Having never taken a class in the Environmental Studies department I came into this class with the mindset of an Economics major. I had always been concerned about the environment, but from a level of a shallow ecology where any changes that were to occur must be from a change in the incentive structure on the capitalistic system, not a change in the human-land relationship itself. After reading and discussing Leopold throughout this semester, my shallow ecology deepened into a sort of land ethic. Humans are just a member of the community which does not just only include sentient beings, but all plants and animals and even soil and rocks. Since humans are just one part of the community, they cannot claim superiority, whether it be intrinsic or moral nor a place of higher importance for themselves. What is important is the ecosystems which all the organisms in the land community are dependent on. When humans interfere with these ecosystems we are not only a threat to ourselves, but to all members of the community. This leads into to philosophical trap that if there were no humans or if they were less humans the ecosystems would be better off. Although currently this is true, humans are in a unique position in which they have the ability to harm or help the land community in a rational and meaningful ways. Through experience with nature, humans can develop a land ethic and be able to find unity in the combination of economics and environmentalism, where instead of trade-offs both are able to benefit. The land itself and all parts that it is made up of from the soil, to the rocks, to the plants, to the animals, to whole populations and to whole ecosystems have intrinsic value. One can not assign a human value or an economic value to these things because than political decisions are made through the same lens and natural ecosystems are traded for technological factories to produce the same ends while creating jobs and votes in the process. Once the ecosystem is gone, so is its good and services, while its lasting effect on other ecosystems remains unknown.
Author Archives
St. Rose’s Garden Practicum
The history of Community Gardens in New York City begins in the 1970s. Financial crisis in the city caused abandonment of public and private lands, creating empty lots. A group called the Green Gorillas began to plant sunflowers on meridians and place flower boxes on abandoned building, basically attempting to get a little green in the lives of New Yorkers who, were surrounded by urban decay. The Green Gorillas and other than began changing those vacant lots into small community gardens usually no bigger than a sixth or a seventh of an acre. Soon community gardens were popping up around the city. Green Thumb, a component of the New York parks department developed to help aid these community gardens by providing them with tools, seed and technical advice. Yet, the gardens are still run by the volunteers. The city offered cheap leases of this land the gardens. For instance, the first community garden in New York,the “Bowery Houston Community Farm and Garden”, was leased for 1$ a month. Currently there are over 600 community gardens in New York City accounting for a total of 32 acres, with over 20,000 members belonging to them. At Fordham St Rose’s Garden did not develop until 2012, but like the small community garden’s that began in New York City in the 1970s it was converted from a plot of unused land through a collaborative effort of different parties of a community. In this case the Fordham Community while in the past it would have been a neighborhood.
While the history of St. Rose’s Garden does not begin until 2012, environmental
history on the Fordham Rose Hill campus can be traced back to the Rose Hill Farm, the predecessor the the University. Part of this farm land was sold to the city and became the Botanical Gardens and the Bronx Zoo and part of it became the Fordham Rose Hill campus. While at first Fordham may of been environmental friendly, with a trout pond on campus full of biodiversity. This has degraded over time and although the Rose Hill Campus today has a lot of green space there is little biodiversity. Most of the plant life is shrubs and small bushes that are transplanted and homogenous. St. Rose’s Garden is about growing organic plants and vegetables in a sustainable way. A sustainability that in recent times has been missing from Fordham’s recent history, in which plant life seems to be replaced around campus every year.
My Practicum activity was volunteering in St.Rose Garden located on Fordham’s Rose Hill Campus. Every Thursday at 6:00 I would go with a group of other volunteers and trim, prune, gather vegetables, compost and perform other activities at the garden behind Faculty Memorial Hall. This practice changed slightly after daylight saving time, for by 6:00 it was too dark to see the pruning sheers in front for you. Gardening hours were changed to Sundays shortly after midday, and sporadic days throughout the semester. We were notified of these unscheduled meetings through Facebook. Throughout the semester I volunteered for a total of 15 hours. Due to an illness (mono and strep), I was unable to attend meetings in the garden during the last few weeks of the semester.
