, this
enables such beings, which possess what Benjamin calls “reflective consciousness,” to be
moral agents. That is, by being reflectively conscious, as opposed to having only “simple
consciousness,” one can evaluate choices according to their consequences in ways which
are not purely egoistic. This makes one a moral agent, or a “person,” and it is this which
gives reflectively conscious beings their special worth.42

This makes good sense. But is it the case that being a moral agent makes one
more morally considerable, and if so why? Benjamin is no doubt right to think that moral
agency depends upon the ability to reflect and make choices, which in turn depends upon
the ability to use complex language, or at least some high-level language of thought.
Moral reasoning is, after all, a highly abstract activity; one must identify oneself and

others as distinct yet importantly related, must be able to weigh options as hypotheticals,

 

39The ability to use language should not be confused with the ability to communicate, which could include
insects changing color to signal breeding receptiveness or bees dancing to indicate the location of nectar.

40Martin Benjamin, Splitting the Difference: Compromise and Integrity in Ethics and Politics (Lawrence,
KS: U P of Kansas, 1990), 96.

4'Stuart Hampshire, as quoted in Benjamin, “Ethics and Animal Consciousness,” 497.

42Benjamin, “Ethics and Animal Consciousness,” 497 and 498.

60

and must be able to make sense of things like justice, fairness, forgiveness, and the like.43
Benjamin appeals further to our commonsense intuitions by claiming that those moral
agents who fail to act in morally acceptable ways, for instance by not sacrificing their
own trivial tastes or desires to avoid causing others harm, forfeit some of their higher
moral status.“

The claim that moral agency, or personhood, makes a being specially valuable has
a long history (Benjamin himself cites Locke) and fits with commonsense moral belief.
What we need, however, is an explanation for why it does so. One possibility has already
been mentioned by Frey: beings with the abilities which make autonomy
possible—which turn out, not surprisingly since autonomy is a prerequisite to moral
agency, to be the ones which also make moral agency possible—are open to being
banned in ways others are not. Reflective consciousness enables a being to see itself as
existing through time, which in turn makes it possible to have needs and desires which
are projected into the future. It so happens that this also makes those of us with such
abilities subject to a great deal of fear and anxiety about the future—perhaps most
importantly, about ceasing to exist. Reflective consciousness, then, makes it possible to
be banned in more ways or more deeply.” Animals avoid being killed, but it is unlikely

that many (if any) nonhuman animals fear death, per se: fear of being killed is not the

 

‘3 One need not suppose that the traditional Western, perhaps overly intellectualized, emphasis on
individuality and universality is the right way to think about ethics in order to agree that morality demands
reflection of the sort that makes it possible to see oneself and others as beings with interests existing
through time and the ability to sometimes set aside one’s self-directed desires in order to benefit others.

“Benjamin, “Ethics and Animal Consciousness,” 498.
45 Although he is not arguing the point I am, John Stuart Mill notes that, “A being of higher faculties

requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and certainly accessible to
it at more points, than one of an inferior type.” Utilitarianism (Indianapolis: Hackett P, 1979), 9.

61

same as the existential fear of annihilation. Similarly, the harm of caging an animal
might be rather severe, but doing the same to a person involves not only confinement, but
the fear of what horrors might occur next and the realization that one’s projects are on
hold and one’s relationships with others are cut off. On this interpretation, as with
autonomy, it is not the moral considerability or value of entities that increases, but the
number and significance of certain interests. In other words, the interests of normal adult
humans do not gain in moral weight simply due to their being moral agents. Rather, the
interests of everyone are considered on the same scale of uivial-to-vital, though normal
adult humans and cognitively and emotionally complex nonhuman animals have
especially extensive sets of quite significant interests.

If this is right, and interests are the key to understanding the need to provide
greater justification to override many of the interests of normal adult humans, then
Benjamin has provided us with a useful way to think through commonsense moral beliefs
regarding our interactions with nonhuman animals even accepting Singer’s and Regan’s
general emphasis on experiential interests as the relevant moral considerability-confening
property. It is not entirely clear, though, that this is what Benjamin was primarily trying
to get at. After all, in his account it is moral agency itself which is morally relevant, and
not the necessary conditions for moral agency and the related possible benefits and harms.
And, agency itself marks a difference in moral considerability. He does not, however,
offer an argument for why this is so, but neither does Locke in his description of

personhood.“S Absent an explanation, we might wonder why our being able to morally

 

4“Benjamin, “Ethics and Animal Consciousness,” 498. (Benjamin had cited for support An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding; Bk. Two; Ch. XXVII; Sec. 9).

62

evaluate our actions with respect to animals makes us more morally considerable than

they, if not simply because we can be harmed in more and deeper ways.

Conclusion

Earlier I had argued that a key element in our thinking about our use of nonhuman
animals to meet human interests is the notion of trivial-to-vital needs and wants. As
mentioned, Benjamin relies on this as well. This distinction might be useful even in cases
where the question of moral considerability does not arise, though how we answer that
latter question will, in many instances, set the parameters for how the trivial-to-vital
continuum gets applied. Ifwe follow the experiential interests account and hold that all
with such interests count equally, then the trivial-to-vital interests of various beings
should be weighted similarly. For Singer, all sentient creatures count equally at the
beginning of a utility calculation. For Regan, all experiencing subjects of a life have
equal claims to rights—i.e., equal claims to have their most vital interests protected.
Whatever or whoever falls below the moral considerability threshold does not enjoy this
equality (for Singer this line would be much further “down” the list of animals arranged
according to their cognitive and experiential abilities than it would for Regan). If
autonomy, moral agency, or the like, makes a difference to moral considerability, then
those with these characteristics would likely get to have their trivial and vital interests
weighted more heavily than those who do not.

With respect to moral considerability, I believe that what makes the greatest
difference—what we need to pay the most attention to prior to describing particular

competing interests in terms of trivial or vital—is the ability to be harmed in an

63

experiential way. This establishes a base-line of considerability. Autonomy, language
use, seeing oneself as a self through time, and moral agency do not directly influence this
judgment. However, as I have indicated, these characteristics do play a less direct role.
They do so by making it possible for most humans and some more highly developed
nonhuman animals to be harmed or bettered in more ways, or to a greater extent than
those without these characteristics (which should probably be thought of in terms of
degrees of possession). In other words, autonomous, rational, etc., beings have more vital
interests (and perhaps more trivial ones as well). Having a sense of self existing through
time, for example, means that one’s well-being involves projects, more complex kinds of
relationships with others, and hopes, fears, dreams, and anxieties about these and other
matters.

One problem with appealing to differences in moral considerability in addition to
ways and the extent to which one can be harmed or bettered is that there is no obvious
way, precision aside, to know how much weight should be added to or subtracted from
our evaluations of interests made in terms of trivial or vital. We are talking about two
different sorts of weighing—one at the level of moral considerability and one done by
noting the degree of vitalness of particular interests. This is not to say, though, that we
could make no comparisons or judgments. But one advantage of the view laid out here is
that there would be no need, when considering differences of vitalness of interests, to also
worry about how to adjust these up or down to reflect differing degrees of moral
considerability (that is, once we have established that the entities involved are morally
considerable because they have experiential interests).

It might be objected that on this account some humans do not count as much as

64

would, for example, an adult ape. After all, adult apes appear to be more cognitively
developed, and hence potentially more autonomous, etc., than are human infants and the
severely mentally disabled. In response, I would say first that all humans, and indeed all
animals who can be harmed in morally relevant ways (not as plants and rocks can be
“harmed”), are equal in moral considerability—infants are not less so than apes. But, the
objector is not likely to be satisfied; equality of moral considerability is not good enough.
In a case where we would have to decide between the life of an infant (or mentally
disadvantaged adult) and that of an ape, we should, all else being equal, choose to save
the infant. To this I would agree, but argue that no appeal to difference in moral
considerability is needed to explain this intuition. Rather, we can appeal to an infant’s
value to other humans, special obligations to family, the belief that treating all humans
well protects us all in case we become mentally disabled, or to an infant’s cognitive and
emotive potential (though this last possibility would raise questions of when potentiality
of certain traits begins and would leave out the irreparably mentally disabled).

It is important not to oversirnplify our task. We need not think that, once we have
identified the morally considerable beings, weighing interests limits us to weighing
particular interests simpliciter—we can weigh them as elements of a life or a life project.
Ethical evaluations are not simply calculations of interests identified independent of the
lives of those involved. In other words, ethical evaluations should always take context
into account. Furthermore, interests need not be seen as things identifiable a priori, or
even empirically in terms of species. Such might be acceptable when dealing with less
social and less complex non-human animals (or even human infants), but normal adult

human interests often vary greatly due to their social origin and complexity. Interests

65

arise within cultural settings, change through dialogue, and do not form neat consistent
sets. To say that individuals are morally considerable due to their having interests is not
necessarily, then, to think in atomistic terms.

I have, in short, agreed with Singer and Regan in thinking that all who have
experiential interests are morally considerable and are equally so,47 but have also drawn
lessons from Frey and Benjamin to argue that certain key traits are morally relevant when
it comes to using the notion of trivial-to-vital interests. I have disagreed with Frey and
Benjamin to the extent that they seem to describe these traits as providing grounds for
distinction in terms of moral considerability or intrinsic value. There remain many
questions regarding morally acceptable ways of interaction between humans and
nonhuman animals. For example, should we think of killing in different terms than we do
suffering? Does killing demand different sorts of justification? Can we kill if doing so
causes no suffering? In light of which overall moral theory or combination of theories
should decisions be made? These and other questions must be explored further in order
for us to have a more solid answer to the question of how we should evaluate our
interactions with other individual entities.

Noticing that the possession of experiential interests identifies those entities who
are morally considerable is an important first step, however, in constructing a Humean
pluralistic environmental ethic. Such an approach relies on reasoned arguments to limit

the range of possible moral claims in order to avoid falling into an unacceptable

 

47Although I have pushed Singer and Regan together in order to both argue for the importance of
experiential interests and to make the point that we do not have to be whole-hogging utilitarians to make
use of the notion of being harmed and bettered, in fact I would agree with Singer that it is the capacity to
suffer generally (being careful not to restrict this to something so simple as pain and pleasure) that is the
most morally relevant in thinking about moral considerability. Regan’s emphasis on “higher” cognitive
abilities seems to be more importantly related to the lessons drawn from Frey and Benjamin.

66

relativism. This discussion of the moral considerability of individual entities is meant to
do some of that work in the context of thinking about the individualism-holism debate in
environmental philosophy. What has been said here will also provide a needed point of
critique of Mary Anne Warren’s principle-based approach to moral standing and the

individualism—holism problem, which will be the focus of the next chapter.

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CHAPTER 3
MARY ANNE WARREN’S PRINCIPLE-BASED SOLUTION TO

THE INDIVIDUALISM-HOLISM PROBLEM

Introduction

In the previous chapter I had argued that the possession of interests is what makes
individuals morally considerable. I had also, though, acknowledged the intuition that all
living things, even those without interests, may have some prima facie considerability. I
do think it wrong to, without good reason, destroy even plants or algae, but remain
unsatisfied with the arguments offered in support of this intuition. I am also sympathetic
to the claim that autonomy, moral agency, and seeing oneself as a self are morally
significant characteristics which mark a difference between those who are reflectively and
those who are simply conscious. However, I had argued that these characteristics do not
themselves confer moral considerability, but instead point to their bearers as capable of
being harmed or helped in more ways, or to a greater extent, than those without. This is
consistent with Peter Singer’s and Tom Regan’s view that humans are not the only ones
who count morally, though it, more than theirs, makes explicit the commonsense belief
that the interests of normal adult humans carry some special weight over those of most
other animals. Finally, interests can be compared on a scale of trivial to vital without
assuming a more specific common scale to which every value or interest is reducible. In
addition, interests should not be thought of independently of context or community, or as
isolated from lives or life projects.

With all this as the backdrop, this chapter will explore Mary Anne Warren’s

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multiple-criteria] approach to moral considerability and her principle-based approach to
moral reasoning as her response to the individualism—holism problem. Warren believes
that various sources of value will lead to moral principles which, although
incommensurable, are not necessarily inconsistent and are, in fact, rankable. The
principles embrace all living things, sentient beings, humans (as autonomous beings), and
ecosystems. Because her principles cover both individuals and wholes and because they
are rankable, she believes she has provided a way to bridge the individualism—holism
divide in a way that does not derive the moral considerability of one sort of entity from
the other (she does not, for example, argue that the moral considerability of individual
animals is based solely on their role within their respective ecosystems). Furthermore,
she believes her system of ranked principles avoids the relativistic tendency of a
pluralistic ethics. She also seems to think that given the diversity of principles, sources of
value, and the sorts of entities which are morally considerable, it is best to avoid
comnritrnents at the level of moral theory, as no moral theory has yet been able to account
for all this variety.

Although Warren’s principle-based approach is attractive as an answer to the
individualism-holism problem, I will argue for some alterations and a reorganization of
her principles to fit with the claims of the previous chapters—especially that of the
centrality of interests with its trivial-to-vital continuum. I will also argue, though, that her
principles can be better supported as a coherent package if we do pursue work at the
“higher” levels of theory or meta-theory. At one point she appeals to J. Baird Callicott’s
use of Hume’s ethics to argue for the inclusion of ecosystems among the set of morally

considerable entities, resulting in one of her several principles. However, elsewhere she

69

steers clear of using moral theory to develop her views. Although I think she is right not
to depend upon utilitarianism or Kantianism (because neither could get her a set of
principles accounting for both individualistic and holistic concerns), the Humean
approach she uses in one place might be usefully applied to all of her work. I will argue
in latter chapters that Callicott’s already developed Humean approach can be joined with
Warren’s principles. In fact, Callicott’s otherwise more abstract theory is as in need of
the substantive element Warren’s principles could supply as her work is in need of
Callicott’s Humean framework. Callicott’s environmental ethic will be the primary focus
of later chapters. The job of this chapter is to refonnulate Warren’s principles in a way
consistent with the conclusions of Chapter Two regarding interests and the moral
considerability of individual organisms in order to later use them in concert with
Callicott’s Humean environmental ethic. Making Warren’s principles consistent with this
central role of interests, however, takes away her justification for ranking the principles.
Conflicts between them, and therefore with respect to evaluations of particular cases, will
exist with no obvious available solution.

As with the previous chapter, the conclusions here sets limits to the range of
possible moral claims that can be made, in this case, in a pluralistic account otherwise
susceptible to charges of relativism. The work here demonstrates that despite the
existence of rationally irreducible difference inherent in my revisions of Warren’s
approach (due to a lack of ordering criteria for the proposed principles), progress can

nonetheless be made in terms of sorting out our moral beliefs and values.

70

Principle-Based Approaches to Ethics

Picking interests out as the most important property conferring moral
considerability to individuals does not decide much regarding how we should proceed in
making moral evaluations: interests are only one element of a much larger picture, and
the possession of them says nothing specific about how we should count or weigh them
against one another in particular cases.I Some of the difficulty lies in the fact that the
notion of interests is fairly generic. We have aesthetic, religious, and social interests in
addition to the common needs of food, shelter, and clothing. We have varying desires to
foster and maintain relationships and inclinations to become certain sorts of people. We
have interests in dignity, in integrity, and in learning about the world. We often have
difficulty counting and weighing these against one another in our own lives—trouble
deciding, for example, whether to spend time developing our musical ability or working
late at the office in hopes of greater financial security. This becomes all the more
difficult when we begin to consider other people’s interests. Gaging the interests of third
parties is especially difficult once the diversity of possible interests and ways of putting
these together and ranking them are admitted. Differences between proximate and long-
tenn interests further complicate matters. On the face of it, then, we do not simply look
at the world, count interests, and make moral evaluations based on weighing these against

one another.

 

IThis emphasis on interests is meant primarily to pick out those beings who must be taken into account by
moral agents. It is an early step in moral thinking, but one in need of answering because traditional ethics
simply assumed that humans are the only ones who count. Second, the emphasis on interests does not
mean that ethics is only about the resolution of conflicts between competing individuals. Ethics is also
concerned with the development of people and societies, as well as cooperative decisions and caring
relationships. Interests, though, are intimately connected with each of these concerns. Finally, this use of
the notion of interests should not commit us to an atomistic individualism. Interests are, especially for
humans, grounded in, and shaped by, relationships and cultural situations.

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This does not mean that we can make no comparisons between conflicting
interests—in fact, we do it all the time. I may not know exactly how to compare the
development of musical talents and financial security, yet I do make such choices and can
often evaluate these as better or worse. Rather, the variety of kinds of interests (aesthetic,
material, etc.), the diversity of actual sets of interests and rankings within those sets, and
the difficulty we have in counting and weighing interests suggests that there is no single
scale allowing us to simply apply some formula to determine which interests, or sets there
of, are more weighty than others. That is, the great variety of interests do not seem
reducible to some common value—certainly not to happiness or pleasure, which often
seem not to play the central role in our evaluations of actions such as promise keeping. It
might be suggested that interests are reducible to preferences, but this amounts simply to
a renarrring rather than a reduction, at most reminding us that interests are not free
floating but belong to individuals. We would be left with aesthetic, material, etc.,
preferences standing in the same non-reducible relationship to the supposedly simpler
elements of happiness, pleasure, or the like, as did interests. These problems are familiar
to utilitarians who attempt to traffic in a single value such as happiness, or even
preference satisfaction—not everything valuable is reducible to happiness, and not all
preferences are commensurablef We value, or have interests with respect to different
kinds of things (money, beauty, friendship) and in different ways (jobs are important for
money, a sense of accomplishment, and the relationships formed; art is valuable for its
aesthetic, social, political, and even monetary benefits).

The notion of trivial-to-vital interests can play a role here: we can talk of interests

as being more or less central to an entity’s well-being without saying that all interests are

72

reducible to some common value. Food and shelter are vital needs for most any animal,
while pleasure from play is typically a bit less so. There is enough vagueness built into
the notion of trivial-to-vital interests to avoid the temptation of assuming a single scale,
yet enough precision, found at least in our commonsense usage, to allow for rough
comparisons. Some such comparisons are easily made. Without assuming a common
comparable value, I can decide with clarity that watching one’s child’s piano recital
should be chosen over watching one’s favorite television program. The trivial-to-vital
continuum becomes a less useful tool, however, in making choices where the vitalness of
the interests involved in two options are very close. On the other hand, noting such
closeness is often important if only to make us see that neither option is the obviously
right choice.

Picking a particular moral theory nright help to sort things out, as utilitarians,
deontologists, contractarians, and care-ethicists would differ in their thinking about
interests. The claim that interests are what make a being morally considerable, however,
does not itself specify which moral theory to use. Interests play a central role in every
moral theory since each depends on the idea that it is impossible to harm or better
someone or something who not only does not care, but cannot care. Rights protect that
which matters most to their bearers; contracts are made over those things important
enough to bother with; caring for others means acting in ways consistent with their
interests; and so forth. Ethics is about deciding how to act and how to become the sorts
of beings we wish to be, none of which matters in the absence of someone being
interested in the outcomes of our thinking and acting.

Approaching the matter from the opposite direction—that is, picking a theory

73

prior to considering the role which interests would play—gets us no further since the
verdict is still out as to which of the competing ethical theories, if any, is correct. They
each isolate aspects of moral life and thinking which correspond to our central moral
beliefs. The problem is that they do so at the exclusion of the other views, thereby
inevitably also leaving out some of what we think ethics is all about. Utilitarianism, for
example, posits a single Good—utility—the maximization of which is the only goal of
ethical behavior. Some utilitarians try to avoid otherwise unacceptable results of their
theory, such as that it would require the conviction and punishment of innocent people
when this would maximize utility, by showing that such acts would not in fact maximize
utility. But although there do seem to be cases where the right choice is whatever would
satisfy the greatest number of people the most (perhaps, for example, when deciding
issues of distribution of medical care), failing to maximize utility is not always the reason
some things are wrong. W. D. Ross points out that, “When a plain man fulfils a promise
because he thinks he ought to do so, it seems clear that he does so with no thought of its
total consequences, still less with any opinion that these are likely to be the best
possible.” Such a person is not so much looking toward future consequences, but to his
or her past action of promise making.2 Treating other morally considerable beings as
mere means to our ends is morally repugnant regardless of considerations of utility. On

the other hand, it should not be said that rights always trump consequentialist reasons

 

2W. D. Ross, “The Right and The Good,” Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues, ed. Steven
M. Cahn and Peter Markie (New York: Oxford U P, 1998), 487. Bernard Williams objects to
utilitarianism on similar grounds: “It is naturally characteristic of utilitarianism that its results depend on
calculations . . . . If racist prejudice is directed toward a small minority by a majority that gets enough
satisfaction from it, it could begin to be touch and go whether racism might not be justified. The point is
not how likely that is to arise, or in what circumstances, but that the whole question of how many racists
are involved cannot begin to be an acceptable consideration on the question whether racism is acceptable . .
. .” Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U P, 1985), 86.

74

either. The good of the community sometimes outweighs individual rights. Singer’s
utilitarian and Regan’s animal rights approaches to animal welfare, for example, are then
both right: consequences do matter and there are certain core interests in need of special,
though not absolute, protection because they matter so much to those beings to whom
they belong.

The fact that interests are the property most significant to the identification of
morally considerable beings does not, then, suggest the correctness of any one of the
received moral theories. Nor are there independent reasons identifying one as the
overwhelming favorite. We can neither start with the notion that interests are important
to then find the preferred theory to assist in making decisions in particular cases, nor start
with moral theory to order our thinking about moral considerability and interests to make
decisions in particular cases. Because the competing theories each capture some but not
all of the important aspects of moral thinking, but are mutually exclusive of one another,
we need to ask ourselves under which conditions we are to use any particular approach or
when one trumps the others. Is there a covering model to direct us? Is there an
alternative theory not yet developed which will incorporate the best of each existing
theory, somehow synthesizing them and neutralizing their exclusivity? Or, is looking to
theory traditionally construed the wrong way to organize our thinking about ethics?
There are several possible solutions to the problem arising from the variety of interests
and ways of thinking about them in conjunction with making moral evaluations:

1. Make one of the received ethical theories work better

2. Develop an alternative theory to those we have which combines the good parts

of each

75

3. Develop a covering model to say when to use each of the theories we like

4. Accept pluralism at the level of theory (no single theory or covering model

sorting out the competing theories)

5. Set the issue of theory aside and try to work at the level of principles (and

when we get better at this, maybe try again to fix the theory problem according
to one of suggestions 1-4)

Much work has been done trying to make one of the popular received theories
better capture our commonsense moral intuitions. However, there seems to be no end in
sight for the debate between, for example, Kantianism and utilitarianism (the two most
popular theories), with disputants continuing to raise ever more sophisticated counter
examples against their opponents. I wish to leave the details of this debate aside, but take
the stalemate to indicate a failure of suggestion ( 1). Suggestions (2) and (3) are
problematic because the competing theories are so inconsistent with one another. Each
theory involves a quite different approach to ethics: an entirely inconsistent “metaphysics
of morals” as Callicott puts it.3 We cannot, after all, without simply discarding the
insights of deontological theories, decide to use rights only whenever doing so would
bring about the best consequences for the greatest number. It remains to be seen whether
it is possible (suggestion (2)) to pick out certain central elements of each to create a
coherent and balanced alternative theory. Rule utilitarianism might be the closest
approximation, but even this remains solidly utilitarian. It might, for example, require
granting people certain rights or protections even if in some cases banning them would

lead to greater utility; but the rationale for such rules would nonetheless remain one of

 

3]. Baird Callicott, “The Case Against Moral Pluralism,” Environmental Ethics 12.2 (1990): 123.

76

maximizing utility. In contrast, pluralism and “principlism”4

(not mutually exclusive
concepts) have not yet undergone such extensive development, thus making them worth
further exploration. A pluralism in which principles and theory are important is my
preferred solution. But first I want to explore a principle-based approach which seeks to
avoid work at the level of theory.

