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Climate change and the rest of nature

Do humans have any responsibilities to other species or to protect nature? Does it matter that some of our actions affect the lives of wild animals and plants for better or worse? How would we weigh any such responsibilities against those we owe to other people? These questions take us into the sphere of environmental ethics, which attempts to establish rational grounds for a system of moral principles by which human treatment of natural ecosystems and their wild communities can be guided. The ethical principles governing those relations determine our duties, obligations, and responsibilities with regard to the earth's natural environment and all the animals and plants that inhabit it. This is concerned with nothing less than the place of humanity in the natural world.

In considering such questions it is important to distinguish essentially two types of environmental ethics: human-centred (or anthropocentric) and life-centred (or biocentric). A human-centred theory of environmental ethics holds that our moral duties with respect to the natural world are all ultimately derived from the duties we owe to one another as human beings. It is because we should protect and promote the well-being of humans that we must place certain constraints on our treatment of the earth's natural environment and its nonhuman inhabitants. One such human-centred argument would be that it is desirable to protect endangered species of wildlife because the gene pool they represent is needed for developing new ways to protect humans from diseases; another is the increasing recognition of the natural world as a provider of ‘ecosystem services’ such as clean water supplies and climate regulation. In other words, our conduct in relation to the earth's natural environment would be grounded on human needs and interests alone.

From the standpoint of a life-centred theory of environmental ethics, on the other hand, our duties towards nature do not stem from the duties we owe to humans. Environmental ethics is not then simply a subdivision of human ethics. Although many of the same actions that are right according to a human-centred view may also be right according to a life-centred theory, a totally different set of considerations makes such actions right in each case. When a life-centred view is taken, wild communities of life are understood to be deserving of our moral concern because they have a kind of value that belongs to them inherently. Just as we would think it inappropriate to ask, What is a human being good for? because such a question seems to assume that the value or worth of a person is merely a matter of being useful as a means to some other end, so the question, What is a wilderness good for? is likewise considered inappropriate from the perspective of a life-centred outlook. The living things of the natural world have worth that they possess simply in virtue of their being members of the Earth's Community of Life. Such worth does not derive from the actual or possible usefulness to humans, or from the fact that humans find them enjoyable to look at or interesting to study.

Yet what is the reality of our present relationship to the natural world?  What there is left of the natural world is quickly disappearing. In the disconnection between nature and modern industrialised civilisation the more we take for ourselves, the less there is for other species.  The application of advanced technology to support an economy dependent on high-level consumption, and the increasing human population, result in the exploitation of nature on so huge a scale that the entire physical and biological composition of our planet is profoundly affected.  This is why it is more important than ever to understand how we conceive of our place in the world and our relationship to nature.

A life-centered point of view*

What moral significance the natural world has for us depends on the way we look at the whole system of nature and our place in it.  In a life-centered view, which It’s the Planet supports, the natural world is there not simply as an object to be exploited by us, but we have duties that are owed to wild living things in their own right independently of whatever moral obligations we might have toward our fellow humans. Specifically, our duties towards the earth's nonhuman forms of life are grounded on their status as entities possessing inherent worth. They have a value that belongs to them by their very nature, and it is this value that makes it wrong to treat them as if they existed as means to human ends.  Just as humans should be treated with respect, so should they. Just as we humans place intrinsic value on the opportunity to pursue our own good (i.e. to do those things which are beneficial to us, and avoid those things which are harmful) in our own individual ways, so we consider the realisation of the good of animals and plants to be something that should be valued as an end in itself. We see ourselves under an ethical requirement to give equal consideration to the good of every entity, human and nonhuman alike, which has a good of its own.

At first sight such a life-centred position may appear very odd. How could we have duties and responsibilities to bugs and earthworms? Is it really meaningful to talk about treating such things as trees and mushrooms rightly or wrongly? And supposing it to be meaningful, on what grounds could it ever be established we are under a moral obligation to act towards such things in certain ways and not in others?

A case can be made for such a life-centred theory of environmental ethics in the same way as for the theory of human ethics, which deals with the moral relations that hold between persons.  It is made up of three components: a belief system, the ultimate moral attitude (here called respect for nature), and a set of moral rules and standards. The belief system, known as the biocentric outlook, supports and makes intelligible to adopting of the attitude of respect for nature, while the rules and standards give concrete expression to the attitude in practical life.

The belief system: the biocentric outlook

The belief system is made up of four elements that fit together in an internally coherent way to form a comprehensive view of the entire realm of life on our planet that encompasses in one unified vision the whole biosphere and the role that human life plays in it.   

1.  We see ourselves as biological creatures. Without denying our special abilities or our uniqueness, we nevertheless become fully aware that we are but one species of animal life.  Humans are members of the Earth's Community of Life in the same sense and on the same terms in which other living things are members of that community. This is a way of understanding one's true self to include one's biological nature as well as those things which identify one as a unique person.