St. Rose’s Garden is comprised of eight beds filled with organic top soil in which a variety of fruits and vegetables are grown, including kale, collards, melons, collards, tomatoes, sunflowers, peppers and more. The first thing I noticed about the garden was that it was relatively small, being comprised of two backyards of old Bronx homes. The second thing that is noticed is how every inch of space is used so the crop yield from the garden is larger than expected. Walkways are small and one is constantly avoiding stepping on plants. There is quick turn around time between a harvest and the start of new planting. There were times in was the same day. One day at the garden I removed cucumber plants because the vines were starting to die, after filling the bed with compost and some additional top soil two student volunteers than began to plant what I believe were pepper seeds in the same bed. Nothing was left barren for long and the garden was at many times in a state of flux.
Although planting and harvesting may be the most exciting part of the work that we performed at the garden, most of it was upkeep and the most important work may have been composting. We pruned plants along with removed dead branches, rotten fruits and rotten vegetables. All of this debris was mixed into a compost pile with wood chips and soil. This compost was full of warms and moisture and it was always applied generously anytime there was new planting and spread around existing plants every week, such as the tomatoes, as well. A lot of the work in the garden was monotonous, on one of my first days I spent over an hour working on hosta, removing the tall stems originating at the base of the plant after the flowers had finished blooming. The monotony of the work set the mind free to be able to contemplate what in fact the garden was accomplishing. It was not all hard vigorous labor at the garden either. Although I was not able to attend one night around Halloween the volunteers got together and carved pumpkins into Jack-o-Lanterns. These pumpkins like most things in the garden were turned into compost at the end of their lives.
The food harvested at St. Rose’s Garden goes to local charities, the student volunteers and some is sold to students in order to keep the garden economically sustainable. Receiving vegetables was a great perk of volunteering at the garden. Most weeks I would return to my apartment with a tomato or two and a handful of kale so I can speak from first hand experience on the high quality of the product produced the St. Rose’s Garden.
Volunteering at St. Rose’s Garden was a learning experience for me as well. I made connections which would had been nearly impossible to achieve in the classroom alone. I first made the connection between Aldo Leopold and the garden through the process of composting, later, I was able to apply his concept of Land Ethic to St. Rose’s Garden as well. Dead plants being turned into compost and then used again to spread new life reminded me of Leopold and the flow of energy. As the energy travels through the soil to the plants, and is then transferred to insects and humans on another higher level through consumption while the energy in the rotted food is cycled back through the compost process to the lower level of soil. Although I have landscaped both privately and professionally I had never made this connection before the experience of this practicum and taking Environmental Policy and Ethics. The reason I had never made this connection before is that there is something intrinsically different between being a complete part of the process from the composting, to the planting, to the growing, to the upkeep, to the harvesting, to the composting again and the aesthetic landscaping that I had been used to. The landscaping process only consists of the planting of already grown plants, the aesthetic upkeep of plants and the removal of plants, mostly the removal of native species. While the process at St. Rose’s Garden falls in line with nature and Leopold’s Land Ethic, getting rid of native species for homogenous ones during landscaping does the opposite. Especially when somebody plants a foreign and invasive species of plant in their yard, a practice that is more common than one would imagine. Although obviously in a garden land is not kept in its most natural state, but the change of Homo sapiens role as conquer of the land to a member of the land community, a change that is central to Leopold’s Land Ethic can be clearly seen. Leopold wrote, “We can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in”. By producing food in a community garden one is able to achieve this, because they are able to make a personal connection with the land and plants, a personal connection that one can not receive by buying organic food at the grocery store or even being part of an organic co-op. This connection was highlighted by the excitement on a volunteers face when something that they had planted began to flourish. The ethical sensitivity which is needed in order to develop ones land ethic can only come with personal relationships with nature. St. Rose’s Garden is able to give this relationship to Fordham Students and can be a starting point of a deeper ecology or a deeper understanding of nature.