There are many examples of principlist approaches in ethics, such as that of W. D.
Ross and, more recently in medical ethics, of Tom Beauchamp and James Childress.
Ross, having rejected utilitarianism and Kantianism, offers seven prima facie duties by
which to evaluate actions: duties of fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice, beneficence,
self-improvement, and non-maleficence.’ These duties, expressed as principles, are not
reducible to simpler duties, values, or interests (some, in fact, seem more Kantian, while
others, such as beneficence, more consequentialist), and are not lexically ordered (though
he thinks that in general we have greater obligations to not cause harm than to help
others). We come to know this set of principles6 as self-evident, but only afier paying

careful attention to which elements of particular cases seem most relevant to our moral

judgments. Furthermore, we cannot decide cases a priori—we need to know the

 

4“Principlism” was the term originally coined by Danner Clouser and Bernard Gert as a disdainful label for
Beauchamp and Childress’s principle-based account (James F. Childress, “Principlism,” Encyclopedia of
Ethics 2"‘1 ed., ed. Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker (New York: Routledge, 2001), 1377-
1381.) That the 2001 Encyclopedia of Ethics contains an entry entitled “Principlism” that is not meant
disdainfully shows that the term is outgrowing its original negative connotation. I will use “principlism”
and “principle-based approach” interchangeably.

5 Ross, “The Right and The Good,” 488-89.

”Ross’s principles could be described as a “pluralism” of principles because they are not reducible to a
single common element. However, Ross is not a pluralist in a more interesting sense: he thinks that his set
of principles generates single correct answers to each moral problem. Despite this claim, it seems likely
that such a diverse set of principles could generate a variety of rationally defensible but inconsistent and
non-reducible answers, and so be pluralistic in ways not admitted by Ross.

77

situational details to be able to determine which principles are the most relevant. When
principles conflict (“prima facie” refers to their initial appearance of applicability), we
need to make a judgment based on all of the relevant considerations to determine our
“duty proper,” or actual duty. In cases where we determine that it is morally required that
we break a promise, for example, we do not dismiss the prima facie duty to keep our
promises; in fact, we typically think we need to somehow make up for even justified
broken promises.7

In summary, on Ross’s account, we learn our prima facie duties fiom paying
attention to what seems to matter most, morally speaking, in particular cases, but because
these duties sometimes conflict, we must make final decisions not by applying theory but
by acts of judgment. Beauchamp and Childress’s view resembles Ross’s but differs in
their specific principles and in the justification for them—they see their principles as
arising out of shared moral commitments between otherwise competing moral views.8

Principle approaches—certainly Ross’s and Beauchamp and Childress’s—are
typically directed to human-human interactions. Warren goes further and develops
principles which also take seriously the moral considerability of nonhuman animals, all
living things, and ecosystems. She argues for a multi-criterial approach to moral
considerability, where several properties (not just interests) confer moral considerability

to their bearers. These different sources of value suggest and justify, she thinks, a variety

 

7Ross, “The Right and The Good,” 492-93.
sTom Beauchamp and James F. Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics 3" ed (Oxford: Oxford UP,

1989). See also: James F. Childress, “A Principle-based Approach,” A Companion to Bioethics, ed. Helga
Kuhse and Peter Singer (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 61-71.

78

of non-reducible principles. Like Ross, she believes that single answers to particular

cases can be had despite the variety of principles involved.

Mary Anne Warren ’s Principle-Based Approach

Warren’s basic strategy is to argue against four uni-criterial—Iife only, sentience
only, relational only, and moral agency only—views of moral status and then move to
include elements of each in a multi-criterial approach. From these different ways in
which entities can be morally considerable, she develops seven guiding principles: the
Respect for Life, Anti-Cruelty, Agent’s Rights, Human Rights, Ecological, Interspecific,
and Transitivity of Respect principles. These principles are ordered insofar as they
operationalize moral considerability-conferring criteria and thereby reflect the relative
importance of each of these criteria. In this way, they are not, as Ross thinks, self
evident, nor do they, as Beauchamp and Childress think, reflect the overlapping or
common ground of competing views.

Warren defines moral status (or moral considerability) as that which makes an
entity an object “towards which moral agents have, or can have, moral obligations.” We
cannot do just whatever we want with respect to such things, but must take their interests
or well-being into account.9 In addition, she says that the concept of moral status should
be regarded as a “blunt tool” to establish minimum standards of behavior prohibiting

harm and requiring aid within limits, and that it is directed at members of groups rather

 

9Mary Anne Warren, Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things (Oxford: Oxford U
P, 1997), 3.

79

than at specific individuals.10 This description of moral status is well within the current
usage of the term and is very close, if not identical, to how I have been using it here. Her
characterization of moral considerability as a blunt tool fits also with my use of the
somewhat vague notion of trivial-to-vital interests. What is more novel is her claim that
there is no single criterion to account for all ascriptions of moral status and the breadth of
entities this approach identifies as morally considerable. Warren argues that this view has
important advantages over single-criterion approaches in that it fits commonsense views
regarding moral obligation and it allows us to make attributions of moral status to not
only individual interest-bearing beings, but to all living things, as well as wholes such as
species and ecosystems. Finally, she hopes this multi-criterial approach will help us
avoid moral pluralism originating at the level of theory. For Warren, the relative
importance of various moral considerability-conferring properties provide a ranking of
the resulting principles and hence lessens the chance for irresolvable conflicts between
them. To allow for pluralism would force us to admit that we are doomed to live with
permanent, rationally irreducible moral disagreement.

As mentioned, I will argue for some revisions of Warren’s principles, consistent
with work done in the previous chapter, and suggest that despite their appeal as elements
of a principlist approach to ethics which sidelines or eliminates theory, these principles
serve better as part of a reflective equilibrium approach which includes discussions of
particular cases, principles, and theory. But in addition, because the changes I suggest

rest on the belief that the possession of interests is what makes individual organisms

 

‘°1bid., 9 and 13.

8O

morally considerable, Warren is left with little ground for ranking her principles, and

hence for expecting no conflict between them.

A. The Respect for Life Principle

“Living organisms are not to be killed or otherwise harmed, without good reasons that
do not violate principles 2- 7. ”1'

Albert Schweitzer famously saw being alive as not only necessary and sufficient
for moral status, but as sufficient for full moral status. His position can be summed up by
his claim that “I am a life that wills to live in the midst of life that wills to live,”‘2 and his
assertion that thinking one sort of living thing is worth more than another (e.g., animals
over plants) is to rely merely on our prejudices. The first claim is his argument that life
confers moral status and the second that this moral status is had by all living things
equally. Warren rightly discredits this view on several grounds. For instance, she points
out that we have no reason to believe that all living things have a “will to live,” at least in
the sense that this means having, minimally, a desire for pleasure and fear of pain.13 She
also complains that “radical biological egalitarianism” of this sort is practically
impossible to accept. A full range of human actions, from food preparation to medical
care, involves the killing of other organisms. The move to avoid the problem by allowing
killing when it serves vital human needs is plagued by the fact that reasoning so with

respect to plants and animals means doing so also with respect to other humans. If life is

 

"Ibid., 149.
”Ibid., 31.

'3Ibid., 34-35.

81

the only criterion by which entities gain moral status and it provides it equally, our need
for food could be met with similar moral consequences by plants or by other people—a
reductio against the life only account.”

Warren does not, however, want to entirely discard Schweitzer’s sentiments.
Being alive is sufficient, though not necessary, she thinks, for some moral status. Her
positive argument for this claim is that it is consistent with the commonsense view that
there is not a category of “worthless” life which could be destroyed by moral agents
without good reason.” Her Respect for Life principle reflects her belief that life is a
sufficient condition for moral considerability as well as her belief that other properties, as
reflected in principles 2-6, make it possible for their bearers to kill and harm some fellow
living entities.

Warren is right to be critical of Schweitzer’s life-only account. However, her
positive argument for nevertheless including life as one criterion among others is not
particularly persuasive. As 1 indicated earlier, I am sympathetic with the claim that being
alive confers value. How far this intuition ought to move us toward accepting life as a
sufficient condition for moral status is, however, uncertain. Even if Warren is right that
commonsense morality includes the belief that there is no category of worthless life, it

would be preferable to be able to explain why this commonsense view is right rather than

to simply accept it, especially when commonsense morality also says that we can only

 

1"To clarify, one could argue that life confers moral considerability equally but that when it comes to
making moral evaluations of particular cases, we should pay attention to the vitalness of interests involved.
This, it would seem, could allow humans to use some nonhuman animals and plants. However, this
nullifies any moral standing plants would enjoy in a life-ethic because they do not have interests in the
relevant sense.

lsWarren, Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things, 49.

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injure those things which care about what happens to them, and not all living things seem
to care. Warren, in fact, seems to accept this contrary view also, when she asks
rhetorically, “If bacteria do not care about their own goals, then why should we care about
these goals?”6 She resolves this apparent inconsistency by taking the truth of both as
indicating that the obligations we owe living things qua living things are not reducible to
their having interests.

However, with no additional argumentation it is not clear that this is how the
matter should be resolved, especially given the extent to which the commonsense belief
that there is no category of “worthless life” is questionable (consider viruses).
“Worthless” means to her here that an entity is not an object of our own moral obligation,
or that it does not possess value independent of beings who might value it. However, to
call something “worthless” in everyday parlance is to say not that it is neutral in value,
but that it is bad, or has negative value. When we say that a tool, for example, is
worthless, we are complaining: not only is it not useful, but we are irritated that it is not
useful. If we are more careful and ask whether there could be living things which do not
have positive value, or are neutral with respect to value or moral status (rather than asking
if something is disagreeable just because it is alive), it is less clear that the commonsense
answer would be as Warren thinks.

Warren’s caveat that harm to living things might sometimes be acceptable casts
further doubt on the relation between being alive and moral considerability. She admits
that it is unclear what gets to count as a good reason for harming or killing something

living, as the fact of being alive itself gives us little information about an entity’s moral

 

"Ibid., 48 (emphasis in original).

83

status. She says that the strength of such reasons must be evaluated according to
additional factors, such as sentience, its relation to other things, and whether it is a moral

agent.‘7

Given this concession, however, it is not clear why she would insist that it is life
itself that is morally relevant. By her own take, it seems that life matters only insofar as it
is (contingently) necessary for something to be sentient, a moral agent, etc.

Warren also supplies a pragmatic argument for the Respect for Life principle. In
our concern to protect species in order to prevent future loss to ourselves, we are well
advised to insist on the Respect for Life principle. It makes, she thinks, “more than a
verbal difference whether we believe, on the one hand, that all living things have a claim
to our consideration, however modest; or, on the other hand, that plants and other non-
sentient life forms should be protected only when they have demonstrable value to human
beings.”18

This pragmatic argument does not, however, make the case that all living things
are in fact morally considerable. We could interpret her pragmatic argument as saying
that those of us “in the know” know better, but we should nevertheless convince everyone
else (and in the process, maybe even ourselves) that life confers moral considerability in
order to manipulate behavior. But this seems more than a bit disingenuous, indicating
that this is not the correct interpretation of Warren’s argument. Although she does not
make it clear, I take it that she means instead that life does in fact confer value and that

we have pragmatic reasons to make this explicit. Such an argument only works, however,

if we already agree on the moral considerability-conferring quality of life. An alternative,

 

”ibid., 149.

”Ibid., 150.

84

for those of us who remain less than convinced by the various life-ethics accounts is to
take her pragmatic argument not as having anything to do with the moral considerability
of all living things, but as justifying her Respect for Life principle derivatively fi'om the
interests of others. However, grounding the principle in this way makes it unlikely that
all living things would have (even this derivative) standing; likely not many viruses or
bacteria. On the other hand, Warren’s caveat that harm could legitimately be done to
living things qua living things with few interests might also suggest that because killing
viruses and bacteria would benefit others with greater moral considerability (reflected in
her subsequent principles), doing so would be, in line with commonsense, morally
acceptable.

In the end, then, the Respect for Life principle fits with the commonsense view
that all life is prima facie valuable, though the strength of this conviction is, as
mentioned, questionable once more carefully explored. Perhaps the best argument for life
itself conferring value has to do with our uncertainty of whether life exists elsewhere in
the universe—the rarity pushes us to err on the side of caution when wondering whether
to harm or destroy living things. This argument protects individual living entities only to
the extent that doing so impacts the number and diversity of living things. In any case,
instrumentalist arguments citingpotential benefits to interested entities can point to
Warren’s Respect for Life principle as important to keep as is, though subsumed under a

principle (such as the one below) concerned with the moral relevance of interests.

B. The Anti-Cruelty Principle

“Sentient beings are not to be killed or subjected to pain or suffering, unless there is no

85

other feasible way of furthering goals that are (1) consistent with principles 3- 7; and (2)
important to human beings, or other entities that have a stronger moral status than can
be based on sentience alone. ”‘9

Warren turns second to the sentience-only view of Peter Singer, according to
which attributions of moral status are based on the ability to enjoy pleasure and suffer
pain, where this includes emotions, moods, etc.20 As a utilitarian, Singer takes sentience
as the property relevant to the morally obligatory aim of maximizing pleasure and
minimizing pain. And because moral evaluations ought to be made from a universal
perspective (to hold my interests as more important than someone else’s is mere
prejudice), he thinks the comparative interests of all sentient beings should be treated
equally. Warren objects to the exclusive focus on interests on four grounds, each of
which warrants a response ensuring that Warren’s principles remain consistent with the
conclusions of the previous chapter that interests are the most morally relevant
characteristic for the moral standing of individuals.

Warren first complains that the sentience-only view does not allow, as many
environmentalists wish, for ascriptions of moral status to such things as species and
ecosystems. Leopold, for example, thinks we owe obligations to ecological community

members.” But the sentience-only view would not, she argues, allow for a tree to have

more moral status than a wild radish, which apparently she thinks would be the case for

 

”Ibid., 152.

20Warren points out that we should say ability to enjoy pleasure and suffer pain in order to allow those not
currently feeling (e.g., if sleeping) to nonetheless count as sentient, though should not say potential to
enjoy pleasure, etc., because this would allow newly fertilized ova to count as sentient. We should
maintain the distinction between sleeping but otherwise sentient and the not yet sentient entities. Ibid., 55.

”Ibid., 71.

86

an environmentalist view such as Leopold’s.22 More importantly, she complains that a
theory which does not allow for direct moral consideration to the plants of an ecosystem
flies in the face of common intuitions, such as that of John Rodman: “I find it as odd to
think that the plants [of the California coastal Chaparral] have value only for the
happiness of the dusky-footed woodrats as to think that the dusky-footed woodrats have
value only for the happiness of humans.”23 Theories attributing moral status to sentient
beings could account for the woodrats’ moral status; the difficulty is doing so for things
such as plants.

One way to interpret a Leopoldian ethic, however, is to say that moral status
depends upon an entity’s role in the overall health of the ecological community,
suggesting that no single tree would have value in and of itself, but only derivative value;
and in fact, no single tree would have much derivative, or instrumental, value since the
removal of any one tree would typically have virtually no impact on the health of the
larger ecosystem.24 On the other hand, the ecological community itself is not sentient, so
if we want to claim that it has moral status we would still need to question the sentience-
only view—unless, of course, its functioning is morally significant only in virtue of all
the sentient creatures, including ourselves, who depend upon it. The point is that a
sentience-only view might still work to make trees valuable in and of themselves (and not

just to humans), though if we insist that ecosystems have moral status in and of

 

”Ibid., 72.
”Ibid., 72.
24In fact, the removal of one, or even several, trees might as likely have a positive effect on an ecosystem,

depending on how that is measured—a clear patch in a forest would likely increase, for example, niche
variety and species diversity.

87

themselves, we would be forced, as Warren suggests, to abandon the sentience-only view.
We might nonetheless insist that interests are the only, or most important consideration in
thinking about the moral status of individual organisms.25

Warren next objects to the sentience-only view by saying that some have argued,
in contrast to Singer, that caring creates greater moral obligations to some beings than to
others—to infants more so than to pigs, or to family members more so than to strangers. I
agree that we do generally think we owe greater obligations to those with whom we have
stronger social ties. However, it is not clear that this involves differences in moral status
due to differences in relational qualities. On the sentience-only view, there are reasons
for thinking we owe more to family members than to others—relationships matter, but in
ways consistent with a sentience-only account of moral considerability for individuals.
For example, it might be that we are especially concerned with the welfare of infants and
children because harm to them would gravely damage the moral fiber or organization of
human society (at least more so than would harm to beings not so closely tied to us). Or,
it might be that we favor fellow humans over others because humans have more interests
or can feel some things much more deeply than can organisms with less developed mental
faculties. Alternatively, sentience might be the basic element establishing moral status,
with some obligations and the sorting of them depending upon additional factors, such as
promise making or special duties to care for lives which one participated in creating. To

object to the universality or the across-the-board equality of Singer’s approach is to object

 

2SOn Callicott’s interpretation of Leopold’s work, humans and (most) nonhuman animals could have moral
considerability for other reasons than their role in their respective ecosystems. This might include (though
he is not explicit on this count) the fact that we have certain morally significant sentimental responses to
other sentient beings. But in the case of plants, it appears that their role within ecosystems is their
strongest source of moral considerability, though their usefulness to others gives them derivative value.

88

to his brand of utilitarianism-only, not necessarily to the sentience-only view.

It is worth noting that if an interests-based ethic can account for such
commonsense moral intuitions, it might be that other moral principles, such as W. D.
Ross’s, could be subsumed under Warren’s Anti-Cruelty principle. All of Ross’s
principles, afier all, can seen as further specifications of the more general appeal to
interests reflected in this principle of Warren’s.

A response similar to the one outlined just above can be made to Warren’s third
objection that Singer’s view cannot provide us with a basis for human rights which can
trump utility.26 And indeed, Singer does think that talk of rights is inappropriate in the
context of utilitarianism except to the extent that they further happiness. Again however,
it would be useful to separate out the sentience-only view from a utilitarian-only view.
There is no obvious reason why sentience cannot serve as a foundation for rights unless
we are already committed to utilitarianism alone. Regan’s account of rights, for example,
is similar to Singer’s utilitarianism at least insofar as he too depends heavily on the notion
of experiential interests.

Finally, Warren argues that Singer’s view faces a debilitating dilemma. If the
lives and happiness of beings not self-aware (such as invertebrates) matter to them, then
equal moral consideration does not allow us to engage in practices necessary for our own
well-being. And, she continues, it is implausible to suppose as Singer does that their
lives do not matter to them, in which case, “unless human lives and happiness are worth

millions of times more than the lives and happiness of small invertebrates, the principle

 

2‘r’Warren, Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things, 77.

89

of equal consideration prohibits [even] the cultivation of crops.”27

This also seems to be an objection to a utilitarian-only view and not obviously to a
sentience-only view. Perhaps most humans and some other animals have the capacity to
suffer so much so, and in so many ways, that rights are necessary to protect certain key
interests in a way not needed for, say, invertebrates. If we had reason to think that pulling
a leg off of an insect was felt in the same way as doing such to a human, we would be
forced to say that removing appendages is equally bad whether done to an insect or to a
human. We would, of course, need to consider in addition to the immediate physical pain
what this would mean to each over time, what it would do to their self-image, relational
qualities, and other life prospects. But we do not think it would be felt (etc.) the same
and so conclude that although simply having fun is not a sufficient reason for harming an
insect, whatever reason is weighty enough to allow harm in such a case would need not
be as great as it would in the case of harming a fellow human. The human interests
involved are so great that rights could conceivably come into play in a way that would
trump the interests of invertebrates (which perhaps only count in utilitarian calculations
or when thinking about cruelty, benevolence, etc.), allowing us to do things such as till
fields. The sentience-only view can, it appears, be made to fit with commonsense views
regarding the enormous difference in obligations to fellow humans and invertebrates.

Although she dismisses the sentience-only view, Warren thinks sentience is a
sufficient condition for moral status greater than that conferred by simply being alive.

She wonders, however, if a sliding scale of moral status that corresponds to the sliding

scale of sentience in organisms could save the sentience-only view by providing a way of

 

”Ibid., 83.

90

avoiding the above “comparable interests dilemma” facing Singer. Although she thinks
this is an improvement, she argues that because it does not allow us, as a part of a
sentience-only view, to attribute more moral status to human infants than to animals with
an equal capacity for sentience, we should move to a multi-criterial approach which does
not rely solely upon sentience. A second problem is that it does not allow us to ascribe
more moral status to organisms which belong to endangered species than to those which
do not.28

However, it is at least conceivable that a sliding scale of moral status
corresponding to the scale of capacity for sentience could be used in an approach which
incorporated both rights and calculations of utility in a way that provides special
protection to some entities, perhaps even to infants. This aside, however, I would like to
add that Warren’s comments regarding endangered species raises the question of whether
she is linking obligations and the possession of moral status too closely. After all, it
would seem odd if our increased obligations to members of endangered species would
come from them actually gaining in moral status. It seems more plausible that such
organisms’ moral status remains the same and our obligations to them increase, especially
in those cases where we have directly caused that species’ demise. In other words, our
actions toward them can potentially create additional obligations. This fits nicely with
our commonsense view that increased obligations to other people (especially to our
children) often comes from actions such as promise making with no assumed increase in
the other’s moral status.

Of her complaints against the sentience-only view, I appreciate most her comment

 

”Ibid., 88.

91

that it prevents ecosystems and species from being morally considerable since such
entities are not sentient due to their lack of interests. Her other complaints, however,
point to deficiencies not of those views which emphasize sentience, or interests, but of
thorough-going utilitarianism. The conclusion to draw from her discussion here is that
we need more complexity at the level of theory at least to the extent that both
consequences and rights (or whatever they stand for) are taken seriously with neither
trumping the other in every case, and so both individuals and wholes can be morally

considerable (though no positive argument for the latter proposal has yet been given).

C. The Agent’s Rights Principle

“Moral agents have fitll and equal basic moral rights, including the rights to life and
liberty. ”29

The third criterion Warren seeks to rescue from its usual uni-criterial role to
incorporate in her multi-criterial approach is personhood. She first dismisses Regan’s
“minimalist” definition of personhood—being an experiencing subject of a life—as a
implausible candidate for attributions of full moral status. The main problem, according
to her, is that it provides rights (for Regan any experiencing subject of a life is also a
bearer of rights) to too many things. For example, it makes us obligated to care for the
well-being of wild animals and prevents us from protecting ecosystems by eradicating
nonnative (but rights-bearing) animals who are destroying native (but non-rights-bearing)

plants,30 as in the mountain goat case spelled out in Chapter One. Nonetheless, she

 

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92

argues, being an experiencing subject of a life is relevant to moral status: mentally
sophisticated animals can suffer not only physical pain but also mental anguish, boredom,
social isolation, and the like.31 Therefore, although the subjecthood version of
personhood is not sufficient to provide an entity with firll moral status, it does mark a
difference.

In contrast to Warren, I argued in the previous chapter that subjecthood and its
importance in moral deliberation is reducible to considerations of sentience (interests). In
fact, Warren’s own description of why subjecthood is relevant sounds like a description
of how those things with higher mental faculties can suffer—mental anguish, boredom,
and social isolation are pains which only certain animals can experience. A sentience-
only position could (and should in order to be viable) include some notion of being an
experiencing subject of a life to take into account these pains.

The same sort of response can be given to Warren’s claim that a “maxirnalist”
definition of personhood—that of being a moral agent—should provide normal adult
humans with full moral status. She argues that a set of rights corresponding to full moral
status is necessary for such beings to live fulfilling lives. We need certain guarantees of
freedom, for example, in order to function as rational, autonomous beings.32 It is not
clear, however, that a sentient-only view (though again, not a utilitarian-only view) could
not account for this concern. Moral agency is an indicator of what is really relevant to
moral status: the ability to suffer certain kinds of harm, such as not being able to, despite

one’s wishes, act as a rational and autonomous being. As in the previous case, Martin

 

“Ibid., 120.

32Ibid., 156-57.

93

Benjamin’s simple vs. reflective consciousness distinction, interpreted in terms of the
sorts of interests one is capable of having, could answer Warren’s concerns without

positing additional moral considerability due specifically to moral agency.33

D. The Human Rights Principle

“Within the limits of their own capacities and of principle 3, human beings who are
capable of sentience but not of moral agency have the same moral rights as do moral
agents. ”3"

As with the previous principle, this one seems also intended as a corrective to a
sentience-only view. Warren has already argued that some sentient creatures, namely
subjects of a life and moral agents, have greater moral considerability than do others. She
worries, though, that without this additional principle, human infants and the mentally
disabled might be treated as poorly as are nonhuman animals of roughly equal interests.
Warren argues that the interests of human infants should “carry the same moral weight as
do those of other human beings,” because only by treating them in this way will there
later be adults with good lives.35

Carl Cohen provides an argument that could bolster Warren’s Human Rights
principle. Cohen wants to grant rights to human infants but withhold them from
nonhuman animals similarly sentient. Humans, he argues, can have rights and animals

not because rights make sense only in the human-human world where those involved are

 

3 3 See previous chapter for discussion of Benjamin’s view.
34Warren, Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things, 164.