2.  The understanding that the human species, along with all other species, is an integral element in a system of interdependence acknowledges that the survival of each living thing, and its chances of faring well or poorly are determined not only by the physical conditions of its environment but also by its relations to other living things. Logically, we, along with every other species that shares the earth with us, are an integral part of a natural order that is structured in a certain way. Each individual organism, each species population, each biotic community is one component in that whole, and all these living constituents of the natural world order are related to one another as functionally interdependent units.

3.  Like ourselves, the behaviour and internal processes of other organisms are organised around the realisation of their good. Each is a unique individual pursuing its own good in its own way.  Although the content of our good and the means by which we pursue it may be vastly different from theirs, this pattern is exemplified both in our lives and in theirs, and as such signifies a fundamental reality common to all.

4.  In order that there can be such a thing as a human being, this system of life had to exist  already. The conditions necessary and sufficient for our coming into existence are the outcome of an order of events going back millions of centuries. When viewed in this light we no longer see ourselves as special objects of creation but as the product of a system that has also produced every other living thing. From the perspective of the biocentric outlook, therefore, humans are not inherently superior to other living things with respect to their place in the natural world.

Respect for Nature as an ultimate moral attitude

If we accept the validity of the biocentric outlook it can be expressed as an ultimate moral attitude, i.e. it cannot be justified by referring to a more fundamental moral commitment. It is itself the most fundamental kind of moral commitment that one can make.  Those who have this attitude, here called respect for nature, regard wild living things as possessing a worth that does not depend on the subjective interests and ends of humans.  

The rules of conduct

The third component of this theory of environmental ethics is the set of standards and rules considered to be morally binding upon everyone. These norms are principles that guide us in the way we should or should not treat natural ecosystems and their wild communities of life.

The Rule of Nonmaleficence: this is the duty not to do harm to any entity in the natural environment that has a good of its own.

The Rule of Non-Interference: this requires us to refrain from placing restrictions on the freedom of individual organisms and prescribes a general "hands off" policy with regard to whole ecosystems and biotic communities, as well as to individual organisms.

The Rule of Fidelity: this rule applies only to human conduct in relation to individual animals that are in a wild state and are capable of being deceived or betrayed; it requires us not to break the trust that a wild animal places in us (as shown by its behaviour), not to deceive or mislead any animal capable of being deceived or misled, to uphold an animal's expectations, which it is formed on the basis of one's past actions with it, and to be true to one's intentions as made known to an animal when it has come to rely on one.

The Rule of Restitutive Justice: this rule imposes a duty to restore the balance of justice when we have acted in a way which adversely affects the good of other creatures.

Our role is to direct and control our conduct so that, with respect to animals and plants living in the wild we comply with the four basic rules of environmental ethics.  When we look at the conflict between human civilisation and the natural world from an ethical standpoint, we can then see it as something that exemplifies a moral order instead of a chaotic struggle for survival. By taking the attitude of respect for nature, we can replace the dominant culture of exploitation by humans with a well ordered moral universe in which both respect for wild creatures and respect for each other are given a place.

Of course, preserving and protecting the good of wild living things may sometimes involve some cost in terms of human benefit.  How can we weigh up the competing claims of, for example, cutting down woodland to build a medical centre, or removing mountain tops to extract fossil fuels? Where our duties toward animals and plants conflict with the duties we owe to our fellow humans we should be initially unbiased in our approach to finding a way to resolve the conflict. Since all are having the same inherent worth, the moral attitude of respect is equally due to each. This raises the question of which duties take priority, and in the full account of Respect for Nature there are a set of priority principles (the principle of self-defense; the principle of proportionality; the principle of a minimum wrong; the principle of distributive justice; the principle of restitutive justice) to help resolve cases like this.

Carbon credits and environmental ethics

So how do carbon credits fit into all this?  Simply that if we conceive of ourselves as members of the Earth's Community of Life and adopt the attitude of respect for nature then there is a duty to refrain from any activity that would be seriously detrimental to the good of an organism, species population, or life community.  They might not be part of our everyday life, but they are nevertheless affected by our actions. Orangutans running rapidly out of rainforest due to biofuel production and polar bears finding themselves on melting ice floes are powerful examples of this.  

Plants and animals are adapted to flourish only within certain climatic zones and many species are now coming under climatic stress as isotherms -- lines of given temperature -- track poleward at 50 km per decade.  Some species cannot migrate fast enough and would not be likely to find suitable conditions anyway due to fragmented and degraded natural habitats.  Unless we respond to this sustainability emergency we will most likely push these species, and those adapted to the coldest climates at the poles and at the tops of mountains, off the face of the planet.  

If, however, we knowingly harm the environment, as when we cause carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to be emitted, then we have a duty to restore the balance of justice in some way.  In this way we acknowledge that the natural world has a claim on us which must be weighed against the pursuit of our own interests.  Like all other living things on our planet, one's very existence depends on the fundamental soundness and integrity of the biological system of nature, and considering carbon credits which preserve and restore this balance in a way which expresses respect for nature.

* this outline is based on Respect for Nature: a theory of environmental ethics by Paul Taylor (1986), Princeton University Press.