Leopold knew that economics must be acknowledged in order to address modern environmental issues. He believed that humans would only be able to maintain a high quality of life if economics worked with the land and not against it. Changes in the human-land relationship would be needed in order for economics to work with the land at the time of Leopold and the same and greater changes would be needed today. Community gardens and home gardens can be part of this change. Not only do they personally help develop a land ethic and change the relationship between humans and the land making the environment not an afterthought of the economy, but rather two realms which could function in unity and beauty with each other, they also can have a direct effect as well. Garden’s such as St.Rose’s Garden are not just practices in environmental sustainability, they are practices in economic sustainability as well. Large farms that waste large amounts of water, pollute the ecosystem with pesticides and nitrogen, not only harm the environment, they can harm the economy as well, needing government assistance to keep them afloat in bad years. Community gardens would be economically sustainable if the food was sold. Also a study done by the Furman Center in the Bronx New York found that within five years a community garden raises property values by 9.4 percent. This number is higher in the immediate vicinity and lower as the homes move away from the garden and property values rise even higher in the poorest communities. The study concluded that this increase creates a net tax benefit of $512,000 per community garden in New York over a 20 year period, for a total of $325 million throughout New York if all gardens were fully subsidized by the city. Since most community gardens are not fully subsidized the benefit is even larger. This is an instance of economics and the environment working together, as green space reclaims vacant lots, housing prices increase, creating a net economic and a net environmental benefit, and I would argue a net “human” benefit as there are non-economic, anthropocentric values to a community garden as well, such as the development of a land ethic as discussed earlier and even better air quality, especially in urban areas such as the Bronx.
Bibliography
Been, Vicki. The Effect of Community Gardens on Neighboring Property. Rep. FURMAN CENTER. 12 Dec. 2013 <http://furmancenter.org/files/publications/ The_Effect_of_Community_Gardens_combined.pdf>.
“GreenThumb.” About : NYC Parks. 12 Dec. 2013
<http://www.greenthumbnyc.org/about.html>.
“Internships: Bronx River Alliance, NY Botanical Garden, Wildlife Conservation Society (Bronx Zoo).” Internships: Bronx River Alliance, NY Botanical Garden, Wildlife Conservation Society (Bronx Zoo). 12 Dec. 2013
“Movements.” New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. 12 Dec. 2013
<http://www.nycgovparks.org/about/history/community-gardens/movement>.
“Our History.” History. 12 Dec. 2013 <http://www.greenguerillas.org/history>.
“St. Rose’s Garden Fordham Universities community garden and Food Co-op.” St Roses Garden. 12 Dec. 2013
<http://fordhamsustainability.wordpress.com/st-roses-garden/>.
An Inconvenient Lie
Climate change is characterized by a global increase in both air and ocean temperatures. The drivers of this change are atmospheric green house gases such as C02, methane, and Nitrous oxide. The increase in global temperatures has been mostly due to the increase of these green house gases. This increase is due to human factors. The level of carbon dioxide in part per million measured now than anytime in history which we have a record for. Temperature and C02 levels can be determined through ice cores drilled in Antarctica. When placed next to each other a visual correlation seems to be apparent. As C02 levels increase so do global temperature. In the scientific community there is high agreement that global warming is occurring and its cause is green house gases. Even if green house gas levels were to stabilize sea levels would continue. Partially of note is the melting of Greenland and of major ice shelves in Antarctica. If either of these went water levels would rise dramatically, because they are above and not influencing the water level in their current state. The melting of either these bodies would cause parts of major cities like New York and Shanghai to be underwater. Solutions to this environmental problem generally included international cooperation. Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth travels around the country and the world giving a slideshow on global warming and climate change. His goal is to spread environmental literacy on the subject. Misinformation campaigns are run by major cooperations and fossil fuel lobbying through privately funded free-market think tanks. Disinformation such as this is one of the reasons why global warming is called “The Theory of Global Warming” even though virtually nobody in the scientific community disagrees with it. The National Center for Science Education actually calls the denial of global warming a pseudoscience. Yet in America only 67% of people (46% among Republicans) believe there is solid evidence the earth is warming. For the Tea Party, 70% believe there is no solid evidence that the earth is warming. The power of the misinformation campaigns are evident here, even if someone does not believe that global warming is caused by man and green house gases, facts are facts and average global temperatures have been increasing. More shocking, 90% of Republican leaders in the Senate and the House of Representatives do not believe in global warming or do not believe that it is human caused. The cause of the misinformation campaigns could be that the economies of global warming are viewed by “big business” as negative. While this is most likely the cause for the denial of global warming evidence tends to argue against it. Wind energy for instance has higher job creation than the coal and oil industries and energy produced by wind turbines is produced at a lower cost. Lower cost create more room for profit and since energy can be used as an input as well due to transportation and manufacturing the entire economy benefits.