”Ibid., 164.

94

morally autonomous. To say of rats that they have rights is, he says, “to apply to the
world of rats a concept that makes good sense when applied to humans, but which makes
no sense at all when applied to rats.”36 F urtherrnore, individuals qualify for rights not by
themselves but by being members of a class of entities who can have rights"7 Humans
are the only ones who are morally autonomous, and being human—even if only an infant
who is not morally autonomous—is sufficient for rights.

There are two problems, however, which limit the usefulness of this argument as a
justification for Warren’s Human Rights principle. First, it is true that rights do not make
sense in animal-animal relationships since animals do not have duties against one
another. Only moral agents can have duties, and only moral agents can be held
accountable for violating another’s rights. But we are not wondering whether rights are
present in the world of rats. We are wondering if rights are present, or relevant, in the
cross-species world of humans and rats. That is, do we moral agents have obligations to
rats that are expressible in terms of rights in the same way that we as moral agents have
obligations to human infants that are expressible in terms of rights? To say that rats are
not part of our moral community but human infants are is to make an assertion, not an
argument. In addition, the class of humans—the biological class of Homo sapiens—is
irrelevant to the question at hand. The relevant class is that consisting of beings who
have interests serious enough to warrant special protection (assuming, that is, there are

such things as rights). Singer, although not fond of rights talk himself, pointed out the

 

36Carl Cohen, “Do Animals Have Rights?” Analyzing Moral Issues, ed. Judith A. Boss (Mountain View,
CA: Mayfield, I999), 829.

37Carl Cohen, “The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research,” Ethics: History, Theory, and

Contemporary Issues, ed. Steven C. Cahn and Peter Markie (Oxford: Oxford U P, 1998), 831. And: Carl
Cohen, “Do Animals Have Rights?” 828.

95

arbitrary nature of favoring one’s own species over another when it comes to questions of
moral obligation.

In addition to Warren’s claim that granting rights to children helps ensure happy
adults, there are better ways to bolster the Human Rights principle. It is worth noting,
though, that each of these ways of protecting human infants to the desired degree works
without claiming that they differ in moral considerability from nonhuman animals of
roughly the same degree of sentience. First, we could distinguish human infants from
such nonhuman animals by invoking the claim that the former are at least potential
persons who will have a richer set of interests in need of protection. However, this seems
less than a perfect solution. It faces the same problem as do arguments from potentiality
aimed at the protection of fetuses: how do we prevent such an argument from conferring
rights, etc., to gametes? The response that unification of gametes to form a zygote
provides the desired line of separation between non-potential persons and potential
. persons seems ad hoc or arbitrary. Furthermore, even if the potentiality argument
succeeded in protecting normally healthy infants, it is not clear that it would protect the
permanently mentally disabled. A second way in which the sentience-only view could
provide significant protection for infants and the mentally handicapped is by taking into
account both the harm done to them as sentient beings and the harm done to those who
love and care for them. This might also provide additional protections for animals we
have as pets. Third, and very similar to Warren’s happy adults argument, it might be that
human societies can flourish only when we value human life so thoroughly that we must
overlook any differences between infants and adults. And fourth, even if infants and

some nonhuman animals, such as cats and dogs, should be treated roughly equally due to

96

similarities of interests, this does not mean that we should, for example, conduct medical
experiments on infants. It could as easily mean, as Singer suggests, that cats and dogs
should not be treated in ways in which we are unwilling to treat infants.

It seems then, that the best arguments in support of Warren’s Human Rights
principle has to do with protecting interests——those of full persons (and of society in
general) and the firture interests of infants themselves. In fact, it does not seem that
Warren intends her own argument to reflect greater moral worth for human infants than
for nonhuman animals with roughly the same interests, given that her primary argument
for this principle rests on the desire to see well-adjusted happy adult human beings.

These comments regarding Warren’s Agent’s Rights and Human Rights principles
suggest revisions of the Anti-Cruelty principle (no harm to sentient creatures unless
strong justification) such that the Agent’s and Human Rights principles would be
subsumed under it as simply more specific articulations of the principle. As previously
suggested, we can follow this pattern further by including under the Anti-Cruelty
principle some additional set of principles which governs human-human (and perhaps
human-other sentient animal) interactions, such as those of Ross or Beauchamp and

Childress.

E. The Ecological Principle and F. The Intersmcific Principle

“Living things that are not moral agents, but that are important to the ecosystems of
which they are part, have, within the limits of principles 1-4, a stronger moral status than
could be based upon their intrinsic properties alone; ecologically important entities that

are not themselves alive, such as species and habitats, may also legitimately be accorded

97

a stronger moral status than their intrinsic properties would indicate. " 38 (The

Ecological Principle)

“ Within the limits of principles 1-5, non-human members of mixed social communities

have a stronger moral status than could be based upon their intrinsic properties alone. ”39
(The Interspecific Principle)

Each of the previous principles (A-D) expresses obligations to individuals due to
properties they themselves possess. J. Baird Callicott and Ne] Noddings each offer
versions of an alternative: moral considerability and the obligations it helps to establish
are to be understood in terms of relational properties. Warren thinks this is an important
addition to the notion of moral considerability because it accounts for the commonsense
view that although wholes do not themselves have interests, they can nonetheless be
morally considerable. But, she argues, this does not replace the criteria of sentience,
moral agency, and the like.

Callicott argues for moral considerability of both individuals and wholes. On his
view, the moral standing of individuals is tied to their membership in various
communities which are themselves morally considerable. These communities are nested
within one another, forming concentric circles of relationships with families at the center,
followed by less and less close relationships as we move to rings further from the center.
We are each members of many of these communities. Obligations arise within these
communities such that we owe more weighty duties to members of communities closest

to the center, for any one of us, than to those less close. As we add communities of less

 

38Warren, Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things, 166.

”Ibid., 168.

98

intimate relationships, obligations are added, but the new obligations do not replace prior,
or more central, ones. They do, however, limit how we can fulfill the more inner duties
to our partners and children. For example, the choice of food for ourselves and our
families would be limited by what can be produced with minimal adverse impact on the
biotic community. Duties owed to individuals are, then, determined by their membership
in relationships ranging from family to ecosystems.“o

Callicott supports his concentric circles model by appealing to a Humean account
of ethics in which obligations arise from sentiment, with reason playing a supporting
informative role. We are naturally inclined to think well of fiiendship, generosity, and
other social virtues in the sense that the good of others and of the community matter to us. 8
Reason can then help us to develop principles of justice, legal institutions and rights, etc.,
to better serve the communities of which we are a part.“1 Families are the most central
community because it is with respect to them that we have the strongest sense of
connection and dependence. This should not, Callicott suggests, seem strange since from
an evolutionary perspective, close connections to family were necessary for success. He
points to Darwin as supplying an evolutionary explanation for why we have the moral
sentiments we do. In brief, Darwin argues that family units—and later, larger social
groups—were more successful than others if their members instinctually cooperated with

one another. Altruism was thus naturally and socially selected for. Eventually, the things

 

4OJ. Baird Callicott, “Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Back Together Again,” The Animal
Rights/Environmental Ethics Debate: The Environmental Perspective, ed. Eugene C. Hargrove (Albany,
NY: State U of New York P, 1992), 2496]; J. Baird Callicott, “The Conceptual Foundations of the Land
Ethic,” Companion to A Sand County Almanac: Interpretive and Critical Essays, ed. J. Baird Callicott
(Madison: U Wisconsin P, 1987), 186-217.

“Warren, Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things, 124.

99

which furthered the community’s well-being were called good, while those that created

I.42 Morality was built upon these community sentiments

problems were considered evi
with reason leading us to continually expand our moral communities to what they
presently are.

When we recognize the interconnectedness and interdependence of all elements
(including ourselves) of ecosystems, we should be led, as Callicott’s intellectual
predecessor Aldo Leopold suggested, to expand our moral sentiments and sense of
community accordingly. Our obligations would then increase to cover not only members
of the biotic community, but of the biotic community itself. Becoming aware that the
environment and all its parts form a community in which we are mere members should
lead to community-oriented moral sentiments. These new moral concerns would not
replace earlier established ones, but they would complicate our moral world, as was the
case when people expanded their notions of social community from kinship relations to
all humans. Leopold’s prescription (known as the “land ethic”) to act to further “the
integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community,” demonstrates the holistic
element this approach ends up with."3 But as Warren qualifies, “This does not mean that
the land ethic ascribes moral status only to species, ecosystems, or the biosphere as a

whole. It means, rather, that our moral obligations to individual organisms and groups of

organisms are not based upon their intrinsic properties . . . [but on] the good of the

 

”Ibid., 125.

”Ibid., 126. Leopold’s original articulation of the land ethic can be found in: Aldo Leopold, A Sand
County Almanac (New York: Oxford U P, 1987), 224-25.

100

community as a whole.”44 Described like this, however, individuals do not have moral
considerability in themselves, but are morally relevant only to the extent that they play a
role in the well-being of the community.

As Warren points out, Callicott does not want such a thorough-going holism.
Pushed by complaints that his theory could lead to horrific consequences for individual
humans for the good of the community, Callicott altered his view to take more seriously
the moral considerability of individual entities. He argues that as our moral thinking has
expanded to include communities beyond families, obligations are added without
dismantling the original obligations. As already mentioned, new obligations may,
however, limit the legitimate avenues of fulfillment of more prior ones.” So, as Warren
puts it, “the structure of each community to which we belong determines the moral
obligations that we have to co-members of the community; while the ‘nesting’ of
communities . . . provides the means of assigning relative weights to obligations arising
from different communities?”6

Warren likes Callicott’s work because it accounts for the commonsense view that
we owe obligations to those with whom we are in closest relationships over those with
whom we are less connected. In addition, it explains how we can have obligations toward
different sorts of entities and, in particular, towards infants and others lacking reflective

consciousness—they are part of our most central relationships. Furthermore, she points

 

44Warren, Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things, 126. There is some uncertainty
as to Callicott’s position regarding the role of reason and the relation between intrinsic properties and
moral considerability. This will be discussed further in Chapter Four.

”Ibid., 127 and 128.

“Ibid., 128.

101

out that by allowing for human-human relationships and the associated obligations to be
ranked higher than those of other relationships, Callicott’s view is more practically
acceptable than are the strict egalitarian views of Singer and Regan.“7

Warren does not, however, take it as providing the entire story, and argues that
Callicott’s work should result in just one principle among several, with the remainder
being developed from different criteria of moral considerability. She points out that
although some obligations depend upon closeness, not all do—murder is just as wrong
when committed against a stranger as against a family member.“8 Second, we should
worry about the structure of the community itself being unjust, which raises doubts
regarding Callicott’s claim that moral evaluations are to be done in terms of harm and
benefit to specific communities."9 Third, it is not clear how to justify, on Callicott’s view,
obligations to sentient individuals not part of already existing communities. Finally, she
complains that, despite the theoretical unity and coherence touted by Callicott, his theory
fails to provide ways to resolve conflicts between different prima facie moral obligations,
whether arising from within a single community or different ones?0 These problems can
be made to largely disappear, Warren thinks, if we maintain the previously described
principles emphasizing the welfare of individuals."

Nel Noddings’ approach is quite different from Callicott’s in that she does not

 

"Ibid., 132.
“Ibid., 134.
”Ibid., 134.
soIbid., 132-33.

”Ibid., 133.

102

suppose that already existing communities establish the moral considerability of
individual entities and our corresponding obligations to them. She does, however, think
that some relationships are closer, or more centrally important to each person than are
others, and that obligations are greater as the relationships are closer. Also like Callicott,
she thinks that feelings—in her case, of caring—establish the obligations we have. In her
account, the “one-caring” is spontaneously moved to help the “cared-for” upon feeling
that person’s needs. This is not to say that reason plays no role, but that emotions provide
the motivation (making her as indebted to Hume as is Callicott). Furthermore, caring
relationships must eventually be, at least in some way, reciprocal. Humans are by nature
caring beings, and when we first meet others we do so with a caring attitude. These
relationships develop in varying degrees of reciprocating emotional connection, and the
obligations owed are in proportion to the degree of this connection.52

Warren raises several concerns about Noddings’ approach, though concludes that
caring relationships are one way in which obligations can arise. It cannot be the only
way, though. First, it wrongly assumes that all people have the capacity to care about
others. Such a capacity does not seem universally innate. Furthermore, it seems that
even those capable of responding empathetically to others do not always have such
impulses. Yet we would not want to excuse someone from doing what would otherwise
be considered obligatory simply because she lacked the ability to care for a particular

person or animal.’3

 

52Ibid., 137-40. I am drawing directly from Warren’s description of Noddings’ work here. The original is:
Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (Berkeley: U California P,
1984).

53Warren, Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things, 142-46.

103

Noddings’ approach provides less protection for nonhuman animals than either
commonsense or the sentience-based arguments of Singer and Regan would allow. She
holds that we all are capable of feeling a “sympathetic twinge” when we see an animal
suffer, so we do have obligations to not cause them needless harrn.’4 But for Noddings,
obligations arise in relationships just in case there is someone caring and that caring is
eventually positively responded to. But lack of caring should not allow for a weakening
of obligations (an important worry given the often appalling lack of compassion and
fellow feeling exhibited by people). Furthermore, many animals are incapable of any
positive response to acts of care. That they bite or run away should not be a reason to use
them in any way we want. And importantly, Noddings’ inability to deal adequately with
animals presumably goes doubly for the rest of nature.

Caring establishes obligations, but need not establish moral considerability. We
can care about inanimate objects or places which we do not think have standing. The
reciprocity requirement could be used here to draw the line of morally considerable
beings tightly enough to leave these inanimate things aside, but it ends up drawing it too
tightly because it also leaves out many sentient nonhuman animals. An alternative would
be to say that the potential for reciprocating caring relationships is enough to establish
standing. But it would be odd to have a theory of obligation based on relationships of
complex emotional interaction which allows (or requires) obligations even when all this
is not actually present. In the end, it seems we can retain an important role for
relationships of care within ethics without reducing all of ethics to this. Warren cites Rita

Manning as an example of someone who bolsters care ethics with some rules and

 

“Ibid., 141.

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principles.”

Q. The Transitivig of Respect Principle
“Within the limits of principles [-6, and to the extent that is feasible and morally
permissible, moral agents should respect one another ’s attributions of moral status. ”56

Of all Warren’s principles, I find this one the most intriguing. It creates room for
views of moral considerability and obligation growing out of diverse worldviews.
Various objects not covered by the other principles might be, for religious or related
reasons, objects of moral concern. Rock formations sacred to native peoples in Australia
(U lura) and the American Southwest (Shiprock) are the sorts of thing that might be
protected by this principle.57 Even if these are not themselves morally considerable due
to the absence of key intrinsic or relational properties, we have obligations to protect
them. Such obligations are owed to the people who value the objects in question.
Warren makes it clear that this principle does not require us to accept others’ ascriptions
of moral considerability, but it does require that we treat these views with respect. We
should not be overly confident that our ascriptions of moral considerability are the only
correct ones. We should at least listen and consider the plausibility of these alternative
views, as long as acting on them.would not violate obvious and significant interests as

outlined in the other principles.

This principle is quite welcome. We should not be so confident that our

 

”Ibid., 145-46.
“Ibid., 170.

”Ibid., 171.

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worldview is the one correct view that we are unwilling to take other beliefs seriously.
There are limits to plausibility, of course, and to what should be required of us, but I will
leave these issues for another time. In any case, the things other people see as morally
considerable are valuable at least derivatively in that they presumably further those
people’s interests. We should respect these beliefs and protect the relevant objects.
Because this principle relies on respect for other people’s interests, I would like to
suggest that it is best seen as yet another further specification of Warren’s Anti-Cruelty,

or better named the “Protection of Interests” principle.

Conclusion

Warren’s principle-based approach to ethics has many advantages. Principles
serve as articulations of, and in turn provide guidance for, evaluating commonsense moral
beliefs and evaluations of particular cases. In this way, they both help to organize our
thinking and provide reminders or guides pointing out the morally relevant factors of
difficult cases. They provide some continuity in our moral thinking about particular
cases, but can be altered when conflicting intuitions and judgments begin to stack up
against them. Thus described, the connection between principles and other elements of
moral thinking is one of reflective equilibrium. Principles can also provide, from Ross’s
and Warren’s point of view, the above services without appeal to the problematic higher
level of theories. This is especially important in light of the unresolved conflict between
the major competing theories such as utilitarianism and Kantianism. Principles can
provide a useful way to cover the sorts of intuition which otherwise seem most at home in

only one or another of the mutually inconsistent competing theories.

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I have argued, however, that some of Warren’s principles should be revised. It is
not clear, for example, whether being alive confers value, but even if it does it ought to
take a back seat to principles based on the interests of those things which are both alive
and sentient. The lack of a persuasive argument in favor of a life-ethic should caution us
against placing too much emphasis on the principle it supports. Other considerations,
such as the commonsense belief that all living things have prima facie value, that life
might be exceedingly rare in the universe (especially, perhaps, the particular mix found
here on Earth), and that protecting all life might (for psychological reasons) serve to
protect interest-bearing entities, argue for keeping this principle, but with a low rank with
respect to the others.

This last way of supporting the Protection of Life principles is a reason to think of
this principle as best subsumed under the Protection of Interests (Warren’s Anti-Cruelty)
principle. The Agent’s Rights and Human Rights principles could be similarly subsumed
under the Protection of Interests principle. The arguments supporting the Agent’s Rights
principle (e.g., moral agents can be harmed in more ways than can other entities) seem
clearly to be reducible to interests. The Human Rights principle seems even more
directly to arise out of the interests of sentient creatures, both those of the infants
themselves and of those who care about them. Even the Transitivity of Respect principle
is an example of a principle articulating more precisely particular ways of interacting with
other interest-bearing beings. This is not to jettison these principles, but to recognize that
their most plausible justification comes from the interests of sentient beings.

It seems possible that there are many other more specific articulations of

obligations arising from interests in addition to these just mentioned. It is not clear

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exactly how to best arrange these principles, but the Protection of Interests principle
might best be expanded to include, for example, all of Ross’s principles, no longer
limited expressly to humans (all of his principles take interests seriously). The Protection
of Interests principle could be worded in such a way that makes it generally about
protecting and furthering interests with the more specific principles subsumed beneath it.
The relation-based principle supported by Callicott and Noddings is the one not so easily
subsumed under an interests protecting principle. It represents a quite different approach
to ethics in that it is not only not reducible to interests, but it is also not directly
applicable to individuals. There are, then at least two types of principles, drawing from
two very different sources: individualistic principles tied predominantly to interests and
holistic principles drawing from the notion of community.

Warren had argued for a principlist approach at least in part because she
recognized that relying on theory to account for the diversity of sources of moral
considerability, and the resulting obligations, would mean relying on a diverse set of
moral theories which would in turn, “[doom us] to live with many moral disagreements of
the most basic sort, with no hope that the global human community can ever agree about
even the most fundamental moral principles.”58 She thinks that we can avoid these
problems if we focus on the sources of moral considerability and the principles they
support. This reasoning follows that described earlier of both Ross and Beauchamp and
Childress in their choosing to abandon theory in favor of principles. Beauchamp and

Childress, in particular, argue that a virtue of principlism is that principles represent the

 

58Ibid., 20. This does not necessarily mean that she is a monist about ethical theory, however; she wishes, I
take it, to avoid discussions of ethical theory all together.

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shared ground between otherwise inconsistent theories, worldviews, and the like.

There are, however, reasons to want to work also at the level of theory. First,
difference at the theory level need not, as Warren seems to worry, entail relativism.
Several factors limit the extent to which various beliefs and positions can be legitimate,
such as common experiences of living human lives and possessing certain universal
needs. Theories which allowed for genocide, for example, would not be legitimate.
Neither would theories built on only egoism, or that denied free will or responsibility.
Second, it is not clear how we are to adjudicate conflict between inconsistent principles
such as between those attentive to interests and those concerned first with community.
Ross’s answer (though he was not thinking about the individualism-holism problem) was
that we can know intuitively, once we had experiences enough to develop our moral
judgment, which principles were to be applied to a particular situation. Warren has
proposed a ranking which is, presumably, to minimize this problem. However, I have
argued above that, with the exception of the group-based principles and the possible
exception of the life—based principle, her principles are best seen as further specifications
of a Protection of Interests principle. This has the effect of eliminating Warren’s
particular grounds for ranking. Work at the level of theory has the potential to provide
some guidance (perhaps even some reasons for a renewed ranking of principles) here.

In the remaining chapters, I will argue in favor of a version of Callicott’s
community model of environmental ethics, incorporating Warren’s insights regarding
principles, as a response to the individualism—holism problem. Coupling Warren’s and
Callicott’s work has two advantages. First, Warren’s principles provide a needed

substantive element to Callicott’s otherwise quite abstract theory. Second, Callicott’s

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work provides theoretical support for Warren’s principles. When we revise her principles
as specified, she (or we) end up with two very different sorts: one individualistic, the
other holistic. The former works on Singer-like reasoning that because many nonhuman
entities are like us in morally relevant ways (i.e., they have interests), they are like us in
being morally considerable. The latter works on a Humean model in which moral belief
and values come from our sentimental responses (as moral agents) to various entities or
actions. Is there a way to bring these together to make her work more theoretically
coherent? Callicott thinks that he can cover both individualistic and holistic concerns
under the same theory (or meta-theory since Humean ethics is a description of what ethics
is and how it arises). Because Warren already relies on Callicott’s Humean approach to
develop the holist element of her principles, her work might gain overall theoretical (or
meta-theoretical) coherence through a redescription of all her principles in Humean
terms. In the end, then, we must return to the theory question, then, but we do so with a
much clearer sense of what sorts of principles any overall theory might incorporate if it

were to take seriously the moral considerability of both individuals and wholes.

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CHAPTER 4

THE VALUE OF NATURE

Introduction

The previous two chapters focused primarily on how we should think about the
moral standing of individual entities. Obligations owed to individuals are determined at
least in part by their possessing interests. Peter Singer takes this as a starting point to
argue persuasively that we should expand our moral community to include many non-
human animals. If possessing interests (he favors talking of sentience) is sufficient for
taking fellow humans as counting morally, then it should be sufficient for taking all the
nonhuman animals who share this characteristic as counting morally. Possessing interests
cannot, however, confer moral considerability to non-sentient individuals such as plants
or for wholes such as species and ecosystems.

Mary Anne Warren attempts to account for both individuals and wholes. She
argues that several different sources of moral considerability (interests being one of them)
can generate a small number of ethical principles for guiding action. I argued for a
revision of some of these, leaving two primary (though incommensurable) principles
covering the case of individual entities and wholes, respectively, with her other principles
subsumed under these. This leaves intact her general goal of using a principle-based
approach to solve the individualism—holism problem. But, although she uses J. Baird
Callicott’s Humean approach to ethics to support the claim that wholes can be morally
considerable, she does not extend this thinking to the case of individuals. But a Humean

ethics is providing a description of what ethics is and how it comes about and evolves.

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Applying such an explanation to only one part of her set of principles leaves in question
whether it can be applied to the rest. If not, Warren’s system of principles is in danger of
being incoherent. I believe, however, that the Humean account has the potential to cover
both the individualistic and holistic sources of value and resulting principles, and that
Callicott’s work suggests a way of doing this.

Callicott thinks that the Humean account of ethics (in conjunction with Aldo
Leopold’s expanding set of concentric circles of moral considerability) can explain how it
is that both individual entities and ecosystems can have moral standing. Being in
communities with others establishes obligations through Humean sentimental reactions.
Ethics with respect to other humans grew out of such reactions, and as we come to see
ecosystems in terms of community, ethics will be, or should be, expanded accordingly.
Callicott says very little, however, about the substantive parts of such an environmental
ethic. That is, he provides an ethical framework, but with regard to specific principles or
moral beliefs he says only that as our moral community is expanded to include additional
sorts of entities, the substantive elements corresponding to original parts of the
community are added to, not replaced. He does not specify what these are, though
presumably prohibitions against killing innocent people, lying, and stealing remain in
place even as we come to recognize obligations to fellow ecosystem members and to
ecosystems themselves.

Combining Warren’s principles (revised according to the previous chapter’s
conclusions) with Callicott’s Humean—Leopoldian framework can help avoid the
substantive ethics issue for Callicott, while providing Warren with greater theoretical

coherence. This union is attractive also because both aim to bridge the

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individualism-holism divide, and secondarily, because Warren already relies on
Callicott’s Humean approach to account for the moral considerability of wholes. Lastly,
they are both trying to avoid appealing to pluralism (and the always lurking concern of
relativism) to solve the individualism—holism problem, though I will argue in these last
chapters that they are mistaken in their rejection of pluralism.

Before arguing for a pluralistic interpretation of a Callicott—Warren synthesis,
however, several issues must be worked out. First, what are the most common and
influential answers (in the North American setting, in any case) to the question of how we
should think morally about the environment? Are ecosystems and their component parts
seen to be valuable in and of themselves (i.e., intrinsically valuable), or valuable simply
due to their usefulness to interested others such as ourselves (i.e., instrumentally
valuable)? If the former, we would have a great deal to rethink regarding how we should
act towards other things in the world. Our decisions would have to take much more into
account than simply our own human (and perhaps some nonhuman animal) interests and
values. If the latter, we could simply count the environment as yet another of the things
to be managed to maximize benefits for us. Gifford Pinchot and John Muir provide
examples of these contrasting views. Pinchot represents a thoroughly instrumentalist and
consumptive (and anthropocentric) approach to nature, while Muir introduces both non-
consumptive instrumental uses and intrinsic value to the mix. A discussion of their views
will lay the groundwork for looking more closely at Callicott’s work.

Contemporary environmentalists worry that, on the one hand, instrumentalist
arguments provide too weak a foundation for environmental protection, but on the other

hand, intrinsic arguments are too difficult to defend—nature has no interests of its own

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and most, if not all, of the ways we describe it as being valuable seems to be reducible to
our own interests. Callicott, for instance, maintains that even arguments based on
aesthetic value can be “readily reducible to a homocentric or utilitarian form: other
species, in the final analysis, are valuable as aesthetic resources for the aesthetic

”I

enjoyment they afford (some) people. In order to alleviate at least some of the concern,
I will argue that by playing a significant role in our self-conceptions or understandings,
nature gains value (and something more like moral considerability) in a way not easily
captured by our usual notion of the instrumental/ intrinsic value dichotomy, and in a way
that strengthens the foundations of environmental protection. This move will be
consistent with, and be best defended in terms of a Humean approach to ethics of the sort
defended by Callicott. In fact, it will provide a solution to one of Callicott’s
problems—that of making the environment matter enough in our moral drinking once the
holistic element of his work is downplayed to avoid Tom Regan’s complaint that it would
otherwise lead to serious harm to individual humans.

An additional worry arises, however: by relying on a Humean approach to ethics,

emphasizing sentimental reactions over reason, Callicott’s theory (and my friendly

amendment) appears open to charges of relativism. I spend some time in this chapter

 

lJ. Baird Callicott, “On the Intrinsic Value of Nonhuman Species,” In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays
in Environmental Philosophy (Albany: State U of New York P, 1989), 131. In an endnote, Callicott
acknowledges alternative views on this matter. He quotes Mark Sagoff, for example, as saying, “we enjoy
an object because it is valuable; we do not value it merely because we enjoy it. . . Esthetic experience is a
perception as it were, of a certain kind of worth” (Quoted originally from: Mark Sagoff, “on the
Preservation of Species,” Columbia Journal of Law 7 (1980): 64) (Callicott, “On the Intrinsic Value of
Nonhuman Species, 290, fint 15.). I lean towards Callicott’s interpretation of aesthetic value as being
reducible to interests, but it is not my intent to resolve the issue here. Rather, my claim is that even if
positions such as Sagoff’s are plausible, it is not clear how to defend them against the reductionist claim.
If not, we are back to my original point, which was simply that environmentalists worry about the difficulty
of defending arguments for intrinsic value for nature.

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arguing that this need not be the case, though unlike Callicott, my solution to the
relativism problem does not rely on what I take to be a false notion of universal
agreement. Ethical pluralism, which denies that all good and important values are held
universally, becomes an attractive way to think about ethics, and one that can be made
consistent with a Humean approach, avoid relativism, and perhaps make room for the
seemingly inconsistent claims that both individuals and wholes can be morally
considerable. This will be the topic of these final two chapters. The current chapter will
focus on the two issues of instrumental (consumptive and non-consumptive) and intrinsic

value for wholes, and the plausibility of a non-relativistic Humean environmental ethics.

Pinchot ’s C onservationist and Muir ’s Preservationist Approaches

Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), the first head of the U. S. Forest Service, represents
a popular instrumentalist approach to thinking about the environment in the American
tradition. His view has been called scientific management, wise use (though this has been
reappropriated by the political right to mean whatever will most benefit private induStry),
or conservationism. In his autobiography, Pinchot states that although he hates cutting
down trees, the aim of conservation is “not to stop the ax, but to regulate its use.”
Forestry under his conservationist interpretation means “handling trees so that one crop

”2 In short, Pinchot sees nature as natural resources to be carefully

follows another.
managed. He was also concerned that the county’s natural resources not be devoured by

corporations and a small number of private citizens to the long term detriment of the

 

2Gifford Pinchot, Breaking New Ground, (Washington, DC: island P, 1998), 28-31.

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larger population. Natural resources belong to all citizens and so should be managed
accordingly.

Pinchot’s approach is utilitarian in two ways. First, he was concerned to
distribute the benefits of America’s natural resources to the greatest number. This would
not be possible, he thought, unless the federal government carefully controlled extraction.
Second, he was concerned to maximize the benefits derived from resource use over time.
Quoting approvingly from Theodore Roosevelt, Pinchot writes, “Forest protection is not
an end in itself; it is a means to increase and sustain the resources of our country and the
industries which depend upon them. . . . We have come to see clearly that whatever
destroys the forest, except to make way for agriculture, threatens our well-being.”3
Scientific management is the best tool we have to prevent such destruction and loss of
potential benefit. Clear cutting without replanting or done on steep hillsides would ruin
any hope of long term benefit. But, he argued in 1896, the forest preserve system (the
forerunner of the U. S. Forest Service) was for “practical forestry,” not for locking up
resources.4 It should therefore not be thought that Pinchot intended that resources be set
aside from use.

Pinchot’s view was, from an environmentalist perspective, an improvement over
the reigning view that the government should divest itself of all its publicly held lands to
leave resource extraction solely to private enterprise. He had seen everywhere the
devastating effects on North America’s forests of failing to regulate resource use and had

in mind the alternative of sustainable development through careful scientific management

 

311nd,, 19o.

4Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind 3" ed. (New Haven: Yale U P, 1982), 136.

116

by public institutions. If private monopolies of resources could be avoided, rich land
owners (ofien corporations) would no longer be the sole beneficiaries of the nation’s
natural resources, and extraction could be more carefully managed to extend its benefits
over time. These goals have never been fully realized, of course. But that in itself is not
a reason to dismiss Pinchot’s vision—the U. S. Forest Service (and other resource
management agencies) simply has not consistently sought to benefit the general
population over the interests of private industry, nor sufficiently emphasized sustainable
development. Finally, although Pinchot himself was presumably not worrying about this
issue, his conceiving of nature as a material resource for human use avoids the
philosophical complications of positing intrinsic value (and hence moral considerability)
for nature itself. In his mind, “There are just two things on this material earth—people
and natural resources. . . . [And] a constant and sufficient supply of natural resources is

”5 Because only the interests of people matter, environmental

the basic human problem.
issues do not especially complicate our moral thinking.

In contrast to Pinchot’s conservationist approach of protecting nature for human
use, John Muir argued for the preservation of nature, protecting it from human use. Or
more accurately, Muir objected to using nature simply as a material good for human
consumption; non-consumptive uses, such as aesthetic appreciation and recreation, were
preferred and encouraged. But in addition, Muir saw animals and plants as important in

and of themselves; humans are merely part of the world, not the reason for its existence.

Even rattlesnakes and coyotes, though they periodically “stea ” from humans, “are all,

 

f'Pinchot, Breaking New Ground, 325.

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head and tail, good for themselves, and we need not begrudge them their share of life.”6
Finally, everything is, Muir believed, God’s continuing creation (a sort of divinely
inspired evolution), and all of it interconnected (a view foreshadowing the
interconnectedness insight of ecology). We come to such conclusions through
experience. We know that all living beings are our “fellow mortals” through living with
them.7 We know that everything is interconnected and is God’s creation (and that God is
present in the world) through mystical experience in nature, in which “you lose
consciousness of your own separate existence; you blend with the landscape, and become
part and parcel of nature.”8 In his journal he described an experience of this sort in the
Sierra Nevada: “1 sprang to my feet crying: ‘Heavens and earth! Rock is not light, not
heavy, not transparent, not opaque, but every pore gushes, glows like a thought with
immortal life!’” Just as suddenly, “Lake Nevada [came] back to earth with its own
natural beauty, shored and mountained in terrestrial grandeur . . .”9

These views—that animals and humans are fellow mortals, that all life is

 

6John Muir, Our National Parks (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991), 43.
7John Muir, Stickeen (Berkeley: Heyday, 1990), 70.
8John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991), 120.

9John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, ed. Linnie Marsh Wolfe
(Madison: U Wisconsin P, 1979), 84. Annie Dillard, a bit more recently, describes a similar experience of
oneness with the world, in which she says, “The ridge’s bosses and hummocks sprout bulging from its
side; the whole mountain looms miles closer; the light warms and reddens; the bare forest folds and pleats
itself like living protoplasm before my eyes, like a running chart, a wildly scrawling oscillograph on the
present moment. The air cools; the puppy’s skin is hot. I am more alive than all the world.” And, just as
in Muir’s case, as soon as she becomes aware of the experience, she loses it: “And the second I verbalize
this awareness in my brain, I cease to see the mountain or feel the puppy. I am opaque, so much black
asphalt. But at the same second, the second I know I’ve lost it, 1 also realize that the puppy is still
squirming on his back under my hand.” These sorts of experiences are not altogether uncommon, as
conversations with so-called nature lovers well attest. Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (N.p.:
Perennial Classics, Harper Collins, 1999), 79-80.

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interconnected, and that everything is (a transcendent and immanent) God’s continuing
creation—has important implications for Muir’s thinking about the environment. Most
importantly, the interconnection of all of nature makes the human practice of separating
ourselves into cities costly. A great deal of the unhappiness and anxiety in the world
could be alleviated by people spending more time in wild nature. Such experiences
provide needed spiritual and psychological renewal. Thoreau had earlier thought
similarly, arguing that experiences in wild nature could have a jarring affect, shaking
people out of their narrow conforrnist lives. Following Thoreau’s lead, Muir argued that
people need to go to the mountains to awaken “from the stupefying effects of the vice of
over-industry and the deadly apathy of luxury, . . . to mix and enrich their own little
ongoings with those of Nature, and to get rid of rust and disease.”‘° We must protect
nature because of these important benefits to ourselves and because everything is God’s
creation and is saturated with divine spirit. The universe, Muir says, “would be
incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest
transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge.”
Nature does not make everything for the sole purpose of making humans happy.ll
Although Pinchot’s view was a significant improvement over the laissez- aire
privatization approach to resource use supported by the majority of his contemporaries,
from an environmentalist standpoint Muir’s position represents a further advance by
offering a stronger justification for protecting nature to a more serious degree. The

conservationist approach, even if its resource extraction mentality is tempered with

 

loMuir, Our National Parks, 1.

“Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, 78 and 79.

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protecting hunting lands from development (e. g., wetlands for duck habitat), is likely to
protect only that which is useful to fulfilling human material needs; nature is, after all,
merely a resource conceptualized in terms of extraction potential, or consumption. When
we add Muir’s insights, we add both spiritual and psychological benefits to the list of
nature’s advantages, and the argument that nature should be protected as God’s creation,
or indirectly as the habitat for God’s snakes and coyotes. Muir, then, gives us both a non-
consurnptive instrumentalist and an intrinsic value argument for the protection of nature.

One problem with using Muir’s argument for intrinsic value of nature is that it
depends on certain religious views that not everyone accepts. So even if he is right, it
seems unlikely that it could convince non-theists that nature should be protected. The
argument from design, for example, which Muir appeals to in pointing to the beauty and
function of bird feathers to argue that all of nature is God’s creation, will convince only
those who already believe in the divine. Arguing from mystical experience faces a
similar problem—it convinces only those who have had similar experiences and who
interpret these in religious terms. In fact, at least in the United States, both mainstream
and (to an even greater degree) fundamentalist religious traditions are leery of talk of
mystical experience.” Stewardship of God’s creation, where humans are nature’s
superiors and caretakers, is widely accepted by these traditions, but this is rooted in a
particular reading of the Genesis creation account, not in mystical experience. It appears,
then, that Muir’s arguments for intrinsic value of nature lack, not necessarily plausibility,
but certainly convincing force.

We could, however, think of Muir’s position in terms of psychological betterment,

 

12A notable exception is Jewish mysticism, referencing, for example, the Kabbalah.

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which could more easily avoid this objection. The argument would then not necessarily
rely on nature mysticism, but on the rather common experience of feeling renewed,
refreshed, or invigorated by time spent in nature. Contrary to the objectives of most
environmentalists, though, this gets only instrumental value for nature since value in this
case comes from providing us with benefits, albeit non-extraction benefits. Because
protection then depends upon often fluctuating human interests, it appears to provide a
less than secure way of insuring a high level of protection for nonhuman nature; it is too
contingent on the depth of our care. This is why environmentalists often argue that nature
should be protected independent of its value to us. An instrumentalist, on the other band,
could point out that there are a number of instrumental reasons which, especially when
taken jointly, go quite a way toward establishing serious obligations to nature. In addition
to Muir’s particular non-consumptive uses, nature is a significant source of the American
temperament or identity (Frederick Jackson Turner), of personal character (Sigurd Olson),
and of artistic inspiration (Ansel Adams and Georgia O’Keeffe). Nature is also
instrumentally valuable by being a source of potential medicinal products, genetic
diversity (which would help stave off ecological collapse in the face of rapid
environmental change), and recreational opportunities.13 Some of these may not by
themselves justify much protection of the environment when weighed against more

immediate consumptive material interests, but together they demand a significant degree

 

13See Michael P. Nelson’s “An Amalgamation of Wilderness Preservation Arguments” for a quite
thorough list of arguments for wilderness protection, most of which are instrumentalist arguments, in The
Great New Wilderness Debate, eds. J. Baird Callicott and Michael P. Nelson (Athens, GA: U of Georgia
P, 1998), 154-98.

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of protection. They become even more weighty once we also take animal interests
seriously.

Aldo Leopold complained about the conservationist, or
consumptive—instrumentalist view from an ecological perspective by pointing out that:

One basic weakness in a conservation system based wholly on economic

motives is that most members of the land community have no economic

value. Wildflowers and songbirds are examples. Of the 22,000 higher

plants and animals native to Wisconsin, it is doubtfirl whether more than 5

per cent [sic.] can be sold, fed, eaten, or otherwise put to economic use.

Yet these creatures are members of the biotic community, and if (as I

believe) its stability depends on its integrity, they are entitled to

continuance. '4
When we add non-consumptive uses, presumably the number of valuable entities
increases. Yet it is still conceivable that many things could be damaged or removed from
the environment with no significant loss of either stability or non-consumptive
benefits—or at any rate, no loss of benefits so great that they could not be made up for
through other (perhaps consumptive) benefits. Furthermore, as already alluded to, most
environmentalists think that nature should be protected even if it does not benefit us. On
their view, Leopold’s tally of valuable beings ought to number one hundred percent.

That the instrumentalist argument for the protection of nature does not conform

with the intuitions of many environmentally minded people, who think that nature has

 

l"Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There (Oxford: Oxford U P, 1987),
210.

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value independent of its, even non-extraction, usefulness to us, can be seen in Donald
Regan’s redescription of Richard Sylvan’s “last person” argument:

Suppose Jones is the last person on earth. She knows there will be no one

after her. As she dies, she can push a button which detonates a

cataclysmic explosion and destroys the Grand Canyon. Would it be wrong

for her to push the button? Many people are inclined to think it would be

wrong; and they also think that the wrongness of pushing the button can

only be accounted for by granting the Canyon value in itself.”
Sylvan had taken this to demonstrate that nature has intrinsic value. By itself, however,
the thought experiment does not decide the issue. Thought experiments are convincing
only to the extent to which they appeal to shared reactions. But in this case, it is not clear
that everyone would think as Sylvan supposed. It seems just as likely that the thought
experiment shows that, despite our unreflective initial reaction that Jones was wrong to
destroy the canyon, she was not since no valuer would have remained. Nevertheless, the
intuition that nature has intrinsic value is strong for many people. As already mentioned,
relying on instrumentalist arguments alone means that protection of nature is dependent
on whether or not, and to what extent, we have interests which are furthered by protecting
it. Things not so useful can be destroyed with no additional justification, or can be traded
off for other hmnan wants or needs. A great deal of the environment can, it seems, be

altered or even destroyed without threatening human well-being. But to avoid this result,

 

lsDonald Regan, “Duties of Preservation.” The Preservation of Species: The Value of Biological
Diversity, ed. Bryan G. Norton (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1986), 205. For Sylvan’s original formulation,
see Richard Sylvan, “Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental, Ethic?” Environmental Philosophy:
From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology, eds. Michael E. Zimmerman, et al. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall, 1993), 12-21.

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we need to either find more persuasive ways of arguing for the intrinsic value of nature
than the last person argument, or describe instrumentalist reasoning in such a way that it
does not leave the value of so much of nonhuman nature so susceptible to our changing
needs and desires.

For these reasons, it is worth revisiting the instrumental/intrinsic value distinction,
or more precisely, the consumptive/non-consumptive distinction within the category of
instrumental uses of nature. Pinchot’s instrumentalism focused on resource
extraction—clearly a consumptive use. Muir’s uses of nature are predominately non-
consurnptive. So far it has been said that basing an environmental ethic on either of these
sorts of instrumentalist benefits makes for an insecure justification for environmental
protection. Perhaps, however, there is more to the sorts of uses and benefits championed
by Muir than is captured under the consumptive/non-consumptive distinction under the
instrumental value rubric. Aesthetic, spiritual, and psychological and emotional
connections (love, familial feeling, etc.) seem very different from not only material
consumption, but also from the generally non-consumptive scientific and medicinal uses.
Muir’s non-consumptive benefits involve something not obviously captured by the usual
notion of a “use.” They involve experiences and sentiments of being intimately
connected with others, even ecosystems, in such a way that makes the object or entity part
of our self-conception or understanding.

Exactly how or to what extent nature can become part of one’s own self-
conception or understanding no doubt differs from person to person. In contrast to Muir’s
mystical experiences, Rachel Carson, for example, describes the connection like this:

“Each time I enter [a seashore ecosystem], I gain some new awareness of its beauty and

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its deeper meanings, sensing that intricate fabric of life by which one creature is linked
with another, and each with its surroundings.”‘6 Martin Buber’s notion of an I-Thou, in
contrast to an I-It, relationship provides a possible way of conceptualizing this. Buber
argues that we can be in an I-It relationship to things like trees in which we see them as
physical things in a world of other physical things—we can measure them or see them as
expressions of laws of nature, for example. Or, we can “become bound up in a [I-Thou]

”‘7 This does not involve looking away or

relation to it. The tree is now no longer an It.
imagining the tree to be non—physical; it involves a different experience, an actual seeing
differently—seeing it as something with which you are in relationship.“

If Muir’s non-consumptive uses of nature are something of this sort, the
dichotomy between intrinsic and instrumental value softens. On the traditional model,
things that are instrumentally valuable count morally only in so far as some interest-
bearing being cares about it as a thing to be used (though not necessarily consumed). Any
obligations we have toward the object would be to the interest-bearing being. In contrast,
things intrinsically valuable get to count independent of any usefulness to others; they are,
in Kantian language, not to be treated as mere means to our ends. Environmental

philosophers often strongly favor intrinsic value for ecosystems because it can provide

them with (direct) moral considerability. Instrumental value justifies environmental

 

16Rachel Carson, The Edge of the Sea (Boston: Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin, 1998), 2. Interestingly,
she also describes experiences in nature that more closely resemble those of Muir and Dillard (see ft. nt. 8).
Speaking of her observations of ghost crabs, she says: “I was filled with the odd sensation that for the first
time I knew the creature in its own world—that I understood, as never before, the essence of its being. In
that moment time was suspended.” Carson, The Edge of the Sea, 5.

17Martin Buber, land Thou, trans, Ronald Gregor Smith (New York: Collier, 1958), 7 and 8.

”Ibid., 7 and 8.

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protection only to the extent that this furthers our interests. This is true whether nature
has consumptive or non-consumptive instrumental value. The non-consumptive sort
(traditionally conceived), which go further to argue for protecting nature, have to be
weighed against each other and, more significantly, against the consumptive uses; they
often lose out. By treating Muir’s non-consumptive uses differently—as relating to
people’s own self-conception or understanding—healthy ecosystems are no longer simply
sources of benefits which can be weighed and traded off for other benefits. To put it
differently, the value (still technically instrumental) of nature is tied more tightly to
something we take very seriously in moral thinking—the integrity of persons.” This is
entirely consistent with the further possibility that the environment is intrinsically
valuable.

Val Plumwood warns us against taking the notion of self-identity with nature too
literally. Some ways of thinking about this can be, she argues, oppressive. The Deep
Ecologist Arne Naess, for example, had argued that humans have alienated themselves
from the rest of nature and restoring the proper relationship, and hence the proper
treatment and protection of nature, requires identifying with it in the sense of having with
it a unity of interests. Plumwood argues that appreciating difference is, however,
essential to ethically acceptable interactions with others: “We must attain solidarity with

the other in their difference.” Solidarity with wombats does not, for example, mean that

 

”It is difficult to describe this notion that our self-conception or understanding can be tied to our
environment with any precision. We might say that it involves seeing ourselves as part of nature and so
tied to its fortune, conceptualizing ourselves as people deeply connected to the natural world, or seeing
ourselves as essentially part of the natural world recognizing that often our actions negatively impact that
world.

126

we should begin to desire eating grass—others have distinct needs and wants.20 Nor, and
more importantly, should we use the notion of self-identity with nature to employ “unity
in a hegemonic fashion to absorb the other or re-create them as a version of the self.””
Plumwood is careful to point out that she does not think deep ecologists, Naess included,
are inclined to use the unity ideal in this negative way, but objects to it being so easily
misused. She suggests the alternative approach of engaging with others in a way that
“involve[s] a revised conception of the self and its relation to the nonhuman other,
opposition to oppressive practices, and the relinquishment and critique of cultural

allegiances to the dominance of the human

”22

species . .
Plumwood is right that identifying with nature should not mean identity of selves
or interests. If it did, it would be a short move from this idea to the claim that it is
acceptable to use nature as a material resource to further our—or our and
nature ’s—interests. She complains that deep ecologists place too much emphasis on
valuing nature and not enough on the Other’s agency. Without going so far as to attribute
autonomy to nature, Plumwood’s views seem consistent with Buber’s concept of an 1-
Thou relationship, which sees others as beings in which we can be in relation rather than
as mere things. I-Thou relationships are those of deep connection, but not identification.

Even for Muir, the element of mystical experience involving a loss of awareness of

 

20Val Plumwood, “Deep Ecology, Deep Pockets, and Deep Problems: A Feminist Ecosocialist Analysis,”
Beneath the Surface: Critical Essays in the Philosophy of Deep Ecology, eds., Eric Katz, et. al.
(Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 2000), 63. Emphasis in quotation in original.

”Ibid., 67.

2211nd, 69.

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oneself was only temporary. It was one way of seeing nature which informed the
mundane experience of the world, and hence his relationship to it. His experiences led
him to seeing nature as deeply mattering to who he was. Nature on this view is no longer
simply a resource to be used—either consumptively or non-consumptively. Exactly how
such self-identity or understanding with nature firnctions is unclear. But what is clear is
that many people do see themselves as not just materially, but emotionally and
psychologically (and even spiritually) connected with the rest of the world, and this seems
to not be captured by the traditional distinction between consumptive and non-
consurnptive uses of nature, and may play an important role in our thinking about
protecting the environment. We might say that there are two sorts of (or ways of thinking
about) non-consumptive uses of Nature: the traditional notion of nature as a resource to
satisfy our interests, and the view that nature is somehow connected intimately with how
we see ourselves. Muir’s emotional and aesthetic benefits from nature are, for many,
more like the latter conception.