How do you fight misinformation?
Is it far to restrict Industrial Emissions in Third World Countries when the United States and other nations were able to pollute during their Industrialization?
http://www.people-press.org/2013/11/01/gop-deeply-divided-over-climate-change/
Ecofeminism
(was absent for this class)
Conceptional issues are the most important of the feminist issues because they shape how one views the world. So when a conceptional framework becomes and oppressive conceptional framework it can be used to justify and maintain relationships of subordination and dominance. The patriarchal framework is a oppressive conceptional framework categorized by the features of, value-hierarchical thinking, value-dualism, and a logic of dominance. Karen Warren focuses on the logic of dominance. Following a logic of dominance a morally superiority can seem to be “proven”. The argument from deriving moral justification for the subordinating women throughout history is shown below.
(A1) Humans do, and plants and rocks do not have the capacity to consciously and radically change the community in which they live
(A2) Whatever has the capacity to consciously and radically change the community in which it live is morally superior tho waterer lacks this capacity
(A3) Thus, humans are morally superior to plants and animals
(A4) For any X and Y, if X is morally superior to Y, then X is morally justified in subordinating Y
(A5) Thus, humans are morally justified in subordinating plants and rocks.
(B1) Women are identified with nature and the realm of the physical; mean are identified with the “human” and the realm of the mental
(B2) Whatever is identified with nature an the realm of the physical is inferior to whatever is identified with the “human” and the realm of the mental; or, conversely , the latter is superior to the former
(B3) Thus, women are inferior to men; or, conversely men are superior to women.
(B4) For any X and Y, if X is morally superior to Y, then X is morally justified in subordinating Y
(B5) Thus, humans are morally justified in subordinating women
Ecofeminist disagree about which parts of argument B, yet all disagree with the conclusion (B5), and therefore on the logic domination premise as well (B4). Also called into the question is the validity of argument A as well. It could be that to eliminate all forms of oppression resulting from the logic of domination and that feminism may not be a movement to end sexist oppression, but rather a movement to end all forms of oppression, including naturism. The logic for this reasoning is shown in argument C
(C1) Feminism is a movement to end sexism
(C2) But sexism is conceptional linked with naturism (through an oppressive conceptual framework characterized by a logic of domination)
(C3) Thus, Feminism is (also) a movement to end naturism
This does not apply that women are in fact part of nature and the realm of the physical, but rather this is how they have been historically connected. “An ecofeminist perspective about nature and women contains a shift in attitude from a “arrogant perception” to a “loving perception”. An environmental ethics based on an arrogant perception builds a hierarchy of beings of one common virtue, for instance rationality. A loving perception acknowledges the differences between humans and non-humans yet realizes that they are still part of the same ecological community. It is a realization of ones place in the natural environment.