All of this has the effect also of weakening the traditional human/nature or
artificial/natural distinction because if we took Muir’s perspective, we would no longer
see ourselves as separate from our environment. These distinctions do not lose the
entirety of their usefirlness, however. Because we have a choice to either change the
world around us a lot or a little, and because when we change it a lot other things happen
which we often do not like, it would be useful to be able to label things as more or less
changed by human action. There are at least two negative things that tend to happen
when we change the environment a lot. First, we begin thinking of ourselves as somehow

sharply distinct from everything else in the world (witness children thinking that food

128

originates at the supermarket). And second, the changes we cause often lead to additional
changes we failed to anticipate and did not in fact want. This is what happened, as
Carson points out in her famous book Silent Spring, when our use of poisons to keep
insect populations down resulted in the killing of millions of birds and other animals.23
Dust bowls, global warming, unsafe water, are three more of a much longer list of
unwanted changes in the world caused at least in part by us acting intentionally to alter
the world in particular ways. Both of these things—seeing ourselves as distinct from the
rest of the world and causing massive changes in the ecosystem—are implicated by
people of Muir’s persuasion in our sense of loneliness, lack of grounding, and feelings of
being unfirlfilled. The solution is to reestablish a relationship with our environment.
There are two ways to go from here. First, we might decide that we must protect
nature because we need to respect the interests of those pe0ple who care about it. These
interests become quite weighty when we take them to involve seeing nature in terms of
self-conception or understanding. Literally speaking, the value conferred to natural
objects in this case remains instrumental, but thinking of the value as so intimately '
connected to personal identity makes it less likely to fluctuate with our impulses or
market forces than would most instrumental uses. Furthermore, such ways of seeing
nature need not involve specific or single entities or objects. For many self-identifying
“nature-lovers,” it is important to know that there are, somewhere, wild herds of caribou
and clear water flowing through untrampled mountain meadows even if they will remain
unseen. Understanding Muir’s “uses” of nature as tying nature directly to people’s very

self-understanding makes nature’s value more stable than would be the case if it were

 

23Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994).

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continually thought of in the traditional sense of instrumental value——i.e., of consumptive
and non-consumptive uses where none of these are distinguished as qualitatively different
experiences. Respecting other people’s conceptions of identity, where this includes living
in a healthy environment, entails protecting nature.

An alternative would be to argue that others ought to see nature as an important
element of their self-conception too. This amounts to saying not that Muir’s view (the
religious elements aside) is simply plausible, but that it is correct—people need
experiences of wild nature for a happy and complete life. This is obviously a much
stronger claim, and presumably more difficult to defend. Final proof that experiences of
nonhumanized nature are emotionally and psychologically beneficial for us all (or most of
us) may be difficult to find. Perhaps the most we can do is point to the testimonials of
Thoreau, Muir. or Sigurd Olson, or to more recent writers such as Annie Dillard and Gary
Snyder. Or we could ask people to try it—to spend time in the not-so-hurnanized world
and see if they feel different, more relaxed, more alive.“ This is analogous to John Stuart
Mill’s defense of the claim that some pleasures are qualitatively better than others: we
should ask those who have experienced the relevant activities and pleasures which is
better. These “experts” will, Mill thinks, agree that intellectual pleasures are superior to
mere bodily ones.” Whether he is right or not, those who have experienced the
(relatively) nonhumanized and humanized worlds, may agree that some time spent in the

nonhumanized world is essential to one’s health and happiness. In addition, there is some

 

24As Thoreau pointed out that we do not need to experience particularly wild nature to gain by exposure
and interaction with the natural world. If he is right, our environmental protection aims need not, or should

not, focus solely on wilderness preservation.

2’iohn Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (Indianapolis: Hackett P, 1979), 7-1 1.

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contemporary psychological work demonstrating the positive effects of spending time
outdoors away from our highly urbanized lives.”5 Although there is no guarantee that
everyone will experience positive personal growth or betterment by spending time in
nature, enough people can and do that this should be taken seriously. Because this
involves identifying with nature, such concerns cannot simply be an element of
cost/benefit analysis pitting consumptive and non-consumptive uses of nature against one

another.

Aldo Leopold ’s Land Ethic

Aldo Leopold had argued that (1) all of ethics have developed around the idea that
individuals are members of groups, and that (2) ecology demonstrates that in addition to
families and larger social groups, we are also each “a member of a biotic team.”27 Just as
we have expanded our moral community from family members to tribes, countries, and
finally to all humans, the ecological insights of interrelatedness and interdependence
should lead us to expand the community to include all fellow biotic entities. This line of
reasoning led Leopold to propose a “Land Ethic” in which, “A thing is right when it tends
to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community . . . . [and] wrong
”28

when it tends otherwise.

J. Baird Callicott has spent much of his career arguing for an environmental ethic

 

26See, for example, Theodore Roszak, et al., eds, Ecopsycholoy: Restoring the Earth Healing the Mind
(San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995); and, Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan, The Experience of
Nature: A Psychological Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1989).

27Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There, 203 and 205.

”Ibid., 224-25.

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based on Leopold’s work. He initially interpreted the Land Ethic in entirely holistic terms
such that individuals are valued only derivatively by their roles in their respective
ecosystem(s).29 Contrary to an animal welfarist view, this would not only allow, but
recommend killing deer if an overpopulated deer herd was harming its environment.
Much to his credit, Callicott reformulated his use of Leopold to avoid the charge of “eco-
fascism” leveled by Tom Regan, who pointed out that if humans too were mere members
of ecosystems, they, like the deer, could be sacrificed for the good of the ecosystems.”
On Callicott’s revised view, the Land Ethic is both individualistic and holistic. In fact
Leopold seems to suggest this by saying that, “It implies respect for his fellow-members,
and also respect for the community as such.”” Furthermore, obligations are most weighty
to the most central community, and the members there in, of family. As we expand
outward to other relatives and fiiends, to larger social communities, to all fellow humans,
to animals, and finally to ecosystemic communities, our obligations lessen. “Outer”
obligations do, however, limit the acceptable ways of fulfilling more inner duties. The
concentric circle model of moral considerability does not suppose, then, that outer circle
obligations to ecosystems supplant prior, or more central ones to fellow humans.32

In addition to Regan’s objection, Callicott takes seriously Kristin Shrader-

 

29See: J. Baird Callicott, “Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair,” Environmental Ethics 2.4 (1980):
311-38.

30Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: U California P, 1983), 361-63.

3'Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 204. Quoted by Callicott in support of his revised interpretation of
the Land Ethic in “The Conceptual Foundations of the Land Ethic.” Companion to A Sand County
Almanac: Interpretive and Critical Essays, ed., J. Baird Callicott (Madison: U Wisconsin P, 1987), 196.
32J. Baird Callicott, “Holistic Environmental Ethics and the Problem of Ecofascism,” Beyond the Land
Ethic: More Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany: State U of New York P, 1999), 70-72.

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Frechette’s complaint that if the Land Ethic is indeed both individualistic and holistic, we
are in need of second order principles and priority rankings to tell us when to emphasize
one and when the other, or how to balance competing claimsf’3 Callicott notes in
response that although Leopold himself does not furnish such principles, two such second
order principles can nonetheless be derived from his work:

SOPl: “Obligations generated by membership in more venerable and intimate
communities take precedence over those generated in more recently
emerged and impersonal communities.”

SOP2: “Stronger interests (for lack of a better word) generate duties that take

precedence over duties generated by weaker interests.”
According to SOPI , obligations to one’s children are greater than those to the children of
strangers, though according to SOP2 obligations to feed starving children of strangers
outweigh any to lavish our own.” SOPl is essentially the response just mentioned above
to the complaint of eco-fascism. It articulates the belief that as our moral circle expands,
obligations to members of more intimate communities not only remain intact, but take (all
else being equal) precedence. This principle is very much in line with a Humean
approach to ethics since we tend to have much stronger moral sentiments to our family
members than to strangers. To the extent that pets are seen as members of our human
families and farm animals as members of slightly larger (and generally less intimate)

communities, it can also cut across species lines.”

 

”Ibid., 72.
”Ibid., 73.

3 5 For an interesting discussion of human-nonhuman animal communities see: Mary Midgley, “The Mixed
Community,” Animals and Why They Matter (Athens, GA: U of Georgia P, 1983), 112-24.

133

Did Callicott, however, however, rob his theory of its environmental teeth by
trying to satisfy the individualists? Gary Varner, for one, complains that it allows us to
always side with the interests of other people over nature since people are always part of
our closest communities. In a contest between spotted owls and logging jobs,
environmentalists following the Land Ethic must always vote against the owls and their
old-growth forest habitat.” Callicott responds by pointing out that although SOPI might
get such a result, SOP2 obliges us to save the forests. The lives and well-being of the
owls and the continuation of the old-growth ecosystem represent a much more serious set
of interests than does a few thousand logging jobs.37 Jobs, after all, can be developed
elsewhere. At the very least, this case is open to judgment, not decidable by an
automatic favoring of the members of more intimate communities.

The philosophical basis for Leopold’s expanding circle is, according to Callicott,
Humean. Hume supplies the answer to the problem of introducing a normative element
to a theory based on ecological awareness. In brief, Humean ethics sees our moral
obligations as arising out of our considered sentimental responses to others and their
actions. Reason plays an informing role by helping us sort out the relevant facts, see
relationships between things, and generally organize our thinking. But it is the sentiments
that provides the foundation of ethics. As Hume points it:

What is intelligible, what is evident, what is probable, what is true,

procures only the cool assent of the understanding; and gratifying a

speculative curiosity, puts an end to our research. Extinguish all the warm

 

1”Callicott, “Holistic Environmental Ethics and the Problem of Ecofascism,” 74.

37Ibid., 74-75.

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feelings and prepossessions in favour of virtue, and all disgust or aversion

to vice: Render men totally indifferent towards these distinctions; and

morality is no longer a practical study, nor has any tendency to regulate

our lives and actions.”

Elsewhere, having drawn some analogies between aesthetic and moral judgment, he
argues that our evaluation of an object’s beauty does not consist merely in the
“proportion, relation, and position of parts,” discoverable by reason.” Rather, these
things inform our sentiments, and hence our aesthetic judgments. The same is true in the
case of moral evaluations.

Callicott uses Darwin to provide an explanation of how, as Hume says, “nature
has made [the moral sentiments] universal in the whole species?”o On Callicott’s
reading, Darwin suggests that parental and filial affections enabled small human kin
groups to form. Of these groups, those which were more altruistic had better survival
rates, thus selecting for such sentiments. As larger groups formed and competed against
one another, natural affections, kindness, sympathy, and the like, expanded as greater
cooperation was necessary for them to survive.“1 Presumably, somewhere in this story
natural selection gives way to social selection, where ways of thinking and behaving are
passed to subsequent generations through cultural rather than biological means. The

details of the Darwinian account, however, are not important here. What is important is

 

38David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed., J. B. Schneewind (Indianapolis:
Hackett P, 1983), 15.

”Ibid., 86.
”Ibid., 15.

41Callicott, “On the Intrinsic Value of Nonhuman Species,” 148-49.

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that there is a plausible naturalistic explanation for ethics through the evolution of
altruistic feelings consistent with Hume’s belief that ethics is grounded in our emotional
experiences. This is important for Callicott specifically because he needs a way of getting
moral considerability for wholes that does not depend on the possession of intrinsic (as
opposed to relational) properties which confer moral considerability in the way
possessing interests does for individuals. Hume’s sentimentalist approach may provide a
way around the problem that there appear to be no such moral considerability-conferring
properties for wholes.

Callicott, following Leopold, thinks that some sort of fellow-feeling, brought on
by an awareness that we humans are members of a quite interdependent biotic
community, would push us to consider ecosystems as morally considerable. Ecological
knowledge is supposed to inform a positive sentimental response with respect to the
biotic community because it is a community in which we live and because we have hard-
wired in, as it were, community oriented altruistic feelings. Callicott approvingly quotes
Hume as saying, “It appears that a tendency to publick good, and to the promoting of '
peace, harmony, and order in society, does always by affecting the benevolent principles
of our frame engage us on the side of the social virtues?”2 The ultimate source of a
holistic environmental ethic is, then, moral sentiments originating in naturally selected for
fellow-feelings.43 So in response to the complaint that the Land Ethic lacks teeth,

Callicott argues that although our moral sentiments are stronger with respect to family

 

”Callicott, “Holistic Environmental Ethics and the Problem of Ecofascism,” 67.
43 Such an approach to ethics fits our commonsense view that we owe special obligations to our children

and others close to us and fits the care-ethic insight that we have these special obligations at least in part
because of emotionally laden relationships.

136

members and other people, they are also generated by the community insight of ecology,
thereby justifying SOP2's demand that we chose the interests of ecosystems over humans
when the interests of ecosystems are the more vital.

An immediate concern is whether recognizing our interrelatedness and
dependence on the rest of nature will lead to holism or to embracing the Land Ethic as
merely a prudentially good idea. Is there too large a jump from the descriptive ecological
insights to the normative claims of eco-holism? Callicott thinks not. He approvingly
describes Leopold’s view as involving a shift in values or paradigms: “Ecology changes
our values by changing our concepts of the world and of ourselves in relation to the
world?“ This is suggestive, but not conclusive. Reason does inform our emotional
reactions, thereby impacting our moral judgments, as it does in our thinking regarding
other interest-bearing organisms. But we have precise reasons for extending moral
considerability to these other organisms. Leopold’s expanding circle, on the other hand,
may leave us (not necessarily as individuals, but as a society) short of granting moral
standing to wholes. Whether it does or not is an empirical question.

In response to this concern, I would like to make two related points. First, my
goal here is not to defend any particular version of eco-holism beyond saying that
individualistic accounts fall short of j ustifying many environmentalists’ desired level of
environmental protection and their intuition that nonhuman nature should be protected
regardless of its usefulness to us. More work needs to be done to know if Leopold’s

evolutionary and ecological story will get us to holism regarding ecosystems. However,

 

MJ. Baird Callicott, “Hume’s Is/Ought Dichotomy and the Relation of Ecology to Leopold’s Land Ethic,”
In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany, NY: SUNY P, 1989), 127.

137

what is apparent is that the standard approach which looks for intrinsic properties in
things as conferring moral considerability does not work well with respect to ecosystems.
A Humean sentimentalist approach focusing on relationships and communities, as an
explanation of where moral beliefs and values come from, could provide an alternative
route for this goal that also can account for moral considerability for individual
organisms. Second, as a framework for understanding ethics, a Humean approach seems
particularly apt at making room for the existence of inconsistent and incommensurable
moral beliefs and values, one pair of which might be individualism and holism. It does so
by recognizing the possibility of more than one sort of sentimental reaction to any
situation.

Other concerns arise as well. First, it is not clear what “interest” means with
respect to ecosystems. How do we know what is best for an ecosystem or what a
“healthy” ecosystem is? What do Leopold’s notions of protecting integrity, stability, and
beauty of an ecosystem mean? This is related in part to a second concern: What
constitutes an ecosystem? It is unclear whether, for example, it would be a particular
river, the surrounding woods or grass lands, the Great Lakes basin, North America, or the
entire earth. Because of these worries, it is not clear how we are to make use of SOP2.
Furthermore, Singer’s argument might fit a Humean approach better than as first appears.
We have, as a matter of fact, fellow-feelings, sympathy, and the like towards other
humans, which, on a Humean account would underlie our moral systems. Reason should
demonstrate that many nonhuman animals share the very characteristics (in particular,
that of being sentient) with humans which seem to be the most relevant to our caring for

other humans. Reason would thereby inform us of the need to include many nonhuman

138

animals in our moral purview much as reason for Hume might impact how we felt
aesthetically about a work of art. It is not our initial sentimental reactions that determine
our moral evaluations. but reactions checked by reason. It is more difficult, though, to
see how a sense of ecological interdependence is to inform our moral sentiments
regarding ecosystems. My dependence on sunshine or water (however indirect and
nonreciprocal) does not lead me to conclude that it is morally considerable. The
interdependence found in ecosystems seems to push us towards taking care of it for
ourselves and any other interested beings involved. But even if we could begin seeing
nature as being morally considerable, the Humean approach, informed by ecology, would
not provide for much teeth in terms of environmental protection. Our sentiments will still
be, and are more reasonably, deeper with respect to other people and nonhuman animals.
The notion that some ways of valuing nature involve a sense of identity or self-
understanding involving nature may go some way towards “pulling in” ecosystems more
closely towards the center of our moral circle. It could do so because it ties the
ecosystem’s well-being (and hence protection) closely with people’s conceptions of
themselves. Ecosystems, then, can become part of our core self-understanding in a way
that does not rely simply on the awareness of ecological interdependence, though for
many, no doubt, a sense of interdependence brought on by ecological science enhances
this. And in fact, the science of ecology could inform our vision of what an ideal
ecosystem looks like—if we want it to be fairly untouched by humans, for example, we
would lean towards favoring a dynamic rather than static ecosystem, as suggested by
ecology. It is worth mentioning that this notion of a Buber or Muir-like relationship with

our environment is not meant to replace, but to add to Callicott’s development of

139

Leopold’s argument from ecological knowledge to communal feelings. In addition, it is
consistent with Callicott’s use of Hume because in both cases it is our sentimental
reactions to nature that ground our moral thinking regarding it.

As a Humean approach to ethics, however, Callicott’s expanding circle model
(and my elaboration) faces the serious objection that if moral claims (e.g., that natural
entities, even ecosystems, are morally considerable) are subjective (i.e., arising from our
experiences and emotional reactions), how is it that they could be at all objective such
that we could say that everyone should think such and such? Would not Callicott’s
Humean moral claims be relative to people or groups of people who happen to think as
Leopold did about their environment? This issue must be addressed before proceeding
firrther. Only if we can show that a Humean approach could avoid the problem of
relativism is it worth returning to the questions regarding people’s reactions to nature and
moral considerability, and understanding Callicott’s model of an expanding moral

community.

Humean Ethics and the Problem of Relativism
In order to evaluate the ,charge of moral relativism leveled against any Humean
approach to ethics, I would like to discuss Hume’s work directly. This is in part due
to the fact that much of the writing regarding this issue is grounded firmly in Hume’s
texts themselves. My aim here, though, is much less that of defending Hume ’s ethics
than that of defending a Humean approach to ethics. Nevertheless, what is said here

about Hume is, I believe, applicable to Callicott’s use of a Humean approach to ethics.

140

The relevant complaint against Hume for our purposes is that his
sentimentalism gives him a subjectivist meta-theory which is inconsistent with his
giving us any particular set of substantive ethical claims (or our developing our own)
since the subjectivist account cannot favor any particular set of substantive claims
such as Warren’s principles. As I see it, there exist three probable responses: (a)
intersubjective agreement might provide a sufficient source of objectivity such that
this problem can be avoided, (b) no inconsistency exists because subjectivist meta-
theories leave room for any—including Hume’s—substantive claims, or (c) the
problem fails to materialize for Hume because his substantive claims are not
normative, but merely descriptive. At first glance, the most promising seems to be (c),
except that in the end this limits Hume more than either he or we may wish. Although
he does say he is giving a descriptive account of ethics, Hume also seems to hope that
his work will provide some normative value as well. If so, we need to consider (a) or
(b), of which (a) looks to be the better solution. Before moving ahead too far with
this, however, it is worth laying out the central elements of Hume’s moral theory.

There are three main parts to Hume’s overall moral theory: an argument for a
sentimentalist meta-ethics, a defense of a certain method of investigation, and a
description of a set of particular substantive claims. We are more concerned with the
relationship between these elements than with his substantial moral claims since
unlike Hume, we are here thinking about the special case of nonhuman animals and
the environment. His argument for a sentimentalist meta-ethics consists of both a

negative argument that reason is not the foundation of substantive ethical claims and a

141

positive argument claiming that sentiment is.

Hume begins his An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (hereafter:
the Second Enquiry), by joining an ongoing debate regarding the foundations of moral
beliefs which revolved around the question of whether ethics is derived from reason or
from sentiment; that is, “whether we attain the knowledge of [ethical beliefs] by a
chain of argument and induction, or by an immediate feeling and finer internal
sense.”45 He thought there was much confusion on this matter. While virtue theorists
spoke of virtue as conformity to reason but typically described virtue in terms of
sentiment, other drinkers spoke of virtue and vice but thought of ethics as grounded in
universal abstract principles.46 Unhappy with this, Hume asks us to imagine what
morality would consist of if we used only reason to arrive at its principles. His answer
is that we would have only “cool assent” and not the passion needed to mark things as
virtuous or vicious (his preferred ethical terms), which is needed to motivate our
actions.“7 That is, reason alone cannot account for our moral beliefs—we would be
morally indifferent to matters of fact if we employed only reason. Similarly, our
evaluations regarding beauty are not derived fi'om reason alone—no amount of reason
can, without sentiment, lead us‘to describe something as beautiful. A similar
argument can be found in Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature (hereafter: Treatise), in

which he says “Reason is the discovery of truth or falshood [sic]. . . . Whatever,

 

4”Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 13.
”Ibid., 14.

"Ibid., 15.

142

therefore, is not susceptible of this agreement or disagreement, is incapable of being
true or false, and can never be an object of our reason. Now ‘tis evident our passions,
volitions, and actions, are not susceptible of any such agreement or disagreement,”
and can therefore not be the result of only reason."8

This is not to say that reason has no role to play in ethical and aesthetic value
judgments. On the contrary; reason is quite important. It is needed to sort out the
details of particular situations, giving us more accurate information from which our
sentiments can make a proper judgment."9 Likewise, in Book III of the Treatise, he
says that reason can play two roles with respect to moral thinking. It “excites a
passion by informing us of the existence of something which is a proper object of it,”
and it helps us discover the relevant connections between causes and effects, which in
turn informs our sentiments.” This is, in brief, his argument for a sentimentalist meta-
ethics, which is often described as a non-cognitive theory due to the foundational role
of emotion rather than reason.

Hume’s self-expressed goal is to discover the origin of moral belief, which he
hopes will also shed more light on the relationship between sentiment and reason.SI
He describes his preferred method of inquiry as the “experimental method,” which for

him consists of discovering general maxims through the empirical study of particulars.

 

“David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature 2nd ed., eds., L. A. Selby-Bigge P. H. Nidditch (Oxford:
Oxford U P, 1978), 458.

4”Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 15.
soHume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 459.

5|l-Iume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 15.

143

In the case at hand, this involves looking at which qualities—habits, sentiments, or
faculties—of a person are objects of esteem or contempt.52 What we desire or admire
in ourselves and others is what we call virtues; what we despise we call vices.53 As
will later become important, Hume seems to have an unwavering belief that all
humans share a certain sensibility with respect to what we take as virtuous and
vicious.“ This belief is one of the reasons he thinks an empirical study of particulars
will lead to general principles regarding the foundation of ethics.

Hume’s strategy for developing a list of substantive ethical claims is to ask
which characteristics we in fact deem praiseworthy and why we judge them to be
such; or, what quality(s) is shared by virtues which distinguishes them from vices. In
addition to this distinction, Hume separates out various kinds of virtue and vice, such
as those qualities useful to ourselves (e.g., discretion), immediately agreeable to
ourselves (e.g., cheerfulness), and immediately agreeable to others (e.g., good manners
and wit)” For our purposes, there is no need to spend much time detailing his lists,
though a couple of virtues will be briefly mentioned to illuminate his project. It is
worth re-emphasizing that this aspect of his work is meant to be empirical—he is not
coming up with a list of virtues‘a priori and then looking to see who has them, but is

looking to what people actually take to be virtues and vices.

 

”Ibid., 16.
”Ibid., 85.
“See, for example: Hume. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 75.

”Ibid., 51, 61, and 68.

144

Hume begins his discussion of virtue in the Second Enquiry by describing
benevolence——by which he means being sociable, humane, friendly, generous, and the
like—as that quality which is universally regarded as the highest merit?6 Everyone
asked, Hume insists, will cite the happiness benevolence brings to others as the reason
it is so highly regarded.57 The utility resulting from this virtue is the source of our
positive sentimental response. Hume supports his claim that utility plays a central role
in such evaluations by reminding us that most people would agree that giving money
generously to a beggar is looked upon favorably only when it relieves distress, not
when it encourages idleness.” Similarly, luxury is approved of only when it does not
cause corruption or other things which lessen the happiness of society.” Benevolence
is something we praise precisely because it furthers utility.