Warren concludes that nothing can be part of the feminist ethic that contains any “isms”. That the feminist ethic is a contextualist ethic meaning it gives central place to the voices of women over different historical circumstances. That it is diverse and changes over time. It does not contain generalization, focuses on the marginalized and involves a reconception of what it is to be human. Because it is anti-ism it must be anti-naturism. There is a move from evaluating moral conditions on non-humans on basis of what they share and do not share with humans. Humans are part of the same ecological community as non-humans yet not always in the same way. These differences must not be erased, but rather acknowledged and respected.
Feminist is a broad term which encompasses a variety of individuals. Many of which I would think would not agree with Ecofeminism. While ecofeminism almost embraces the connection that has been applied to women and nature, other feminist groups attempt to break this connection. If this connection is not broken women will continue to be discriminated against because being close to nature implies certain stereotypes which women are to be expected to follow. The connection to nature comes from the role of motherhood. A role that has changed in the past few decades. Yet the view of how a women ought to act because of it has not, even if this women is not in fact a mother. In the business, aggressive men move up in the cooperate ladder, receiving promotions and the benefits that come with them. For a women if she is aggressive it is viewed as a negative because she is showing characteristics that are traditionally male. She is supposed to be compassionate, if she is aggressive then she is viewed as a “bad mother” regardless of whether she has or plans to have children. To go along with this there is already a pay difference between men and women which creates an unequal level of bargaining power for women. Having more reliance on a spouses income puts that person at a disadvantage. The process becomes circular in countries like America with maternity leave and not paternity leave, along with unequal pay, that place the burden of raising the child on the mother because her opportunity cost of raising the child is lower than the fathers. It all stems from the view of women being closer to nature through motherhood.
Would solving naturism solve all of the other isms?
Are women closer to nature then men?
Deep vs. Shallow Ecology
The difference between deep ecology and shallow ecology is that in deep ecology one needs self-realization and true understanding of nature in order to act, while shallow ecology is pragmatic, it focuses on immediate changes and through this action a deeper ecology may evolve or it may not. Weston writes about shallow ecology, his main point is whatever works is what should be done. We do not have enough time to debate deep ecology and have self-realization before deciding what should be done about our current actions. If we wait it will be too late and we will of already destroyed many species and even may of destroyed the ecosystem goods and services which keep us alive. On the other hand deep ecologist view shallow ecology as green washing. Just going through the motions of an environmentalist. Although there will be slight change nothing will actually ever be accomplished because there is not thought behind it, no actual connection to nature. Until man has the self-realization that he is part of the ecospheric whole he should not act. If he acts he does not actually know how his actions will effect other beings. According to a deep ecologist in shallow ecology one is going against there instincts. They want to lets say pollute the earth, but they go against their inclination because they are commanded to do so. This is not needed in deep ecology because the person has in fact changed after the self-realization and the choices that they make which protect the environment would be their natural choices. In an ideal world I would side with the deep ecologist on this debate, but in action a human takes a long time to develop their personal philosophy. And one way to speed up this development would be to practice a type of shallow ecology. If a child grows up recycling and never knows why they do it they will ask why one day. They can than learn and develop their view from this starting point. Humans are not machines like the deep ecologist thinks and will not continue to mindless perform tasks without question. If the child is never exposed to recycling in the first place it may take them a lot longer to start to think about the issues, it will take them longer to develop their personal philosophy and achieve self-realization. I do not believe that deep ecology is not important, on the contrary, it is more important than shallow ecology. Yet, it is not the starting point of ecological thought and action, it would more closely represent the end. A non-environmental would be someone who works in soup kitchen for a week would develop their philosophy on the homelessness issue quicker than someone reading about it in a book
Why choose one?
Can we not get things done in a practical and immediate way while still developing or ethical identity?
Is it even possible to achieve a deep ecology without passing through a shallow ecology first?
Christian and Buddhist Environmental Ethics
Earlier this semester we learned how a Christian worldview, specifically a Western Christian worldview developed into a planetary management worldview and the worldview that is being practiced by the majority of Americans today is a secular version of this traditional Christians management worldview. White and Linzey do not believe that this is the only worldview that can be interpreted from the Christian tradition. White believes that we could adopt a worldview like Saint Francis, in which all animals are respected and man’s rule over creation is delimited. To focus on the teaching of Saint Francis rather the planetary management of those like Augustine. Linzey believes that since all animals are God’s creature they are not the property of humans, nor resources for humans to use for there own benefit. She says that Christians should be able to realize the suffering of innocent animals because their eyes are fixed on the suffering of Christ and the crucifixion of Christ. Christians did not always take a planetary management worldview. During antiquity Christianity was less Orthodox and centralized and Christian subgroups such as mystics had greater connection to nature than the Christianity that is practiced today. Buddhist reject the hierarchical dominance of one human over another human or over nature and their empathetic compassion respects biodiversity. The suffering of all creatures of the universe should create empathy from all life forms, particularly sentient beings. I believe that protecting the environment should be seen as the Christian thing to do regardless of worldview. From an anthropocentric view, Christianity has a duty towards the poor and as we have discussed in the class of environmental justice the poor disproportionately receive environmental burdens over the environmental goods and services. From a stewardship worldview, God has given man dominion over creation and he has a duty to protect it for all of God’s creation is good. From an Environmental Wisdom worldview humans would be viewed as just a part of creation and everything that is created by God has an intrinsic value for this reason. For the three major worldviews a Christian interpretation can be used to argue for the protection of nature and the ecosystem goods and services which keep us alive. The problem is looking at scripture it is also very easy to make arguments for human control of nature as well. In scripture Jesus destroys and controls nature for the benefit of man (to teach lessons to his disciples) a number of times and the Old Testament shows nature as destroying man rather than benefiting him.
Will the Christian duty to the poor argument work today? Since the planetary management worldview practiced today has been secularized.
Is it enough to have indirect duties towards nature or are direct duties needed?
How do you break the long standing tradition of the church and begin the interpret scripture and writings in a different light?
Life Centered Environmental Ethics
Taylor believes that every organism, species population and community of life has a good of its own and posses inherit worth. Although it is humans that value nature they should not assign it a “human” value. The biocentric outlook on nature is a belief that gives these thing intrinsic value. The four components of this outlook are, humans are only a member in Earth’s community, holding no special place. The Earth’s natural ecosystems as a whole are a complex, interconnected web that is dependent on each other. Each individual organism is conceived of as teleological center of life, pursuing its own good in its own way. Humans are not superior of merit or human worth because of the fact that they are humans. We can not judge ourselves as superior to other species because they lack capacities in which we have. For we lack capacities in which other animals have. We also can not say that or capacities are of a higher value, because that is only in human terms. For example, speed is a more important capacity for a cheetah than rationality. While most people today no longer look at humans as having different levels of human worth we do when we compare humans to other living things. This stems from Greek traditions and also Judeo-Christian traditions where God has given man a superior position to animals and plants, they are made for him. The claim humans have more intrinsic than other species is a deep seated prejudice. Taylor does not believe that plants and animals should have moral rights, but does not dive into the reasoning for this belief in his paper. He does however set up a situation in which moral rights could be ascribed to them and even to populations and life communities. In the other reading he claims that humans have moral worth while plants and animals do not, but this does not give humans priority over plants and animals because as already discussed humans are not superior because they are humans. He believes that it is morally irrelevant to consider the fact that plants and animals do not have moral rights for a moral agent because the moral agent will see both plants and animals and him/herself as having the same inherit worth. In terms of conflicting claims Taylor comes up with five principles in which he discuses in depth. The principle of self-defense, of proportionality, of minimum wrong, of distributive justice and of restitutive justice which are to be used together as normative guides to our decision making. Although the view of putting humans on par with nature is radical, Taylor makes a very sound argument for the case. Humans do seem to have more power than other animals because they are moral agents which makes it hard for humans to make these decisions without bias. It could also be argued that it is natural for humans to act the way that they do and destroy/control nature and the world around them, that it is a type of survival of the fittest and we should not care about other species. I do not usually take an anthropocentric view, but it seems to me that it would be unnatural for humans to destroy themselves by destroying nature and the ecosystems around them.