Justice is a bit more complex, but it too gains our approval due to its utility. It
no longer impacts our sentiments, for example, when there is no shortage of goods and
the notion of property becomes meaningless (justice for Hume exists to regulate
property)"0 It is only when it serves to filrther society’s well-being that it impresses us
as good. The sentiment arising with respect to justice is the result of our reflecting on

its utility to society and not simply due to any benefit conferred directly to ourselves.

 

”Ibid., 17.
”Ibid., 18.
”Ibid., 19.
”Ibid., 20.

”Ibid., 21.

145

That is, justice arises due to our awareness that its rules can benefit us all in the long
run, even if a particular act, in accordance with the expectations of justice, does not
benefit us. There is, then, an interesting mix of self-interest and concern for others
involved in our sentimental response to justice. While “self-interest is the original
motive to the establishment of justice . . . a sympathy with public interest is the source
of the moral approbation which attends that virtue?”l
We might wonder, however, on what grounds Hume argues that self-interest is
not the only thing which stimulates a positive emotional response in us. The quality
shared by those things we look upon favorably—Le, that which one’s sentiment takes
to indicate virtue—is utility, or usefulness. We approve of those things (actions,
personal characteristics, etc.) which further happiness and satisfaction for ourselves
and our community.62 Given this emphasis on utility, one might assume that Hume
ends up embracing egoism. That is, if it is our sentiment—our feelings of approval
and disapproval—that determine whether we call something virtuous or vicious
(whether we embrace it or despise it), is it not simply our happiness which directs our
thinking and action? This is an important question because if Hume is an egoist we
might wish to consider him only in terms of the evolution of ethical thought rather
than as someone particularly useful for our own moral thinking—egoism, after all,

would seem to provide little reason to suppose that we could develop principles

specifying obligations to others, much less to nonhuman animals or the environment.

 

6‘Hurne, A Treatise of Human Nature, 499 and 500.

62Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 18.

146

Hume was quite conscious of the egoist objection, arguing throughout both the
Treatise and Second Enquiry that egoism is not consistent with experience. We often,
Hume argues, “bestow praise on virtuous actions . . . where the utmost subtilty of
imagination would not discover any appearance of self interest, or find any connexion
of our present happiness and security with events so widely separated from us.”63
And, although we might feel more strongly about things which impact our own
interests, the things we praise are those which apply to interests well beyond our own
private sphere. In fact, we often try to convince others as well that they should feel
positively about something without trying to convince them that they will gain fi'om
that which we want them to praise.64 It is needless to ask, he adds, why it is that we
have fellow-feelings with respect to others and enough that we see that we do in fact
have them: “No man is absolutely indifferent to the happiness and misery of others.”65
Similarly, Hume argues in the Treatise that although we often love ourselves more
than we do others, it is unusual that our “kind affections” do not overcome our self-
interest.66 I am quite inclined to go along with Hume here without

argument—describing all of our actions in terms of self-interests does seem to

misdescribe our experience.”

 

”Ibid., 40 and 41.

“Ibid., 41.

“Ibid., 41, ftnt. 19.

“Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 487.

67Hume’s focus on utility might also lead us to think of him as a utilitarian. Perhaps there are two

questions here: to what extent should we think of Hume as a utilitarian and if he is one, why would it
matter? If he is a utilitarian in the sense of, for example, Bentham or Mill—that is, if he subscribes to the

147

One obvious difference between Hume and the alternative theories of
Kantianism and utilitarianism (as it is usually construed, a la Bentham and Mill, for
example) is that Hume has given us a non-cognitive account of morality. That is,
ethical beliefs are not, on his theory, to be thought of as being literally true or false

t.” However, this

since they are arrived at not through reason, but through sentimen
gets us to the issue with which we are most concerned with respect to Callicott’s
environmental ethics: Does a Humean ethic, as a non-cognitive ethical theory, give us
a rich enough notion of ethics that it can provide us with guidance in our lives, or does
it end up allowing anything to count as good or bad depending on personal taste,
thereby leaving us with little or no guidance? In other words, does it result in
relativism? The issue can be cast as two questions: First, is there an internal
inconsistency in his work in that he has given us both a non-cognitivist meta-theory

and a set of particular substantive claims of the sort the former cannot support? Or, to

put it in terms of the project here, does it allow for the sorts of substantive claims

 

principle that we should do only that which leads to the greatest good for the greatest number (the principle
of utility)—Hume would be susceptible to the common objection that his ethics could lead to (or perhaps
require) the violation of individual rights. That is, if violating someone’s rights would lead to satisfaction
of the principle of utility better than some other action, it would be, contrary to common belief, the right
thing to do. Similarly, in order to continually act in ways that bring the greatest happiness to the world, we
might be forced to give up our life-projects, which are needed to have fulfilled lives (See: Bernard
Williams, “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues, eds., Steven
M. Cahn and Peter Markie (New York: Oxford U P, 1998), 574-76.). Hume is not, however, a
utilitarian—at least not of the sort who uses the notion of utility to derive rules of conduct, either with
respect to particular cases or more generally as a rule-utilitarian might. Nowhere does he suggest that we
make calculations regarding what would lead to the greatest good for the greatest number. In fact, our aim
in life is to have a good life, which includes, but is not limited to, living in a community in which others are
also living good lives. We would not find acts which violate others’ interests as satisfactory on Hume’s
account; our sentimental judgment would not approve of such actions.

“Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 458.

148

Warren, for example. provides? And second, does this leave him with the undesirable
consequence of relativism?

Francis Snare explains the problem well in his book Morals, Motivation and
Convention. Sentimentalism is a meta-ethical theory in that “it is a claim about the
nature of moral judgments and not (not obviously, at any rate) itself one of the

”69 And as just mentioned, it is a non-

substantive moral judgements it is about.
cognitive ethical theory in that it claims that morality is not founded on reason, but
sentiment. As such, we would expect it to be neutral with respect to normative claims
in the sense that such claims are neither true nor false.70 But clearly Hume does give
us particular substantive moral claims—cg, that justice is a virtue, it involves certain
duties, etc. (in anticipation of one possible solution to this potential problem, I will,
for the moment, assume that Hume’s substantive moral claims are normative in
character). There is a potentially devastating problem here: Hume’s sentimentalism
cannot help him justify his particular substantive claims (or the substantive elements
of an environmental ethic) because that sentimentalism must remain neutral with
respect to particular normative claims. ls Hume stuck with radical relativism? If
morality is simply a matter of feeling, is there anything even resembling objectivity in
morality? I think the answer to this question is both yes and no.

Snare first develops the negative answer to this question. He defines a

subjective judgment (1') as one in which it is possible for one person to claim j and

 

69Francis Snare, Morals, Motivation and Convention: Hume 's Influential Doctrines (Cambridge:
Cambridge U P, 1991), 147.

”Ibid., 148.

149

another not j with neither of them being necessarily wrong. An objective judgment (d)
is one in which disagreement (i.e., one person claiming d and another not d) entails
that one of them is wrong." With respect to meta-ethical positions, then, a subjectivist
theory is one in which palticular moral judgments are subjective in this sense, while
an objectivist theory is one in which particular moral judgments are objective. He
adds, “all non-cognitivist theories are subjectivist in this sense, holding as they do that
moral judgments are not the sort of thing to be true or false.”72 But, while subjectivist
meta-theories cannot justify any particular normative claims, there is no necessary
inconsistency in holding a subjectivist meta-ethical theory while simultaneously
holding some particular view regarding normative claims. The normative claims

73 The question remains, however,

would not, by the above definitions, be objective.
whether Hume is in fact a subjectivist who is thereby stuck with relativism, a
condition which would, as with the issue of egoism, make his ethical theory prima
facie less than attractive for our purposes of developing an environmental ethic.

As mentioned, there seems to be at least three ways to respond to this problem:
(a) intersubjective agreement might provide a sufficient source of objectivity that this
problem can be avoided, that (b) no inconsistency exists because subjectivist meta-

theories leave room for any—including Hume’s—substantive claims, or that (e) no

problem exists because his substantive claims are not normative, but merely

 

"Ibid., 154.
72Ibid., 154. Emphasis in original.

”11nd, 155 and 156.

150

descriptive. I would like to quickly dismiss (b) as unattractive because although it
might solve the problem of there being an inconsistency between Hume’s meta-theory
and his giving us a set of particular substantive claims (there is no necessary
inconsistency between holding a subj ectivist meta-ethical theory and also holding a
particular set of normative claims as long as these do not depend upon some sort of
objectivist meta-ethics).74 it does nothing to solve the problem of relativism arising
due to an inability to use his meta-theory to support his particular substantive claims.

It might be that Hume has plenty of room to maneuver with respect to option
(a). It is possible that additional contingent facts (such as human nature) could be
used to demonstrate that people would not actually disagree with respect to moral
evaluations. Hume does think that human nature is such that there will be one agreed
upon answer (in the sense of actual agreement) to at least some moral claims. In other
words, Hume might avoid charges of relativism brought about by an inability to use
his meta-theoretical sentimentalism to support his substantive claims by trading
subjectivism for intersubjective agreement. This would supply his theory with
objectivity enough to allow him to develop nonnative claims without being subjected
to the criticism of relativism. The question then becomes whether, or to what extent,
be can do so.

Kate Abramson sets up the general problem quoting from Philippa Foot:
“Now, this theory of Hume’s about moral sentiment commits him to a subjectivist

theory of ethics. . . . For if [moral judgments] were objective . . . there would have to

 

7“11nd, 157 and 158.

151

be some method of deciding, in case of disagreement, whether one man’s opinion or
another’s was correct."75 The specific problem Abramson focuses on is that people’s
sentimental response to situations in which they are not intimately involved (but yet
share a great deal with respect to values, etc.) seems likely to vary a great deal. Hume
says we are to put ourselves in a position with respect to the person whose character is
in question such that the possible variety of sympathetic responses is limited. We
should set aside our own interests and take a “general survey” in which we think in
terms of those who would have close contact with that person.76 But, questions arise
such as whether we are to “consider only those in an agent’s ‘narrow circle’ of
intimates and acquaintances . . . [or] some more idealized version of that group.”77
After considering several options, Abramson decides, in Hume’s favor, that we can
control the variability of sympathetic responses in cases which are distant fi'om our
own particular situation. The details of her solution are too complex to go into here,
except to say that it involves six steps which, she thinks, could sufficiently restrict
sentimental variation that intersubj ective agreement is possible. These include such
things as focusing only on those people who would typically be affected by the

character or trait in question and by seeing the trait as one we are all subject to by

virtue of being human.78

 

7SKate Abramson, “Correcting Our Sentiments about Hume’s Moral Point of View,” The
Southern Journal of Philosophy 37 (1999): 333.

”Ibid., 337 and 338.
7"ibid, 338.

”Ibid., 349 and 350.

152

One reason for not spending considerably more time with Abramson’s
arguments is that it seems that even if she is right, there is a more significant problem
with the possibility of any significant level of intersubjective agreement. The problem
of variability of sentimental responses in cases distant fi'om one’s own situation is, of
course, aggravated by the fact of multiculturalism in the world. It has recently been
pointed out that although there are currently some 180 independent states, there are
600 living languages and 5000 ethnic groups.’9 Out of this difference, however,
comes a potentially more difficult problem for intersubjective agreement than simply
trying to limit the kind of variability of sentiment which naturally arises in cases in
which we are not intimately involved but yet share general values with others.
Cultural difference increases the possibility of pluralism as described by Isaiah Berlin.

Berlin has argued that people’s values clash not only because people often
make mistakes in thinking about what is right, but because some good and perfectly
reasonable values cannot be simultaneously maximized. For example, “rigorous
justice,” an absolute value for some, is not entirely compatible with the ideal of
compassion, also held as a fundamental value by many. Such disagreement lies at a
rather deep level—both values are seen as fundamental or basic to our moral lives, yet
they often clash. Indeed, this conflict can even occur, according to Berlin, within a
single person. People have very different conceptions of the proper ends to which to

dedicate one’s life, which determine, in part, the values they hold more or less

 

”Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, (Oxford: Oxford U P,
1995), 1.

153

tenaciously. Berlin, like Hume, does not think there exist a set of objective moral
truths in the sense that they exist independent of human life and are waiting to be
“discovered,” and suggests that fundamental values and conceptions of the good life
can clash without one being more “right” than another.80

If Berlin is right, it seems that there is little chance for significant
intersubjective agreement across cultures—the differences between cultures might
well be so fundamental that we are actually incapable of evaluating a distant situation
as if we were one of the intimate group of a person whose traits are in question. On
the other hand, as Abramson has said, it is not clear to what extent Hume needs cross-
cultural agreement in order to gain a satisfactory level of objectivity to avoid charges
of relativism.

Snare suggests a different way to think about Hume: we should see Hume’s
work with respect to substantive claims not as an attempt at a normative ethics, but as
merely a description (option (c) above). That is, Hume is not arguing that we should
have a positive sentimental response to benevolence and justice, but that we do. This
descriptive account poses no problem to the claim that a non-cognitive meta-theory
cannot (at least not without the. objectivity possible with intersubjective agreement)
support any particular normative claims since Hume has not given us normative
claims. As Snare put it. “the conclusions of [Hume’s] investigation are not themselves

moral judgments.”8|

 

80Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the ldeal” The Proper Stun); of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays (New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997), 10.

8|Snare, Morals, Motivation and Convention, 173.

154

If we return to the Second Enquiry, we find that Hume does not commit the
mistake of using his sentimentalist meta-theory itself as a reason to argue for a
particular ethical view. That is, he does not say that we should (in a moral sense)
accept the normative claims he lays out, but that we, because of our human nature, do
accept these: “But I forget, that it is not my present business to recommend generosity
and benevolence, or to paint, in their true colours, all the genuine charms of the social
virtues. . . . But our object here being more the speculative than the practical part of
morals.”82 Hume’s substantive claims are based on empirical facts (at least according
to Hume) such as that we have certain feelings of approval toward some things and
feelings of disapproval toward others, and that all people share these experiences.

But, a possible objection comes to mind. How can Hume talk about duties
without saying this is what we ought to do—to say something is a duty is to say we
ought to do it. In Hume’s case, we have a duty to further utility.83 Whereas Bentham
or Mill argue that we have a duty to maximize happiness and minimize pain, Hume
merely says we do in fact respond positively towards things which filrther utility. In
doing so, he has not given us a general normative rule of the sort given by the various
sorts of utilitarianisms.“ To say we have a duty with respect to utility is, for Hume,
merely describing what we do take to be our duty; he asks “whether every man, who

has any regard to his own happiness and welfare, will not best find his account in the

 

82Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, l7 and 18.
83See, for example: Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 19.

“See: William K. Frankena, Ethics 2"d (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice—Hall, 1973), 34.43.

155

practice of every moral duty.”85 He is not making some general normative claim here
but suggesting what role duty plays in people’s lives. So again, it is possible to make
sense of a discussion of duty without assuming that such duties are being praised or
blamed.

But, if this is how we should resolve the problem of relativism, it is not at all
clear how a Humean approach would help us in developing an environmental ethics
with some legitimacy. And in fact, there is some evidence which suggests that Hume
himself wanted to be making not only descriptive, but prescriptive claims. First, early
in the Second Enquiry he says “The end of all moral speculations is to teach us our
duty” and help us form certain habits.86 This sounds like the end of moral speculation
involves more than teaching us what it is that we already think is our duty. Hume
seems to be saying that it would be good if his descriptive account were to inform
further thinking and acting. A similar line of thought can be seen in a passage near the
end of the text in which he hopes his work will “contribute to the amendment of men’s
lives, and their improvement in morality and social virtue. And, though the
philosophical truth of any proposition by no means depends on its tendency to
promote the interests of society; yet a man has but a bad grace, who delivers a theory,
9987

however true, which, he must confess, leads to a practice dangerous and pernicious.

Both of these passages indicate a move, or a desire to move, beyond the merely

 

8sl‘lume, An Enquiry C oncerning the Principles of Morals, 79.
”Ibid., 14.

"Ibid., 79.

156

descriptive. However. neither of these passages needs to be read as inconsistent with
his aim of providing a purely descriptive account of moral thinking. He seems merely
to be saying that his descriptive account—that which he gives us in the texts—might
be used to filrther our moral thinking and action in ways consistent with our
sentiments.

Regardless, it is an important question whether we want a Humean account to
be limited to so purely a descriptive account. That is, what good is Hume’s ethical
theory if it cannot provide guidance in our lives—i.e., does not tell us what to do and
not to do? There are a couple of points that can be made. First, as Snare suggests,
accepting Hume’s conclusions might provide guidance in the sense that we might be
even more likely to approve of the kinds of things he says we already do, or be
directed more firmly with respect to things already approved.” We might become
better at cultivating those things which further utility if we have a better understanding
of our psychological responses to them. Second, what do we expect when we ask this
question? If we are expecting some objective universal truth existing to be
discovered, then we are already prejudiced against Hume. Although it might be
difficult, we might need to set aside our preconceived notions of what morality
consists of and consider whether Hume is on to something here or not.

One way of thinking about, or pulling together, the above issues is to first
accept that Hume is quite wrong regarding the lack of difference that exists in the

world and the possibility of finding intersubjective agreement on all matters. But he

 

88Snare, Morals, Motivation and Convention, 173 and 174.

157

may nonetheless be right about his description of what ethics is, and even his catalog
of particular virtues and vices. What is good and right might well be determined by
our sentimental responses; there may be no objective truth to our ethical beliefs in the
sense that they exist independent of our emotional reactions to people and situations.
But Hume’s appeal to universal agreement, which might get us objectivity in the sense
of intersubjective agreement, cannot be maintained in light of the great diversity of
moral beliefs in the world, the different sources of value, and the inconsistency
between many of these values. It is likely that there is some such agreement across
cultures with respect to things such as torture and genocide, but, as Berlin has argued,
such is not the case with many other important issues, even within a single person.
The fact that all of us, regardless of culture, are humans living human lives, however,
is likely to limit the range of our sentimental reactions to things, and hence the
possible sets of moral beliefs. We would have many, but not an infinite number of
substantial ethical beliefs, depending at least in part upon our communities and
upbringing. We would have, then, a great variety of ethical views, all growing out of
our experiences living the lives we do with one another. If we are attracted to Hume’s
naturalistic sentimentalist approach to ethics, we can recognize the diversity in the

world, without having to accept an unwanted relativism.

Conclusion
Pinchot’s view of nature as a material resource to be consumed, though consmned

carefully to maximize long-term benefit for all citizens, seems often to be the reigning

158

paradigm in the American attitude toward the environment. This is an improvement over
the short-sighted aims of many of Pinchot’s contemporaries who wanted the government
to divest itself of all public lands and regulatory responsibilities. It is also much more
environmentally fiiendly than that of some of our more recent conservative American
administrations overseeing our public lands and corporations engaged in resource
extraction. By itself, though, an environmental ethic based on even long-term
consumptive benefits of nature is limited in terms of how much environmental protection
it can justify. It is consistent with monoculture tree farms in place of original forests, the
leasing of public grass lands to cattle ranchers, and the damming of rivers for irrigation.
Early in his life. Muir (at one time a good friend of the younger Pinchot) had spent
a summer herding a California sheep farmer’s animals up into the Sierra Nevada to graze.
But seeing what they did to the native vegetation, led him to call them “hoofed locusts.”89
Later in his life he fought hard against the proposal to dam Hetch Hetchy Canyon, just
north of Yosemite Valley, in order to supply water for the city of San Francisco. The
depth of his love and connection with nature can be seen in his exclamation: “Dam Hetch
Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holler
temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.”9° He thought both that nature was
imbued with divine spirit and that experiences in nature could help people be more
psychologically and emotionally healthy: nature exists to sooth our pain and to “heal and

cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.’”' In a world in which Muir’s particular

 

89John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (NP: Canongate Classics, 1988), 32.
”John Muir, The Yosemite (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988), 197.

”Ibid., 192.

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religious beliefs are rejected by both the secular and religious, it is this psychological
betterment argument which has more potential to provide us with a viable environmental
ethic. Muir’s uses of nature are, in contrast to Pinchot’s, distinctly non-consumptive.

I argued above, however, that this is still unlikely to satisfy many environmentally
minded people. First. it does not conform to their convictions that nature should be
protected independent of any, even non-consumptive, usefulness to us. This criticism
could perhaps be minimized if an instrumentalist approach could be shown to justify a
quite rigorous level of environmental protection. This is unlikely to happen, however, if
non-consumptive benefits are conceived in terms of uses on par with other uses—that is,
to be simply weighted against each other in a type of cost/benefit analysis. It is hard to
imagine, for example, that the aesthetic uses of Hetch Hetchy could have won over the
material interests of the city of San Francisco, unless such places had been reduced to an
exceedingly rare number. Any environmental ethic that had to wait for natural areas to
become rare, though, would not be very attractive. On the other hand, when all the non-
consumptive uses of nature are added together, a good deal of the non-humanized world
could be protected. Even here, though, it seems that many things in the environment
could be altered or destroyed without impacting too seriously on our non-consumptive
benefits, or at least not in a way in which these could not be made up for by consumptive
benefits.

One way to make rigorous environmental protection even more likely would be to
understand Muir’s particular non-consumptive uses of nature as involving our self-
conceptions or understandings. As we see from writers such as Muir, Carson, and

Dillard, people who care deeply for the natural world do not see it as an object to be used

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in the usual sense, even non-consumptively. This is a matter more of attitude or approach
than it is a technical distinction, but it does tie the well-being or health of nature more
closely to something we all care very much about: our own self-conceptions. This is not.
however, a suggestion that nature cannot also have intrinsic value.

Callicott is one who argues for the moral consideration of ecosystems themselves.
In brief, he builds on Leopold’s notion that ethics grows out of communal feelings and
that our moral circle expands as we become aware that we are members of additional
communities. Ecology demonstrates to us that we are members of a quite interrelated and
interdependent biotic community in addition to our various familial and social ones.
Furthermore, we owe our most serious duties to fellow members of our most intimate
communities such as family, with less serious duties owed to ecosystems. Callicott had
originally favored a more thoroughly holistic version of this, but later emphasized the
notion that obligations to less intimate communities do not replace those of more intimate
communities. This is supported by a Humean approach to ethics in which duties grow
out of our sentimental responses, and in particular out of community-oriented sentiments
which tie us more closely to our more intimate relationships.

I suggested, though, that by de-emphasizing the holistic element of his
work—done to avoid the problem of having to sometimes sacrifice individuals (even
people) to better the ecosystem—Callicott’s version of the Land Ethic is in danger of
having lost its bite in terms of environmental protection. If we add Muir-like non-
consumptive uses of nature as I have suggested, however, it might do better. On
Callicott’s expanding circle model, the biotic-community is the least intimate, and hence

we owe the least to it. If _, however, nature is tied to our very idea of who we are, it makes

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it part of a much more intimate relationship, captured perhaps by Buber’s notion of an 1-
Thou, as opposed to an I-It, relationship. This move is consistent with Callicott’s reliance
on Hume.

However, the promise of Callicott’s theory, with my addition, as a way of
accounting for both individualistic and holistic concerns cannot be fulfilled if its use of a
Humean sentimentalism leads to relativism. I argued that this need not be the case.
Importantly, though, my response to this problem does not rely on Hume’s faulty solution
of universal agreement regarding moral beliefs and values. Instead, in the end it relies on
the belief that although there is a great amount of disagreement and conflict regarding
important moral beliefs and values, there are enough common experiences to set certain
limits as to acceptable alternatives. This too is consistent with a Humean approach
because Hume sought to ground morality in our lived lives. This all leads up to a focused
return to the topic of pluralism and environmental ethics in Chapter Five. I will argue
that Callicott’s Humean and Leopoldian approach to the environment, supplemented with
Warren’s substantive principles, is best interpreted as a pluralistic ethic which takes

difference seriously while avoiding relativism.

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CHAPTER 5

PLURALISM IN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

Introduction

In Chapters Two through Four I developed a broad environmental ethic, one that
contains elements of both individualistic and holistic concerns, as any such ethic likely
requires. This has been done consistent with the pluralism I argued for in Chapter One.
In this chapter, I will more explicitly bring these two discussions together by arguing that
Callicott’s Humean and Leopoldian environmental ethic is, despite his claims to the
contrary, best interpreted in pluralistic terms.