Why do plants and animals not have moral standing when they have intrinsic value?
Hierarchical Ethics
VanDeVeer believes in Two Factor Egalitarianism in which the relevance of things is broken up into two matters, the level of importance of each being to an interest and the psychological capacity of the parties in interest. He breaks up the importance into three categories basic, serious and peripheral. Basic interest are need like food, water and oxygen. Serious interest are like non-life supporting medicine, they are important but when it comes down to it they can be gone without. Peripheral interests are trivial. Since a human has more psychological ability than a dog its interest takes priority if both are at the same level of importance. For instance, eating the only food that is left if they are both starving to death. Yet if the interest are at different levels of importance this is not the case. For instance, a human eating the only food left because he is hungry and can not eat for an hour while the dog is starving to death would not be permissible. The basic interest of the dog overrides the peripheral interests of the human. Following this logic VanDeVeer comes up with a variety of reforms, such as the changes in vivisection, abolition of factory farming, recreational hunting, the pet industry and circuses. I like all the reforms that stop the mistreatment of animals that VanDeVeer comes up with through applying his theory, but I do not see psychological capacity and rational ability as a criteria for hierarchy of moral standing, because I do not believe that they are tied to ability to experience pleasure and pain. Some animals have more complex central nervous systems than human beings, would this put them at a higher level of the hierarchy of moral standing because they can experience more physical pain? Do human babies experience less pain than adults when they are deprived of basic interests because they have less psychological ability? On the other hand Callicott bases his philosophy on Leopold and the statement “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise”. He calls for the freeing of all animals, yet there is not a concern for the individual animal(including human) suffering because it is a holistic environmental approach where the concern is for the ecosystems. He does not believe that an environmental ethic will work if it is only focused on the individual. Regan’s problem with this approach is that when there are too many deer it calls for the hunting of deer or they will destroy the ecosystem, should not the same logic be applied to humans? Humans seem to destroy the ecosystem more than any other animal, we are responsible for more extinctions than any other animal has ever been. Also the instant freeing of domesticated animals would be devastating to ecosystems.
What gives humans the right to set up the hierarchy?
Are human beings at the top?
Would it be best for the biotic community if all humans were to disappear/die/not exist?
Egalitarian or Utilitarian Animal Rights
Singer a Utilitarian and Regan a Egalitarian arrive at similar conclusions on how animals should be treated. They are both in support of abolition the factory farming, consumption, experimentation and hunting of animals, yet they arrive at this conclusion in very different ways. Singer is a utilitarian when it comes to all ethics so he takes this view and applies it to all sentient beings. Not doing so is a form of speciesism. Singer does not call of equal treatment of animals and human beings nor does he even call for equal treatment of human beings. What he calls for is equal consideration. All sentient beings deserve equal consideration when it comes to avoiding pain such as food, shelter, and ability to be alive. Yet in other areas human beings and animals should not be treated equally because they are not equal in all regards. For instance a cow should not be allowed in Fordham. If you do not let the cow into Fordham because it is a cow that is discrimination. If you do not let the cow into Fordham because it does not have enough intelligence it is not. In the same way that if a person is not admitted in to Fordham because they are not smart enough it is not discrimination, but if they are not let in because they are a women it would be. Singer is against the vivisection and consumption of animals because we are putting our trivial needs in front of their greatest interests. On the other hand Regan is against vivisection and the consumption of animals because they have intrinsic value. He believes that because animals have psychological capacities such as desire, emotion, pain, suffering, memory, belief and others that they have dignity. He believe that animals are not just mere things and an extension of kantian principles must never be treated as a means only. In my opinion I do not agree with either Singer or Regan. I do not agree with Singer because I do not agree with Utilitarianism with regards to humans. One can not predict consequences and it also makes “evil” acts justifiable under the veil of for the greater good. For example, lets say there is a serial killer that is going to kill ten people that he has taken captured. Utilitarianism would say that it is okay to torture his mother, an innocent person if doing so would get him to let the ten people go. It also makes justifiable the valuation of human life and assigning different values to different people. I disagree with Regan because his view is unrealistic and I believe that human beings can consume animals and not being using them only as a means although in America today consumption of animals is done as only a means. Sentient animals have intrinsic value so they cannot be factory farmed and treated how they are today, but the act of hunting an animal and eating it for nutrients is more natural than being a vegetarian and relying on the growth of corn and corn products. This devastates the ecosystem far worse than subsistence hunting.
Are either of the views of Singer and Regan practical?
Can they be combined?
Does the view even matter if animal species membership is the result?
This does not seem to matter in practice for human beings.
Only debated in theory
Occupy the Slaughterhouse
I ended my last blog speaking of the Occupy Wallstreet Movement, a movement that was portrayed as radical in mainstream media. A movement that stood for equity with regards to all human beings, which made me imagine the negative media reaction if ideals such as this was extended even farther equal treatment of all sentient beings for instance. The film Earthlings: make the connection at its core is about Speciesism. The view that discrimination against something on the basis on its species is a morally irrelevant criteria as race, gender or hair color. Many of the animals that are mistreated exhibit consciousness, they are aware of the world around them. The movie breaks down the mistreatment of animals into five categories, Pets, Food, Clothes, Entertainment and Science. When someone hears the term pets, mistreatment does not come to mind. Obviously there are people who abuse their pets, but the prevailing view is that animals like dogs and cats are man’s companion and loved by him/her. Yet, 25 million animals become homeless every year. Out of these 25 million, 9 million die on the streets and 16 million die in pounds. A fact that is even more gut-wrenching is that half of all shelter animals are brought there by the animals caretaker. 60,000 animals die every day from euthanasia. Although euthanasia is the main process used it is not always the most affordable. Because of costs gas chambers can be used in which it takes the animal 20 minutes to die, a painful death. The movie showed images from food, clothing, science and entertainment mistreatments. Although in our class everyone had seen documentaries on the mistreatment of animals many of these films are just on the food industry and do not raise the question of the moral standing of the animals. The images in Earthlings were much more graphic than any other documentary I had seen. They were mostly shot on camcorders which conveys the secrecy in these industries. People do not really want to know about it. There is a disconnect between receiving the packaged product and the process that goes into making it. If someone watched the full process of a cow turning into a steak, from rearing, to killing, to additives such as pink slime, they may not eat the steak, but these things rarely crosses ones mind. On a personal note I do not like red meat for the same reason, I can eat chicken and not make the connection in my mind, but when cutting into a steak and seeing blood I can not ignore the fact that I am eating a being that used to be alive. Eating an animal that you ordered at a fast food restaurant is a prime example of treating a being as only as means and not and end. It becomes an object. Although I agree with this I do not see eating animals wrong on an intrinsic level. It is the process in which we go about it that is wrong, the factory farming and pain involved that is wrong. It is these processes that treat the animal only as a means. I take a Leopolding view in which humans can eat animals, but on a sustainable level and in a sustainable way with the ecosystem. For instance I do not find how the native Americans hunted and used bison are morally wrong, they did not treat the animal as only a means. Yet the technological exploitation and factory farming of animals is morally repulsive. In order to create change humans need to Occupy the Slaughterhouse and receive the attention of Americans. Just like the majority of people do not think of in influence that big business has on government, people do not think of the process in which they get there products. The only way I see to get these ideas across is through education an attention on these issues.
How do you get the average American to watch a film like Earthlings?
Can we abolish speciesism when we still struggle getting rid of discrimination between fellow human beings?
If we do not start now will it be to late once we do?
Environmental Ethics: An Analysis 