In the first chapter, I raised the problem of incompatibility between the
individualism of animal welfarists and the holism of many environmentalists. I suggested
that this problem arises from the intuition that both of these seemingly inconsistent
outlooks are correct, and that it is a leading cause of continual disagreement regarding
how to handle situations in which the welfare of individuals and wholes conflict. The
case of non-indigenous mountain goats threatening local plant species and causing
erosion in Washington’s Olympic Mountains provides an example. Animal welfarists,
concerned primarily with the welfare of individual animals, are in opposition to
environmental holists’ desire that the goats be destroyed to protect the integrity of the
ecosystem. I suggested in that first chapter that pluralism might prove useful in
rethinking the individualism-holism problem.

Pluralism, as I have outlined it, does nothold that every moral view is just as

legitimate as any other; careful reason is needed to sort the more from the less correct

I63

views. Attempting to do just this, I argued in Chapter Two that having interests is what
makes individual entities morally considerable. Moral agency, autonomy, and life itself
are not directly relevant to moral considerability, though being alive is a (contingently)
necessary condition, and moral agency and autonomy are indicators of the possession of
certain kinds of important interests. That interests identify individual organisms as
morally considerable sets some limits to the range of legitimate beliefs and values
regarding such entities.

Chapter Three explored Mary Anne Warren’s principle-based approach to the
individualism—holism problem. I argued for a revision of her results to cohere with the
conclusions drawn in Chapter Two, suggesting one general principle for individuals and
one for wholes, with more specific articulations arranged as sub-principles beneath these.
I also argued that her principles are in need of an overarching explanatory theory (though
not necessarily a monistic normative theory such as Kantianism or utilitarianism).
Because she already relies on J. Baird Callicott’s Humean approach to argue for the moral
considerability of wholes, and because Callicott’s environmental ethic (another important
response to the individualism-holism problem) is in need of some substantive elements,
the two could be merged to the advantage of both. This does, however, go against
Warren’s wish to bypass higher theoretical levels than that of principles. Her position
seems to be that a principle-based approach can best manage the individualism—holism
issue without appealing to pluralism and raising the related worry of relativism.
However, a side effect of the conclusions reached in Chapters Two and Three is that
Warren’s justifications for ranking her principles are undermined. This should lead us to

expect conflicts between principles with no direction as to how they should be resolved.

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These first three chapters pave the way for the development of a pluralistic interpretation
of Callicott’s Humean approach to the individualism—holism problem, discussed in detail
in Chapter Four and Five.

Chapter Four began with an exploration of Gifford Pinchot’s and John Muir’s
competing views regarding our ethical relationship to our environment. Pinchot sees
nature in terms of material resources to be managed and consumed for long-term human
betterment. Rather than justifying a high degree of environmental protection, this
approach encourages increased monoculture tree farms and fossil fuel exploration. In
contrast to Pinchot’s consumptive-use approach, Muir sees nature as God’s (continuing)
creation and as a place of emotional and spiritual growth. Nature should be protected
from material consumption due to its connection with the divine and its role in the
psychological betterment of human lives through non-consumptive uses. The deeply felt
experiences in nature of the sort Muir describes are often what drive the environmentalist
intuition that nature is intrinsically valuable (i.e., valuable independent of its usefulness to
us). However, because the divine origin argument is likely to convince only certain
theists of nature’s value, it is Muir’s non-consumptive uses relating to emotional and
psychological betterment that will likely make the more persuasive case for
environmental protection.

Described in the usual sense of non-consumptive uses, however, the benefits cited
by Muir still fall short of justifying the level of protection desired by most
environmentalists. Seeing nature in terms of uses, commonly conceived, treats it as an
object to be managed in whatever way will most benefits those with a stake in it. This

suggests that the various uses, both consumptive and non-consumptive, can be simply

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weighted against one another to determine how to maximize benefits to us. There is no
reason to suppose that aesthetic or psychological benefits will often win out over material
interests. In fact, many things could presumably be altered or destroyed in ways
objectionable to environmentalists without leading to a loss of overall benefit—even non-
consumptive benefit—to humans. Most of us do not need to spend time in wilderness
areas to appreciate nature’s beauty or temporarily escape the trials of our all too urbanized
lives. Even Thoreau, while praising nature for its awe and beauty inspiring qualities,
thought some places too wild for human occupation.‘ Thinking about nature in terms of
uses also leaves environmental protection susceptible to our whims; nature’s value
becomes dependent on which of our interests we as a culture happen to hold important at
any given moment. Environmentalists seek a firmer foundation for environmental
protection.

Another way of thinking about Muir’s non-consumptive uses of nature is to
recognize that for people who care deeply about the natural world, nature functions as
elements of self-identity or understanding, not as “uses” in the usual sense. If healthy
ecosystems are seen as part of our self-understanding—who we are or want to be—rather
than as simply objects of our emotional or aesthetic reactions, it would be less likely that
we would think of nature in terms of some sort of cost—benefit analysis simply weighing
all the consumptive and non-consumptive uses against one another. This is not to say that
nature is not useful, but rather that Muir’s non-consumptive uses might be conceived as

more tightly tied to deep interests which are qualitatively, or experientially, different from

 

lSee, for example, Thoreau’s thoughts regarding his trip to Maine’s Mt. Katahdin in: Henry David
Thoreau, “The Maine Woods,” Henry David Thoreau (New York: Library Classics of the United States;
The Library of America, 1985), 645-46.

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the usual way of thinking about uses. This redescription of at least some of the non-
consumptive uses of nature (scientific or medicinal benefits might still be thought of
primarily in terms of non-consumptive uses) not only fits with the Humean sentimentalist
approach to environmental ethics articulated by Callicott, but it helps Callicott’s project
of justifying a high level of protection for nature because it pulls our environment closer
to the core of our moral community. Finally, I spent some time in Chapter Four
defending a Humean approach to ethics against the charge of relativism. I argued that it
can survive such a challenge not by an appeal to an unlikely universalism of moral belief
and value, but by a narrowing of the possible legitimate beliefs and values out of the
diversity of views existing in the world. This is captured by the notion of moral
pluralism.

Callicott’s approach to the individualism—holism problem is intriguing because it
claims to account for the intuition that both individuals and wholes are morally
significant and suggests ways to balance or order these diverse concerns, while avoiding
relativism. But in addition, he argues explicitly against pluralism, claiming that because
his view offers a single metaphysics of morals, or an overarching explanatory framework,
it is a monistic account capable of giving us single correct answers to particular moral
problems. I will argue here that despite his unifying (Humean and Leopoldian)
framework, Callicott’s answer to the individualism—holism problem (with Warren-like
principles providing a substantive element) remains pluralistic—it does not, for example,
lead to single correct answers when the welfare of individual organisms and ecosystems
come into conflict. Recognizing this might lead us to approach tough cases, such as

Washington’s mountain goats dilemma, in ways more congenial to satisfactory

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resolutions. We might, for example, see compromise in such cases as a way to break the

political deadlock while maintaining our moral integrity.

Monism and Pluralism in Environmental Ethics

Philosophers have long sought a unifying set of principles or an overarching
theory by which to find single correct answers to every particular moral quandary.
Although the awareness of diversity of beliefs and values in the world has pushed a few
to embrace relativism instead, it has driven others to work even harder to find an ethical
system by which to order all this difference. It is often assumed that these two options of
relativism and ethical monism are the only two available. However, as Isaiah Berlin has
argued, “there are many different ends that men may seek and still be fully rational, fully
men, capable of understanding each other and sympathizing and deriving light from each
other,” and this does not entail that there is no objectivity to our diverging moral beliefs.2
As argued previously, if Berlin is right, we have a third option—moral pluralism—which
may allow us to accept both that competing beliefs and values (or systems of these) may
be equally acceptable and that they are nonetheless open to critical evaluation.
Disagreement is not always reducible to disagreements of reason, but not every view will

be equally acceptable.3 As Martin Benjamin says, “a number of good and important

 

2Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal,” The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays (New
York: F arrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997), 9. It should be noted that he describes the objectivity in stronger
terms than would someone working within the Humean tradition. He says, for example, that we are not to
“regard [our moral beliefs] simply as subjective, the products of creatures in different circumstances with
different tastes from our own. . . . There is a world of objective values” (Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal,”
9).

3One of the difficulties of describing or responding to various accounts of pluralism is distinguishing

between the various things to which pluralism might apply: judgments of particular beliefs and values,
principles, theories, concepts of the self in relation to others, notions of the Good, personal projects, or

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ethical values and principles are inherently incompatible. They cannot be combined into
a single harmonious scheme of morality for all.”4 He adds that conflicts will arise
between these values “that are not due to selfishness, prejudice, ignorance, poor

reasoning, and so on.”5

These conflicts are also not limited to disagreements between
different people, but can arise within single persons as well, as when we are, to use
another example from Berlin, conflicted regarding conflicts between the important,
though often competing, values of freedom and equality.

One might think that given the diversity of views in the world and our desire to
enact good environmental policy, it is simply in our best interest to approach the diversity
of moral views with tolerance—to act as if pluralism were correct. We need not accept
the actual legitimacy of more than one set of competing beliefs, but can continue to hold
that our own view is in fact the single correct one. Some critics of the non-engagement of
environmental philosophers with real-world problems would be happy with this

approach, even as they think a successful monistic theory might someday be developed.

Theory building is, after all, time consuming and perhaps even divisive in a world so

 

even entire world views. That differences within some of these areas might be reducible to differences in
others (for example, judgments of partitulars beliefs or values to principles) further complicates an attempt
to get a nice neat description of pluralism. Berlin’s description of differences in how people value equality
vs. freedom, for example, could be taken to refer to differences within world views (such as between
people all within a protestant, liberal, capitalistic world view) or between world views (the one just
described and a fundamentalist Moslem world view, for example). Pluralism is frequently described in
terms of ethical theory. Neither Kantianism nor utilitarianism, for example, is seen to capture all of ethics
but both reflect important, widely accepted ethical beliefs. A tension exists between an emphasis on
consequences and respect for individuals which is, it is said, unresolvable by appeal only to reason. On my
preferred description of pluralism, differences at any level of moral thinking amount to moral pluralism
only in so far as they result in admitted (as opposed to unintended) rationally irreducible difference at the
level of evaluations of particular cases (see Chapter One).

4Martin Benjamin, Philosophy and This Actual World (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), l25.

51bid., 126.

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diverse. An alternative is to see pluralism and tolerance as in order because, as Berlin
thought, many of these views might actually be morally acceptable. In Chapter One, I
described this as arising either from epistemological reasons (we do not know which view
is better) or from ontological reasons (values such as mercy and justice, or freedom and
equality, cannot be jointly maximized due to their inherent inconsistency). Our work in
moral theory, especially if the second of these is true, ought to reflect this by moving
away from the search for only monistic ethical theories—not simply for pragmatic
reasons but because monism is philosophically problematic. Should we then dismiss
monistic theories such as Callicott’s out of hand?

Bryan Norton argues that the goal of environmental philosophy has been, up to
now, the formulation of a monistic ethical theory. This has been true of both the
individualistic human-centered and animal-welfarist camps on the one hand, and the
holists on the other. On the environmentalist side of things, the result has been
theoretical paralysis due to “false alternatives forced upon us by the assumption . . . that
whatever the units of environmental value turn out to be, there will be only one kind of
them?” In the meantime, we have practical issues which need to be addressed.

This could be taken as an argument for working harder to overcome the
theoretical impasse to find some overarching unifying theory. Norton intends something
different, however. He argues that moral monists tend to think of practical problems in
terms of applying theory or principles to practical problems in order to churn out single

correct answers. Evaluations of particular cases and policies are on hold awaiting a

 

6Bryan Norton, “Integration or Reduction: Two Approaches to Environmental Values,” Environmental
Pragmatism, eds., Andrew Light and Eric Katz (New York: Routledge, 1996), 106.

170

univocal theory. In contrast to this approach, we should be “practical” philosophers.
This alternative sees theoretical work to be a response to tough real-world problems.
Theories are only tools, and they should be generated not from annchairs, but from
practice. The advantage is clear—we do not have to wait for some final univocal theory
before proceeding with policy.

Norton presents this as an argument against (theory-level) moral monism. But,
the monist could reply that this says little, one way or the other, about monism per se.
First, monism might be true even if we have not yet been able to articulate a single
covering theory or set of principles that would give us more solid guidance in making
correct evaluations. Anthony Weston argues against the hegemony of monism in
environmental ethics by pointing out that the discipline is so young that we should not
expect consensus on such things as the notion of intrinsic value.7 However, it seems that
this argument works just as well for the monist who wants to hold off on deciding
whether pluralism is the way to go or not. Second, the monist might agree with Norton’s
view that the “applied” approach to doing moral theory is unlikely to work well. We
ought instead to move back and forth between intuitions and judgments about particular
cases, principles, and theory, refining each in light of the other in a reflective equilibrium
approach. Evaluations of particular cases and policy need not wait for some finalized
version of an overall theory. Advocates of monism can agree that environmental
philosophy ought to be more connected with practical problems while maintaining a

commitment to monism. So while it is good to keep in mind Norton’s worries regarding

 

7Anthony Weston, “Before Environmental Ethics,” Environmental Pragmatism, eds., Andrew Light and
Eric Katz (New York: Routledge, I996), 151.

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top-down approaches to ethics, an alternative line of reasoning is needed to make the case

for environmental pluralism.

C allicott ’5 Environmental Ethic as Monistic

In his development and defense of a Humean and Leopoldian response to the
individualism—holism problem, Callicott makes what is probably the most thorough and
explicit defense of monism in environmental philosophy. He believes that monism is the
only way to avoid relativism while taking seriously the moral considerability of both
individual people and animals and ecosystems.8 He argues that a Humean interpretation
of Leopold’s Land Ethic (where “land” refers to all the parts of an ecosystem) taken as a
monistic account, can do both of these things.

To motivate his particular environmental theory, Callicott first rejects both
thoroughgoing holism and individualism. He quickly dismisses the former (a view he
once held”) by agreeing with its detractors that evaluating human value and action solely
in terms of impact on the environment would allow for grossly unacceptable results, such

as killing humans to better the ecosystem.'0 He concludes that by itself holism

 

8I agree with Callicott that we should try to avoid relativism, but it should be noted that some sorts of
relativism might not be particularly objectionable (see: Susan Wolf, “Two Levels of Pluralism,” Ethics
102 (1992): 785-98.). What I mean by relativism here is that not only are ethical beliefs and values
relative to something (a culture or individuals), but that we have no way of non-arbitrarily choosing
between better and worse views, or of criticizing views we otherwise find to be seriously flawed. Both
monism and the pluralism I have described here seek to avoid relativism of this sort.

9See: J. Baird Callicott, “The Conceptual Foundations of the Land Ethic,” Companion to A Sand County
Almanac: Interpretive and Critical Essays, ed., J. Baird Callicott (Madison: U Wisconsin P, 1987), 186-
217.

'01 . Baird Callicott, “The Case Against Moral Pluralism,” Environmental Ethics 12.2 (1990): 103. And,

J. Baird Callicott, “Moral Monism in Environmental Ethics Defended,” Journal of Philosophical Research
19(1994): 58.

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unacceptably leaves little room for individual-oriented concerns. Callicott also rejects
individualistic-only accounts. Tom Regan, well-known defender of animal rights, had
argued that a rights-based environmental ethic might justify protection of nature to the
high degree sought by most environmental theorists and activists. He asks rhetorically,
“Were we to show proper respect for the rights of individuals who make up the biotic
community, would not the community be preserved?”ll Callicott agrees with Mark
Sagoff that this is an empirical question the answer to which is surely negative: attempts
to protect the rights of every individual would lead to the disruption of evolutionary and
ecological processes, and environmental disaster.12 Callicott adds, “To attempt to
safeguard the rights of each and every individual member of an ecosystem would,
correspondingly, be to attempt to stop practically all trophic processes beyond
photosynthesis.”l3
lndividualistic approaches, however, perhaps fair less badly than Callicott and
Sagoff think, since actions leading to environmental disaster would certainly violate the
rights of individuals. Nonetheless, as I argued earlier, even if we took seriously non-
consumptive uses of nature, many things in the environment could be altered or destroyed
with no overall loss of benefit to humans. Taking the interests of non-human animals

into account and seeing nature as part of people’s self-identity makes for a much stronger

case for environmental protection. This too, though, falls short of the intuition of many

 

llQuoted in J. Baird Callicott, “Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Back Together Again,” The
Animal Rights/Environmental Ethics Debate: The Environmental Perspective, ed., Eugene C. Hargrove
(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992), 251. Emphasis in original. For Regan’s discussion, see: Tom Regan,
The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: U of California P, 1983), 361-63.

l2Callicott, “Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Back Together Again,” 251-52.

”Ibid., 251.

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environmentalists that protection should come independent of any usefulness to us or any
other interested beings.

Having rejected thorough-going holism and individualism, Callicott also rejects
pluralistic accounts which try to solve the individualism—holism problem by allowing for
both elements with no covering theory or unifying set of principles specifying how to
balance or order them. Callicott’s specific target is Christopher Stone’s version of
pluralism. Stone claims that “The Moral Pluralist holds that a . . . senator . . . might
rightly embrace utilitarianism when it comes to legislating a rule for social conduct,” yet
rely on a non-consequentialist approach, “in arranging his personal affairs among kin or
friends, or deciding whether it is right to poke out the eyes of pigeons?“ Callicott’s
primary objection is that this requires a person to make much more radical shifts in belief
than merely deciding which ethical theory is appropriate for which case. Embracing
utilitarianism or Kantianism means also accepting certain commitments regarding notions
of the Good, conceptions of the self, criteria for moral considerability, the importance and
role of reason, and a moral psychology, thereby making pluralism a sort of “metaphysical
musical chairs.”15 It requires a person to either simultaneously hold mutually
contradictory moral philosophies (metaphysical, meta-ethical, normative, etc., views) or
to move from one to another of these philosophical positions “with the same case of

changing clothes.”l6

 

14Quoted in: Callicott, “The Case Against Moral Pluralism,” 104. Originally from: Christopher D. Stone,
Earth and Other Ethics: The Case for Moral Pluralism (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), l 18.

ISCallicott, “The Case Against Moral Pluralism,” l 15. And, J. Baird Callicott, “Moral Monism in
Environmental Ethics Defended,” 52.

16Callicott, “Moral Monism in Environmental Ethics Defended,” 52.

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Not only do we end up with schizophrenic inner lives with Stone’s pluralism, but
we are left with no decision making procedure if upon trying out different approaches to
particular cases we get inconsistent or contradictory indications regarding what we ought
to do. Stone has provided no way of deciding when to use which overall approach
because he has provided us with no covering theory or set of ordered principles. Callicott
is right that this is problematic. In particular, it is hard to imagine anyone being able to
hold more than one such large set of beliefs at one time, much less being able to move
between such sets as needed. We might also worry about the maintenance of ethical
integrity under a system requiring us to quickly shed one set of convictions in favor of
another. This suggests that any acceptable pluralism will have to take a more subtle
approach. Stone’s response to the problem of not knowing when to use one and when
another overarching approach is to appeal to our intuitions, cultivated moral beliefs, and
sensibilities to buy into world views in which values, duties, and the like, are ordered in a
particular way. But, Callicott complains, we are left with either no real way to choose
between competing sets of beliefs and values because we have no covering theory, or, if
we can be more precise with respect to our worldviews used to sort out the conflicting
claims, we would no longer in need of pluralism.l7

We could argue for a more charitable reading of Stone in which cognitive and
evaluative shifts are not of the magnitude Callicott sees necessary for Stone’s project. To
say that in some cases a more utilitarian-type approach is called for, and in others a more

significant focus on individual dignity or integrity, need not mean that we must embrace

 

l7Callicott, “The Case Against Moral Pluralism,” 1 12-13. For Stone’s original description, see especially:
Christopher D. Stone, Earth and Other Ethics: The Case for Moral Pluralism, 241-58.

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at one moment the entirety of Bentham or Mill’s metaphysics of morals and in others all
of Kant’s. Rather, we might recognize that each of these traditional theories is
incomplete, or even that although they capture something important about moral
evaluation, they are each wrong in some important ways. So for example, when voting
for a tax cut or for more money to fund education one might think that considerations of
consequences are the best way to make the choice. Others may agree in general but feel a
special obligation to particular individuals, such as their children, and argue for an
alternative approach. Both might be equally morally acceptable. A person trying to
decide how best to make a decision need not be trying to decide between two completely
different notions of the Good, moral psychology, a sense of self, or beliefs regarding who
is morally considerable because they may not be comparing thorough-going utilitarianism
with thorough-going Kantianism (or some other approach). Rather, they may simply be
wondering when obligations to those close to them should take precedence over
impersonal duties to others, when the interests protected by rights must give way to
making more people happier, or, in other situations, when mercy should be extended
despite good reasons to extract retributive justice. It is not clear to me why such conflicts
(whether inter or infra-personal) entail shifts in belief of the magnitude Stone seems
comfortable expecting.

This is to suggest neither that there must be some covering theory which says
exactly when to use which approach or when to emphasize which values, nor that flipping
a coin is an acceptable way to decide. Rather, as we each (in concert with others of our
social communities, of course) seek to develop coherent sets of beliefs and values, many

inconsistencies will likely remain—for both epistemological and ontological reasons. As

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offered, however, Stone’s version of pluralism is problematic. The more charitable
reading (perhaps no longer recognizably Stone) suggests the possibility of a more subtle
version of pluralism not so susceptible to Callicott’s “musical chairs” complaint.

Having dismissed straightforward individualism and holism, as well as pluralism
seeking to allow for both, Callicott offers a monistic theory to solve the
individualism—holism problem. His approach is to provide a unifying framework
organizing duties and obligations to both individuals (humans as well as animals) and
ecosystems which will also avoid the problem of relativism, the main worry attached to
any pluralistic approach. His own approach, which he calls “communitarianism,” relies
on an awareness that we live within a “multiplicity of moral spheres—family obligations,
the duties associated with our professional lives, our public lives, our interspecies, and
ecosystemic and biospheric relationships—each with its very different set of demands
that often compete, one with another.”'8 This should not, he argues, suggest pluralism:
despite these conflicting pulls, “we must maintain a coherent sense of self and world, a
unified moral world view . . . [which] enables us rationally to select among or balance out
the contradictory or inconsistent demands . . .”‘9 I agree with Callicott that coherence in
our moral thinking is an important goal; I disagree on the extent to which this is possible.

As described in the previous chapters, Callicott builds on both Hume’s and
Leopold’s work. Leopold had argued that the insights of ecology and evolutionary
theory—in particular the notion that all living things are interconnected and

interdependent—ought to push us to expand our moral thinking beyond the communities

 

18Callicott, “The Case Against Moral Pluralism,” 120-21.

"mm, 121.

177

of individual humans and animals to include even ecosystems. He begins the concluding
chapter, entitled “The Land Ethic,”of The Sand County Almanac by describing his version
of an expanding ethical circle. Ethics, he says, are “a kind of community instinct in-the-
making” in which competition gives way to cooperation.20 As with other expanding
ethical circle models, Leopold sees human moral deveIOpment as the gradual awareness
that we belong to larger and larger communities of interacting members, which, in turn,
leads to the inclusion of greater numbers and sorts of morally relevant beings in our moral
community.

Peter Singer’s work on the ethical treatment of animals is a more recent use of the
notion of an expanding ethical circle. Although he avoids talking in terms of intrinsic
value, Singer argues that some animals show evidence of being as capable of suffering as
are most people. Because it is this ability that makes people morally considerable, it
would be “speciesist” to not extend considerability to sentient nonhuman animals.” Not
only is this move persuasive, but it has the advantage of isolating a specific moral-
considerability conferring property. It looks, however, as though this line of reasoning
cannot be extended to cover the sorts of things Leopold has in mind. At most it can
establish some degree of moral considerability for “higher” animals; neither non-sentient
individual organisms nor ecosystems are open to being harmed or bettered in the morally
relevant sense. Any protection of ecosystems would be derivative upon individual

interests. Many contemporary environmentalists support Leopold’s move beyond the

 

20Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There (Oxford: Oxford U P, 1987),
203.

2'Peter Singer, Animal Liberation rev. ed. (New York: Avon Books, 1990), 6.

I78

individualism of Singer, but ascribing moral considerability to wholes must involve a
different way of expanding our moral circle. For Callicott, the answer lies in a Humean
interpretation of Leopold’s Land Ethic.

Leopold’s expanding moral circle depends on the belief that the science of
ecology demonstrates that our (pre-moral) community includes much more than just other
humans. His favorite ecological metaphor is that of a “land pyramid” in which matter
and energy move up and down a layered pyramid organized according to who eats whom.
Top carnivores are represented by the apex, humans by a larger layer one step down also
encompassing bears and raccoons, and insects and plants by yet lower levels.22 Not only
does this demonstrate for him that all of nature is interdependent, but also that humans
are “plain members” of the land community.23 The implications for human action is
clear: if we want to continue living fi'uitful lives, we cannot continue to destroy the other
parts of the interconnected unity. Consumption cannot be our sole guiding concern when
it comes to our relationships with the rest of the world—such would be self-defeating.

At this point, Leopold’s argument sounds strictly prudential; he does not,
however, want it to remain so. He knows that conservation programs built around the
goal of reaping economic benefits have historically not succeeded. The traditional view
of humans as “conquerors” of their environment is doomed to fail because it assumes that
we know “just what makes the community clock tick, and just what and who is valuable,

and what and who is worthless, in community life,” when we clearly do not.“ We need,

 

22Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 215.
”Ibid., 204.

24Ibid., 204.

179

 

Leopold thinks, to internalize a sense of right and wrong that goes beyond such prudential
reasoning if there is to be any hope that people will act in any thoughtful and significant
way to protect non-human nature. The awareness of our interconnection with, and
interdependence on, the rest of the land pyramid must lead not only to attempts to avoid
something like a bio-systems crash, but to a love and devotion which will establish duties
to a morally considerable natural world.

Leopold’s move beyond the prudential, or instrumentalist, approach to nature
involves seeing the interconnectedness of all things and the practical implications of this
for our well—being as pushing us to think of nature as itself morally considerable. In
Leopold’s words, the Land Ethic “changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of
the land-community to plain member and citizen of it [and] . . . implies respect for his
fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.”25 Callicott takes this as
indicating both individualistic and a holistic notions of moral standing. The problem,
though, is that it is not at all clear how we can make the move from a purely descriptive
account of being in complex ecosystemic relationships to thinking that the ecosystem and
its constituent parts are morally considerable. With Singer we might see lab rats or dairy
cows as having value independent of any usefulness to us; he has provided us with a
specific criterion—sentience—by which to expand our moral community to include them.
Leopold has not done this for ecosystems.

Callicott argues that we should interpret Leopold not as looking for specific
characteristics in things (such as sentience) as indicating moral considerability, but rather

we should look to see what sorts of relationships we have with respect to various things.

 

25lbicl, 196.

I80

He turns to Hume to provide the theoretical resources. Hume had argued that the
foundations of morality are to be found in our sentimental reactions. Our powers of
reason “discover truths: But where the truths which they discover are indifferent, and
beget no desire or aversion, they can have no influence on conduct and behaviour. What

is honourable, what is fair, what is becoming, what is noble, what is generous, takes

 

possession of the heart, and animates us to embrace and maintain it.”26 Sentimental F
reactions provide the motivational element that sets moral thinking apart from purely

means—ends thinking. Furthermore, it is in relationships that we have the relevant

sentiments necessary for ethics.27 r

A couple of clarifying points are in order. First, not all sentimental reactions are
moral in character; or more precisely, are of the sort that provide the foundation for moral
thinking. Moral sentiments involve an attraction or repulsion to things. Further, they can
be distinguished from ambition, vanity, and other self-directed concerns in that, “The
notion of morals, implies some sentiment common to all mankind, which recommends
the same object to general approbation and makes every man, or most men, agree in the
same opinion or decision concerning it.”28 Unlike the case of thinking, for example, of
another person as one’s enemy, moral claims are meant to be the sort of thing everyone
can agree upon, regardless of how remote one is from the situation. Self-concemed

sentiments will be different for each person according to one’s circumstances.29

 

26David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed., J. B. Schneewind (Indianapolis:
Hackett P, 1983), 15.

27Ibid., 26.
2"Ibid., 74-75.

”Ibid., 75.

181

Relatedly, Hume argues that we are in fact, at least partially, other-oriented: it “cannot be
disputed, that there is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom; some
spark of friendship for human kind.”30 Our experience demonstrates this, and attempting
to recast such sentiments in egoistic terms requires, he suitably says, “the highest stretch
of philosophy.”31
Lastly, the role reason plays for Hume in making moral judgments cannot be
under estimated. Hume thinks reason will enter all of our moral evaluations—it alone
can show us the relation between actions and their consequences.” Further, before fixing
on the “proper sentiment,” we must think carefully to make comparisons, examine
complex relationships, and discover the relevant facts of the matter.33 All this depends
upon reason. It also pushes us, according to Hume, to gradually enlarge our sense of
whom things such as justice applies to, thereby foreshadowing Leopold’s conception of
an expanding ethical circle.“ Sentiment plays the central role in his theory in part
because he is responding to the traditional view of ethics in which the passions are seen
as the enemy of morality, and in part because he believes (rightly, I think) that “Reason,

being cool and disengaged, is no motive to action?” But for Hume, ethics is not

identical to our moral sentiments. Moral judgments are informed by both sentiment and

 

30Ibid., 74.
“Ibid., 90.
32Ibid., 82.
”Ibid., 15.

”Ibid., 26.

35Ibid., 88. (Elsewhere he claims that reason alone cannot account for ultimate ends, as can be seen from
the absurdity of answering the question why one hates pain and loves pleasure. Same text, p. 87.)

182

reason, with sentiment playing the foundational role making certain judgments ethical
judgments as opposed to, for example, prudential ones.

For Callicott, the set of the various nested social circles has gradually expanded
throughout humanity’s history. It does so not as an expanding balloon, as he has
characterized Singer’s model, where our moral thinking changes only in terms of the
number and type of organisms whose interests are to count (the criterion for moral l
considerability remaining the same), but like the rings of a tree, with each inner set of

relationships and their corresponding duties remaining intact as new ones are added.36

 

The one exception is that newer, or more outer circle obligations limit the ways in which
we can fulfill the more inner circle duties. Obligations to ecosystems, for example, limit
how we can provide food for ourselves and families. As already mentioned, by leaving
intact more inner circles as we add new ones, Callicott hopes to avoid the charge of “eco-
fascism,” in which holism allows for (or even requires) what would otherwise be immoral
acts against individuals in the name of ecosystems. He wants this to be both
individualistic and holistic.

What holds all this together for Callicott is the notion that although the duties and
obligations of the various relationships can conflict, they are expressible in a common
Humean vocabulary and are thus not incommensurable: “[The] common denominator is
the community concept,” in which moral considerability, duties, etc., are grounded in the
moral sentiments of altruism, love, sympathy, and the like, for fellow individuals. For the

community itself, they are grounded in respect, loyalty, patriotism, and a sense of group

 

36Callicott, “The Case Against Moral Pluralism,” 122-23.

183

pride.” Because conflicts between duties of different relationships can be expressed in a
common language, they are, apparently, resolvable. The informing role played by reason
is critical for Callicott because it provides the connection sought by Leopold between
ecology and morality. Our moral circle can expand to include holistic entities such as
ecosystems once we allow the lessons of biology, evolutionary theory, and ecology to
impact our moral sentiments—to make us see that we are members of this larger,
interdependent community.

The notion that the communities or relationships provide the common
denominator to all our moral duties, whether to individuals or to ecosystems, provides
Callicott with his final response against those calling for pluralism as the answer to the
individualism—holism problem. He argues that his view is thoroughly monistic because it
offers “one concept of the nature of morality (as rooted in moral sentiments), one concept
of human nature (that we are social animals . . . with fellow creatures . . . of evolution),
[and] one moral psychology (that we respond in subtly shaded ways to the fellow
members of our multiple, diverse, tiered communities and to those communities per
se).”38 It provides, in essence, a single moral philosophy or a metaphysics of morals.
There is no need to follow Stone’s suggestion that we accept utilitarianism in one case
and Kantianism in another, or individualism in one and holism in another, thereby
making shifts of entire belief and value systems. Callicott thinks his own view

nevertheless allows for “a multiplicity of hierarchically ordered and variously ‘textured’

 

37Callicott, “Moral Monism in Environmental Ethics Defended,” 55.

38Callicott, “The Case Against Moral Pluralism,” 123-24.

184

moral relationships” corresponding to our various nested social circles.” It is thus billed

as a monistic theory that can account for both individualistic and holistic concerns.

Callicott ’5 Environmental Ethic as Pluralistic

I find Callicott’s use of Leopold and Hume intriguing. It suggests a way to solve
the individualism—holism problem without resorting to Stone’s unlikely solution of
applying different sorts of mutually inconsistent theories to different situations. He has
also given us a possible way of avoiding relativism. Contrary to Callicott, however, I
think that Callicott’s system should be redescribed in pluralistic terms. I do not wish to
question Callicott’s general Humean approach that moral values and duties, etc., are
grounded in sentiment and that this can give us nested relationships of various types and
strengths of obligation. Further, I agree with Callicott that a Humean account can avoid
relativism; I disagree, though, with how this can be done.

Callicott had argued that his Humean account is monistic, and that it avoids
relativism because, as Hume claimed, the relevant sentiments are universal: “That which
renders morality an active principle, and constitutes virtue our happiness, and vice our
misery . . . nature has made universal in the whole species?”0 Callicott suggests that
evolutionary science provides an explanation: the moral sentiments are fixed in human

nature through natural selection."' Family units were more successful if their members

 

”Ibid., 123.

40Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 15. Elsewhere he claims that “No man is
absolutely indifferent to the happiness and misery of others.” Same text, p. 74 ftnt.

“Callicott, “Hume’s Is/Ought Dichotomy and the Relation of Ecology to Leopold’s Land Ethic,” In
Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany, NY: SUNY P, 1989), 121.

185

56.

were naturally altruistic. As larger groups developed, the benefits of altruistic feelings
and actions were passed down socially, helping them to succeed also. However, while
very general sentimental responses to others and their actions are probably shared among
all (or most) people, the vast variety of beliefs and values, and indeed whole systems of
thought in which these are embedded, argues against a very wide universalism. One need
not be a pluralist to recognize that other than a few very general moral beliefs and values,
great diversity exists. And as Rawls points out, diversity which is “conflicting and
irreconcilable” is “a permanent feature” of our world.“2 As I argued earlier, this is true for
both epistemological and ontological reasons, and holds both between and within single
persons. Hume’s answer to the charge of relativism is therefore closed off.

This should not force us to give up Hume’s account (and hence Callicott’s),
however, on grounds that he places sentiment at the center of ethical understanding and is
therefore a subjectivist leading us in the direction of radical relativism. As already
discussed, Hume thinks that “it is requisite to employ much reasoning, in order to feel the
proper sentiment; and a false relish may frequently be corrected by argument and
reflection.”43 We may, for instance, initially have negative sentimental reactions, and
hence negative moral beliefs, regarding people of different races or cultures, which are
alterable by reason—through thediscovery that all people share the same morally relevant
criteria—directing us to feel and think that all people should be treated with equal

respect. In fact, despite Callicott’s complaint that Singer over-rationalizes ethics,“ this is

 

42John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia U P, 1993), 36.
43Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 15.

44See for example: Callicott, “Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Back Together Again,” 255-

186

how Singer’s expanding ethical circle can be made to fit a Humean account as well.
Reason shows us that, despite what many think, many nonhuman animals share morally
relevant characteristics with us; this ought to impact our moral judgment. Hume had
argued that whenever we are in doubt as to the proper sentimental response to something,
we must suspend sentiment until reason can be used to sort things out.” If we are
confronted with a new and strange social practice—such as James Rachel’s example of
Eskimos once sending their elderly out on the snow to die—we should think carefully
about why such things are done before we settle on a particular sentimental response and
moral judgment. Rachels, in this case, suggests that a severe lack of resources, and not a
general disregard for human life, explains this Eskimo practice.“S Such an awareness
would surely impact our sentimental reactions, and hence moral judgments. Callicott
recognizes the central role of reason in Hume and follows him in thinking that this leads
to unique agreed upon answers to moral questions. However, as 1 have been suggesting,
much difference remains despite our rational abilities. Reason can result in difference not
rationally reducible, but it also allows us to criticize other views and look for common or
overlapping ground.

On this line of thought, Susan Wolf points out that believing that there is no one
right set of answers to moral questions is not to have to admit that no answers are better
than others; some may be simply wrong. Reason and empirical facts “can constrain

judgment even if it does not dictate a single objectively best answer.”"7 If one thinks,

 

45 Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 85.
46James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy 3'd ed. (Boston: McGraw-H ill, 1999) 21 and 28.

4-'Susan Wolf, “Two Levels of Pluralism,” Ethics 102 (1992): 791.

187

with Berlin and Rawls, that at least some of this difference in views is “a diversity of
reasonable comprehensive doctrines . . . [which] reasonable citizens affirrn,”48 and that all
people share some important experiences and reactions, then there is hope for being able
to evaluate different beliefs and values as being better or worse as opposed to picking the
one right answer and seeing the rest as the result of ignorance, selfishness, outdated
dogma, or whatever.

Callicott’s Humean “communitarianism” leaves the door open for pluralism in
another way. As mentioned, Callicott sees his work as monistic at the level of moral
philosophy, or “metaphysics of morals,” in contrast to “lower” theoretical levels of
theories, principles, or particular judgments. He does not claim to be offering a covering
theory under which to order utilitarianism, Kantianism, care ethics, and the like, but
rather an account of the nature of morality, a concept of human nature, and a moral
psychology. Stone’s shifting allegiances problem disappears because the various
competing and mutually inconsistent theories and their supporting moral philosophies are
replaced by a single unifying account."9 The community model replaces, for example, the
individualistic and atomistic assumptions of utilitarianism and the primacy of reason
found in Kant’s moral theory. So, Callicott thinks, his own account is monistic at a rather
“high” level and at the same time does away with the need for Stone’s cobbling together
of various moral theories.

Hume, however, had not denied the need, or at least left room, for the

systematization of our judgments in sets of principles or normative theories in order to aid

 

48Rawls, Political Liberalism, 36.

49Callicott, “The Case Against Moral Pluralism,” 123.

188

us in forming the correct moral sentiments. In fact, sentiments themselves are not
ethics—they are what make certain judgments (guided and informed by reason) ethical.
Ethics is, at minimum, a systematized set of beliefs and values which enable and guide us
in making evaluations of particular cases. Actions are deemed right or wrong according
to our culturally developed understandings of moral concepts. The room for work on
theories and principles is made once again by Hume’s emphasis on reason’s role in the
formation and guidance of moral sentiments, and hence judgments. Sentiment alone
would certainly not lead us to any coherent or consistent set of responses to all of the
various relationships and situations we find ourselves in. In fact, sentiments alone are
likely to lead to extreme diversity. Even within our own minds we have very different
reactions to people and events from day to day, depending largely on our moods and
attitudes. Reason, although underdetermining the results of comparisons and evaluations
of competing views, nevertheless constricts the options, in part by helping us to organize
our moral thinking into principles, theories, and the like. It may be possible to make
room in a Humean account for both consequentialist and rights-based concerns, for '
example. In fact, these different moral emphases might be made part of some of
Callicott’s nested social circles. In any case, a Humean approach starts with sentiments
and reasoning in the context of lived lives. That there are different sources of value,
different ways of arranging our experiences, inconsistencies between important beliefs
and values, would be expected in a world as richly complex as ours. But, presumably, we
want to develop as coherent an account of all this as we can, which is why theory building
is so important, whether done by philosophers or (perhaps implicitly) by society at large.

Hume said almost nothing about theory building of this sort because he was

189

concerned instead with the question of the origin of ethics. Providing an answer to the
origin question is providing a meta-theoretical view regarding the nature of morality. The
issue of monism or pluralism remains, contra Callicott, at the level of moral theory and
principles, in part because work must be done at these levels to systematize the
substantive elements of even a Humean approach to ethics. In fact, in his constant
imploring of us to consider the utility, happiness, and satisfaction of ourselves and others
in evaluating our sentimental reactions, it appears that Hume himself favors what would

later emerge as utilitarianism. At one point he in fact sounds very much like a rule-

 

utilitarian in his defense of rules of justice: “But the benefit, resulting from them, is not
the consequence of every individual single act; but arises from the whole scheme or
system, concurred in by the whole, or the greater part of the society.”50 This is not the
whole of morality, however, as our sentiments and reason regarding other persons push
many of us also to embrace a theory of rights not reducible to utilitarian concerns. There
is room, then, in a Humean account of ethics for the sorts of theory building Callicott
appears to think his system makes obsolete, as well as plenty of room for rationally
irreducible disagreement.

One reason Callicott might think his community model provides us with a
monistic ethic is that he does nof say much about how it is to guide our decisions
regarding particular cases. Consider again the case of non-indigenous mountain goats

|
harming plants and causing soil erosion in Washington’s Olympic Mountains. In this :
case people have long remained divided as to whether to protect the goats or the I

ecosystem. Callicott’s concentric circle model by itself says nothing about how we

 

50Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 94.

190

should decide such a case. We are not, after all, simply to exhaust our obligations to
those of the more inner circles before responding to the wants and needs of those further
“out.” Exactly how are obligations, both within and between various communities
related?

As discussed in Chapter Four, Callicott does provide at least one bit of direction,
in the form of two second order principles (SOP’s) for ordering our moral obligations:

SOPl: “Obligations generated by membership in more venerable and intimate

communities take precedence over those generated in more recently
emerged and impersonal communities.”

SOP2: “Stronger interests (for lack of a better word) generate duties that take
precedence over duties generated by weaker interests.”5 '
These provide some guidance, but as far as our more basic moral principles are
concerned, he says little except that as we add circles, our moral relationships and duties
to preexisting communities remain unchanged (though the means of fulfilling preexisting
duties are limited by new ones).

Because her principles cover both individualistic and holistic concerns, Mary
Anne Warren’s principles can provide a needed substantive element to Callicott’s
otherwise more abstract framework. 1 had argued in Chapter Three for a revision of some
of Warren’s principles such that a general “Protection of Interests” principle captured the

notion that it is individual’s interests that are most relevant to their moral standing, and a

holistic principle captured the notion that ecosystems and species are important

 

5 lCallicott, “Holistic Environmental Ethics and the Problem of Ecofascism,” Beyond the Land Ethic: More
Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany: State U of New York P, 1999), 73.

191

 

independent of their usefulness to us. Under the former can be placed all of W. D. Ross’s
principles, interpreted to make reference to not only humans but to all interested
creatures. Even adding Warren’s principles, however, does not lead to monism. After
all, any justification for ranking her principles to better guarantee single correct answers
to moral quandaries was lost with my argument that interests alone provide moral
considerability—the relative importance of other possible sources of moral
considerability (such as life and autonomy) had provided for her the main basis for
ranking. There remains no obvious nonarbitrary way of ordering either the more general
principles or the more specific principles subsumed beneath these (such as Ross’s duties
of fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice, beneficence, etc.). Furthermore, because
Callicott’s SOP l is to be considered as a prima facie principle only, with SOP 2 cutting
across it, we cannot even assume that SOP 1 and 2 provide the sort of moral guidance that
would result in single correct answers. Callicott and Warren have provided a useful way
to think about our obligations to nonhuman individuals and wholes, but one that is more

amenable to pluralism than monism.

Concluding Thoughts
It may turn out that moral monism is the correct way to think about ethics—it
remains possible that we have simply not yet found a single theory or set of principles by
which to order all of our moral beliefs and values. Work done by Isaiah Berlin, John
Rawls, Martin Benjamin, and Susan Wolf, among others, however, suggests that not only
does irreducible difference of views in fact exist, but that many of these diverse views are

correct—that is, moral pluralism is correct. Importantly, this does not mean that we are

192

unable to criticize views we find objectionable. Although there are probably few
universal moral beliefs, the range of legitimate views is limited at least in part by our
common experience of living human lives. We all, for example, suffer when certain
things are done to us, making moral systems that allow or enforce torture or arbitrary
imprisonment, gender inequality, and racial segregation grossly unacceptable.
Nevertheless, much difference regarding moral beliefs and values exists. In Benjamin’s
words, some of the difference between, “good and important ethical values and
principles” is due to the fact that they “are inherently incompatible.”52 Some is also due
to our limited understanding of our complex world and social interactions. The dispute
between consequentialist and deontological concerns, for instance, is due at least in part
to the incompatibility and incommensurability of the relative notions of the good and the
right—yet many of us think both approaches capture something important about ethics. I
have suggested that Callicott’s Humean framework might allow for this.

But Callicott’s Humean framework was intended primarin to deal with another
problem: how to be holistic with respect to the environment and yet individualistic with
respect to organisms. Making ecosystemic value depend solely on the interests of
individuals fails to justify the level of protection sought by enviromnentalists as well as
their strong intuition that nature should be protected independent of its usefulness to us.
From the other direction, making value for individuals derivative on ecosystems leaves
organisms susceptible to being sacrificed for the good of the whole. Callicott’s answer to
this individualism—holism problem relies on the notion that ethics—including who or

what has moral standing—depends upon our sentimental reactions, informed by reason.

 

”Benjamin, Philosophy and This Actual World, 125.

193

A sense of community is one of the key forces pushing us to think ethically about others.
It leads us to think empathetically about other individuals and holistically about the
group. Ecology and environmental science make us aware that we are members not only
of human social communities, but of a highly interdependent bio-systemic community as
well. Because we have deeper connections with those with whom we are in more
intimate relationships, our duties to them are strongest. Duties to ecosystems are, on this
view, weaker than those to families—consistent with commonsense morality.

I have argued that despite Callicott’s claim that because he has provided a single
overarching framework—what he calls a metaphysics of morals—his work should be
redescribed in pluralistic terms. It appears that rationally irreducible difference remains at
the levels of normative theory, principles (even with Warren’s principles included), and
most importantly, evaluations of particular cases. This does not mean that every view is
just as good as any other—some things will be cleared up as we work hard to make our
ethics more coherent. That interests, as opposed to being alive or autonomous, are what
make individual organisms morally considerable is an example of how philosophers
might narrow the range of acceptable views. Cases like that of the mountain goats in
Washington, however, remain difficult. We can eliminate the less good answers by
thinking them through on the Callicott/Warren model, but no obviously correct answer
emerges in the end. Killing the goats when a viable sterilization program is available
would be unacceptable, as would constructing some sort of painful trap. Sometimes,
though, as in this case, none of the real options are clear favorites, and Callicott’s view
does not provide a way to decide. Although the trivial-to-vital interests continuum helps

in clear cases, here the welfare of the animals and of the ecosystem are both vital.

194

 

Thinking about the intimacy of the various communities involved also fails to clear things
up, as the goats are part of the very ecosystemic community in question.

This may leave us unsatisfied with the Callicott/Warren approach. But, no
alternative theory exists which gets us further, as they tend to be either thoroughgoing
individualistic or holistic theories problematic for the reasons already cited. By merging
Hume’s and Leopold’s work, Callicott has provided a framework for understanding how
we can have both without reducing one to the other. Because individualistic and holistic
concerns are not reducible, however, rationally irreducible difference will remain in cases
where these different concerns conflict.

The assumption of monism is that we can develop unifying theories or ordered
sets of principles to arrive at single correct answers to particular moral quandaries. This
may lead to pessimism when there are no obvious solutions to cases pitting individualistic
and holistic concerns against one another. The inability of both Warren and Callicott to
address the individualism—holism problem in a way that generates single correct answers
would, from a monistic perspective, make their work uninviting. Pluralism, by avoiding
the absolutist assumptions of monism, may lead to more optimism in the face of difficult
cases. It can provide a way out of political deadlocks like the mountain goat case, which
has been unresolved for decades, by helping us see that alternative viewpoints might be
roughly equal in legitimacy to our own. Because of this, in terms of policy making,
pluralism argues for consensus building and compromise; in terms of philosophical
inquiry, it argues against insisting on a single overarching or unifying normative theory.
By seeing the opposing side as plausibly correct, we might be more willing to find

compromises, though even this will not always be available. It also suggests that those

195

who wish to embrace a pragmatic, or non-theoretical pluralism in order to better make
progress on environmental problems can make the stronger claim that theoretical

pluralism undergirds their political efforts.

196

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

197

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